Under the law, cutting must occur at accelerated rates with no regard to environmental impact or taxpayer costs required to facilitate the sale. The rider also requires the immediate initiation of logging on all old growth timber sales offered in Oregon and Washington since 1989 where cutting had been canceled or suspended on environmental grounds by federal courts or agencies. All environmental laws that normally control the environmental damage caused by this logging are suspended, and trees up to 1,000 years old have been felled as a result. Billions of board feet of timber must be logged in this way, and neither federal agencies nor private citizens may mount a challenge to any agency or in any court of law that environmental laws are being violated. As a result, ancient forests are being destroyed at a frenzied pace and sold at bargain basement prices.
Taxpayers lose money and irreplaceable wildlands in the deal.
In March of 1995, Rep. Sidney Yates offered an amendment to strike the clear-cut rider language and require that salvage logging be subject to relevant environmental statutes. The Yates amendment was defeated 150-275. It was defeated 52-42. An additional half billion board feet of healthy, old growth timber may be cut from publicly-owned forests in Oregon and Washington. To carry away all of the trees that may be cut under the clear cut rider would require more than one million logging trucks, each 65 feet long.