[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMMUNITY-BASED LAND MANAGEMENT AND CHARTER FORESTS
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND
FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
Thursday, April 25, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-108
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
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______
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COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia, Ranking Democrat Member
Don Young, Alaska, George Miller, California
Vice Chairman Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, Louisiana Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Jim Saxton, New Jersey Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Elton Gallegly, California Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Samoa
Joel Hefley, Colorado Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas
Ken Calvert, California Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Scott McInnis, Colorado Calvin M. Dooley, California
Richard W. Pombo, California Robert A. Underwood, Guam
Barbara Cubin, Wyoming Adam Smith, Washington
George Radanovich, California Donna M. Christensen, Virgin
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North Islands
Carolina Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Mac Thornberry, Texas Jay Inslee, Washington
Chris Cannon, Utah Grace F. Napolitano, California
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Tom Udall, New Mexico
Bob Schaffer, Colorado Mark Udall, Colorado
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Mark E. Souder, Indiana James P. McGovern, Massachusetts
Greg Walden, Oregon Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho Hilda L. Solis, California
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Brad Carson, Oklahoma
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Betty McCollum, Minnesota
C.L. ``Butch'' Otter, Idaho
Tom Osborne, Nebraska
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana
Tim Stewart, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel/Deputy Chief of Staff
Steven T. Petersen, Deputy Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
James H. Zoia, Democrat Staff Director
Jeffrey P. Petrich, Democrat Chief Counsel
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
SCOTT McINNIS, Colorado, Chairman
JAY INSLEE, Washington, Ranking Democrat Member
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania, Tom Udall, New Mexico
Vice Chairman Mark Udall, Colorado
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Betty McCollum, Minnesota
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona
C.L. ``Butch'' Otter, Idaho
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 25, 2002................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Inslee, Hon. Jay, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Washington.............................................. 2
Rahall, Hon. Nick J. II, a Representative in Congress from
the State of West Virginia, Prepared statement of.......... 4
Simpson, Hon. Michael K., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Idaho......................................... 1
Udall, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
of New Mexico.............................................. 3
Statement of Witnesses:
Anderson, Michael, Senior Resource Analyst, The Wilderness
Society.................................................... 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 22
Garrett, Dr. L. David, Executive Director, National Forest
County Partnership Restoration (CPR) Program, Representing
CPR Managing Partners, County Commissioners and Forest
Supervisors................................................ 25
Prepared statement of.................................... 27
O'Laughlin, Jay, Ph.D., Director, Idaho Forest, Wildlife and
Range Policy Analysis Group, and Professor, Department of
Forest Resources, University of Idaho, Representing the
Society ofAmerican Foresters............................... 11
Prepared statement of.................................... 12
O'Toole, Randal, Senior Economist, The Thoreau Institute..... 38
Prepared statement of.................................... 40
Williams, Hon. Pat, Former Congressman from the State of
Montana, and Senior Fellow and Regional Policy Associate,
O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, University of
Montana.................................................... 5
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON COMMUNITY-BASED LAND MANAGEMENT AND CHARTER
FORESTS
----------
Thursday, April 25, 2002
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health
Committee on Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Mike Simpson
presiding.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Mr. Simpson. [Presiding.] The Subcommittee on Forests and
Forest Health will come to order.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on
Community-Based Land Management and Charter Forests.
I ask unanimous consent that Representatives Thune and
Rehberg have permission to sit on the dais and participate in
the hearing. And without objection. So ordered.
Under the Committee Rule 4(g), the Chairman and the ranking
member can make opening statements. If any members have
statements, they can be included in the hearing record under
unanimous consent. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Udall and
Mr. Thune also be allowed to make opening statements.
Today we have an assortment of ideas and opinions about
community-based land management and charter forests that I am
eager to hear about and discuss.
I would like to welcome to the dais the Honorable John
Thune.
He is not here yet. Rain kind of slows us down in
Washington a little bit.
[Laughter.]
He also asked to join the Subcommittee today.
And I welcome our witnesses, the Honorable Pat Williams,
Mr. Jay O'Laughlin, Mr. Michael Anderson, and Dr. L. David
Garrett.
He is here now, yes. Did you get caught in the traffic
also?
Mr. Garrett. A taxi.
Mr. Simpson. I understand that.
And Mr. Randal O'Toole, and Mr. Tom L. Thompson.
This morning's hearing will begin with opening statements
from members of the Subcommittee.
Many Members of the House, including myself, have heard
from constituents that management of our national forests is
not meeting their expectations. I am of the opinion that there
is always a better way to do things. I am happy that we have
been able to work together on this issue in a bipartisan
fashion and that the Forest Service has agreed to explore these
ideas with us.
I believe that our national forests can better be
protected, managed, and that environmental quality can be
improved. The good men and women of this Nation demand it of
us.
It is these same people that have attended community
meetings, raised questions, voiced concerns, and devoted their
time to the decisionmaking process. Unfortunately, too many of
these people leave the process feeling unsatisfied, unheard,
and defeated.
While the process is important to deliver information and
input, it is the end result that we seek. All over this Nation,
grassroots organizations meet with one goal in mind: to better
our national forests.
With that in mind, a question lies before us today. We have
an option to move forward with some type of charter forests
legislation, and should we take it? And if so, how should it be
crafted?
Ladies and gentlemen, with that question in mind, I would
like to turn to my colleague, Mr. Inslee, for his opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAY INSLEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mr. Inslee. Thank you, Mr. Simpson.
I agree with Mr. Simpson that there is always a better way
to do it, at least when the Republicans are in charge of
Congress, but that is just an aside.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Simpson. That's right. I am glad you recognize that.
Mr. Inslee. We welcome this hearing today to consider what
is an undefined issue at the moment. I am interested in
people's thoughts about what this really may mean with flesh on
the bones.
As with all new ideas, I think we ought to approach it with
an open mind. But I do think it is important for us to maybe do
two things. One, I hope that we will be taking a look at where
we have had sort of experimental charter forests, in a sense,
that have taken hold already, and see how they are doing. And
second, I do think it is important to state at the outset of
this discussion that I do not think ultimately we can lose
sight of the fact that these are national assets and that if we
design something of this nature, that it has to recognize the
national value to the country as a whole.
And I think that there is a reason for us to give scrutiny
to these ideas, because it has been the history of this country
that extractive industries have played perhaps a larger role in
decisionmaking locally than they would if we made these
decisions on a national basis. So I think we need to look at
ways that that would not occur.
And with that, I want to thank Mr. Simpson and Mr. McInnis
for holding these hearings.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Are there other opening statements?
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Mr. Chairman, I would like to give
one.
Mr. Simpson. The gentleman from New Mexico.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM UDALL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Thank you very much, Mr. Simpson.
And I know that you are very interested in moving forward with
something like this, and I look forward to working with you and
other members of the Committee that want to move forward in a
bipartisan fashion.
Let me say, first, that I believe that community
involvement is essential to land management in the West and
other parts of the country. If established fairly,
collaborative efforts will transform the way communities,
environmentalists, other land users, and land managers work to
address the complex issues of land and forests management.
These partnerships can bring individuals with different
ideologies together to manage our lands and forests.
In the last Congress, Senator Jeff Bingaman introduced
legislation to create collaborative forest restoration
demonstration projects, which I strongly supported in the House
and in this Subcommittee. These projects direct the Secretary
of Agriculture to provide grants for projects addressing
specified objectives, including wildfire threat reduction,
ecosystem restoration, re-establishment of historic fire
regimes, reforestation, and creation of local employment on
Federal, tribal, state, county or municipal forest lands in New
Mexico. The key aspect of this program is that it must be
designed through a collaborative process involving the
community and stakeholders.
Mr. Chairman, we have pilot projects already in progress to
study. In 2000, the Congress authorized three new programs: the
Valles Caldera National Preserve in my congressional district;
the Collaborative Forests Restoration Program; and the Resource
Advisory Committees, the RACs, which all strive to increase the
role of local residents in forests management.
The Valles Caldera, for example, is being managed as a
working ranch. The trustees are directed to protect and
preserve the scientific, scenic, watershed, fish, and wildlife
and recreational values, but they are also directed to provide
for multiple uses on a sustainable basis of renewable resources
within the preserve. By working together, these trustees are
striving to share their knowledge, values, and leadership to
foster collaborative stewardship of our public lands and
forests.
So let me say that I am very supportive of this idea. But
if the idea of pilots and new forms of management means that we
are turning this over to industry or turning it over
exclusively to the locals without Federal involvement, I am
worried in that respect. If it means that this idea, that has
not really been fleshed out by the administration in terms of
charter forests, means that we are going set aside
environmental laws, I am concerned in that respect. And I think
another part of this that is of great concern is if you have
innovative forests people at the supervisor level, many times,
when they try to get innovative and try to get creative, they
are moved aside. And I think that is also a very disturbing
trend.
So with that, Mr. Simpson, I look forward to hearing the
panel. We have some very distinguished individuals here, and I
hope that we can learn from them on how to move forward on this
collaborative management of Federal lands. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico.
Are there other opening statements?
Mr. Inslee. Mr. Chairman, can I put in the record Mr.
Rahall's statement? Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, his statement, without objection, will be
included in the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rahall follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Nick J. Rahall, a Representative in Congress
from the State of West Virginia
The Administration's Fiscal Year 2003 budget request for the Forest
Service includes two paragraphs on charter forests. There have been
articles and op-eds on charter forests but no one really knows what
they are. The Administration said legislation would be forthcoming but
did not bring a copy to today's hearing.
Charter forests appear to be an alternative management arrangement
involving local residents in the day-to-day management of national
forests. In my view, Charter forests are designer clothes for what the
Sagebrush Rebellion, County Supremacy and Wise Use movements have been
wearing for more than a century. Advocates of these movements would
like to turn ownership of our national forests over to states, counties
and even industry.
Charter forests look like another effort to give select interests
control of the land in the name of eliminating bureaucracy, gridlock
and lawsuits. It is unclear what exemptions from existing Federal laws
would be required. The extent to which Congressional appropriations
would fund charter forests also is unclear. For forest units capable of
funding portions of their budget through net revenues, there would
likely be an incentive to charge recreation fees and encourage such
activities as timber harvest and oil and gas extraction to raise
revenues.
Before we charter a new path, we need to understand the lessons we
have learned from experimental management programs, such as the Valles
Caldera National Preserve (Public Law 106-248) and the Resource
Advisory Committees (Public Law 106-393) authorized in the county
payments law last year. Ironically, the Administration opted in its
budget request not to recommend funding for the Valles Caldera National
Preserve at the same time it cited the Valles Caldera trust as a model
for charter forests. In 1998 we authorized the Quincy Library Group
pilot project (Public Law 103-354). There are those who believe Quincy
has not worked but the Subcommittee refused to examine Quincy at this
hearing.
For more than 100 years the Congress has rejected efforts to turn
public land over to communities. The Congress has maintained that
national forests belong to all Americans, not just those living nearby.
Our policy has been wise and we should stay this course.
______
Mr. Simpson. All members' opening statements will be
included in the record.
I would like now to introduce our witnesses. Today we have
the Hon. Pat Williams, former Congressman from the State of
Montana, currently a Senior Fellow and Regional Policy
Associate for the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the
University of Montana; Dr. Jay O'Laughlin, Society of American
Foresters; Mr. Michael Anderson, Senior Resource Analyst, The
Wilderness Society; Dr. L. David Garrett, National Forests
County Partnership Restoration Program; Mr. Randal O'Toole,
Senior Economist, The Thoreau Institute; and Mr. Tom Thompson,
Deputy Chief for the National Forest System, the U.S. Forest
Service.
Mr. Thompson will not be giving testimony this morning. He
is here to observe the testimony of the witnesses and to answer
any questions.
Let me remind the witnesses that under our Committee rules,
you must limit your oral statements to 5 minutes, but that your
entire statement will appear in the record.
I will now recognize Mr. Williams for his statement. Mr.
Williams?
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PAT WILLIAMS, FORMER CONGRESSMAN, SENIOR
FELLOW AND REGIONAL POLICY ASSOCIATE, O'CONNOR CENTER FOR THE
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WEST, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ranking member
and my colleagues. It is a great pleasure to be invited back to
this Committee, where I spent 18 years before leaving to go
home to Montana 6 years ago, where I have resumed what I was
doing before I left, and that is teaching.
I teach at the University of Montana. I wanted to go home
and teach and comment. I do comment. I have a column in
newspapers in a number of Western States, a newspaper column,
and I do commentary on the radio and have a half-hour radio
program.
The reason for mentioning this is, if one is going to
comment, one first has to listen and consider. And so I am
pleased to be with you today to tell you what I have heard.
The Rocky Mountain West is still a special place, the brow
of America's last hill, a place in historic transition, with
memories of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow. The Rocky
Mountain West is indeed where the living is easy, but tensions
are high, and nerve-endings are frayed.
I brought some headlines with me from the last 3 day's
newspapers from states in the Rocky Mountain West, and I want
to share them with you this morning. They are as fresh as the
day before yesterday, yesterday, and this morning. Listen to
these:
``Water Wars Keep Rio Grande Dry.''
``Wyoming Ranchers Sue Coalbed Methane Developers.''
``Wolf Pack Still Killing Stock.''
And then the next day in that same paper, ``Landowner Wants
Wolves on His Place.''
``Nevadans Fight Bush on Nuclear Waste.''
``Montana Slaughters 21 Yellowstone National Park Bison.''
``Albuquerque's Growth Depends on Colorado's Water
Project.''
``12-Year Montana Study Shows Roads, Logging Lower Number
of Elk.''
``Western Governors Meet on Collaboration, Exclude
Conservationists.''
``War Expected on Bush Proposal on National Monument
Lands.''
And finally, this headline: ``Motorized Users Creating
Chaos on the Public's Land.''
Now, to hear those headlines, one would suspect that we
Rocky Mountain westerners have lost all commonness, one to the
other; that we no longer have shared values. But it is not
true.
So I come here today a worried westerner, with a deep and
visceral respect for the land, to ask you to let us help you to
develop a framework for pilot projects to examine new
approaches to public land collaboration, advisement, and
management.
Many of us are prepared to assist you in developing a
legislative proposal, which I would call ``Region 7.'' As you
know, there is no Region 7 in the Forest Service, so let's
authorize one comprised of experimental, collaborative projects
from localities and regions around the country.
Let's create a competitive process for encouraging and
receiving applications for local and regional collaborative
efforts.
These ideas and innovations must come from the locals up,
and they must come from mature groups with proven records of
collaborative success.
Proposals for Region 7 would be chosen by a national group
selected by the Congress and the President. Time does not
permit details, but I have included a few in my submissions.
There are many local opportunities. The Forest Service plan
revisions are coming up. Some of those could likely be done
through a collaborative process.
There is restoration work galore in the Rocky Mountains.
Old, abandoned mines, that continue to pollute the land and
will for centuries, need to be cleaned up, and only this
Congress can move to do it. And you could do it in some of the
areas through collaborative processes.
Both industry and conservationists agree some of the old
roads can be taken out now. That is jobs on the land that would
bring conservationists and workers together. You can do it
through some collaborative processes.
There is an old growth forests dilemma in Oregon, which
some members on both your full Committee as well as in the
Senate have some ideas about. That could lend itself to
collaborative processes.
This list could take all day, but let me close with this:
My former colleagues, whatever you do, do not make things any
worse. No legislative midnight slam-dunks. No end-run
regulatory authorizing by the Forest Service. Be thoughtful, be
cautious, and be inclusive. Don't give away the public's estate
to small localities and regions. Don't risk the current system.
Put in circuit-breakers. Keep the backstops up. And above all,
don't fractionalize us, so that those of us who are
euphemistically called locals are left to the strong winds of
those local economic passions which local people can never
resist.
If we westerners are to recapture our confident sense of
shared values, then we need public dialog that is more than a
podium for political posturing and furtherance of division.
We need help. And we think that a careful, cautious
proposal done over time by this Subcommittee, full Committee,
and then taken in the Senate, could get us this help.
And, Members, a lot of us in the Rocky Mountain West are
appreciative of this hearing and the fact that you have begun
the process, which I personally hope will lead to Region 7.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Williams follows:]
DATE: April 23, 2002
TO: Members of the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health
FROM: Pat Williams (former Congressman--Montana 1979-1997 and a member
of this subcommittee)
Colleagues,
Thank you for inviting me to testify. Enclosed are:
1. Lan outline of my 5 minute presentation;
2. La legislative framework for testing new approaches entitled
``Region Seven;''
3. Lreflections on the McInnis-Udall letter to Chief Bosworth;
4. Lgeneral suggestion for the framework of the competitive process
for selecting the experimental models of ``Region Seven.''
______
Outline of Testimony of
Former Congressman Pat Williams
To the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health
Committee on Resources
April 25, 2002
A. LThe lay of the political and policy landscape in the Northern
Rockies--easy living by people with fraying nerve endings.
B. LCongress and the Federal public land agencies--help or
hindrance?
1. LA system, not broken but in need of repair.
2. LAvoid, at all costs, making things worse.
C. LRegion Seven
1. LRetain ultimate authority with those who are the stewards
of these public lands--the Forest Service.
2. LUtilize whatever authority necessary to create local/
regional experimental projects in collaborative governance.
3. LSelect proposals through a competitive process.
4. LAccept current environmental laws as controlling.
5. LAdopt or change regulations which would be unduly
burdensome to the models.
______
REGION SEVEN
a legislative framework for testing new approaches to public land
stewardship
Center for the Rocky Mountain West
April 25, 2002
Background
The need to examine new approaches to public land management is
steadily gaining broader recognition. Representative Scott McInnis in
an oversight hearing before the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest
Health this past December, referred to ``a decision-making apparatus
that is on the verge of collapsing under its own weight.'' He echoed
what former Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus had recently
described as ``the tangled web of overlapping and often contradictory
laws and regulations under which our Federal public lands are
managed.'' In testimony before Congressman McInnis's subcommittee,
Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth referred to this phenomenon as
``analysis paralysis.'' Increasingly, such concerns are leading to
proposals for carefully chosen experiments in new approaches to
managing public lands. Here are just a few recent proposals for such
experimental approaches:
The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution,
in response to a request from Senators Baucus, Crapo, Reid, and Thomas,
has proposed pilot projects designed to test improvements in the
implementation of NEPA through collaborative processes addressing
Federal lands and natural resource management.
An October 2001 workshop on collaboration sponsored by
the Claiborne Ortenberg Foundation and the Bolle Center for People and
Forests proposed legislation to encourage alternative approaches to
achieving the requirements of existing environmental laws, using
collaborative strategies and pilot projects.
In 1998, the Center for the Rocky Mountain West, along
with the Bolle Center for People and Forests and the Northern Lights
Institute, convened a symposium at the University of Montana's Lubrecht
Forest to discuss problems in the management of national forests. The
group suggested the creation of a ``Region 7'' within the Forest
Service'a non-geographic region that would allow a few national forests
to serve as pilots to test ideas for collaborative governance
structures and others mechanisms to provide regulatory flexibility.
The Forest Options Group has proposed the implementation
of pilot projects to test new approaches to both the governing and
budgetary structures of national forests.
The Idaho Federal Lands Task Force recently recommended
the development of pilot projects to test new approaches to Federal
land management. The proposed projects would seek to maintain and
enhance environmental quality while creating opportunities for more
effective public participation in resource management decisions.
The Valles Caldera Preservation Act, signed in July of
2000, designated 89,000 acres in northern New Mexico as the Valles
Caldera National Preserve, for which a unique public land management
approach was developed. A diverse, nine-member Board of Trustees will
manage the preserve.
Recently, the Bush administration announced a ``Charter
Forest'' proposal as a response to the ongoing paralysis and gridlock
on the National Forests. This proposal creates an opportunity for
serious discussion about the problems of the current system and one
possible way of dealing with these problems. The new plan calls for
certain national forests or portions of them to be run on an
experimental basis by such alternative governing structures as local
trusts rather than the current management structure.
Need for Legislation
While purely administrative initiatives can create some opportunity
to test new approaches, there are severe limitations to how much of the
problem agencies can address on their own. Bipartisan congressional
support for experimentation would give the agencies clear authority and
encouragement to test promising new approaches. The Valles Caldera
legislation shows that Congress is willing to create new forms of
governance over newly acquired Federal land. There are strong reasons
to authorize agencies to test equally innovative approaches on existing
Federal land.
Legislative Framework
All of the proposals listed above contain elements that might
contribute to a sound, legislatively authorized framework of
experimentation. The challenge now is to combine the most promising
features of these different approaches into a single framework.
In a letter to Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, Representatives
Scott McInnis and Tom Udall suggested the possibility of Congress
authorizing what they called an ``open competition or request for
proposals for pilots--from local groups or communities working with
nearby national forests or ranger districts.'' They suggested that ``a
carefully selected and well balanced advisory committee'' might play a
significant role ``in selecting pilots and evaluating their success.
Selection criteria might include the capacity of the pilot to produce
meaningful lessons and useful information, as well as the breadth,
balance and credibility of the group making the proposal.'' They
suggested guidelines for the program, including pilots projects
``created from the bottom up, not the top down,'' that a ``variety of
approaches be tested,'' and that a ``credible mechanism'' of evaluation
be adopted so the project will be useful for ``future policy
development.''
This approach is consistent with the suggestion outlined above for
the creation of a new ``Region Seven'' within the Forest Service.
Because of past regional consolidation, there has not been a Region 7
in the National Forest System for several years. A newly created Region
7 could be based on experimentation rather than geography. The Lubrecht
Converstions described it as a ``virtual region'' that would contain
pilot project and experimental forests chosen from across the system in
a nation-wide competition.
In order to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible, it is
important to test a broad range of new approaches. The following list
is not meant to prescribe the models that might be tested, but simply
to suggest the possible range and variety of such models, which might
include:
Trust Model--The public land in question would be managed
by a board of trustees, pursuant to a binding trust instrument;
Budgetary Incentives--After some initial period of
Federal budgetary support, the experimental area would be expected to
generate most or all of its own funds;
Collaborative Governance Model--A collaborative group
would be empowered to write and oversee implementation of a management
plan for a national forest or BLM district;
Collaborative Planning Model--A collaborative body would
write the management plan, while existing public land managers would be
charged with implementing it.
To encourage the development and careful testing of alternative
approaches to public land management, the enabling legislation for
Region Seven should:
Establish a national competition for selecting promising
projects;
Establish an advisory committee to guide project
selection and monitoring;
Emphasize the experimental, adaptive nature of projects;
Authorize and encourage projects across a range of
administrative and geographic scales;
Authorize the appropriate Secretary to waive specific
rules or regulations which in view of he objectives of the proposed
experiment would be inappropriate or unduly burdensome;
Require monitoring of both process and outcome against
established baselines;
Require a cumulative record of project activities and
outcomes; and
Ensure broad dissemination of lessons learned.
The value of such an experimental approach is that it does not
attempt to change the entire public lands system but it does recognize
problems and invites and tests innovative solutions in a few carefully
chosen settings.
______
McInnis-Udall Letter to Chief Boswell
One method of generating new pilot projects, presented in a letter
from Representatives Tom Udall and Scott McInnis to Forest Service
Chief Dale Bosworth in November of 2001, would be a Congressionally
authorized open competition for proposals. Congress could also
authorize the Chief to take a more active roll and solicit projects
from local groups already working with national forests or ranger
districts. An advisory board representing a broad spectrum of
stakeholders would assist the Chief in selecting projects and
evaluating their progress. Selections could be based on a project's
ability to offer insight into alternative methods of management as well
as how broad-based and balanced the stakeholder interests are in the
group submitting the proposal.
This method would encourage several important criteria for pilot
projects:
they should be generated at a local level, not dictated
by upper management;
they should offer the opportunity to experiment with a
wide variety of management approaches; and
there must be a reliable method of evaluating the success
or failure of each project and how lessons learned from the project can
be applied to policy development.
______
framework for the competitive process for selecting the experimental
models of ``region seven''
Elements of the Competitive Framework
1) LOptions to Develop Pilot Projects
a) LProposals are submitted through an open, competitive
process.
b) LProposals must be developed by inclusive groups that
represent all stakeholders, including public officials and
agencies.
c) LThe groups or participants should have proven collaborative
experience, that is, ``organizational-collaborative maturity.''
2) LOptions to Select Pilot Projects
a) LThe National Oversight Committee on Pilot Projects (which
may include members of Congress, the Administration, and
organizations with an interest in Federal lands management; the
operating principle is to model an inclusive, informed,
deliberative--that is, collaborative--process).
b) LA national advisory council on pilot projects that reviews
proposals and makes recommendations to the National Oversight
Committee on Pilot Projects for final selection.
c) LThe Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior, in
consultation with western Governors (and legislatures).
3) LOptions on Who Participates
a) LRepresentation must be inclusive'that is, participants must
reflect the full range of interests and viewpoints on a given
project.
b) LThe group must represent local, state, regional, and
national interests.
c) LA certain percentage of participants must live in and
represent the local area (existing examples include Valles
Caldera and the Presidio).
4) LOptions on Who Selects or Appoints Participants
a) LParticipants are determined from the ground up, consistent
with 3(a). The final composition of any group is ratified by
the full group.
b) LParticipants are determined from the ground up, consistent
with 3(a). The final composition of any group is ratified by
the national advisory council on pilot projects.
c) LThe Governor and Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior
jointly appoint representatives according to some formula to
ensure balanced representation (existing examples include BLM
and U.S. Forest Service Resource Advisory Councils).
5) LOptions on the Authority of the Participants
a) LGovern'that is, to make and enforce decisions.
b) LQualified Governance 1'that is, to make broad decisions
about the desired ends or outcomes of a pilot project, and then
allow Federal land managers and others to develop and implement
the appropriate means or strategies to achieve those ends.
c) LQualified Governance 2'that is, to make and enforce
decisions; the agencies responsible for implementing the
decisions may appeal to the ``oversight committee'' and explain
why a particular decision cannot or should not be implemented.
d) LAdvisory'that is, the participants advise the responsible
agencies on outcomes (ends) and strategies (means), but the
agency officials have final decision-making authority.
6) LThe Scope and Purpose of Pilot Projects
a) LThe overall scope and purpose of pilot projects is to
(these may become criteria for selecting pilot projects):
i) LPromote sustainable communities.
ii) LPromote sustainable landscapes.
iii) LUtilize inclusive, informed, deliberative processes
for decision-making.
iv) LProvide fair, effective, and efficient means to
resolve disputes or appeals to decisions that are made
under pilot projects.
b) LThe scope and purpose of pilot projects should be
determined by the people and organizations submitting
proposals.
c) LProposals should include a clearly articulated ``causal
theory,'' that is, a clear hypothesis and linkage between what
they are trying to achieve (the ends or outcomes) and how they
propose to achieve their desired results (the means or
strategies or activities).
7) LOptions on Sideboards Within Which Pilot Projects Must Operate
a) LPilot projects must comply with all existing laws and
policies.
b) LPilot projects must comply with all existing laws, but are
exempt from administrative rules, regulations, and policies.
c) LSame as (b), but participants may request an exemption from
an existing law, and permission may be granted by the National
Oversight Committee on Pilot Projects.
8) LOptions on Who Can Appeal Decisions Made by Pilot Projects
a) LAnyone.
b) LOnly people who have formally participated in the decision-
making process.
9) LOptions on How to Resolve Appeals
a) LUse a mandatory dispute resolution system that moves from
low-cost dispute resolution procedures to high-cost procedures:
i) LNegotiation among appellants and pilot project
participants.
ii) LMediation among appellants and pilot project
participants.
iii) LBinding or non-binding arbitration.
iv) LJudicial resolution in a court-of-law.
b) LEliminate administrative appeals and, presumably, go
straight to court.
c) LAppeal to the National Oversight Committee on Pilot
Projects.
d) LAppeal to either the Secretary of Agriculture or the
Secretary of the Interior.
10) LOptions to Monitor and Evaluate Pilot Projects
a) LAnnual reports submitted to the National Oversight
Committee on Pilot Projects, based on the ``causal theory'' of
the pilot project.
b) LAnnual or biennial meeting of pilot project participants to
exchange ideas, document lessons learned, and identify what
works, what doesn't, and why.
c) LEvaluation of pilot projects by the General Accounting
Office after 3-5 years.
d) LEvaluation of pilot projects by independent observers after
3-5 years.
______
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Williams. I appreciate your
testimony.
I now recognize Mr. O'Laughlin.
STATEMENT OF DR. JAY O'LAUGHLIN, DIRECTOR, IDAHO FOREST,
WILDLIFE AND RANGE POLICY ANALYSIS GROUP, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT
OF FOREST RESOURCES, UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO, AND SOCIETY OF
AMERICAN FORESTERS
Mr. O'Laughlin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Committee. Thanks for the opportunity to be here today.
People are frustrated about national forest management and
many are asking for reform. The Society of American Foresters
strongly supports a continued dialog on the subject of this
hearing.
Depending on their design, charter forests could break
gridlock, move decisions closer to resources, manage resources
sustainably, and restore trust in the Forest Service.
The Chief of the Forest Service has described the agency as
suffering from analysis paralysis. Others say it is bound by
gridlock. However one characterizes the problem, decisions are
far removed from the local units of the Forest Service, thus
stifling innovation and initiative at the field level, where it
is most needed. Perhaps charter forests can bring creative
solutions back into the woods.
People expect resources to be managed sustainably, but we
cannot agree on what to sustain. Perhaps charter forests can
help by including segments of the public in a different way at
the national as well as local levels.
The concept of charter forests will continue to evolve. But
at this point, the Society of American Foresters feels a
proposal should include a set of essential elements. I leave
out the details and just mention those elements: location,
initiation, public involvement, environmental laws, long-range
plans, appeals, funding, outcome assessment, and reevaluation.
All of these need careful consideration.
The following discussion is based on my experiences in
Idaho, working on pilot projects. These efforts are neither
endorsed nor opposed by the Society of American Foresters.
An attempt to establish pilot projects on Federal lands in
Idaho started in 1996 with a Federal Lands Task Force. This
still-evolving effort is fully supported by the State
Government.
I was a member of that task force. Six of the nine national
forests supervisors in Idaho attended one or another of the
meetings held around the State. At different times, three
supervisors unexpectedly took me aside and stated off the
record that they wanted to try to a pilot project on their
forest.
A working group in December 2000 identified five potential
pilot projects in a report to the State Land Board titled,
``Breaking the Gridlock.'' I have included in my testimony the
Web site for that report.
I have also provided four diagrams, illustrating how the
current system could be modified with either a collaborative
local advisory council or a trust model or a collaborative
trust model with a local advisory council.
The trust land management model offers features that
promote sustainability to a degree that no other model does.
These are all possible models for charter forests, but
there are others as well. The SAF believes a range of
possibilities will result in the best of tests about a more
comprehensive reform.
The five pilot projects identified in the Idaho report use
a ecosystem-based approach to maintain and enhance
environmental quality, to attain other land management goals
and objectives, and to create opportunities for more effective
public participation in resource management decisions through
revised decisionmaking frameworks. All projects feature long-
range plans, environmental impact analyses, and public
involvement.
Descriptions of the Bush administration charter forests
concept have the local trust entity as the key. Establishing a
local trust entity with oversight functions for a charter
forest could be approached two ways. First is a collaborative
trust model proposed in the Idaho effort that would provide a
structure capable of accommodating the desired functional
objectives stated in the budget proposal. The second approach
could be modeled after the two existing trusts for Federal
land, the Presidio of the National Park Service and Valles
Caldera.
In closing, the words of former BLM director and Resources
for the Future president, Dr. Marion Clawson, seem appropriate.
He said, and I quote, ``I reject any idea that we today are
less imaginative and resourceful than the men and women who
pressed for the establishment of the national forests, the
national parks, and the grazing districts. We, too, can
innovate. Let us try.''
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Laughlin follows:]
Statement of Jay O'Laughlin, Ph.D., Director, Idaho Forest, Wildlife
and Range Policy Analysis Group, and Professor, Department of Forest
Resources, University of Idaho, representing the Society of American
Foresters
Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee, my name is Jay
O'Laughlin. I am a member of the Society of American Foresters (SAF)
Committee on Forest Policy, and a Professor at the University of Idaho,
where I am full-time Director of the Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range
Policy Analysis Group. The SAF is the national scientific and
educational organization representing the forestry profession in the
United States. Founded in 1900 by Gifford Pinchot, it is the largest
professional society for foresters in the world. Throughout its more
than 100-year history, SAF has advanced the science, education,
technology, and practice of forestry. SAF is committed to maintaining
the connection between environmental stewardship and the professional
practitioner in the field.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here. The letter of invitation
said, ``The purpose of the hearing is to hear testimony on the concept
of charter forests, and ... hearing about the projects you have been
party to.''
The Forest Service has been described as an organization struggling
with decision ``gridlock,'' or ``analysis paralysis.'' Many public
lands scholars have called for national forest reform. Some would
change the statutes, others would change implementing regulations.
Still others feel the current system may be too brittle, and call for
experiments with alternative governance models (e.g., Kemmis, This
Sovereign Land, 2001).
The issues are controversial and there is no consensus as to how
the current situation could be improved. One thing is clear: people are
frustrated about national forest management, regardless of their
positions on various issues, and many are asking for reform. The SAF
recognizes that reform should not happen overnight and any change in
the management system will require the involvement of a variety of
interested and effected citizens. The point is not to institute reform
today, but to begin to test what we have learned, and what we believe
will lead to improvements in the difficult biophysical and social
problems facing national forest managers.
Congress has already chartered two experiments. One is limited
authority for Stewardship Contracting, a program to facilitate
innovative contracting mechanisms and community involvement. The other
is authorization for the Quincy Library Group's project on three
national forests in northern California. These experiments have common
themes. The original proposals come from citizens frustrated with the
lack of action on national forests, they involve citizens from a
variety of philosophical perspectives in their implementation, they
tinker at the margins of environmental laws, and they include a process
for monitoring and assessing the efforts. We hope these general themes
will be part of legislation that authorizes Charter Forests, and
strongly support a continued dialogue on the subject.
The Potential of Charter Forests
Depending on their design, Charter Forests could break gridlock,
move decisions closer to resources, manage resources sustainably, and
restore public trust in the Forest Service.
The Chief of the Forest Service has described the agency as
suffering from ``analysis paralysis''; others say it is bound by
gridlock. However one characterizes the problem, decisions are far
removed from the local units of the Forest Service, thus stifling
innovation and initiative at the field level, where it is most needed.
Perhaps Charter Forests can bring creative solutions back into the
woods. In 1976, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey's goal, and the idea behind
the National Forest Management Act, was to get forest management out of
the courts. That hasn't happened.
People expect resources to be managed sustainably, but we can't
agree on what to sustain. Perhaps Charter Forests can help by including
segments of the public in a different way, at the national as well as
local levels. The SAF has defined sustainability in the forestry
context as ``enhancing human well-being by using, developing, and
protecting resources at a rate and in a manner that enables people to
meet their current needs while also providing future generations with
the means to meet their needs as well; it requires simultaneously
meeting environmental, economic, and community aspirations.'' This
definition may not work for everyone, but it is a starting point for
meaningful dialogue. SAF members would like the opportunity to share
the science, concepts, and experience we bring as professionals to a
group of citizens interested in working on a Charter Forest, to help
define the possible range of desired future conditions and identify the
ways to get from here to there.
Public trust in the Forest Service has eroded. We know anecdotally
that many people trust local managers, but bristle when discussing any
level of the agency higher than the Forest Supervisor's office. To earn
trust back at the national level, the place to start is at the local
level, with effective monitoring of conditions by local and national
interests. Experiments with alternative models could begin to restore
trust little by little, and build the basis for system-wide reform. We
hope this is the vision for Charter Forests.
Essential Elements of Charter Forests
The SAF recognizes that the concept of Charter Forests will evolve
over the weeks and months ahead, as Congress holds hearings and
possibly develops legislative proposals to implement some of these
ideas. We will continue to learn and the SAF's concept and
understanding of Charter Forests will continue to evolve. However, at
this point a proposal on Charter Forests should focus on a set of
essential elements, as follows:
Location. A limited number of Charter Forests from
different regions across the National Forest System would be desirable.
Initiation. There should be a NEPA notice and comment
period for each Charter Forest.
Public involvement. Charter Forest pilot projects should
be collaborative in nature and involve citizens from a variety of
philosophical perspectives in their implementation.
Environmental laws. Existing environmental laws should
apply to all Charter Forests. However, there should be provisions for
streamlining implementation process requirements of statutes, rules,
and regulations as long as the fundamental objectives of the statute
are met.
Long-range plans. The management of Charter Forests must
be based on long-range plans.
Appeals. The Forest Service administrative appeals
process needs creative streamlining. Citizens are accustomed to
administrative review before seeking judicial review, but there are
improvements to the process that could be tried, such as limiting who
can appeal, and specifying time periods for review.
Funding. A sustained source of funding is essential for
effective long-term resource management. The sources of funding for
Charter Forests should be separate from the rest of the National Forest
System budget.
Outcome assessment and reevaluation. Charter Forest
projects should include a process for monitoring and assessing the
efforts, and a national monitoring plan to assess the effectiveness and
accountability of all projects.
Idaho Pilot Projects
Introduction. The following discussion is based on my experiences
in Idaho working on alternative models and pilot projects for national
forest management. These efforts are neither endorsed nor opposed by
the SAF. The testimony is based on three reports: History and Analysis
of Federally Administered Lands in Idaho (Policy Analysis Group Report
16, University of Idaho, 1998); New Approaches for Managing Federally
Administered Lands in Idaho (Task Force Report, Idaho Department of
Lands, 1998); and Breaking the Gridlock: Federal Land Pilot Projects in
Idaho (Working Group Report, Idaho Department of Lands, 2000 [online]:
.)
Overview. An attempt to establish pilot projects on Federal lands
in Idaho started in 1996 with a Federal Lands Task Force. This still-
evolving effort is fully supported by the state government. In 1998 the
Task Force recommended pilot project tests based on three different
models--cooperative, collaborative, and trust land management. I was a
member of that Task Force. Six of the 9 national forest supervisors in
Idaho attended one or another of the meetings held around the state. At
different times three supervisors unexpectedly took me aside and stated
off the record'they wanted to try a pilot project on their forest. In
1999 a Working Group was charged with implementing the Task Force
recommendations and in December 2000 identified five potential pilot
projects in a report to the State Land Board titled Breaking the
Gridlock.
Context. A congressional bill in 1995 would have allowed states to
take over BLM public lands. Although it did not pass, the bill
stimulated interest. However, this approach has some drawbacks.
According to a report by the Idaho state controller, if the state had
to follow the same rules Federal land managers do, this would not be a
good deal for Idaho.
The Idaho effort began in 1996 when the legislature mandated that
the State Board of Land Commissioners (Land Board) forge a closer
cooperative relationship between the state and the U.S. Forest Service.
This is important because 39% of the state of Idaho is National Forest
System land; by comparison, Oregon is a distant second at 25%. Also
important is that Idaho, Oregon, and Maine are the top three states
dependent on the forest products industry for labor income.
The 19-member Task Force was appointed and charged by the State
Land Board to examine Federal land management issues and analyze
alternative management methods. Two state legislators provided
bipartisan leadership. I was appointed because my full-time job is
directing a university-based natural resources policy analysis program
created and funded by the legislature. In 1996 it was widely known we
had begun work on a History and Analysis of Federally Administered
Lands in Idaho, in which we analyzed ten alternative management
approaches. Six of them would change the rules under which the Forest
Service operates. One of them is trust land management.
Attached are four diagrams from our University of Idaho policy
analysis report on Federal lands illustrating how the current system
(Figure 1) could be modified with either a collaborative local advisory
council (Figure 2), or a trust model (Figure 3), or a collaborative
trust model with a local advisory council (Figure 4).
``Trust'' has a dual meaning. A ``local trust entity'' may be able
to restore public trust in the ability of Forest Service managers to
provide the range of goods, services, and values people expect from our
national forests. Managers can't do it alone. They need local support
and national-level support from the range of interest groups active on
national forest issues as well as from higher government authorities.
This will not be easy. Gridlock feeds on ``adversarial legalism'' and
breeds distrust among citizens (Kagan, Journal of Policy Analysis and
Management, 1991).
People disagree about what national forests should provide, as they
always have. However, the current situation (Figure 1) does not provide
a forum for these issues to be resolved. A formally authorized local
advisory council, working hand in hand with the national forest
manager, could provide meaningful public involvement in Forest Service
decisions (Figure 2).
The trust land management model (Figures 3 and 4) offers features
that promote sustainability to a degree that no other model does--
prudence, clarity, accountability, enforceability, and perpetuity
(Souder & Fairfax, State Trust Lands, 1996). These are possible models
for Charter Forests, but there are others. The SAF believes a range of
possibilities will result in the best set of tests about more
comprehensive reform.
Idaho Federal Lands Task Force Process and Accomplishments
The Task Force held 19 meetings around the state and heard stories
about Federal land management from almost 200 people. The 1998 Task
Force report identified part of the problem as a broken decision-making
process:
``In the past three decades the delivery of goods and services,
as well as intangible and intrinsic values from Federal lands,
has not met the changing expectations of the public in general,
or Idaho citizens in particular. The demand placed on resources
on these lands has increased. Competing uses cannot be easily
accommodated and conflicts have escalated. Current processes
and laws used for the management of Federal lands fail to
satisfactorily resolve the inevitable competition for resources
from these lands, and set the stage for continued conflict. No
single group or interest seems to be satisfied with the present
situation. Increasingly, many Americans turn to the courts as
the forum for resolving disputes concerning Federal land
management. The evidence of current dissatisfaction with
Federal land management is the subject of disagreement among
interests, but includes:
Increasingly restricted recreational access,
Reduced roadless acreage,
Declining wildlife populations, particularly
threatened and endangered species,
Deteriorated water quality,
Reduced forest management including timber harvest,
Reduced availability of livestock forage, and
A cumbersome and lengthy decision-making process that
often results in gridlock.''
``Although there is disagreement regarding the priorities, the
current situation has affected Idaho through the
destabilization of communities, loss of jobs, loss of economic
return, and a decline in environmental quality.''
The Task Force findings concluded that the current processes of
Federal land management have resulted in uncertain decision making,
destabilization of resource dependent communities, and deterioration in
environmental quality on Federal lands. In short, the system is broken.
Significant changes to these processes are necessary.
The Task Force recommended that the Land Board pursue a pilot
project testing one or more of the action alternatives for Federal land
management, which are the cooperative, collaborative, and trust models.
In the Working Group's Breaking the Gridlock report, five pilot
projects were identified. Consistent with the Task Force
recommendations, none of the projects involve state management, state
control or state ownership of Federal land. In total, the five proposed
pilot projects encompass 10.8 million acres of Federal land, of which
10.1 million acres are National Forest System lands.
Currently 20,476 acres (or 0.2%) of national forest lands in the
proposed pilot project areas are subject to active forest ecosystem
management each year. Based on ecological objectives identified by
national forest managers, the pilot projects propose to double resource
management activities. Compared to actual operating expenses in 1999,
additional revenues from pilot project timber sales would improve cash
flow by $30 million per year, from a net expense of $51.4 million to a
net expense of $21.9 million.
The five pilot projects identified in the Breaking the Gridlock
report use an ecosystem-based approach to maintain and enhance
environmental quality, to attain other land management goals and
objectives, and to create opportunities for more effective public
participation in resource management decisions through revised
decision-making frameworks. All projects feature long-range plans,
environmental impact analyses, and public involvement.
The five proposed pilot projects are as follows:
1) LCentral Idaho Ecosystem Trust (5.8 million acres). This project
includes all of the Boise National Forest and parts of the Payette,
Sawtooth and Salmon-Challis Forests. Using a ``trust law'' management
framework, the goal of this project is to restore vegetation to desired
ecological conditions while meeting social needs.
2) LClearwater Basin Stewardship Collaboration (2.7 million acres).
This project covers parts of the Clearwater and Nez Perce Forests and
has as its goal using a ``collaborative group'' of stakeholders to
accomplish the restoration of elk habitat and other indicator species
consistent with social objectives and historical conditions.
3) LPriest Lake Basin Cooperative (265,000 acres). This project
includes all of the Priest Lake District of the Panhandle National
Forest and has as its goal, under a Memorandum of Agreement involving
the Forest Service and the Idaho Departments of Lands and Parks and
Recreation, to restore and enhance ecological conditions and to improve
resource management for wildlife, recreation and balanced economic
uses.
4) LSt. Joe Ecosystem Stewardship Project (726,000 acres). This
project involves the St. Joe District of the Panhandle National Forest
and proposes to use the stewardship contract approach to restore and
enhance ecological conditions. The projects would be similar to those
authorized by Congress in 1999.
5) LTwin Falls/Cassia Resource Enhancement Trust. Forest Service
lands in the Sawtooth National Forest and Bureau of Land Management
lands in the Burley and Twin Falls management areas would be involved
in a ``trust management'' approach aimed at sustainable economic
activity and enhanced ecological conditions.
All proposed projects would change the rules under which Federal
land managers operate. The Task Force identified seven functional
objectives. Each project approaches them differently, as detailed in
the Breaking the Gridlock report:
Involve the public,
Streamline and localize decision-making,
Protect water quality,
Base management on formalized plans,
Protect species
Stabilize agency budgets, and
Stabilize communities.
For example, the planning period would be reduced from 15 years to
5 years, with one-year implementation plans that identify specific
projects. The five-year plan requires an EIS, to be completed within 12
months; the one-year plan requires an EA, to be completed within six
months. Endangered species consultation is required only on the one-
year plan. There would be two levels of formal appeals prior to
judicial review. The right to appeal decisions would be contingent upon
constructive involvement in the public comment process.
Some of these pilot projects are at a more advanced stage than
others. The State of Idaho will continue to pursue the pilot project
idea whether or not a Charter Forest is established there.
Trusts and Charter Forests
Descriptions of the Bush Administration's Charter Forest concept
appear in three different Fiscal Year 2003 Federal budget documents. In
the White House's Office of Management and Budget proposal, the ``local
trust entity'' is key:
``To overcome inertia and an excessive decision-making
structure, USDA will develop legislation in 2003 to establish
`charter forests.' This proposal would establish certain
forests or portions of forests as separate entities, outside
the Forest Service structure, that report to a local trust
entity for oversight. Like charter or magnet schools, this
proposed structure would avoid the central bureaucracy and
thereby reduce organizational inefficiencies, while emphasizing
local involvement, and focusing upon specific programmatic
goals, such as forest ecological restoration or hazardous fuels
reductions'' (p.67, emphasis added).
The detailed OMB budget appendix for the USDA Forest Service
repeats the two opening sentences above regarding the oversight
function of a local trust entity, and then describes a pilot project
structure with functional objectives for Charter Forests:
``The structure would eliminate inefficiencies and focus upon
specific strengths. Pilot forests would establish and address
land management objectives; comply with all Federal and State
environmental laws; include a diverse and balanced group of
stakeholders, as well as appropriate Federal, tribal, state,
county, and municipal government representatives in the design,
implementation, and monitoring of the project; incorporate
current scientific forest restoration information; and include
a multiparty assessment to identify both the existing
ecological condition of the proposed project area and the
desired future condition'' (p.181).
The Forest Service's justification for its budget request
introduced the idea of streamlining the decision-making process.
Although the Forest Service does not specifically mention the local
trust entity as such, the agency identifies its Valles Caldera Trust in
New Mexico as a model:
``In an attempt to streamline the decision-making process,
legislation will be proposed to establish ``charter forests,''
certain forests or parts of forests administered outside the
normal Forest Service structure. The goal is to eliminate
inefficiencies and focus upon specific strengths. Pilot forests
would: establish and address land management objectives; comply
with all Federal and State environmental laws; include a
diverse and balanced group of stakeholders, as well as
appropriate Federal, State, Tribal, county, and municipal
government representatives in the design, implementation, and
monitoring of the project; incorporate current scientific
forest restoration information; and include a multiparty
assessment to identify both the existing ecological condition
of the proposed project area and the desired future condition.
A similar arrangement currently exists in the Valles Caldera
Trust management of the Baca Ranch in New Mexico.''
``The legislation will require expedited endangered species
consultation, enhanced use of grants and agreements, and enhanced
authority to use National Forest System funds on and adjacent to
national forests in cooperation with State, Tribal, and local
governments. This concept may combine several national forests under a
unified annual budget'' (p.1-10).
Trust Model Applications--The ``Local Trust Entity''
Establishing a local trust entity with oversight functions for a
Charter Forest could be approached two ways. One is through adaptation
of the state trust land model, the other would be modeled after the
Federal Government entities set up to manage the Baca Ranch (Valles
Caldera) and the Presidio of San Francisco as ``trusts.''
First, the collaborative trust model (Figure 4) in the Idaho effort
would provide a structure capable of accommodating the desired
functional objectives of a Charter Forest. This adaptation of the state
trust land management concept is derived from trust law, whereby ``A
trust is a fiduciary relationship in which the trustee holds and
manages property for the benefit of a specific beneficiary. The major
obligation of the trustee is to act with ``undivided loyalty'' to the
beneficiary'' (Souder & Fairfax, State Trust Lands, 1996). Trust land
management is our nation's oldest and most durable land management
model. It is used on more than 15 million acres of private lands, and
45 million acres of state lands outside Alaska. Many of the Idaho
Federal Lands Task Force and Working Group members recognize that the
trust land management model is perhaps the most desirable alternative
model.
Public involvement is a potential weakness of the trust land
management model. It may be desirable to augment the trust model
(Figure 3) with a ``local advisory council'' to assist the manager with
public involvement, offer ``fix-it'' advice, and perhaps co-manage the
NEPA process (Figure 4). The relationship of this council to the
resource manger is crucial. On the one hand, problems would arise if
and when the manager ignores the council's advice. On the other hand,
problems would arise if the manager's authority is subordinate to the
council. In either case, the dissension could be appealed to the board
of trustees for a final decision. The five years of experiences of BLM
Resource Advisory Councils, and the newly established Forest Service
Resource Advisory Councils may offer some guidance on how the council
could be structured to avoid such problems.
The trust model is flexible, and accounts could be established to
direct management resources to protect biological diversity, as desired
by the fish and wildlife beneficiary, and cultural values, as desired
by the park and recreation beneficiary (Figures 3 and 4).
The second approach could be modeled after the two existing
``trusts'' for Federal lands--Presidio and Valles Caldera. Both these
entities were created as wholly-owned government corporations,
established by law as executive agencies of the U.S. government. Unlike
the application of trust law in the state land trust model, specific
beneficiaries were not designated. However, the fiduciary concerns of a
trust are evident, as goals for both entities include financial self-
sufficiency within 15 years. The Presidio Trust was established in
1996. It is governed by a 7-member board of directors that oversees
administration of the Presidio of San Francisco, a 1,480 acre unit of
the Golden Gate Recreation Area of the National Park Service. The
Valles Caldera Trust, established in 2000, is governed by a 9-member
board of trustees that manages and administers the Valles Caldera
National Preserve--an 89,000 acre working ranch formerly known as the
Baca Ranch'' as a unit of the National Forest System.
Concerns about Charter Forests
One concern about Charter Forests is how they might advantageously
use an experimental or adaptive approach to land management. Adequate
monitoring and reevaluation need some consideration. Initially I had
the same concerns about Charter Forests that I had about the Idaho
Federal Lands Task Force. In 1997 my reservations were satisfied when
the Task Force adopted three principles: 1) the ownership of Federal
lands will not be transferred to the states; 2) a variety of uses will
continue on lands currently managed for multiple use; and 3) the public
will be involved in the decision-making process. These principles are
evident in the description of functional objectives for Charter Forests
provided in the Federal budget documents quoted above.
Another concern is that these Charter Forests could, by many, be
considered a ``silver bullet'' to ``fix'' the Forest Service. While
Charter Forests certainly may provide lessons and a basis for
comprehensive reform they will not be applied everywhere on the
national forests and may still get caught up in unforeseen delays. One
need look no further than the Quincy Library Group to see an example of
congressionally sanctioned management that has yet to implemented on
the ground. Charter Forests will require that all interests in
Washington, DC, as well as at the local level, have a voice in
describing how these might work. Hopefully this will lead to scrutiny
and probing questions rather than litigation and roadblocks.
Conclusion
The letter of invitation stated, ``testimony will help [the
committee] better understand the challenges and successes of on-the-
ground forest management as well as innovative approaches to community-
based land management'' (emphasis added).
In closing, the words of former BLM director and Resources for the
Future president Dr. Marion Clawson seem appropriate. He said, ``I
reject any idea that we today are less imaginative and resourceful than
men and women who pressed for the establishment of the national
forests, national parks, and grazing districts. We too can innovate;
let us try.''
______
[Attachments to Mr. Williams' statement follow:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. O'Laughlin.
Mr. Anderson, we will hear from you now.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL ANDERSON, SENIOR RESOURCE ANALYST, THE
WILDERNESS SOCIETY
Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Wilderness Society, like many other environmental
organizations, is very skeptical of the Bush administration's
proposal to establish charter forests. From all indications to
us so far, charter forests would primarily aim to promote
logging and other revenue-generating uses of the national
forests, while weakening or eliminating environmental
safeguards and public participation.
A case in point is the Central Idaho Ecosystem Trust, one
of the five pilot projects proposed by the Idaho Federal Lands
Task Force. The goal of the trust would be ``to provide
revenue, net of operating expenses, for the beneficiaries each
year, generated in a manner that recognizes public values and
is sustainable over the long term.''
This kind of goal might sound fine to a private timberland
corporation shareholder, but certainly not to the vast majority
of Americans, whose paramount goals for the national forests
are to provide high-quality water, wildlife habitat, high-
quality recreation, and wilderness.
Regarding environmental laws and public participation, the
Idaho task force proposal provides some alarming insights into
how the administration might ``streamline'' decisionmaking and
eliminate analysis paralysis in the national forests.
In the central Idaho trust, the Forest Service would only
have to prepare a single environmental assessment on a
management plan once a year for all projects planned in the
coming year. No further environmental review and public
involvement would be required for projects, except for
endangered species consultations and for projects not listed in
the plan. Citizens could appeal the annual plans but not the
timber sales or other management projects.
At a minimum, these aspects of the Idaho plan would violate
the National Environmental Policy Act and the Appeals Reform
Act.
An even more radical charter forest proposal is the
Northwest Colorado Working Landscape Trust in Moffat County.
The Colorado proposal goes so far as to prohibit Congress from
designating new wilderness areas in the county and to release
all existing wilderness study areas to management by the trust.
It would also bar dissatisfied citizens from using the court
system to challenge trust management actions.
Mr. Chairman, turning national forests into charter forests
to be managed by local boards for local interests is a
fundamentally flawed idea that will never fly with the
environmental community or the American public.
This is not to say that there is no constructive role for
collaboration or community-based partnerships in Federal land
management.
Last year The Wilderness Society and the National Audubon
Society published a guide to collaboration for environmental
advocates. I would like to submit this to the hearing record.
Mr. Simpson. Without objection.
[The guide referred to has been retained in the Committee's
official files:]
Mr. Anderson. I was a contributing editor to the guide.
Environmentalists' experience with collaborative groups has
been mixed, as are our views toward collaboration. Everybody
agrees, though, that under no circumstances should
collaboration be used to undercut existing law and
environmental safeguards or to exclude legitimate interests.
I have personally been involved in a promising
collaborative effort in Lakeview, Oregon, for the past 3 years.
Our collaborative group has worked closely and cooperatively
with the Forest Service on restoring parts of the Fremont
National Forest within the framework of existing Federal laws
and management plans.
I believe it would be a serious mistake for Congress or the
administration to attempt to formalize community-based
partnerships or collaborative efforts. Collaborative groups can
function effectively and creatively as informal advisers to the
Federal land managers, complementing rather than replacing
public participation laws and processes.
However, I do think there are several ways Congress and the
administration can and should encourage the positive work of
broad-based, inclusive collaborative groups.
First, do not promote legislation on charter forests or
collaborative processes, even on an experimental or pilot
basis. Any effort to turn over control of Federal lands to
local interests would be extremely divisive and polarizing.
Such legislation or administrative initiative would inevitably
lead to environmental boycotts of collaborative efforts and
further gridlock of Federal land management.
Second, additional funds should be appropriated for
watershed restoration and monitoring projects. Restoration and
monitoring of Federal lands traditionally have been hampered by
severe shortage of funding. However, these are the very
activities that hold the greatest promise for gaining broad-
based collaborative support.
Third, funding is also needed to help collaborative groups
operate effectively and to train local workers in restoration-
oriented job skills.
Finally, funding should be provided to help with sharing of
information amongst the collaborative organizations.
In conclusion, The Wilderness Society strongly recommends
that Congress and the administration steer clear of the charter
forest concept. Instead, policymakers should focus on ways to
help collaborative groups and Federal land managers succeed in
putting people to work restoring the ecological integrity of
public lands, for the benefit of all Americans.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
Statement of Michael Anderson, Senior Resource Analyst, The Wilderness
Society
The Wilderness Society appreciates this opportunity to testify on
charter forests and collaborative projects. The Wilderness Society is a
national environmental organization with 200,000 members and eight
regional offices. Founded in 1935, The Wilderness Society works to
protect America's wilderness and develop a nationwide network of
wildlands through public education, scientific analysis, and advocacy.
I have worked for The Society as a research analyst since 1985,
primarily on national forest policy and planning issues.
Charter Forests
Like many other environmental organizations, The Wilderness Society
is very skeptical of the Bush administration's recent proposal in the
Forest Service budget to establish charter forests. The administration
has told us little about what charter forests are supposed to be--only
that they will be controlled by ``local trust entities'' instead of the
Forest Service, and that decision-making somehow will be
``streamlined'' to overcome bureaucratic inertia. However, charter
forest proposals have surfaced in a few places, providing some clues
about where the administration is headed. From all indications, charter
forests would aim to weaken or eliminate environmental safeguards and
public participation, while promoting logging and other commodity uses
of the national forests.
A case in point is a proposal by the Idaho Federal Lands Task Force
to create five pilot projects that would give local and state officials
control over nearly half of Idaho's national forests. One of those
pilots, the Central Idaho Ecosystem Trust, would cover 5.8 million
acres, including all or parts of the Boise, Payette, Sawtooth, and
Salmon-Challis National Forests. The goal of the trust would be ``to
provide revenue, net of operating expenses, for the beneficiaries each
year, generated in a manner that recognizes public values and is
sustainable over the long term.'' This kind of goal might sound fine to
a private timberland corporation shareholder, but certainly not to the
vast majority of Americans, whose paramount goals for the national
forests are to provide high-quality water, wildlife habitat, non-
motorized recreation, and wilderness.
Idaho's charter forest proposal illustrates how fundamentally
inconsistent the charter forest concept is with the laws governing the
national forests. For example, the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act
requires the Forest Service to manage the national forests to ``best
meet the needs of the American people'' -- not to provide revenue for
local trust beneficiaries. 16 U.S.C. Sec. 531(a). Similarly, the Forest
and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act defines the national
forests as Federal lands ``united into a nationally significant system
dedicated to the long-term benefit for present and future
generations.'' 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1609(a). Establishing charter forests, on
the other hand, would break apart the National Forest System, assigning
responsibility for determining the goals, purposes, and management
activities on the land to local interests.
The Idaho Task Force proposal provides some alarming insight into
how the administration would ``streamline'' decision-making and
eliminate ``analysis paralysis'' in a charter forest. In the Central
Idaho Ecosystem Trust, the Forest Service would only have to prepare a
single environmental assessment on a management plan once a year for
all projects planned in the coming year. No further environmental
review and public involvement would be required for projects, except
for interagency consultation on endangered species and for projects not
listed in the annual plan. Citizens could appeal the annual plans, but
not the timber sales or other management projects. This means there
would be essentially no evaluation of site-specific environmental
impacts or formal opportunity to comment on or appeal most logging and
other management activities in the national forests of central Idaho,
where some of the most erosion-prone lands in the nation are located.
At a minimum, these aspects of the Idaho plan would violate the
National Environmental Policy Act and the Appeals Reform Act.
A key environmental concern about the state's proposal is that
Idaho's national forests provide critical spawning habitat for salmon
and steelhead that migrate through the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the
Pacific Ocean. Those anadromous fish are vitally important to
commercial and sport fishermen, the tourism industry, Indian tribes,
and the general public in Oregon, Washington, and elsewhere, far beyond
the Idaho border. Yet, the State of Idaho and local interests would
presume to balance the salmon habitat protection interests of all
Americans with the logging, grazing, and mining interests of local
residents.
The Idaho Trust's revenue-generating goal provides an incentive to
liquidate natural assets (like big trees enhancing fish and wildlife
habitat) to provide short term, one-time cash gains at the ecosystems'
expense. Furthermore, while local residents would essentially take
control of national forests in the Central Idaho Ecosystem Trust, the
U.S. Treasury would still be expected to foot the bill for fire-
fighting costs and other ``landowner obligations.'' So much for the
notion that charter forests would be a beneficial experiment in free-
market decision-making.
An even more radical charter forest proposal has surfaced in Moffat
County, Colorado. The Northwest Colorado Working Landscape Trust would
be run by a seven-person board, all selected by the local county
commissioners and the governor. The Trust would govern all Federal
lands in the county, including national parks.
The Colorado proposal is blatantly anti-wilderness and
unconstitutional. It goes so far as to state, ``Congress shall not
designate any new wilderness areas in Moffat County, and release all
existing Wilderness Study Areas to management through the Trust.'' It
would also bar dissatisfied citizens from using the court system to
challenge Trust management actions.
In addition to our objections to these specific proposals, The
Wilderness Society also strongly disagrees with the underlying premise
and political agenda espoused by some leading proponents of charter
forests. For example, in his recent book This Sovereign Land, Dan
Kemmis from the University of Montana argues for charter forest-style
``pilot projects'' as the first step toward wholesale devolution of
Federal public land management to local interests. Under such a scheme,
national forests would become more like state and county forests, often
run by local boards dominated by commercial interests and hostile to
the environmental values of most Americans.
The national forests are a cherished part of America's natural
landscape and social fabric. Currently, the Forest Service must abide
by various Federal laws, policies, and plans to protect fish habitat
and other environmental values in all the national forests of Idaho,
Colorado, and 42 other states. Since these are Federal public lands,
the agency must consider the interests and concerns of all Americans,
including future generations, in determining appropriate management.
However, under a charter forest or trust arrangement, local interests
and concerns would take priority, and non-local viewpoints inevitably
would take a back seat. Turning national forests into charter forests
to be managed by local boards for local interests is a fundamentally
flawed idea that will never fly with the American people.
Collaborative Projects
During the past decade, Federal land and resource management has
increasingly been shaped by community-based partnerships and other
collaborative groups. Recognizing the growing significance of and
controversy about these groups, The Wilderness Society last year joined
with the National Audubon Society and the University of Virginia's
Institute for Environmental Negotiation in publishing a guide to
collaboration for environmental advocates. I was a contributing editor
of the guide.
In reviewing environmentalists' experience with collaborative
groups for this guide, we found that environmentalists' views toward
collaboration are highly variable. Some people consider collaborative
groups and processes to be inherently undemocratic, unaccountable, and
contrary to the public interest. Others see collaboration as a way to
build new alliances and accomplish environmental objectives that could
not be accomplished otherwise. Nearly everyone agrees, though, that
under no circumstances should collaboration be used to undercut
existing law and environmental safeguards or exclude legitimate
interests.
We also found that even the best collaborative processes tend to be
very time-consuming, as participants search for common ground and
consensus. Some environmentalists question the value of devoting their
energy and scarce resources to what may appear to them to be an
unstructured and unending quagmire. In any event, collaboration is
probably not the key to speeding up decisions, cutting red tape, or
increasing efficiency in Federal land management. Existing public
participation and planning processes--while often frustrating--at least
are somewhat reliable and well understood.
Mr. Chairman, in your invitation letter you asked me to describe
the community-based projects in which I am involved. I have been a
member of a promising collaborative effort in Lakeview, Oregon for the
past three years. The Lakeview working group consists of
representatives from the timber industry, schools, county government,
and others in the local community, as well as regional and national
environmental organizations. The impetus for the collaborative effort
was the Forest Service's review of the Lakeview Federal Sustained Yield
Unit (now called the Lakeview Federal Stewardship Unit) and the local
community's desire to modernize and reauthorize the Unit. Our
collaborative group works closely and cooperatively with the Forest
Service on restoring parts of the Fremont National Forest, within the
framework of existing Federal laws and management plans. I am not
testifying today on behalf of the Lakeview working group, and my views
do not necessarily reflect those of other members of the group.
In general, I believe it would be a serious mistake for Congress or
the administration to attempt to formalize community-based partnerships
or collaborative efforts. Collaborative groups can function effectively
and creatively as informal advisors to the Federal land managers,
complementing--rather than replacing--public participation laws and
processes. Collaborative groups need to be able to develop their own
rules and procedures, based on their unique make-up. However, I think
there are several ways Congress and the administration can and should
encourage the positive work of broad-based, inclusive collaborative
groups.
Recommendations
First, do not promote legislation on charter forests or
collaborative processes--even on an experimental or pilot basis. Any
effort to turn over control of Federal lands to local interests would
be extremely divisive and polarizing. Such legislation or
administrative initiative would inevitably lead to environmental
boycotts of collaborative efforts and further gridlock of Federal land
management. The National Forest Management Act already provides
adequate legal authority for the Forest Service to establish advisory
committees, which may be appropriate in some situations.
Second, additional funds should be appropriated for watershed
restoration and monitoring projects. Restoration and monitoring of
Federal lands traditionally have been hampered by severe shortage of
funding. However, these activities hold the greatest promise for
gaining broad-based collaborative support and energy. In Lakeview, we
found that the Forest Service had planned many restoration projects but
could not implement them due to lack of funds. Some money has become
available for restoration and monitoring this year through the Federal
county payments Title II program adopted by Congress in 2000, but more
funds are needed to achieve on-the-ground results.
Third, funding is also needed to help collaborative groups operate
effectively and to train local workers in restoration-oriented job
skills. The Lakeview collaboration has been facilitated by Sustainable
Northwest, a non-profit organization headquartered in Portland, Oregon
that provides resources and services to rural community-based
partnerships. Lakeview community leaders recently formed a non-profit,
called the Lake County Resources Initiative, to help local workers take
advantage of opportunities in ecosystem restoration and community
economic development. A competitive Federal grant program targeted at
entities like these would certainly boost local collaborative efforts.
Fourth, since collaborative stewardship is a relatively new and
decentralized phenomenon, participants would benefit from better access
to information about the efforts and experiences of other groups.
Information-sharing can be accomplished through conferences,
publications, and hearings (like this one). Funding for this purpose
could be made through appropriations to Federal land agencies or grants
to non-profits.
Conclusion
The Wilderness Society strongly recommends that Congress and the
administration steer clear of the charter forest concept. Instead,
policy-makers should focus on ways to help collaborative groups and
Federal land managers succeed in putting people to work restoring the
ecological integrity of public lands, for the benefit of all Americans.
______
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. I appreciate your
testimony.
Dr. Garrett?
STATEMENT OF DR. L. DAVID GARRETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
FOREST COUNTY PARTNERSHIP RESTORATION PROGRAM, REPRESENTING CPR
MANAGING PARTNERS, COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AND FOREST SUPERVISORS
Mr. Garrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Subcommittee.
The partners and stakeholders of the County Partnership
Restoration Program appreciate this opportunity to appear
before and speak to what we feel is a progressive example of
community-based land management under your proposed charter
forests program.
I am here today to represent the CPR managing partners.
They are county commissioners and forest supervisors, who in
turn represent the diverse local community stakeholder
interests supporting our program.
The pilot forest concept we will speak to today is a county
government/national forest partnership, established to address
critically needed forest restoration programs on three pilot
national forests: the Apache-Sitgreaves in Arizona, the Lincoln
in New Mexico, and the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison in
Colorado. The approach has broad program requirements, ranging
from community stakeholder meetings and collaboration to
extensive restoration.
Communities and counties we represent are adjacent to the
three pilot forests. These pilot forests are involved with over
100 small cities, towns and villages. But the counties that we
reside in are dominated by Federal lands; over 60 percent of
the land base is Forest Service and other Federal lands. As
such, all of our communities are directly impacted by
management on these lands.
This critically needed approach by the Committee is giving
hope to small western communities, like the communities we
represent. We feel that they feel they will now be valued. Your
efforts will permit needed debate on how to best plan,
structure, and program on community-based approaches can go
forward.
We wanted to support local community interests to reduce
threats of wildfire and declining forest health. County
governments have initiated the program and involved broad-based
communities in the ongoing effort.
The CPR Program, as we call it, grew out of extensive
community-led forest research, demonstration, and planning
programs. We have now developed those into some restoration
efforts. These efforts have revealed that aggressive
restoration will be needed across all of the forest areas that
we represent.
It became apparent to all three extended communities that
their future and the futures of their communities and citizens
revolve around the health and vitality of these forests. This
requires development of many cooperative agreements and
extensive collaboration cooperation with all sorts of community
groups.
A simple county-Federal partnership structure was needed in
the program and developed, wherein specific responsibilities
are assigned to differing entities. Seventeen county
governments and three national forests are managing the
partnership approach. Participating partners are Federal,
state, tribal and community governments, who have formal
authorities to take actions regarding health and welfare of
their citizens and the resources on public lands. Participating
community groups and individuals are the critical stakeholders,
who we represent, who have explicit interest in the public
lands and related goals that all of us seek.
The lead partners, managing partners, are seeking the
advice and assistance of expert organizations, such as the U.S.
Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, to help us
design the most appropriate approaches. County and Federal
agencies have wide-ranging authorities that permit joint
cooperation on budgets and programs. Additional agreements are
needed, but, in major part, the county governments and the
Federal collaborators and cooperators find this a ready,
available program approach.Additional base funding is necessary
because of the extensive restoration needs on these forests.
The partners and stakeholders have endorsed a restoration
program approach that will not require changes in the existing
law; neither will it require changes in the current forest
plans. We would like to explore ways of expediting NEPA and ESA
requirements, but we wish to meet the full intent of these
laws.
The pilot forest presents an excellent arena to test and
streamline administrative procedure. Definition of mission,
goals, structure, and restoration program approaches are
outlined in the documents we provided to you.
The CPR communities have been very active for the over 5
years in developing the information base on which they launched
this program. We have over 200 involved stakeholders in our
efforts. We have the support of the State Legislatures, the
Governors, and congressional delegations in the states we
operate in. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a strong
supporter of our program approach.
Our example of a pilot forest and its structure is
primarily based on the specific desires of our communities and
our stakeholders. We feel the Committee and Secretary should
examine and hopefully implement several models.
We do feel that several criteria are important to pursue:
strong leadership in all program areas from local community,
extensive community collaboration, commitment from local
governments and the Federal Government to pursue this in the
long term, and a commitment to use science in both the
monitoring and the adaptive management approach.
We are convinced that empowering local communities to have
a greater role in public land management will produce wide-
ranging benefit to natural resources and to our citizens. In
the case of our program, we believe it will be very effective
in restoring the badly needed and seriously degraded lands of
these forests.
We have no reservations about evaluating differing charter
or pilot forest concepts, and we urge the Committee to pursue
those evaluations. The effort is permitting renewed debate on
how best to incorporate local communities in the debate.
Concepts that are not effective or acceptable will be revised
or rejected by stakeholders. However, effective models, and we
feel ours is an effective model, will prove to be very
beneficial to our citizens and to our natural resources.
We thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garrett follows:]
Statement of Dr. L.D. Garrett, Executive Director, National Forest
County Partnership Restoration Program
Mr. Chairman and Honorable members of the U.S. House of
Representatives subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. The partners
and stakeholders of the County Partnership Restoration Program (CPR
Program) appreciate this opportunity to share information on what we
feel is a progressive example of ``Community-Based Land Management''
under your proposed ``Charter Forest Program.''
I am Lawrence Garrett, Executive Secretary for the National Forest
County Partnership Restoration Program. I am here today to represent
the CPR Managing Partners, County Commissioners and Forest Supervisors,
who in turn represent the diverse local community stakeholder interests
supporting our program.
The Pilot Forest Concept we will speak to today is a County
Government/National Forest Partnership, established to address
critically needed forest watershed restoration management on three
Pilot National Forests in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. The
approach has broad program requirements, ranging from community
collaboration and planning to implementation of extensive restoration
projects.
The communities and counties we represent are adjacent to the three
pilot forests. Included are citizens and groups from seventeen counties
and over 100 small cities, towns and villages. Our counties are
dominated by Federal land, occupying over 65% of the land base. Much is
USDA Forest Service land, totaling over seven million acres on the
three forests. As such, all of our communities are directly impacted by
management direction on these forests.
We want to thank Chairman McInnis, Representative Udall and this
Committee for pursuing examples of Community-Based Land Management
under the Charter Forest Concept. This critically needed approach by
the Committee is giving hope to small western communities, that you
value their contributions. Your efforts will permit needed debate on
how to best plan, structure and program community based forest
restoration and management programs in cooperation with Federal
agencies.
Why did our CPR effort begin: We wanted to support local community
interests to reduce threats of wildfire and declining forest watershed
health, and maintain their traditional access to public lands. County
governments have initiated this Program, because they have the primary
government responsibility for issues of health, welfare and safety of
their citizens and their property. And, in much of the rural west,
these issues and Federal public land management are inseparable.
How did the CPR effort begin: The CPR Program grew out of extensive
community led forest restoration research, demonstration and planning
programs, which have been developed cooperatively with the Forest
Service and broad based agency and community groups. These efforts have
revealed that aggressive restoration is a desired management
alternative.
It became apparent to all three extended communities, that their
future would be significantly improved if they became pro-active and
aggressively pursued restoration across the three forests. This
requires development of formal cooperative programs with the local
Forests, extensive collaboration of stakeholders, and complex planning
for the needed restoration.
What Structure is developed for the CPR Program: A simple county/
federal agency partnership structure is proposed, wherein specific
responsibilities are assigned to differing entities. Seventeen county
governments and three National Forests are managing partners for the
program, and have the responsibility for general program management and
funding. Participating partners are Federal, state, tribal and
community governments who have formal authorities and responsibilities
for the forests, watersheds, communities, people etc. Participating
community groups and individuals are the critical stakeholders who have
explicit interest in the public lands, and related goals of protection,
management and use.
The lead partners are seeking the advise and assistance of expert
organizations, such as the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict
Resolution to help design a sound structure and program to achieve
partnership objectives.
County and Federal agencies have wide ranging authorities that
permit joint cooperation on budgets and programs. Additional agreements
are necessary for the collaboration, science, economic development,
information and education and other programs required to implement the
extensive forest watershed restoration efforts. Additional base funding
for the participating forests and counties is necessary to reach
proposed goals.
The partners and stakeholders have endorsed a restoration program
approach that will not require changes in existing law, and that can be
initiated under current Forest Plans. We would like to explore ways of
expediting NEPA and ESA requirements, while fully meeting the intent of
these laws. The Pilot Forest presents an excellent arena to test and
streamline administrative procedure. Definition of mission, goals,
structure, and restoration programs are contained in our formal CPR
documents. The Pilot Forest Concept would allow local governments to
act as conveners, while leaving the decisions to the responsible line
officers of the three National Forests
What are our accomplishments to date: The CPR communities have been
very active for the past 2-5 years supporting many collaborative
programs on forest restoration science, restoration workshops, and
watershed restoration demonstration programs. For the past year the
communities have been developing an extensive collaborative process to
design the CPR Program for the three Pilot Forests and 17 county area.
The three Forest CPR Program has involved over 200 local stakeholders
in the approach. State legislatures, governors, congressional
delegations, and critical Federal, state, tribal and local government
agencies have endorsed the program. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
is a critical cooperator in our program. The CPR community groups are
aggressively pursuing extensive cooperation and funding for needed
collaboration, science, economic development, information and education
and site restoration programs.
How do we define a Charter/Pilot Forest: Our example of a Pilot
Forest and its structure is primarily based on the specific desires of
our stakeholders and restoration needs of our forests. We feel the
Committee and Secretary should examine and hopefully implement several
models.
We do feel several criteria are important to make the ``Pilot'' or
``Community Based'' Forest Concept successful as follows:
1. LStrong leadership in all program areas from local community
groups and governments.
2. LExtensive community collaboration on all program elements.
3. LCommitment from local and Federal Governments to short and long
term program accomplishment.
4. LA commitment to use science and monitoring to guide an adaptive
management process.
What do we believe a Charter/Pilot Forest can accomplish: We are
convinced that empowering local communities to have a greater role in
public land management will produce wide ranging benefit to natural
resources on our public lands and human resources in our local
communities. In the case of our CPR Program and with effective funding,
we believe we can restore the most at risk acres of the three Pilot
Forests over the next ten years.
Do you have reservations about Charter/Pilot Forests: We have no
reservations about evaluating differing Charter/Pilot Forest Concepts.
The effort is permitting renewed debate on how best to incorporate
local communities in public land management direction. We feel this
debate is important to the future of public land resources. Concepts
that are not effective or acceptable will be revised or rejected by
stakeholders. However, effective models will prove to be very
beneficial to society.
______
overview of the national forest county partnership restoration (cpr)
program
The National Forest County Partnership Restoration Program is an
innovative proposal to restore landscapes and watersheds to more
desirable and sustainable conditions on three Pilot Forests; the
Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests in Arizona, the Grand Mesa,
Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests in Colorado and the Lincoln
National Forest in New Mexico.
The proposal promotes the co-lead partnership of the above three
National Forests and seventeen counties in an effort to represent a
diversity of landscapes, communities and issues, and to allow for a
more thorough evaluation of the approach. Pilot designation will
provide the flexibility in funding and authorities needed to support
collaborative processes, integrate best available science, and expedite
implementation of projects required to address the complexity of issues
faced by forests and communities. The current planning and public
involvement approaches are not addressing the complex and dynamic
interrelationships between public lands and communities. Therefore,
this project advocates a multidimensional, systematic approach.
The National Forest County Partnership Restoration Program has been
developed in response to the growing interest of local governments to
be more meaningfully involved in defining future landscape conditions
and appropriate actions to achieve desired outcomes. This proposal will
address ecosystem decline, threats from wildfire and other factors
contributing to ecological, social and economic impacts within the
three Forests and surrounding areas.
A community based collaborative process will be utilized to engage
interested stakeholders including local, county and tribal
representatives, and interest groups, as well as the Forest Service.
This process will facilitate dialogue about the complex
interrelationships between public land management and community
sustainability. Critical linkages between natural resources and
community values will be identified.
Historic, current and possible future landscape conditions will be
described in a setting that promotes mutual learning and understanding.
The collaborative effort will identify a range of desirable, feasible
and viable management options. Scientific assessments will describe
ecological, social and economic components of the landscapes. Outcomes
of the collaborative process will be integrated with the scientific
assessments to formulate proposed actions that will be analyzed in full
compliance with NEPA and other laws.
The proposal responds to growing concerns of Congress, land
managers, scientists, local communities and other stakeholders about
the ecological decline on National Forests and the corresponding
effects on local communities. The project's overarching objective is to
improve the ecological, social and economic conditions in watersheds,
landscapes and communities through an effective process that produces
results on the ground.
______
NATIONAL FOREST COUNTY PARTNERSHIP RESTORATION PROGRAM
the issue
Since mid-century, forest specialists have noted the increasing
departure of resources on western forest watersheds from normal ranges
of variation. The dimensions of this extensive threat to western forest
ecosystems is chronicled in the 1999 GAO Report, RC ED-99-65, A
Cohesive Strategy to Address Catastrophic Wildfire, Threats and the
Ten-Year Comprehensive Strategy.
Science and management assessments have documented the extent and
nature of impacts of resource departures on both biological and social
systems. They have proposed methodologies for restoring forest
watersheds, ecosystems and communities to healthy ranges of stability,
productivity and diversity. Science and management demonstration
programs for evaluating restoration methods have also been accomplished
successfully in many locations.
To date, the above programs have usually occurred on relatively
small acreages of a single management unit of a single agency,
preventing development of scientific, management and policy principles
relative to large, multiple ownership forest landscapes. Many of these
efforts have involved the cooperation of Federal, state and local
agencies and interest groups, but they have not adequately tested the
full dimension of local leadership and stewardship requirements, or
succeeded in presenting opportunities needed for new Federal/local
partnerships.
The U.S. Congress called for progressive new Federal agency/local
government forest restoration partnership programs, defined in the
Fiscal Year 2001 Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (P.L.
106-291) as follows:
``The managers are very concerned that the agencies need to
work closely with the affected states, including Governors,
county officials and other citizens. Successful implementation
of this program will require close collaboration among citizens
and governments at all levels. The managers direct the
Secretaries to engage governments in a collaborative structure
to cooperatively develop a coordinated National ten-year
comprehensive strategy with the States as full partners in the
planning, decision-making, and implementation of the plan. Key
decisions should be made at local levels.''
The Western Governors' Association, with strong county leadership,
has provided continued national input on these and other western forest
health issues. In August 2001, its membership submitted a ten-year
comprehensive plan to the President: ``A Collaborative Approach for
Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment.''
Many members of Congress, including Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and
Pete Domenici of New Mexico, have supported increased science and
management funding to aid in fire suppression and restoration programs,
including the National Fire Plan. Also, Congressmen Scott McInnis of
Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico have requested the U.S. Forest
Service develop innovative Federal agency/local community partnerships,
to insure effective and efficient resolve to issues such as forest
restoration.
County leadership on western public lands health and safety issues
has become more prominent, especially in the last five years. In
several states, counties have been working closely with interested
publics and the Forest Service to develop a new collaborative
partnership model to respond to the above congressional requests.
This model ``The National Forest County Partnership Restoration
Program'' proposes that a strong co-lead partnership of western
counties and public land management agencies would afford several
advantages in addressing the issue of forest restoration.
Whereas Federal, state and tribal land management
agencies have responsibility for natural resource protection and
management, counties are mandated to assure that the protection,
health, safety, and welfare of its citizens and their properties are
met at the local level.
County governments and programs are directed by elected
officials, and are committed to serve all interests equally.
County governments operate at a localized project scale,
which is most compatible with public land project administration on
ranger districts, resource areas, etc.
Counties have extensive program responsibilities and
authorities that permit them to be an effective contributing partner to
most needs of Federal agencies.
County governments, like their Federal agency
counterparts, are established to serve the needs of U.S. Citizens in
perpetuity.
Where counties have taken a leadership role as active
partners with Federal agencies, they have found their leadership very
supportive in the following areas.
* LBringing together diverse parties from agencies and local
communities to define issues, opportunities and concerns regarding
public land management direction.
* LMediating disputes over alternative management directions and/
or options advanced by interested publics.
* LSupporting funding needs of public agencies on critical
natural resource issues.
* LBlending important local economic and social needs and
capabilities into the natural resource management direction.
* LProviding local community partner services to public agency
programs.
NATIONAL FOREST COUNTY PARTNERSHIP RESTORATION PROGRAMS FOR THE APACHE-
SITGREAVES, GMUG, AND LINCOLN NATIONAL FORESTS
As noted, county governments and associated National Forests in
Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico have for several years pursued
progressive demonstration programs for forest restoration and fire risk
reduction. These programs have included collaboration of Federal, state
and local agencies, local communities, Tribal Nations, universities,
other interested groups and individuals.
Examples of collaborative programs in Arizona and New Mexico are
the Apache-Sitgreaves NF Blue Ridge Restoration Program and the Lincoln
NF Pilot Forest Restoration Program. Working with their respective
forests, community leaders have pioneered unique programs on forest
restoration.
Progressive new restoration program approaches are also being
developed for the Uncompahgre Plateau area of the Grand Mesa,
Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests in Colorado.
Established from local community leadership, a Public Lands Partnership
(PLP) is utilizing collaborative processes to advance improvements in
forest restoration over multiple public land ownerships.
Local community leaders and forest managers in the above three
National Forest areas wish to embark on collaborative programs to meet
the challenges of forest restoration of large multiple ownership public
lands, across multiple counties. These efforts, when joined, create a
powerful partnership strategy. This strategy can foster development of
new approaches to forest restoration management as well as land
management planning, and effectively transfer these advances to other
land areas in the west.
Each of the above programs has several unique qualities that are
critical to moving them to a multi-county National Forest landscape.
Each National Forest and adjacent public lands are
plagued with ongoing fire and insect and disease impacts. Current
science evaluations reveal that over 60% of pine and mixed conifer
stands on the Lincoln and Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests are in
moderate to high risk conditions, and wildfire threats are at high risk
levels across the forests. A 2002 overview assessment of Colorado
forest conditions reveal extensive degradation. Studies of forest
conditions on the GMUG National Forests are currently underway.
Each National Forest area has county officials and
community leaders committed to implement and sustain support for large
area restoration programs. This collaboration involves tribal, Federal,
state, county and local government leaders; industry, agriculture,
university and environmental interests; and a diversity of private
interests.
Local leaders and forest staff have experience with
diverse entities working together to both plan and implement urban-
interface and wildland forest restoration demonstration programs.
Each of the above collaborative programs has also addressed
specific needs for a forest level effort, as follows:
* LScientific assessments of forest reference conditions and
requirements for restoration, i.e., restoration alternatives,
environmental assessments, socioeconomic impacts, treatment
prescriptions, etc., and, adaptive management approaches using science
to accelerate application of new knowledge.
* LDesign of landscape level restoration programs to insure
improvements in watershed health and ecosystem sustainability.
* LDevelopment of forest based industry programs to accommodate
small diameter low quality trees, and associated restoration materials.
County governments, U.S. Forest Service managers, community
leaders, universities and interested publics involved with the above
Forest, are committed to establishing the proposed National Forest
County Partnership Restoration (CPR) Program, specifically designed to
advance forest restoration needs in the southwest and intermountain
west regions.
The partnership is proposed to be led by the following counties and
forests: In Arizona Apache, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, and Navajo Counties
and the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests; in Colorado; Delta,
Gunnison, Hinsdale, Mesa, Montrose, Ouray, Saguache, and San Miguel
Counties and the GMUG National Forests; and in New Mexico; Chaves,
Eddy, Lincoln, and Otero Counties and the Lincoln National Forest.
GUIDING PROTOCOL FOR PROPOSED NATIONAL FOREST CPR PROGRAMS FOR WESTERN
PUBLIC LANDS
The attached Addendum A provides program overviews of the three
individual Forests that form the core of this National Forest County
Partnership Restoration Program. Collaboration will expand to other
Federal, state and tribal land areas as the program advances.
The collaborators see significant benefit in strong interaction of
the three forest area groups. Close interaction on all programs can
advance community planning, technical and scientific forest management
techniques, restoration practices, data management and analysis,
emergency readiness, technology transfer, budget support, etc.
The involved county leadership, participants and three forest
management teams feel the following protocols are important for program
success.
Two sets of co-lead partners are recognized as managing
partners. They include representatives from 17 county governments and
three National Forests. These managing partners have the responsibility
to develop, manage and maintain the National Forest CPR Program,
including funding requirements.
Involvement of many other partners is necessary, most
specifically Federal, tribal and state agencies with natural resource
management and regulatory authorities and responsibilities. They are
critical ``participating partners'' in developing and implementing the
diverse and complex restoration projects.
The partners must plan effective collaborative programs
so that community leaders and all interested groups can assist in both
developing and recommending alternative approaches.
The three National Forest/multi-county program is
directed by a designated county/forest management team to assure
program support and appropriate administration. Three representatives
from county government (one from each state) and three representatives
from the Pilot National Forests (one from each forest) will comprise
the team. The team will appoint an Executive Secretary for program
coordination.
County governments will provide leadership to develop new
collaborative approaches which assure broad participation of interested
parties, and establish focus groups and other approaches for
identification of local issues, opportunities and concerns. They will
also provide support to mitigate conflicts, streamline needed local
government compliance review and cooperation, develop industry
infrastructure, develop science and monitoring methods, and sustain
financial and other support to forest restoration programs, local
governance and community management needs.
The National Forests will execute their mission and
remain responsible for management actions on Federal land. Adoption of
the collaborative learning process (Daniels and Walker), or similar
mechanisms will build understanding of commitment to and improvement of
ecosystems by benefitting from a systems management approach on
National Forests.
The process and programs will follow all natural resource
and other laws governing access, equal rights, custom and culture,
environmental protection, safety, health and welfare, etc. This
includes embracing public land policies of multiple use forest
management and sustainable management. Ecosystem restoration will be
implemented to improve biophysical and socioeconomic systems in
balance, and outcome opportunities are to be directed to all resources
and resource users.
Forest restoration programs will be used, as appropriate,
to enhance all ongoing forest programs, such as transportation,
recreation, T&E species protection, water, wood fiber products,
grazing, etc. Program focus includes reestablishing the diversity,
productivity and stability of watershed ecosystems and rural socio-
economic systems. Forest restoration will blend into ongoing programs
and not distort or divert these programs.
Aggressive site and landscape forest restoration will be
implemented using state-of-the-art science and best management
practices i.e., within site capability, forest plan direction, desired
conditions, natural range of resource variability, etc. Establishment
of reference conditions is a prerequisite to the restoration process.
Adaptive management is used to accelerate the application of new
knowledge.
Monitoring of biophysical and socioeconomic processes and
multiresource status will use cost effective methods.
Improving and developing sustainable natural resource
based economic infrastructure is a critical goal, including wood
product, recreation, ranching, agriculture, and other related
industries. Social and economic approaches should support existing
custom and culture.
Engaging existing and new forest based industry in the
collaborative process is to be given special emphasis in this program.
In all practical cases, some portion of restoration costs are to be
mitigated by private utilization of marketable products.
The three forest area County Partnership Restoration
Program will develop and manage an information, education and
technology transfer program to assure exchange of all developed
information to public land managers in the greater southwest (i.e.,
Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico). A
goal of this program is to develop a successful model that can be
transferred to other forest and county partnerships.
SCHEDULE AND RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS
The overall purpose of the Program is to implement, at an
operational landscape scale, forest management activities that
accomplish effective restoration of at risk watersheds on the three
National Forests. Further, the program is designed to accomplish its
objectives while transferring portions of annual program costs from the
public sector to the private sector through product development.
Currently insufficient markets exist for developed restoration
materials. The program is designed to develop appropriate industry and
markets, so that by year 6 a large portion of restoration costs are
borne through the sale of developed restoration materials.
Schedule
The program schedule has three critical phases for each forest as
presented in the following tableau.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
It is critical that the program partners, and community leaders and
interested publics, develop in phase I effective restoration plans that
can restore all at risk watersheds over the 10 years of the program.
Science and landscape assessments on the Lincoln and Apache-Sitgreaves
National Forests indicate 15,000 to 30,000 acres will have to be
restored each year to address forest areas of greatest risk. Studies
are still in progress on the GMUG National Forests to help identify
needed restoration.
The effort must be guided by best science and management practices
established in phase I, as well as ongoing administrative studies and
monitoring. Market and industry development is necessary in phase I to
permit utilization of restoration materials from the program. This
effort will shift some portions of the restoration costs from the
taxpayer to consumers of wood based products.
Budget Requirement
Activities in the three program phases also guide budget
requirements. In phase I annual supplemental budget requirements per
forest are expected to be $1 million in year 1, $3.5 to 5 million per
forest in years 2-5, with declining budget needs in years 6-10.
To start the program in Fiscal Year 2002, $1 million per forest is
requested by the partner Forests and Counties. These funds will be used
by the Forests and Counties to design restoration plans, initiate the
collaboration process, and conduct NEPA analysis and implement field
treatments. Each Forest will have differing needs and expenditures.
Table 1 presents projected annual budget allocations across general
program categories for years 2-5. Actual proposed annual budget
allocations for each Forest/County Pilot Program will be developed in
each forest restoration plan. The total three forest CPR program
supplemental budget is expected to average $12-$15 million per year in
years 2-5.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
ADDENDUM A
PILOT FOREST DESCRIPTIONS
LINCOLN NATIONAL FOREST
APACHE-SITGREAVES NATIONAL FORESTS
GRAND MESA, UNCOMPAHGRE AND GUNNISON NATIONAL FORESTS
COUNTY PARTNERSHIP RESTORATION:
LINCOLN NATIONAL FOREST, NM
Pilot Restoration Forest Area:
Lincoln National Forest, BLM, Mescalero Apache and private lands;
southeast New Mexico area. Forest vegetation; mixed conifer, pine,
pinyon-juniper, desert shrub.
County Partners:
Chaves, Eddy, Lincoln, Otero, and Counties.
Administration:
1.1 million acres; three districts.
Primary Uses:
Water, ranching, recreation, energy, wood products, snow skiing.
Forest Issues:
Over 60% of forest watersheds degraded.
1994/2000 fires caused severe impacts to natural
resources and social infrastructure.
On and offsite water in significant decline. Seeps,
springs, instream flows degraded.
Understory flora and fauna diversity at low level
Proposed Programs:
Collaborators propose 10 year two phase program. Phase I includes
restoration of 150,000 acre Rio Penesco Demonstration Watershed,
Sacramento District, as well as other selected high risk areas on both
public and private lands (2002/04). Phase II includes extensive
restoration of Forest Service and other public and private lands on and
adjacent to the Sacramento, Ruidoso and Guadalupe Districts (2005-
2013). Area priorities to be established based on fire threats to
health and safety of population, community threats and watershed
resource threat. Both phases will incorporate aggressive technology
transfer programs.
Leadership & Collaboration
Counties and a broad base of local community
representatives have developed support restoration programs in science,
information and education, planning, industry development etc.
Counties and community leaders have developed
collaborative restoration programs with Federal agencies, i.e., USFS,
NRCS, BOR, USF&WS, BLM; NM agencies for forestry, water, minerals &
energy, and wildlife; local communities; local and regional interest
groups; and the general public.
Counties have provided leadership and support in
developing the Lincoln Pilot Forest Restoration Program.
Long term commitments are extended by the counties to
provide leadership to the three forest County Partnership Restoration
Program and the Lincoln Pilot Forest Restoration Program.
Accomplishments:
County leadership has helped organize the broad based
collaborative group, Lincoln Forest Restoration Partnership.
Collaborative groups have developed over one million
dollars in funding for research, information and education, forest
restoration, social impact assessments and forest industry development.
Critical science needs including forest reference
conditions, restoration prescriptions, social impact assessments, etc.
have been funded by community leaders and conducted in cooperation with
the USFS.
County leaders and cooperators have worked with
counterparts in AZ and CO in development of the National Forest County
Partnership Program.
Schedule:
Proposed Phase I and II restoration programs are as follows:
Phase I: Restoration of the 150,000 acre Rio Penesco Watershed and
related at risk public and private lands.
Assessments/Planning/NEPA--2002-2003
Treatments--2002-2005
Monitoring & Adaptive Mgt.--2003-2005
Technology Transfer--2003-2005
Phase II: Restoration of at risk public and private lands
associated with three districts of Lincoln National Forest.
Assessments/Planning/NEPA--2003-2013
Treatments--2004-2013
Monitoring--2004-2013
Technology Transfer--2004-2013
Requirements:
Three areas of program need are as follows:
Variance on established program objectives to accommodate
new restoration program.
Administrative variance in areas of budget expenditures,
NEPA process, cooperative programs, etc.
Annual budget increases of $3.5-5.0 million to accomplish
restoration and technology transfer programs.
$1 million in Fiscal Year 2002 is needed to start the
program.
county partnership restoration:
apache-sitgreaves national forests, az
Pilot Restoration Forest Area:
Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests and other adjacent land
ownership in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Forest vegetation;
pine, spruce/fir, mixed conifer, pinyon-juniper, desert shrub.
Administration:
2.0 million acres; five districts;
County Partners:
Apache, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, and Navajo Counties.
Primary Uses:
Water, recreation, wood products, fish and wildlife, ranching,
cultural resources.
Forest Issues:
60% of forest at high risk of loss to insect and disease
and wildfire. Significant urban interface risk.
High biophysical and social resource losses to wildfire.
Significant wildlife impacts from overstory density and
low understory plant productivity.
Decline of on and off-site water resource.
Local Leadership and Collaboration:
County partners, with the Eastern Arizona Counties
Organization (ECO), the Natural Resource Working Group and other local
community groups have provided strong leadership in developing
collaborative restoration programs..
NRWG and other community groups represent broad based
groups that include; Federal, state, local and tribal government;
industry, environmental, and agricultural interests; university,
community, rural, and private groups.
NRWG and other community groups have accomplished
research, information and education, and management demonstration
programs on restoration over the last five years.
The County partners, with ECO, have committed to a long-
term effort on the National Forest County Partnership Restoration
Program.
Accomplishments:
County partners and the Eastern Arizona Counties
Organization (ECO) have provided leadership to develop collaborative
groups to support forest restoration, including the Natural Resource
Working Group (NRWG), and biomass working groups in various
communities.
The Natural Resource Working Group, a broad based natural
resources action organization has operated restoration programs since
1997, under a cooperative agreement signed by 10 Federal and state
natural resource agencies, and the county partners.
The NRWG and ECO have developed over $2.5 million in
funds for restoration science, information and education, demonstration
and management programs.
Proposed Programs:
The collaborators propose a ten year restoration program with three
program thrusts operated concurrently. One involves urban interface
restoration programs of 10,000 acres per year. The second thrust is a
20,000 acre per year wildland restoration program. A third thrust is a
three forest collaborative information and education and technology
transfer program.
Schedule:
Critical elements of the three program thrusts are active from
2002-2013 as follows:
Assessments, Planning, NEPA--2002-2013
Treatments--2002-2013
Monitoring and Adaptive Management--2002-2013
Technology Transfer--2002-2013
Requirements:
The proposed programs will have many requirements for success as
follow:
$1 million in supplemental funds is needed in Fiscal Year
2002 to start the program.
A restoration program funding allocation of $3.5 to $5.0
million per year to accommodate primarily on the ground restoration of
15,000-30,000 acres, information and education and technology transfer
programs.
Some variance on other annual program targets may be
necessary
Administrative variance in key areas of budgeting
constraints, collaborative programming, NEPA processes, etc.
county partnership restoration: gmug national forests, colorado
Forest Area:
Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, Gunnison National Forests (GMUG) and
adjoining areas, comprise 2.9 million acres, and five Ranger Districts,
with extensive interagency cooperative programs. The Forests influence
11,000 square miles, 8 counties, and 57 communities with a population
over 203,000.
County Partners:
Delta, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Mesa, Montrose, Ouray, San Miguel, and
Saguache Counties.
Vegetation:
The Forests encompass a broad range of elevational gradients and
ecological types from high cold desert shrub to alpine tundra. Most
major Rocky Mountain vegetation types are represented in the geographic
area, including extensive riparian zones.
Primary Uses:
The Forests provide year-round recreation, livestock grazing,
timber production, wildlife and fisheries, and water and energy
development.
Forest Issues:
Increased tree densities and associated impacts to the
understory vegetation results in declining forest health.
Extraordinarily high fuel loads and wildfire risk.
Severe woodland and shrub encroachment and noxious weed
invasion.
Decline in mule deer population.
Increasing insect and disease and wildfire threats.
Declining watershed conditions and water yields within
five major basins.
Negative social and economic effects on communities
related to unpredictable flows in forest resources.
There is a need for integrated landscape-level analysis
and complementary management across mixed land ownership.
Local Leadership and Collaboration:
The GMUG NFs have active partnerships with diverse
stakeholder groups across the eight-county Forest area currently
working on public land issues as they relate to local communities.
Examples of these diverse collaborative working groups
include: the San Miguel Watershed Coalition; the Uncompahgre Plateau
Project in coordination with Public Lands Partnership; the Gunnison
Stakeholders Group on travel management; and the North Fork Coal
Working Group.
Participants in the collaborative efforts include:
related USDA (NRCS, USFS) and USDI (BLM) agencies; state agencies,
including Colorado State Forest Service and Colorado Division of
Wildlife; eight counties; local communities; and, special interest
groups, such as environmental, industry, and agricultural groups, among
others.
These collaborative efforts have led to several inclusive
partnerships such as the 1.6 million acre Uncompahgre Plateau Project
which involves such diverse stakeholders as BLM, Forest Service,
Colorado Division of Wildlife, and the Public Lands Partnership.
The Forest has developed an innovative, community-based
collaborative process, in five geographic areas of the Forest, where
stakeholders will meet in Landscape Working Groups to identify a range
of desirable, feasible and viable alternatives for the Forest Plan
Revision process.
Information from these place-based collaborative working
groups will be integrated with Landscape Assessments to help guide
future project development as well as programmatic direction for the
Forest.
Program Objectives:
Provide leadership to integrate collaborative restoration
management approaches that address issues at watershed and landscape
levels across multiple land ownerships.
Expedite implementation of projects that incorporate new
science and information, including landscape assessment findings,
advanced technology and collaborative process outcomes.
Improve the efficiency of the Forest Plan Revision
process through the use of Landscape Working Groups and Landscape
Assessments.
Streamline NEPA documentation to allow for expedited
implementation of restoration projects.
Adapt management in response to cost effective monitoring
results.
Utilize priority recommendations from the landscape
assessments to guide planning for broad scale treatments that permit
transfer of technology, information, and processes to other Forest
units.
Schedule:
The schedule for the phased programs over a 10-year period, 2002-
2013, is as follows:
Landscape assessments for the five discrete geographic
areas on the Forest--2002-2004
Community-based collaborative Landscape Working Groups to
provide input for restoration projects and the Forest Plan Revision--
2002-2004
Forest Plan Revision--2002-2005
Project/NEPA/community-based collaboration--2002-2013
Project implementation--2002-2013
Monitoring/information and education programs--2003-2013
Requirements:
This extensive effort requires supplementary funding and flexible
authorities.
At least $1 million of carry-over funds are needed in
Fiscal Year 2002 to initiate program.
It is estimated that a supplemental $3.5 to $5.0 million
will be required annually to accommodate the program.
Flexibility in authorities for administration, processes,
procedures and budgeting is necessary for program implementation.
Integrate this program with economic development efforts
that are examining opportunities to develop a more diverse wood
products industry that includes: efficient small-diameter utilization;
co-generation; and, advanced uses of wood fiber and wood residue.
______
Mr. Duncan. [Presiding.] Thank you very much, Mr. Garrett.
Next, we will hear from Mr. O'Toole.
STATEMENT OF RANDAL O'TOOLE, SENIOR ECONOMIST, THE THOREAU
INSTITUTE
Mr. O'Toole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, 50 years ago, the Forest Service was widely
considered to be an excellent organization. Not only did it
make a profit, but Newsweek magazine observed that the Forest
Service was so popular that Members of Congress would rather
abuse their own mothers than say anything bad about the Forest
Service. Newsweek magazine attributed the Forest Service's
success to the fact that it was heavily decentralized.
So what has happened between then and now? Well, tracing
back, looking at the history of the Forest Service, we can see
that incentives built into the Forest Service budget encouraged
forest managers to lose money on timber and other resources
rather than make money. It encouraged forest managers to
clearcut when other cutting methods would have done just as
well and would not have been as politically unpopular. And
these budgetary incentives encouraged the Forest Service to
build expensive, high-standard roads that had high
environmental impacts, rather than use inexpensive, low-impact
roads.
These kinds of problems--clearcutting, expensive roads, and
below-cost timber sales--led Congress to pass the Resources
Planning Act and the National Forests Management Act to find a
way to resolve these kinds of disputes.
Unfortunately, these laws merely created even more
incentives for members of the public to polarize over national
forest issues. Well, in 1997--with the help of Doug Crandall,
who at the time was working with the American Forest and Paper
Association, and Andy Stahl, who still is working with the
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics--I pulled
together about two dozen environmentalists, industry leaders,
Forest Service officials, and other forest experts, in a group
that called itself the Forest Options Group.
This group agreed that the Forest Service today is broken,
but we could not quite agree on how to fix it. There were a lot
of proposals on the table. We had decided the best way to find
out which way to fix the Forest Service was to experiment with
some of these proposals.
Now, the group's 1999 report is called ``The Second Century
Report.'' I have copies that I can provide you, if you would
like copies. There are copies also available online at
www.ti.org/2c.html.
Now, the group decided to experiment with some of these
ideas, and we feel it is appropriate to experiment. Some people
have suggested that we should not experiment with national
forest resources, but in fact we have been experimenting for
100 years with these national forests, experimenting with
scientific management, experimenting with land-use planning,
experimenting with management by court order. And these
experiments have all largely failed, in most people's opinions.
So what kinds of experiments did the Forest Options Group
want to do? Well, we, first of all, agreed that we needed to
get back to a decentralized system. But I want to distinguish
between decentralization and local control. None of the people
in the Forest Options Group advocated local control in the
sense of turning forests over to local interests. Instead, we
advocated decentralization in the sense that on-the-ground
decisions must be made in response to on-the-ground conditions,
not in response to whims that happen inside the Beltway, which
might be thousands of miles from the national forests.
So decentralization was No. 1. But beyond that, we felt
that we needed new methods of governance to overcome the
polarization problems, and new methods of public involvement.
And second, we needed new methods of budgeting that gave the
forest managers different incentives. Instead of incentives to
lose money and clearcut, they should have incentives to make
money and to take a wide variety of resources into account.
So we talked about collaborative management, about which
several other speakers have testified. But we also talked about
two other fundamental ideas that should be experimented with.
First of all, self-funding, funding forests out of their
own revenues, rather than out of appropriations. Self-funding
would give forest managers a completely different set of
incentives, including incentives to not sell timber when it
loses money or other resources when they lose money, and to
consider the values of other resources that are marketed--
recreation, wildlife, even water can be marketed on some
national forests.
A second idea that we considered was trusts. And I want to
emphasize that we were talking about fiduciary trusts. A
fiduciary trust is a legal structure in the common law that is
different than other people have talked about.
For example, the Valles Caldera Trust and Presidio Trust
are not true fiduciary trusts. In order to have a fiduciary
trust, you need to have a beneficiary and you need to have
other certain legal requirements. Neither the Valles Caldera
Trust nor the Presidio Trust have a beneficiary, so they are
not true fiduciary trusts.
Once you have a true fiduciary trust, you have a completely
different institutional structure and completely different
legal standards that alter the incentives facing forest
managers and also alter the incentives facing forest users, and
hopefully it will help bring people together.
Now, Dr. Sally Fairfax was on the Forest Options Group, and
she helped us put together the idea of trusts, and she has also
worked with me on another idea that we have developed since the
Forest Options Group, and this is a friends of the forest idea.
It is a new avenue of public involvement. Instead of being
involved by writing letters to your national forest in response
to an environmental impact statement, you would get involved by
joining the ``Friends of the Grand Mesa Forest'' or the
``Friends of the Bitterroot National Forest'' or whatever
forest.
Members of the friends of the forest would have a say in
how the forest was managed. They would get to vote for some of
the members of the board of trustees of that national forest,
first of all. Second, they would monitor the forests, and each
year publish a monitoring report on how well the forest is
doing. And third, if they felt that the charter forest for that
particular forest plan was not working, they could vote to
terminate the forest and tell Congress, ``This is not working.
Let's just pull the plug and go back to the old way.''
So the friends of forest provides people with a new way of
participating in forest management that we do not see today.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I am sympathetic to
some of the objections raised by Mr. Anderson of The Wilderness
Society. There are potential hazards. It is significant that
Mr. Anderson did not criticize any of the proposals raised by
the Forest Options Group, because we feel that our proposals
have overcome these hazards. We have put enough safeguards in
to protect the national forests even as we try new ways of
governance and budgeting. And I think Congress should encourage
these new methods.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Toole follows:]
Statement of Randal O'Toole, Senior Economist, The Thoreau Institute
For more than thirty years, national forest management has been a
source of controversy and community strife. Environmentalists have
focused on clearcutting, below-cost timber sales, overgrazing, and road
construction as causes of problems with fish and wildlife, water
quality, recreation, and aesthetics. Resource users have focused on
commodity outputs, forest health, community stability, and fire control
problems.
In 1997 I helped to bring together nearly two-dozen
environmentalists, resource users, Forest Service officials, and forest
experts to find a way to resolve these problems. The Forest Options
Group, as the group called itself, agreed that national forest
controversies stemmed from a variety of sources and noted that several
solutions have been proposed to address these problems.
The only way to find the correct solution or combination of
solutions, the group agreed, was to test the proposals on selected
national forests. In its 1999 final report, the Forest Options Group
proposed testing various reforms on selected pilot forests on one or
two forests each. The group's entire report can be read at http://
www.ti.erg/2c.html.
Since the Bush administration endorsed the idea of pilot charter
forests last February, most people have used the term charter forests.
My testimony will use pilot forests and charter forests
interchangeably.
The Forest Options Group proposed five pilot proposals, but the
group recognized that many variations are possible. The details of the
five pilots are less important than the fundamental elements that went
into those pilots.
Collaborative management is one of those fundamental elements, and
two of the five Forest Options Group pilots proposed to test variations
of collaborative governance. But the group also urged that two other
important ideas be tested: self funding and trusts.
Self funding is based on research that I and other people did in
the 1980s. My 1988 book, Reforming the Forest Service, shows that most
if not all national forest controversies result from the incentives
that face forest managers and users. Most of these incentives are
derived from the Forest Service budgetary process.
For example, the Knutson-Vandenberg (K-V) Act is a well-intentioned
law that allows national forest managers to keep an unlimited share of
timber receipts to spend on reforestation and, after 1976, other sale
area improvements. This law has the unfortunate effect of rewarding
forest managers who lose money on timber sales. It also promotes
clearcutting when other cutting methods may be as effective and, from
an aesthetic viewpoint, far superior.
The law works this way. Sale preparation and road engineering costs
are paid out of appropriations. In the 1980s these costs averaged about
$50 per thousand board feet. If the Forest Service sold a timber sale
for, say, $100 per thousand board feet, it would appear to earn a $50
profit per thousand.
In fact, managers can keep as much of the receipts as they need for
reforestation and other activities, while the Treasury gets whatever
revenues are left over. Managers soon come to regard any revenues
turned over to the Treasury as losses because they lose control of
those funds. So they arrange timber sales to maximize their budgets and
minimize returns to the Treasury. This means that the Treasury often
gets far less than the $50 per thousand it put up for the sale.
The fact that the Washington, regional, and supervisors offices all
get a share of K-V funds for overhead gives every level of the Forest
Service hierarchy an incentive to lose money. Since Congress expanded
the use of K-V funds to include wildlife, recreation, and other
resources, non-timber resource experts bought into the K-V process in
order to get funds for their activities. This resulted in a loss of
critical perspective over timber sale design.
For example, the K-V process favors clearcutting over other cutting
methods because clearcutting imposes higher reforestation costs than
shelterwood or selection cutting. A few forest types such as lodgepole
pine do well with clearcutting. But most forest types, including
Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine, would do just as well if not better
with other cutting methods.
In 1950, most national forests were proud that they did not use
clearcutting because of its aesthetic and environmental costs. But by
1970 the K-V fund had pushed most forests to adopt clearcutting as
their major harvest method. The subsequent debate over clearcutting led
Congress to pass RPA and NFMA.
The K-V fund also influenced the debate over roads and roadless
areas. While wilderness users regarded roads as an irreversible
destruction of the resources they valued most, the Forest Service
hastened to build roads as fast as possible because it feared that it
would lose the option to earn K-V funds in the roadless areas. In
effect, the K-V fund produced a strong bias in favor of overcutting and
against any resource that conflicted with timber.
The K-V fund is less important today because of lower timber sale
levels, but the law is still on the books and this fund and other funds
like it (salvage sale fund, brush disposal fund, road maintenance fund)
still contribute more than $200 million a year to national forest
budgets. This gives environmentalists good reasons to distrust any
Forest Service pronouncements about the need to cut trees for forest
health or any other purposes.
Another perverse incentive comes from a law that has been repealed;
yet it still influences national forest management. In 1908, Congress
created the emergency fire suppression fund, which essentially gave the
Forest Service a blank check for putting out wildfires. Wildfire expert
Stephen Pyne writes that this fund ``gave the Forest Service power, and
this power subtly corrupted the Forest Service.'' The 1920s and 1930s
saw a vigorous debate both inside and outside the Forest Service over
the value of prescribed burning and of letting natural wildfires burn
in remote areas. As described in Ashley Schiff's 1961 book, Fire and
Water, the fire suppression fund so biased the Forest Service against
prescribed fire that it distorted its research results to support its
view.
Given unlimited funds, the Service set a goal of suppressing every
fire by 10 am after the fire is detected. The agency often spent
enormous resources and risked the lives of many firefighters to fight
fires that, in retrospect, not only would have done little damage but
would have maintained and improved forest health.
Meanwhile, the agency campaigned hard against prescribed burning on
private lands, often calling the people who did such burning
``vandals.'' Today, we call them ``ecosystem managers'' or ``forest
health specialists.''
Congress repealed the emergency fire suppression fund in the 1980s,
but it still reimburses the Forest Service after an expensive fire
season. Although Forest Service officials today all agree that fires
are a natural part of many forest ecosystems and that fire suppression
has led to a decline in forest health, the agency still has an out-by-
10 o'clock mentality which contributed to the deaths of four Washington
state firefighters who were assigned to put out a fire last summer in
an area where planners had said that fires should be allowed to burn.
Based on these and other observations, I concluded in Reforming the
Forest Service that genuine reforms would happen only when budgetary
incentives were changed. The best way to do this is to fund forests out
of their own income rather than out of tax dollars. Funding out of
fixed share of receipts would discourage below-cost activities and
level the playing field between timber and other marketable resources
such as recreation, fish and game, and even (depending on local water
laws) water quality.
The trust idea is based on research done by Professor Sally Fairfax
and her colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley in the
1980s and 1990s. Concerned that the debate over Federal land management
focused on an overly narrow range of institutions, Dr. Fairfax studied
state lands and found that they were often managed as fiduciary trusts.
This structure is very different from the Federal land model and
produces a very different set of outcomes.
Many institutions may be called trusts, but they are not true
fiduciary trusts unless they include all of the following elements:
A settlor, i.e., the creator of the trust;
A trust instrument that expresses the intent or goal of
the trust;
A trust asset that is to be managed to meet the goal of
the trust;
A trust beneficiary; and
A trustee or trustees.
The Valles Caldera Trust, for example, has no specified
beneficiary, and thus the courts would probably not interpret it to be
a fiduciary trust. On the other hand, something that has the above
elements would probably be interpreted as a trust even if the word
``trust'' did not appear in its name.
When a trust is established it invokes an enormous range of rules,
defined over centuries in British common law and more recently in
American common law, codified with some state-by-state variations, and
which are enforceable in the courts. Among these rules is the principle
of undivided loyalty, that is, that the trustee cannot divert trust
resources to anyone but the beneficiary.
The trustee is also held fully accountable for trust management
and, in a sort of freedom-of-information act, must make trust records
available to the beneficiary. Trust accountability is exactly the
opposite of Federal land manager accountability. The Supreme Court
gives deference to Federal land managers unless they clearly violate
the law. But trust law assumes that trustees will be tempted to better
themselves at the expense of beneficiaries and gives deference to
beneficiaries who challenge trustee management, not to the trust
managers.
This transfer of deference from the managers to the beneficiaries
can actually lead to less controversy and litigation as long as trust
goals are clearly stated. The trust goal may be to maximize profits,
recover an endangered species, or restore an historic site. The clarity
of this goal combined with trust accountability should greatly reduce
controversy and litigation.
Trust law also requires the trustees of perpetual trusts (as
national forests trusts would be) to always preserve the corpus of the
trust. This turns out to be a stronger sustained yield requirement than
the Federal Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, which the courts
say, ``breathes with discretion at every pore.''
Once the trust is created, the settlor no longer has a say in trust
management unless the trust instrument specifically provides a way for
the settlor to terminate the trust. For national forests, this would
depoliticize trust management. But it also means that Congress would
need to include a way to terminate trusts if the trusts are deemed
unsuccessful. I propose one such method below.
The Forest Options Group developed a pilot forest that creatively
uses trust law to manage and protect both marketable resources, such as
timber and recreation, and non-marketable resources, such as many
endangered species. The pilot or charter forest would be managed to
produce maximum revenues for the beneficiary. To reinforce this goal,
the forest would be funded out of its net receipts, thus giving
managers an incentive to earn a profit.
The beneficiary would be a second entity, perhaps itself a trust,
whose goal is to maximize non-market stewardship values. The non-market
trust would use the revenues from the forest trust, plus any other
revenues it could produce from, say, foundations and donations, to give
forest trust managers an incentive to produce non-market resources.
The non-market trust could, for example, buy conservation easements
on the forest or pay the forest to do certain forest health or
ecosystem restoration projects. Separating the for-profit forest trust
and the non-market trust ensures that trust managers have clear goals
and do not face a conflict of interest when deciding how to manage the
resources in their care.
Dr. Fairfax and I are also concerned that existing public
involvement processes create incentives for polarization. The forest
planning process gives interest groups incentives to be as extreme in
their views as possible for both fundraising purposes (since any group
that fails to be extreme is portrayed as selling out) and to push the
apparent center in their direction.
Forest Service managers benefit from this polarization because it
gives them maximum discretion to do what they want and still appear to
be in the middle. The old saw that ``if everyone is unhappy I must be
doing something right'' simply encourages managers to make everyone
unhappy.
Collaborative groups aim to find a method of public involvement
that brings people together rather than drives them apart. Other
methods of public involvement can also be considered.
User fees provide an alternative form of public involvement.
Instead of expressing your preference for a certain form of management
by writing letters and filing appeals, you express your preferences by
paying fees for the things you like. Anyone who has been to a
supermarket lately can see how well this system works in providing an
abundant diversity of goods and services.
But user fees may not be entirely satisfactory in national forest
management, when many resources are not marketable. To supplement fees,
Sally and I have proposed the creation of ``friends of the forest''
groups for at least some pilot forests. You can find the details of
this proposal, which Dr. Fairfax and I developed since the Forest
Options Group published its report, at http://www.free-eco.org/rfp/pdf/
SF-ROT-U.pdf.
Under our friends proposal, a friends of the forest group would
monitor the pilot forest. Anyone could join the friends group by paying
a nominal annual fee, such as ten or twenty dollars a year, thus
insuring that the people who most care about a forest, no matter where
they live, would have a say in forest management.
The friends group would also have three important powers. First, it
could elect some of the members of the pilot forest board of directors.
Other members might be appointed by the secretary of agriculture or the
governor of the state in which the forest is located, but having the
friends group elect some members would give the directors a perspective
that reflects the national, regional, and local interest in that
forest.
Second, the friends group would monitor pilot forest performance
and publish an annual report on that performance. This would give the
forest trustees a special incentive to pay attention to the concerns of
the friends group.
Third, if members of the friends group believed that the pilot was
failing to do a good job of stewardship, a vote of the majority or
supermajority of the group could recommend to Congress that the pilot
be terminated. This would provide people with assurance that charter
forests will not somehow get out of control.
This would also be an excellent way for Congress to allow
termination of trusts. Until the friends group votes to terminate a
trust, Congress would keep its hands off. But if the trust fails to
live up to expectations, the friends group could make its vote and
Congress could terminate the trust.
Friends groups could do additional things such as collect donations
and use those funds to do worthwhile projects on the forest. But their
most important jobs would be to elect board members, monitor the pilot,
and be prepared to terminate the pilot if it fails.
The friends group might an alternative to a collaborative board of
directors. Otherwise, however, collaborative management, self funding,
and trusts are three different but not mutually exclusive ideas. All
three could be tested alone or together in various permutations. We
could test collaborative trusts, self-funding collaborative management,
or self-funding collaborative trusts.
Some people have suggested that it is not appropriate to use a
valuable public resource such as the national forests for such
experimentation. But we have been experimenting with national forests
ever since they were created.
It was a great experiment to give the national forests to
scientific foresters in 1905. This experiment seemed to be succeeding
in the 1950s but seemed to be failing (probably because of budgetary
incentives) by the 1970s. Congress then turned the forests over to the
land-use planners, a huge experiment that clearly failed in the 1980s.
In the 1990s the administration turned the forests over to wildlife
biologists and other scientists, an experiment in progress that has not
clearly failed but is not holding much promise. Outside forces are also
experimenting with forest management by litigation and court order, an
experiment that some would say is succeeding but most would not.
It is foolish to conduct such experiments, one at a time, on the
entire 192-million acre National Forest System. What the Forest Options
Group recommends is a systematic program of testing various proposed
reforms on one or two forests at a time so that the results of these
experiments can be compared and, if successful, applied to other
forests. Instead of conducting one experiment each generation, we can
conduct dozens of experiments in a decade.
To carry out these experiments, the Forest Options Group proposed
several common features for all of the pilot forests.
The forests would be exempt from following Forest Service
manual and handbook provisions and memo direction, but would still be
required to obey all laws and regulations (with possible exemptions
from FACA and other purely administrative laws).
All pilots would have open-bucket budgeting, meaning they
would not have to deal with fifty to seventy-five different line items
in their budgets.
All would nominally report to an Office of Pilot Projects
(or, as some have called it, ``Region 7'') rather than to their
geographic regional offices.
Most of the pilots would be allowed to charge a full
range of user fees subject to valid existing rights.
Self-funding pilots would get seed money equal to 175
percent of their recent annual budget and would be allowed to carry
over unspent funds to future years. They would also enjoy a safety net
equal to half of their recent budget.
Pilot forest tests would last for a minimum of five
years, and even more time may be needed to truly determine the success
of many tests.
Although the Forest Options Group did not suggest it, I would
suggest that the Forest Service create an expedited appeals process for
the pilot forests. This would preserve the public's right to appeal
forest decisions but give managers a rapid resolution to those appeals.
The group realized that these ground rules alone represent
significant changes that could themselves form a charter forest. But
making these changes alone would fail to address the problems of
accountability and incentives that led to the controversies and the
creation of the existing Forest Service hierarchy, a lengthy Forest
Service Manual, and a line-item budget. The rest of the Forest Options
Group pilot proposals are aimed at addressing these problems.
The Forest Options Group developed a detailed plan for selecting
and implementing pilots that would encourage local forest managers and
users to develop pilot proposals. The secretary of agriculture would
select pilots in consultation with congressional delegations and state
governors. Congress should encourage the secretary to select a full
range of possible pilots.
The name charter forests obviously calls to mind charter schools,
and since charter schools are controversial this may be unfortunate.
But I briefly reviewed the literature behind charter schools and
educational reform in general and found some interesting parallels
between educational reform and forest reform.
School reformers agree that educational problems lie in overly
centralized and regulated school systems, the lack of incentives for
schools and teachers to do a good job, and funding problems. In Fixing
Urban Schools, Paul Hill and Mary Beth Celio say that educational
reform strategies must respond to each of these problems through
deregulation/decentralization, new incentives, and new funding systems.
This is almost precisely the findings of the Forest Options Group with
respect to the national forests. Thus, the term charter forests
accurately represents the goals of the Forest Options Group.
In conclusion, Congress should give the secretary the authority to
test a broad range of pilots. The Forest Options Group recognized that
the Forest Service could test some pilots without specific
Congressional authority. But the crucial idea of a fiduciary trust
would require specific Congressional authorization, and Congress should
give that authorization to the secretary while insuring that the trust
can be terminated in some way if necessary. The group also felt that
specific Congressional direction to test a broad range of charter
forests might be needed to motivate the Forest Service to do so.
Beyond authorization, Congress should require that the Forest
Service test a full range of alternative pilots, and not just ones
likely to increase a national forest's budget. Self-funded pilots are
likely to have smaller budgets than pilots that keep both
appropriations and user fees, so anyone proposing a pilot will be
tempted to ask for both user fees and continued appropriations from
Congress.
We should accept for the possibility that there is no one-size-
fits-all solution to national forest ills. Collaborative management may
work on some forests but not others. Self funding may be appropriate
for many forests, but some may not be able to generate enough revenues
for basic resource stewardship. Trusts may be appropriate in many
cases, but not in others.
National forests are complex systems, and if people say there are
simple solutions to national forest problems, they are fooling
themselves. To find out which tools work and where they work best,
Congress should encourage the Forest Service to do as many experiments
as possible.
Finally, I would urge you to think about the distinction between
decentralization and local control. Charter forests have been widely
portrayed in the press and by opponents as turning control of national
forests over to local residents. I don't know of a single pilot or
charter forest advocate who wants to do this.
Instead, supporters of collaborative management, self funding, and
trusts all support decentralization. Decentralization does not mean
local control. It means making decisions in response to local forest
conditions as well as local, regional, and national values, and not in
response to political whims that emerge from inside the beltway.
The June 2, 1952, issue of Newsweek magazine featured Smokey the
Bear on its cover. Noting that national forest management actually
produced a profit in 1951, Newsweek called the Forest Service ``one of
Uncle Sam's soundest and most businesslike investments'' and added,
``Most congressmen would as soon abuse their own mothers as be unkind
to the Forest Service.'' The magazine credited the agency's success,
profitability, and popularity to the fact that it was decentralized.
The centralization of the agency in the 1970s has played a key role in
its failure since that time.
On-the-ground national forest managers are greatly frustrated over
their inability to get anything done. One district ranger told me that
his entire permanent work force spends all its time fulfilling data
requests from Washington, DC. Many of these managers are eager to try
charter forest ideas, and I hope that Congress will give them that
opportunity.
______
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. O'Toole.
Mr. Otter. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Duncan. Yes?
Mr. Otter. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that
the report referred to by the gentleman be put in the official
record.
Mr. Duncan. Without objection, that will be so ordered.
[The report referred to has been retained in the
Committee's official files and is also available online at
www.ti.org/2c.html:]
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. O'Toole.
Mr. Thompson, it was previously announced that you would
not testify. You have sat there politely listening to these
other five gentlemen. Do you have any thoughts or comments that
you would like to make before we proceed with the questions?
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would only say that I think, in listening to their
testimony, the elements of importance have all been raised:
collaboration, community, being responsive, trying to be
innovative, looking at this proposal to have a dialog, and to
try to determine collectively what is the best approach, and
are there some things we can try to do differently than we have
been able to figure out in other ways.
And we certainly look forward to participating in this, and
contributing and helping to frame something that works and
makes good sense for the American public and the treasures that
they have within their national forests system.
We look forward to this dialog. It is a very important
point in time, I think.
Mr. Duncan. Well, very kind, inoffensive, middle-of-the-
road statement.
[Laughter.]
Thank you.
We will go for first questions to Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
First I want to say how much we miss the eloquence of
former Congressman Williams on this Committee and in the House.
We really do miss it.
But I want to alert the Committee members, there is some
disturbing news when you judge his credibility. I learned
yesterday that he is New York Yankees fan, and it is something
that you should consider in considering his testimony.
[Laughter.]
I want to ask about the Lakeview project, and what I wanted
to ask is how that would compare to what various proponents of
these ideas would have for statutory changes and how that has
progressed without statutory changes or rulemaking changes to
that matter.
Mr. Anderson. The Lakeview collaboration has not been
handicapped by existing laws, in my opinion. The Fremont
National Forest fortunately has a policy that is quite
comparable to the goals of our collaborative group, which is
primarily hydrologic restoration in the Fremont National
Forest. And so we have really had no problems in terms of
needing to have responsibility taken away from the forest
supervisor and vested within our organization.
The main problem that we have encountered is shifting from
a timber production emphasis within the Fremont National Forest
to a restoration emphasis. And that is a transition that the
local community of Lakeview needs help with. The workers are
unable to get the contracts, so they go outside of the
community to more of the itinerant contractors in the region.
So they need to be able to obtain the skills. They need to
learn how to deal with these different kinds of contracts, when
you have restoration work.
The other problem is simply that the Forest Service needs
the funding to do the restoration projects. They had a lot of
restoration work on the Fremont that simply was sitting on the
shelf because it was unfunded. Fortunately, in the last year,
the county payments, resource advisory Committee funding, that
Congress approved a couple of years ago, is starting to make
more of those restoration projects possible.
But certainly, if we are going really to do the job on
restoration, it is going to take more. And I think there is a
great deal of opportunity for collaboration to work and for
restoration to happen in this area, with additional
encouragement from Congress, primarily in terms of funding.
But in terms of new legislation, I do not see it as a need.
I am not familiar with the bill that you were talking about
earlier that is, I think, focused on New Mexico, but it sounds
like it could have some opportunities for broad applications in
places like Lakeview or perhaps nationwide.
Mr. Inslee. Mr. O'Toole, I was listening to your comments
about decentralization. And as I understand it, your kind of
thrust is that there is a general precept that you would allow
local Forest Service managers to have move control of their own
budget and would give them additional flexibility, I would
assume, in trying to generate revenues from other than resource
extraction. And I assume you mean recreational charges, and
maybe there are charges for clean water. There are all kinds of
assets that we now provide to the American people from Forest
Service lands for which we do not charge a thing, including the
production of clean water or open space, assisting in clean air
efforts, and heretofore, until we had the ill-advised, in my
view, fee system, the ability to recreate.
Would this lead to, if we were going to go down that path,
to increasing capture of that economic value, which means
increasing charges to the American people for enjoying these
national assets?
Mr. O'Toole. Well, the Forest Options Group actually
proposed five different pilots, and two of the pilots
emphasized changing incentives in the way you talk about. Two
of them dealt with collaborative groups, and a fifth pilot
actually dealt with recreation fees in a special and unique
way.
But basically, for the self-funding forests, yes, we do
envision that forests would be allowed to charge a wide range
of fees. The reason for that is not because we want to charge
the American people more money or double tax them. But we want
to give forest managers a new set of incentives.
Looking at the history of the Forest Service, it is clear
that the Forest Service has emphasized timber because timber is
the only resource that the Forest Service has been allowed to
charge fair market value for and keep the receipts. And if you
only let it keep the receipts from one resource, it is going to
emphasize that resource. If you let it charge for a variety of
resources, and keep a share of the receipts, not all the
receipts but some of the receipts from those resources, it will
want to do multiple use. You cannot have multiple use without
multiple incentives.
Now, we also proposed a number of other safeguards. We
proposed that each of the charter forests would have to comply
with all existing environmental laws and regulations and all
other laws, with the possible exception of slight exemptions
from FACA and special administrative laws, but that they would
be exempt from dealing with the Forest Service manual,
handbook, and memo provisions. We said they should have open-
bucket budgeting, so they did not have to deal with 50 to 75
different line items, and they should be able to carry over
funds from year to year, and so on and so forth.
Now, our main goal is to see that a full range of charter
forest ideas are adopted. And we agree with Mr. Anderson; many
of these ideas could be done without new legislation. The trust
idea could not be done without new legislation. And we felt
that, if Congress did authorize the Forest Service to do
charter forests and direct them to do a full range of charter
forests, we would be better off than if we just relied on the
Forest Service to do some forests within their limited
authorization today.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. O'Toole.
I will come back to Mr. Inslee in a few minutes, but now we
need to go to Governor Otter for the questions he has.
Mr. Otter. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. O'Toole, I am really interested in that process that
you went through when you said you had a couple of dozen
stakeholders that all represented different elements of
interest in the forest, and that included the environmental
community, that included certainly the Forest Service
themselves. Am I right?
Mr. O'Toole. Yes.
Mr. Otter. And it also included the private sector?
Mr. O'Toole. Yes.
Mr. Otter. And from that, you generated the report that I
think we just put in the record? Is that right?
Mr. O'Toole. Yes.
Mr. Otter. Have you read the Idaho Public Lands official
report that they put out?
Mr. O'Toole. Yes.
Mr. Otter. And does that compare at all with your results?
Mr. O'Toole. There are a lot of parallels. Some of their
pilots are very close to some of our pilots. We did have one
member in common, between the two groups. And both Dr. Fairfax
and I did get a chance to talk to the Idaho group while they
were doing their deliberations, so there was some cross-
semination going on there as well.
If Congress does authorize charter forests, I would see the
Idaho proposals as being some of the proposals that will be
bubbling up from the ground as things that would be considered
as potential charter forests.
Mr. Otter. I see. I think there was an assessment in that
report as well, or maybe it was an adjunct report, of what
happens if we do nothing. Did you read that section of the
report?
Mr. O'Toole. Yes, and I think that there are serious
problems if we do nothing. As I said, we have been
experimenting with national forest management for 100 years,
and it is pretty clear that the experiments that we have been
doing have failed. And we have serious ecological problems in
national forests. We have forest health and ecosystem problems.
Fire is a major problem that we have not yet figured out how to
deal with.
Even though we all know that prescribed burning is
necessary in some forests, the Forest Service still pretty much
has an out by 10 o'clock mentality, meaning they suppress all
fires instead of letting some burn.
So if you look at the full range of what the Forest Service
is doing, I see problems everywhere, and I want to see some of
these experiments done on the ground to find out just which way
is going to help us find our way out of these problems.
Mr. Otter. We have not made, although we have requested,
from this Subcommittee, an assessment of the environmental
damage of the 880,000 acres that were burned in Idaho 3 years
ago. And the question was, if we had gone in and implemented
some of these management plans, or a management plan similar to
that, would we have done a lot less environmental damage if we
had gone in and thinned and actually gone through the process
of thinning the forest out and indeed harvesting some of the
forest to reduce the amount of basal load on the forest ground
itself?
But I suspect--and do you think my suspicion is correct or
not?--that the environmental damage done by that fire and the
resulting erosion and resulting siltation in our spawning beds
for the salmon, and the contributaries to the Clearwater, the
Snake and the Salmon, are probably going to be a lot worse off
if we had managed that 880,000 acres under one of these
programs than if we just let it burn?
Mr. O'Toole. Well, I am sure there is some environmental
damage, but I am especially concerned about the damage that is
being done by continued fire suppression efforts. It would cost
a lot of money to thin every single acre of the national forest
system, but what we are doing now is spending enormous amounts
of money--the typical thing is they spend $5 million to stop a
fire because it is threatening a shack that costs $50,000. The
Forest Service's goal is to prevent any damage to structures
outside the forest, so they spend enormous amounts of money
doing that, including doing backfires that end up extending the
size of the fire to a much larger area.
So the environmental damage of those fires is a short-run
problem. The long-run problem is that we are not doing anything
to prevent it in the future. And I think there are ways of
preventing it, including letting some of these fires burn, as
well as doing the thinnings, building the defensible fire
perimeters, and maybe taking some of the fire fighters off the
line, instead of putting their lives at risk.
Mr. Otter. Couldn't we preselect those areas where we felt
that fire was probably the best management plan? In Idaho, it
is nothing to get 1,400 lightening strikes in a single night.
And if we had areas that a fire started, and we had
predetermined through a management plan that ``Let's just let
that burn,'' but let's set up a defense where we do not want it
to go, because I can tell you that 880,000 acres that burned in
Idaho, especially in the overgrowth areas, where the basal
measurement was well over 600 square feet per acre, that that
has calcined the earth. And it has burned every possible growth
producer right out of the soil, up to 16 to 18 inches deep.
And I can also tell you that I have been on Slate Creek,
which is a contributary to the St. Joe, and that fire went
through there in 1912, and there are reaches in the Slate Creek
drainage that there is nothing that grows yet today as a result
of that fire and because of the overload of fuel that was
available. And it calcined the earth there in 1912, and that is
90 years ago, and there is still nothing growing in there.
So I think part of the management plan that we are talking
about, and part of the Idaho report suggested as much, that
perhaps there are areas that were best left alone and just let
them burn. But there other areas where we need to suppress.
And my time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Governor Otter.
Mr. Udall?
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Williams, good to have you back here with us. We miss
your bipartisan approach to things.
You have made a case in your statement for why we need a
new law in this particular area. And I am wondering, you look
at some of the history here, and you see forest supervisors who
are out there, who are trying to be creative and pull people
together and build consensus, and then because of a political
situation, either Members or Congress or others, they are
removed from their jobs and building that consensus. So one
argument could be made that this is a management problem and
that you do not have the proper management and that you do not
need a new law.
Could you make the case for the Committee why you think
there needs to be a new law to address the issues that are
before us?
Mr. Williams. Congressman Udall, I think that in a number
of instances, some described by members of this panel and other
instances with which the members of this Committee are
familiar, there are a number of experiments, a number of
models, a number of unique projects, going on throughout the
public's land in this country, most of them collaborative
efforts and many of them quite successful, some not. The groups
just are not mature enough as collaborators to pull them off.
It seems to me that those models now have been going on, to
some degree or another, for a couple of decades. And I believe
that the Congress could learn from those models, just as the
Forest Service learns from those models, particularly those in
which it involves itself.
So I am saying to the Congress: Let's formalize a process
to take advantage of not only that learning curve, but to
encourage and permit through a competitive process some blue-
ribbon collaborative processes to gain the Congress's attention
and, therefore, national recognition.
The other reason is why I read out those headlines. We need
some congressional encouragement and recognition of our
difficulties out there, our frazzled nerve-endings, political
nerve-endings. We need some recognition of the great transition
that is going on, particularly in the Northern Rockies.
The Northern Rockies, whether we like it or not, is in an
inevitable transition from an extractive economy to an economy
of conservation and restoration. It is an inevitable as that
the sun will come up again tomorrow morning. And it has to do
with world price and productivity and the end of the easy
resource. And so we ought to take advantage of that fact by
helping people get through the transition.
Now, if I may, Mr. Udall, use your time to just say a word
about what Congressman Otter said, and I am sorry that he had
to leave.
Our experience in Montana with regard to the fire is
different than his, and I recognize that he has likely
described his fire experience accurately. But ours if very
different.
We are just over the ridge from him, where we had a massive
fire in and around what is called the Bitterroot Range. That
fire burned wildly and destructively through areas that had
been thinned and had been logged and had been roaded. And those
fires were worse than his.
And so it has more to do than just with this simplistic
notion--and I do not say that derogatorily--with this
simplistic notion that, ``Oh, if you just thin it out and
vacuum the forest, you are not going to have fire.'' Fire is as
inevitable as that economic transition going on in the Northern
Rockies.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Thank you. One of the parts of
this that I think that you are saying and emphasizing is the
idea that some of these management problems, we cannot get
through them by letting Forest Service people just run the
show. What you are saying is that if we had a bipartisan piece
of legislation that told the Forest Service in a very direct
way, ``We want you to experiment. We want the so-called Region
7 to go out and look in a big way, in a competitive way, at
doing this,'' that we would somehow sow the seeds for that kind
of creativity and innovation, whereas today, we do not have
that.
Could you comment on that, what it is that we are lacking
right now in this situation?
Mr. Williams. Well, I would disagree with some that the
system is broken. I do not believe it is, either the
congressional system or the forest system.
But you meet daily because you know that there is necessary
of repair and amendment and change. The Forest Service is not a
change-maker. Bureaucrats are not aligned to make change, to
make new policy. That is your job. They are stuck with whatever
you give them. And I disagree that their system is broken.
But it does seem to me that because they do not make
change, and the Congress is a little bit gridlocked in trying
to find out how to make change on the public's land, we have
created what might be seen as Gordian knots, where both
industry people and environmentalists agree that there could be
some solutions to local forest problems or local land use
problems. But it is a Gordian legal knot.
I think that the Congress, without lowering environmental
standards, through this Region 7 concept or whatever concept
you finally derive, could find a way to cut through those
Gordian knots.
Why should we have to open up NEPA to solve a single local
problem? Why should we have to open up the Northwest Old Growth
Forest Act just to figure out how to solve an old growth forest
problem in a couple of counties in the Pacific Northwest?
We could use these pilot projects as ways to untie those
knots without having to open up major acts. And it would seem
to me that a master group that chose among competitive models
could give priority to some of these areas that have these
Gordian knots, and use experiments to get them untied.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Udall.
I understand Mr. Thune has a statement at this time.
Mr. Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
allowing me to be here today. I am not a member of this
important Committee, but this is an issue which is of great
importance to my constituents. In fact, my constituents
continue to be frustrated by the current decisionmaking
gridlock that exists in the Forest Service and especially as it
pertains to the Black Hills National Forest.
Unfortunately, because of the gridlock, Forest Service
employees have had their hands tied and have not been able to
effectively manage forest health and fire prevention. And as a
result of that, there are two areas in the Black Hills National
Forest that are at very high risk of wildfires during the
coming fire season, putting public safety and private property
at risk.
In South Dakota, the Forest Service has been working for 7
years to complete a 10-year forest management plan for the
Black Hills National Forest, and they are currently working on
the phase 2 amendment of this plan and were supposed to finish
the plan this year. When my constituents came to me frustrated
after learning that phase 2 was not going to be finished until
late 2004, I decided to find a solution. And I am working,
trying to find funds to contract the work needed to complete
the plan in a more timely way.
That is why I am very excited to see this concept
introduced by this Committee. I think it is a common-sense idea
that local officials and citizens can provide assistance and
ideas to the management of the national forests. In my
judgment, that is something that is long overdue.
Clearly, the people on the ground in the communities who
use the forests for recreation or business know how to best
utilize those forests. And in fact, Mr. Chairman, I wrote a
letter to this Committee earlier this year, urging the
Committee to move forward with legislation that would create a
charter forest within the United States Forest Service and I
want to lend any support I can to you in moving this proposal
forward, and furthermore would say that I believe the Black
Hills National Forest would be an excellent choice to be
considered as one of the first charter forests.
I am a longtime believer in enhancing local control of
public lands. Mr. Chairman, I encourage you and this Committee
to create a locally driven trust to mange the Black Hills
National Forest, consisting in part of Federal land and
resource managers, local officials, and other private
stakeholders. I believe that local involvement will create a
decisionmaking process that is driven more by results and less
by the process itself.
So as this moves forward, I just urge you to continue to
develop this concept, put forward legislation, and, as I said
earlier, the Black Hills National Forests, we are ready,
willing, and anxious for a change, because the current system
is not working. And this year we are at terrible risk of fire.
Something just has to be done. This is more of a long-term
solution. We also need a short-term solution this year.
But I appreciate the work the Committee is doing in trying
to address many of the problems that we are facing. This is
something that is of incredible importance to the people in
South Dakota.
So thank you again, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the panel
today and their testimony as well.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Thune.
We do have three votes going on, on the floor. Let me just
say a couple of things.
I have mentioned in here before that in my home area of
east Tennessee, I was told that in 1978 we have 157 small coal
companies, and now we have none. I have read the same thing
about logging communities out West being devastated and small-
and medium-size logging companies being run out of business. It
seems that when we overregulate in certain areas, first the
small companies go under, then the medium-sized companies, and
then we end up with only a few big giants controlling or
dominating any industry.
I read an article praising the previous administration for
locking up 213 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and then we
have just gone through a battle over ANWR. It seems that are
groups that protest any time we want to dig for any coal or cut
any trees or produce any natural gas or drill for any oil.
I remember when one of those last coal companies was
closing down, I came back from lunch in Knoxville 1 day, and I
saw 125 miners out in front of the Federal regulatory office
there, demonstrating shortly before Christmas, saying, ``Please
let us work.''
And I can tell you that my grandparents had 10 kids and an
outhouse and not much more. And they had almost no money. And
they had a small 25-acre farm in the heart of Appalachia, in
Scott County, Tennessee. And it seems to me that many of these,
as I have called them, environmental extremists come from very
wealthy families. And I am not sure that they understand how
much they hurt the poor and the lower income and the working
people in this country. And I realize that the environmental
groups have done many good things. But I was told in this
Committee 3 years ago or 2 years ago, that in the mid-1980's or
early 1980's we passed a law in the Congress that the
environmental groups wanted, saying we would not cut more than
80 percent of the new growth in the national forests. Now we
are cutting less than one-seventh of then new growth.
We cannot shut down the whole country. We have to somehow
protect the environment, but we also have to preserve jobs for
working people in this country.
And we always hear, ``Go to tourism.'' I don't believe we
can turn the whole country into a tourist attraction.
I was in northern California one time, and I was shown
machinery that could go in and cut down a tree without
disturbing the other tress around it. And so it seems to me
that we somehow have to have balance between people like me,
who want to see jobs for these working people around the
country, and people like The Wilderness Society and others
that, it seems to me, do not want us to do anything. So we have
to hit a middle ground someway.
And so hopefully, with the testimony we heard today and the
collaborative approach that some of you have talked about,
maybe we can reach that middle ground.
But we are not going to hold you back now for these three
votes. We are going to go ahead and end this hearing.
And thank you very much for being here with us today. That
will conclude this hearing.
[Whereupon, at 11:16 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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