Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is taking her fight to expand economic development in the Tongass National Forest on the road this week, hosting a trip for Forest Service Chief Tony Tooke to southeastern Alaska, weather permitting. In her annual speech to the Alaska Legislature, the Republican said yesterday her trip with Tooke aims to show him the Tongass should be exempted from federal regulations prohibiting road building in nearly 50 million acres of wild "roadless" national forest lands nationwide. Murkowski is pushing Congress to pass legislation exempting Alaska's Tongass and Chugach national forests from rules limiting road construction in national forests and slowing down the Forest Service's transition to logging younger-growth timber in the Tongass.
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