Washington ? The Bush administration asked Congress Thursday to speed up fire-prevention efforts by scaling back environmental studies and eliminating appeals of logging projects meant to reduce risk in forests in danger of burning.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton told the House Resources Committee the president’s Healthy Forests Initiative is an effort to accelerate thinning in forests, which is intended to prevent the type of severe fires that have charred more than 6.3 million acres this year.

“We don’t want to guard against fire entirely. What we want to guard against is the catastrophic fires,” Norton said.

The proposed legislation that the administration sent to Congress on Thursday builds on the principles President Bush outlined two weeks ago after touring a scorched Oregon forest. Bush said bureaucratic delays and environmental appeals were stalling efforts to reduce fire risks.

The Bush plan would identify 10 million acres of forest land in critical fire danger and exempt plans to cut trees on the designated areas from normal environmental reviews.

It would eliminate all administrative appeals of forest thinning projects on the high-risk areas forcing challenges to go straight to federal court and would prohibit judges from issuing temporary restraining orders to stop such projects.

Marty Hayden, legislative director for Earthjustice, said the provision would allow the Forest Service to cut down trees while the court decides if the project is even legal.