In his defense of the deal, Daschle claims that it was reached through a consensus process of the "local stakeholders." This is untrue. In fact, two of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuits, Jeff Kessler and Brian Brademeyer, objected to the proposed settlement. In recent testimony before congress, Mark Rey, the former timber lobbyist who now serves assistant secretary of Agriculture in charge of the Forest Service, said plainly, "Our counsel have advised that there is no effective legal process to implement the modified agreement through the District Court, in the absence of the two non-settling plaintiffs." Rey advised that the only way to get the logging started was to steamroll the local enviros with a rider exempting the sales from judicial review. That's where Daschle, the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society came in to save the day for big timber, Daschle and Johnson.

"We fought a decade to save those forests and finally won an appeals court victory," says Denise Boggs, director of the Utah Environmental Congress. "Daschle and the big greens sold us out in ten minutes. we are tired of doing good work to protect biologically significant areas only to have the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society enter and undermine our work and then cut us entirely out of the process by not allowing those who differ with them to appeal or litigate."