Washington ? As President Bush, with much fanfare, signed legislation Wednesday aimed at speeding fire-prevention efforts in federal forests, his administration quietly adopted a rule that will expedite timber-thinning projects by removing a safeguard for endangered species.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the Forest Service and other federal agencies are required to seek confirmation from the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before taking any action that may adversely affect any endangered plant or animal.

The new policy, which does not require congressional approval, authorizes biologists for the Forest Service or other land management agency to make the call that no endangered species would be adversely affected, exempting them from consulting with the agencies whose main mandate is protecting rare plants and animals.

Environmentalists said the policy removed a key check and balance.

“The conflict of interest is that the agency whose top job is to do the logging will make this decision, rather than the agency whose top job is to protect threatened or endangered species,” said Marty Hayden, legislative director for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.

With this policy and the rest of its “healthy forests” initiative, Hayden added, “The administration has used the emotional issue of wildfire to get the kind of weakening of environmental law and limiting of public involvement that they have wanted.”