Alaska's Tongass National Forest--part of the last intact temperate rainforest in the world--has been targeted for logging by the Bush administration via a convoluted Roadless Rule revision. But yesterday, the House of Representatives--in a bracing display of bipartisanship--voted to limit money for road building in the Tongass. Road development and logging in this forest not only threaten a gorgeous, atmosphere-enhancing rainforest full of birds and beasts, and jobs linked to commercial fishing and ecotourism--they are also a defacto, multi-million dollar public subsidy from taxpayers to the timber industry.

The Tongass isn't safe yet, but it's an encouraging development.