WASHINGTON — Dale N. Bosworth, former supervisor of Utah's Wasatch-Cache National Forest and a regional forester for the Ogden-based Intermountain Region, was named the new chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced the appointment Thursday.
Utah officials praised the choice.
"Dale is intimately familiar with the issues facing the National Forests in the Intermountain West. He is one of our own and will do a great job of leading the Forest Service," said regional forester Jack Blackwell.
Bosworth, a regional forester who manages 12 national forests in northern Idaho, Montana and North and South Dakota, will oversee an organization of more than 30,000 employees and a budget of $4.6 billion.
Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, said Bosworth's appointment "signals a new direction for the Forest Service. His solid science and forestry background will return us to scientific and professional management of our forests rather than the political management we've seen in recent years."
Bosworth, 57, will succeed Michael P. Dombeck, who was an architect of a number of Clinton administration initiatives to protect forests from development, including a ban on roadbuilding in about 60 million acres of federally owned land.
Dombeck resigned last month after Bush administration officials told him they wanted to take policy in "a different direction," aides said.
Dombeck nevertheless praised the selection of Bosworth, whom he said had played an important role in the roadbuilding ban and in a strategy to place greater emphasis on ecological impact over commodity extraction.
Bosworth is "a great choice," Dombeck said, adding: "Dale was instrumental in developing key parts of the Forest Service's natural resource agenda and led development of the roads rule."
The administration is studying the roadbuilding ban and is expected to announce on May 4 or before whether it will keep the policy.
The ban has been strongly opposed by the timber industry as well as oil and gas interests, which accused the Clinton administration of seeking to lock up valuable resources. The Bush administration has not mounted a defense of the ban, which has been challenged in court by the state of Idaho and Boise Cascade, a timber company.
Bosworth will be called upon to make his own recommendation on the policy almost immediately. Environmentalists and industry officials say it will be a litmus test as to the direction in which Bosworth will lead the Forest Service. Both sides voiced optimism that he will lean their way.
Michael Klein, a spokesman for the American Forest and Paper Association, a national trade group for forest products, predicted that Bosworth, as a former regional forester, will be sympathetic to the appeals of industry and local governments.
Klein said the new chief was also likely act to protect forests from catastrophic wildfires and disease and infestation by allowing for greater road access and controlled burns.
"He takes over at a very interesting and critical time," Klein said. "He inherits the worst forest health crisis in the history of the national Forest Service."
But Michael A. Francis, the director of the national forest program at the Wilderness Society, said Bosworth has always been accessible and sensitive to the concerns of those who seek to keep forests pristine.
"We feel he has a conservationist ethic," Francis said. "It's a question whether he's going to be allowed to implement the new policy or will he have the forces of darkness in the Bush administration undermine the direction the Forest Service has taken in the last four years."
Contributing: Deseret News Staff Writer Donna Kemp Spangler