GRANTS PASS - Dissatisfied with the low level of reforestation in the area scorched by the 2002 Biscuit fire, Sen. Gordon Smith on Thursday introduced a bill to require the U.S. Forest Service to replant burned areas within five years.

The bill would triple reforestation funding to $90 million from tariffs on lumber imports in an effort to overcome a backlog approaching 1 million acres, the Oregon Republican said in a statement from Washington.

Smith added that the restoration plan for the Biscuit fire calls for replanting only 6 percent of the nearly 500,000 acres that burned on the Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon, leaving much of the area to grow back as brush.

The Forest Service is relying on natural regeneration on the rest of the fire. Already, conifer seedlings are sprouting in many burned areas.

Smith spokesman Chris Matthews acknowledged the bill had slim chance of passing this late in the session in an election year, but the effort would open the way for a discussion.

Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, applauded the bill. The group has filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service demanding a higher level of salvage logging and reforestation on the Biscuit fire.

"We continue to be frustrated that not only areas that are to be managed for timber production, but areas that are critical for wildlife, watersheds and recreation aren't being reforested," West said.

A report on the Biscuit restoration effort by Oregon State University forestry faculty argued that without aggressive replanting, much of the area would grow back as brush, which would burn again.

Jay Ward, conservation director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, said that much of the area replanted after the Silver fire of 1987 burned up in the Biscuit fire, while areas that regenerated on their own fared better due to their diverse mix of species.

"Rather than spending millions of dollars planting nursery trees where they don't belong, it might be better for Congress to fund community protection projects to protect rural Oregonians' lives and property (from wildfire)," Ward said.