Washington -- U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and the majority of his colleagues defeated today an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that would have virtually shut down Forest Service activity on the lands it manages.

Senators voted 45-52 against an amendment proposed by Virginia Democratic Senator Charles Robb. The amendment would have required the Forest Service to conduct forest-wide wildlife population surveys on all proposed, endangered, threatened, sensitive and management indicator species in order to prepare or revise national forest plans and in every area of each national forest that would be disturbed by a timer sale or any other management activity.

Enzi said the amendment would have been harmful to forest health and rural economies.

"The administration wants to expand government. Requiring the use of forest surveys could dramatically increase the cost $6 to $8 billion on Forest activities," he said. "For more than 15 years, the federal government has been at war over how to manage our Western lands. The result has been 15 years of slowly locking up public lands and threats to the health of our national forests, but this amendment would also lock up rural economies which have suffered from dramatic economic disruption."