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Greenpeace is at it again, stamping its feet in the Tongass National Forest to protest the Bush administration's proposal to give the nation's governors the latitude to decide whether to seek added protection for roadless national forest land in their states.

To be sure, the new proposed policy that so irks Greenpeace and its anti-development pals is a breath of fresh air. It replaces the unlawful and wrong-headed "roadless rule" conjured up in the waning days of the Clinton administration as a payoff to its green allies.

The Bush administration in January exempted the Tongass from the roadless rule and the U.S. Forest Service started approving small timber operations in the 17 million-acre forest. But under terms of the 1997 Tongass Land Management Plan, about 96 percent of the forest remains off-limits to logging.

You would think that having so much of the forest protected from logging would make Greenpeace happy. But this is not really about reasonable approaches to management of a multiuse forest. Greenpeace does not want any of that. This is about the abolition of logging in the Tongass and elsewhere, no matter the economic effect.

So far, through protests and lawsuits and countless delays, the greens have cost Alaska nearly 2,000 jobs in the timber industry while sending the Southeast economy reeling.

Exempting the Tongass from Clinton's roadless rule may be a start in revitalizing the economy in that part of the state, and allowing states to determine the level of protection for remote areas is a good and logical step in returning the national forests to their multiuse mission.

Greenpeace may not agree, but, like zealots everywhere, it has proven it cannot see the forest for the trees.