[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE PRESIDENT'S HEALTHY FORESTS INITIATIVE AND H.R. 5214, H.R. 5309
AND H.R. 5319
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
September 5, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-150
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
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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 Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Greg Walden, Oregon Hilda L. Solis, California
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho Brad Carson, Oklahoma
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Betty McCollum, Minnesota
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Tim Holden, Pennsylvania
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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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on September 5, 2002................................ 1
Statement of Members:
DeFazio, Hon. Peter A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon............................................ 27
Gallegly, Hon. Elton, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, Prepared statement of................. 104
Hansen, Hon. James V., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Utah.............................................. 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Herger, Hon. Wally, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, Prepared statement of................. 104
McInnis, Hon. Scott, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado.......................................... 6
Prepared statement on H.R. 5319.......................... 8
Miller, Hon. George, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 5
Rehberg, Hon. Dennis R., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Montana....................................... 13
Prepared statement of.................................... 14
Shadegg, Hon. John B., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 15
Prepared statement on H.R. 5309.......................... 17
Scottsdale Tribune article submitted for the record...... 19
Solis, Hon. Hilda, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 36
Udall, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
of New Mexico, Prepared statement of....................... 83
Statement of Witnesses:
Burley, Charles H., President, Burley & Associates, LLC, on
behalf of the American Forest Resource Council............. 44
Prepared statement on the President's Healthy Forests
Initiative............................................. 46
Calahan, David, Retired Firefighter.......................... 54
Prepared statement on the President's Healthy Forests
Initiative............................................. 56
Covington, Dr. William Wallace, Regents' Professor and
Director of the Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern
Arizona University......................................... 39
Prepared statement on the President's Healthy Forests
Initiative............................................. 41
Creal, Dr. Timothy H., Superintendent, Custer School
District, South Dakota, on behalf of the Forest Counties
Payments Committee......................................... 51
Prepared statement on the President's Healthy Forests
Initiative............................................. 53
Norton, Hon. Gale A., Secretary, U.S. Department of the
Interior................................................... 22
Prepared joint statement on the President's Healthy
Forests Initiative..................................... 25
Schulke, Todd, Forest Policy Director, Center for Biological
Diversity.................................................. 61
Prepared statement on the President's Healthy Forests
Initiative............................................. 63
Veneman, Hon. Ann M., Secretary, U.S. Department of
Agriculture................................................ 20
Prepared joint statement on the President's Healthy
Forests Initiative..................................... 25
Additional materials supplied:
Hoppe, The Honorable Diane, Colorado State Representative,
Letter submitted for the record............................ 11
HEARING ON THE PRESIDENT'S HEALTHY FORESTS: AN INITIATIVE FOR
WILDFIRE PREVENTION AND STRONGER COMMUNITIES; AND H.R. 5214, TO
AUTHORIZE AND DIRECT THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE TO TAKE
ACTIONS TO PROMPTLY ADDRESS THE RISK OF FIRE AND INSECT
INFESTATION IN NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM LANDS. (NATIONAL FOREST
FIRE PREVENTION ACT); H.R. 5309, TO AUTHORIZE THE REGIONAL
FORESTERS TO EXEMPT TREE-THINNING PROJECTS, WHICH ARE NECESSARY
TO PREVENT THE OCCURRENCE OF WILDFIRE LIKELY TO CAUSE EXTREME
HARM TO THE FOREST ECOSYSTEM, FROM LAWS THAT GIVE RISE TO LEGAL
CAUSES OF ACTION THAT DELAY OR PREVENT SUCH PROJECTS. (WILDFIRE
PREVENTION AND FOREST HEALTH PROTECTION ACT OF 2002); H.R.
5319, TO IMPROVE CAPACITY OF SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE AND THE
SECRETARY OF INTERIOR TO EXPEDITIOUSLY ADDRESS WILDFIRE PRONE
CONDITIONS ON NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM LANDS AND DEPARTMENT OF
INTERIOR LANDS THAT THREATEN COMMUNITIES, WATERSHEDS, AND OTHER
AT-RISK LANDSCAPES THROUGH ESTABLISHMENT OF EXPEDITED
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS PROCEDURES UNDER NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY ACT OF 1969, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PREDECISIONAL
ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW PROCESS FOR CERTAIN FOREST SERVICE
PROJECTS AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES. (THE HEALTHY FORESTS REFORMS
ACT OF 2002)
----------
Thursday, September 5, 2002
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:34 a.m., in room
1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. James V. Hansen
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
The Chairman. This meeting will come to order.
Mr. Rehberg, it is a pleasure to see you, sir. We are
expecting the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of
Agriculture to walk in, but, as you all know, the traffic was
horrible this morning and everyone is trying to get in here so
they can testify. But we have got a lot of ground to cover
today, so we may move ahead.
Mr. Rehberg, you are going to testify, aren't you? So we
could start with you as soon as we get these opening
statements.
We welcome the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary
of Interior just walking in. Thank you for being here, and I
think you just about made it on time. We understand the traffic
was horrible this morning, and we all had that same problem. We
appreciate you being here.
I will give my opening statement and then turn to the
minority for theirs.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES V. HANSEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF UTAH
The Chairman. So far this year more than 6.3 million acres
of forestland and rangeland have burned in wildland fires. This
is more land than the entire acreage of Maryland, Vermont,
Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut. Sadly, 20 firefighters have died, more than 2,000
homes and structures have been destroyed, and tens of thousands
of people have had to evacuate their homes.
In addition to destroying lives and property, these fires
have decimated millions of acres of habitat, killed millions of
trees and severely damaged watersheds for decades to come.
According to the Forest Service, currently 231 million acres of
the Federal estate are at increased risk of catastrophic forest
fires like the ones we are seeing today. I sincerely hope that
this year marks the turning point in how we care for our
forestlands and rangelands.
It deeply concerns this Committee that it take so much
destruction and tax dollars spent on firefighting to convince
some people that we need to do better management of our
forests. The greatest tragedy of fire seasons like these are
that they are predictable and preventable. While drought has
made this fire season worse than it otherwise would be, the
real problem is that there is an unnatural buildup of fuel in
the forests as a result of a century of fire suppression and a
lack of active management. Now, instead of fires that burn at
low intensity, sparing the large trees while burning the
underbrush and ground cover, we have catastrophic fires that
destroy hundreds and thousands of acres and much of the habitat
that the forests provided.
We have understood for a long time that years of fire
suppression has impaired the health of the forests, but lately
when we have tried to thin the forests or get it back to a more
healthy condition we been thwarted by groups that apparently
care more for environmental laws than for the health of the
actual environment. The Center for Biological Diversity website
says it all. They wrote, quote: `` It is critical to act now to
help preserve our environmental laws, end of quote. They don't
say that it is critical to act now to protect the environment.
They say it is critical to act now to protect environmental
laws.''
Personally, I care about on-the-ground improvements and
management. If we need to amend some environmental laws to
improve the health of the environment, then that is what we
need to do. But the current state of the forest is a direct
result of allowing the courts instead of foresters to manage
our forests.
We also get these disastrous results when we manage areas
for one species and not for the health of the forest as a
whole. What some don't realize is that when then ice sheet
receded from North America they left behind a new inhabitant,
humans. For the last 10,000 years, man has been managing the
new forests of North America. The early inhabitants used fire
to manage the landscape and create habitats they favored. Some
now believe that we should leave the responsibility of managing
the forests to the forests themselves. However, as long as we
have had the current forests of North America, we have had
humans manage them. To take humans out now is an unnatural
experiment.
We are glad to see that Senator Daschle also subscribes to
the views that humans need to be more active managing forests.
He also realizes that one of the major impediments to good
management are frivolous lawsuits as shown by his rider on the
supplemental appropriations bill. In that bill, Senator Daschle
includes language to exempt a fuels reduction project in the
Black Hills from environmental laws and judicial review.
Among the projects I would like to see expedited is the
Griffith Springs project in the Dixie National Forest in Utah.
This project is a sanitation and salvage harvest that would
remove spruce beetle infected trees and recently killed trees
on 714 acres.
During the last week I was down on the Dixie, I walked it,
I flew over it. It is a tragedy. Having relatives from that
area, I could hardly believe what has occurred. That was not a
forest when the pioneers came into that area. Due to the
imagination and good management of the Forest Service, they
went in and planted trees, and now it has been known for years
as one of the finest and most beautiful forests there is in
America. Now it is just one dead tree after another.
The Forest Service supervisor is a fellow by the name of
Hugh Thompson. Hugh said, when I first saw this heavy
infestation of pine beetle, I could have gone in there and cut
out 17,000 acres, and the healthier trees would have made it.
One lawsuit after another, and now we have an entire dead
forest.
I asked the new forest supervisor, what is going to happen
to the Dixie forest? He said, there is a 100 percent guarantee
it will burn to the ground. Then what? There is a 100 percent
guarantee we will have a flood.
What did we gain by those lawsuits that completely took
apart this beautiful forest?
The Committee applauds President Bush to be willing to
stand up for the health of the forests. It is ironic that the
President is vilified when he argues that we need to more
actively manage the forest, while Senator Daschle is hardly
criticized for taking a far more aggressive position in South
Dakota.
The President and members of this Committee have sound
plans for moving forward and improving the health of the
forests. We hope to have the types of improvements in the rest
of the country that Mr. Daschle secured for South Dakota. As
the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure. Never has that saying been more appropriate than it is
now.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hansen follows:]
Statement of James V. Hansen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Utah
So far this year more than 6.3 million acres of forestland and
rangeland have burned in wildland fires. This is more land than the
entire acreage of Maryland, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, Massachusetts, or Connecticut. Sadly, 20 firefighters have
died, more than 2,000 homes and structures have been destroyed, and
tens of thousands of people have had to evacuate their homes.
In addition to destroying lives and property, these fires have
decimated millions of acres of habitat, killed millions of trees, and
severely damaged watersheds for decades to come. According to the
Forest Service, currently 231 million acres of the federal estate is at
increased risk of catastrophic forest fires like the ones we are seeing
today.
I sincerely hope that this year marks a turning point in how we
care for our forestlands and rangelands. It deeply concerns this
Committee that it takes so much destruction and tax dollars spent on
fire fighting to convince some people that we need to better manage our
forests.
The greatest tragedy of fire seasons like these is that they are
predictable and preventable. While drought has made this fire season
worse than it otherwise would be, the real problem is that there is an
unnatural build-up of fuel in the forest as a result of a century of
fire suppression and a lack of active management. Now, instead of fires
that burn at low intensities, sparing the larger trees while burning
the underbrush and ground cover, we have catastrophic fires that
destroy hundreds of thousands of acres and much of the habitat that the
forest provided.
We have understood for a long time that years of fire suppression
has impaired the health of the forest. But lately, when we have tried
to thin the forest to get it back to more healthy conditions, we have
been thwarted by groups that apparently care more for environmental
laws than for the health of the actual environment. The Center for
Biological Diversity's website says it all. They warn, ``It's critical
to act now to help preserve our environmental laws.'' They don't say
that its critical to act now to protect the environment; they say its
critical to act now to protect environmental laws. Personally, I care
about on-the-ground improvements and management. If we need to amend
some environmental laws to improve the health of the environment, then
that's what we need to do.
But the current state of the forest is a direct result of allowing
the courts, instead of foresters, to manage our forests. We also get
these disastrous results when we manage areas for one species and not
for the health of the forest as a whole.
What some don't realize is that when the ice sheets receded from
North America, they left behind a new inhabitant--humans. For the last
10,000 years, man has been managing the new forests of North America.
The early inhabitants of this continent used fire to manage the
landscape and create habitats they favored. Some now believe that
believe we should leave the responsibility of managing the forests to
the forests themselves. However, as long as we have had the current
forests of North America, we have had human managing them. To take
humans out now is an unnatural experiment.
We are glad that Mr. Daschle also subscribes to the view that
humans need to more actively manage forests. He also realizes that one
of the major impediments to good management is frivolous lawsuits, as
shown by his rider on the Supplemental Appropriations bill. In that
bill, Mr. Daschle included language to exempt a fuels reduction project
in the Black Hill from environmental laws and judicial review.
Among the projects I would like to see expedited is the Griffin
Springs project on the Dixie National Forest in Utah. That project is a
sanitation and salvage harvest that would remove spruce beetle infested
trees and recently killed trees on 714 acres. For years the Forest
Service has tried to eliminate fire risk on the Dixie National Forest
through fuel reduction projects such as this. However, this project,
along with others, has been halted due to appeals. The question is not
if these trees will burn, but when. We need to make sure that when
there is a fire on the Dixie, it will be a low-intensity fire that is
beneficial to the forest, and not a catastrophic one that will destroy
the forest the habitat it provides.
The Committee applauds President Bush for be willing to stand up
for the health of the forest. It is ironic that the President is
vilified when he argues that we need to more actively manage the
forests, while Mr. Daschle was hardly criticized for taking a far more
aggressive position in South Dakota. The President, and members of this
Committee have sound plans for moving forward and improving the health
of the forest. We hope to have the types of improvements in the rest of
the country that Mr. Daschle secured for South Dakota. As the old
saying goes, ``An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'' Never
has that saying been more appropriate than with the current situation
on our forest and rangelands.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today.
______
The Chairman. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses
today. I don't see Mr. Rahall here. I imagine Mr. Miller is
going to speak for him. But before Mr. Miller, let me say, we
will go to our three Congressmen, we will take the two
Secretaries, and then go to our first panel.
I understand, Madam Secretary, Ms. Norton, that you have to
get out of here in a short time, so we will take you first, if
that is all right, as soon as we finish with these gentlemen.
Mr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. GEORGE MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wouldn't pretend for a moment to speak for Mr. Rahall,
but I will speak in his place; and we join you in sharing your
very serious concern about the issues of forest health and the
fires in our forests and the threat that they pose to many of
our communities and the health of those very same forests.
I would say that I am concerned that the tragic fires that
we have experienced both last year and this year are being used
for a means to waive the basic environmental laws, and I think
the evidence is clear that that is not necessary. In fact, we
see in my own State of California, where we have reached
agreement on our Sierra Nevada plan, after 10 years and some
$23 million of scientific study and management development of
those lands, a plan is now in place which will prioritize the
treatment of those forests that will allow within the first
quarter mile in the interface area of the taking--of the
thinning and the taking of trees up to 30 inches, and in the
next mile and a quarter, I believe it is, or mile and a half of
the interface area you can take trees out up to 20 inches and
with all the thinning that goes along with that.
That is a plan in place on the ground. Unfortunately, this
administration has chosen to now spend the money to re-review
that 10 years of science where we have agreement in the
environmental community, we have agreement in the logging
community, we have agreement in the communities, to re-review
that rather than get on with the treatment of those lands.
The Western Governors Association, under the leadership of
your Governor, came forth with a plan that again was agreed to
by all of the parties for the treatment of the lands within the
environmental laws, setting the priorities once again about the
most critical areas, the areas that pose the greatest danger of
loss of life and property; and yet we are back here suggesting
that the only way we can do this is to waive the environmental
laws.
It is also a little questionable in terms of the proposals
being put forth exactly what it is we are going to treat. The
Forest Service has treated about 275,000 acres, if my figures
are correct, and yet we see the testimony from the industry and
others suggest that there needs to be treatment of about 72
million acres. The Forest Service has estimated it will cost
about $1,685 per acre to thin some of those forested lands. On
the average, the Forest Service timber projects generate about
$800 an acre. If timber revenues are supposed to convert the
cost of the thinning, it has been suggested that you will have
these forest stewardship contracts and you will be able to take
the money out and put it into the treatment of the forest. If
that is the case, if these figures are accurate, you will have
to have forest projects on 447 million acres. There is only 191
million acres in the forest.
So I don't quite get how you are going to get this $121
billion, but the answer obviously is you think you can waive
environmental laws and therefore you can raise the amount of
money taken off of each of these lands, and the only way you
can do that is to take more and more of the large trees off of
the lands to get the--to take the cost from $800 an acre that
the lands yield under the sales programs to get to the $1,600
that it costs to thin these lands, according to the Forest
Service.
I think what we should really be doing is we should be
putting the money that has now been held up in the
supplemental, we should be putting the money into the treatment
under the plans that are on the ground that have agreement
across the communities, across the interest groups, and get on
with the thinning of these lands and quit trying to use these
sales as a means to eviscerate the environmental laws of this
Nation. Because it is very clear, both from our experience in
California and the experience of the Western Governors
Association, that that is not necessary and that in fact we can
get on with the thinning program now.
But what the thinning program is going to need, it is going
to need a combination of both stewardship contracts and Federal
dollars, because the stewardship contracts--it would be a
misnomer to call them stewardship if they have to generate the
revenues necessary for the treatment of the lands, because they
simply will have to cut down the forests to save it. I have
seen that policy before. It doesn't work terribly well.
So I would urge that the Committee would give very
thoughtful consideration to these bills that are before us and
understand that, one, they simply may not be necessary; two,
they may do a great deal of harm; and, three, financially they
are unsustainable, simply unsustainable. It won't work. And if
you are going to treat the level of acreage and forestlands
that has been suggested by the industry and others in testimony
before this Committee--.
I don't know if I have time left. If I do, I would be
happy--.
The Chairman. The time of the gentleman has expired. I
appreciate the gentleman's comments.
We have our three sponsors of these bills with us. Could I
limit you each to 5 minutes? We have to get these two
Secretaries out of here by 10:45. Can you get it done in that
time?
Mr. McInnis, we will start with you. Mac.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. SCOTT MCINNIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I would like to make a comment in regards to
Mr. Miller's comments.
Mr. Miller, the only individual I am aware of in the
entire--Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller, I am addressing my comments to
you. The only person that I am aware of in the entire Congress
that is making an effort, and frankly has been very successful
at waiving environmental laws, was Mr. Daschle with his
attachment on the bill over there. He is the only Member of
Congress that I have seen that has been successful in the
waiver of those; and, as mentioned by the Chairman, it is of
interest that the National Sierra Club and the National
Wilderness Society haven't even blinked an eye at his process.
My bill does not follow that process. My bill, in fact,
incorporates some of what you have said.
I agree with you that the stewardship, for example, as
highlighted in my bill--which my bill I think is pretty much a
middle-of-the-road bill--the stewardship alone cannot carry the
weight of the financial burden. It is going to have to have
contribution from the Federal Government. So we agree on that
point.
I also agree very strongly with you, as does my bill, that
we should not waive environmental regulation and go into the
forests with a timber company with the idea of being the
largest lumber manufacturer in the world. That is not the idea
here. The fact is, what I am doing here is expediting a
process. Our whole problem out there and which my bill I think
attempts to address, our whole problem out there is paralysis
by analysis. It goes appeal after appeal after appeal. My
letter to the General Accounting Office last year came back and
said less than 1 percent I think or something of these projects
are appealed. They immediately withdrew that letter and said
they made a dramatic mistake in the calculation, that in fact
it was closer to 50 percent.
What my bill does is allows a preprocess decision to be
made. It does not eliminate at all the appeal process, but it
expedites the appeal process so you can't do as they did in
Colorado where we had hundreds of thousands of trees blowing
down. Every scientist in the world was saying to us the beetles
are going to move in first on the dead trees, then they are
going to move into the live trees; and, by the way, this thing
is also going to be a fire hazard in 2 or 3 years. We are still
tied up in the process up there. In the meantime, the beetles
have moved into the live trees now, and that was the big fire
that we had up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, which we just
recently got under control.
I am trying to get a fair hearing by all sides but get it
done in a timely process. My bill is the kind of bill that you
ought to support. It is--you put a category up there that these
bills are bills that are--all the bills we are hearing today,
you make it seem as if it is some type of radical approach.
Mine isn't at all. Mine is a reasonable approach.
I might also want to say to you that when we talk about
thinning, we can't just talk about the interface. A lot of the
water you get out of Colorado to your State of California, the
water tables and the water storage areas we have up there are
deep in the forest. Denver right now, because of the Hayman
fire up there, because we weren't allowed to send a round there
where they store their water and so on now has huge amounts of
sludge going into their city water system.
So it goes beyond the urban interface. We have got to look
at forest by forest on a custom basis. That wasn't done by Mr.
Daschle, with the exception of one forest in his State. What I
am saying, across the country we ought to take a look at forest
by forest, not limit it to just interface but also go up into
the watersheds or the water storage areas, go into the areas
where we have endangered species, where every tree being the
same age growing up is knocking out our usual fire blocks.
There is a lot that we can do, and I think that my bill is a
reasonable approach to that.
Now, in response to what Mr. Daschle has done over on the
Senate side, I think Members of the House of Representatives
ought to be able to come in with the same thing. I am
attempting to do the same thing Mr. Daschle did with my blow
down in the beetle kill up in Steamboat Springs. But I think my
bill is a reasonable approach, and I would urge that the
Committee take a careful look at my bill.
I have got 5 minutes worth of comments, Mr. Chairman, that
I ask that I be able to incorporate into the record. But I
would just summarize my comments by saying that I think the
testimony we are going to get today from the two Secretaries
respectfully is going to buttress the approach that we use in
the middle of the road, that we don't go around environmental
laws but we put these environmental laws in what the average
person out there using common sense would say the reasonable,
prudent standard to be, is this thing ought to be heard and
ought to be decided within a period of time that doesn't put
the forests at risk because we have delayed it in court action
after court action after court action. So I would ask for a
favorable consideration of my bill, and I appreciate the
Chairman's allowance for me to testify.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McInnis follows:]
Statement of Hon. Scott McInnis, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado
Today we have the rare privilege hearing from America's two land-
managers-in-chief--Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Agriculture
Secretary Ann Veneman--on the most pressing issue facing land managers
today - the wildfire crisis in the American West. I want to applaud
both Secretary Veneman and my old friend from Colorado Secretary Norton
- along with their Boss down the street a block or two - for their
forward engagement in attacking this problem. After wrestling with the
issue as Chairman of the Forests Subcommittee over the last couple
years, it's become clear to me that it's going to take some good-old-
fashioned elbow grease from those in the highest levels of our
government to get the upper hand on this wildland epidemic. So I
commend the President, Secretaries Norton and Veneman - as well the
sub-cabinet officials here with us today, Undersecretary Rey and
Assistant Secretary Watson - for your good faith leadership on this
issue.
In the last 6 months, the American public has undergone a sea
change in its understandings about our national forests. Mere months
ago, many viewed these great natural resources in the same manner that
they thought about grandma's antique China - if you shelter it from the
elements, lock it up, and just plain leave it alone, it will be
preserved in its present state for generations to come. Benign neglect,
many believed, was the best way to protect this intergenerational
asset.
Well, it's not news to anyone in this room that the 2002 fire
season has smashed this myth like so much antique China under an anvil.
After record setting fires in Colorado, Arizona and Oregon - and the
thousands of other wildfires that have made this fire season among the
worst in the last half century - the ill-informed mythology of laissez
faire forest management is on life support. There's a fresh consensus
in the American West that we need to--no, we must!--start managing our
forests in a meaningful way.
For those not convinced of this dramatic change in public attitude,
consider the growing list of once reticent Senate Democrats who have
joined in the chorus of calling for big changes in the way we manage
our forests--names like Wyden and Feinstein. I guess one could even
make the case that Senator Daschle is prepared to make a change or two
in current law when it comes to managing our forests. More
impressively, environmental groups that mere months ago embraced a ``no
cut'' philosophy now propose thinning our forests, even if on a limited
scale. Now, these environmental proposals are, in my estimation, little
more than half measures, and a more cynical person might describe them
as a political fig leaf to help deflect growing frustration with this
movement on the wildfire issue. But their proposals are a start, and
they underscore just how far even once ardent opponents of forest
management have come.
Today we will discuss a series meaningful legislative proposals
focused on solutions. I want to briefly describe why I believe that my
legislation--The Healthy Forests Reforms Act--is a reasoned and prudent
approach to getting our arms around the West's wildfire crisis.
The legislation was built two principles that, I believe, are the
beginnings of common ground and a bipartisan approach.
First, public input in forest management is a must. And yes, that
includes the opportunity for aggrieved parties to challenge forest
management projects administratively and in the federal courts under
our new procedures. As a general maxim, public engagement is a
necessary pre-condition of good, sound forest management.
The second principle underlying my legislation is this--at present,
the process that governs management of our forests and rangelands
simply moves too slowly given the massive size of the wildfire threat
hanging over us. To say that our forest management process moves at a
snail's pace is to insult the foot speed of a snail. I think that every
Member here today would agree that it just flat doesn't make any sense
that it takes hazardous fuels projects--in the wildland urban
interface, near watersheds, anywhere--upwards of several years to work
their way through the NEPA process and any subsequent appeals and
lawsuits.
Senator Daschle's Black Hills project was ensnared in bureaucracy
and lawsuits for over a decade. A thinning project in my District on
the Routt National Forest aimed at slowing the spread of bark beetles
took over a year and half just to work its way through the NEPA
process. Incidentally, that project is now under administrative appeal.
As the process drags-on, the beetles continue to spread, destroying a
broad swath of once scenic forest.
In the Colorado case, the South Dakota case, and in more cases than
I care to count, the slow moving nature of our management process has
been a primary culprit in the decline of forest health and in the
related rise in catastrophic wildfire.
So what do we do about?
Well, the authors of NEPA and its implementing regulations
recognized that there would be emergency instances in which the federal
government would need to use so-called alternative arrangements in
weighing environmental effects in lieu of the more typically used (and
typically slow moving) Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact
Statement processes. If the wildfire situation isn't an emergency, I
don't know what is. So my bill directs the Council on Environmental
Quality to establish an expedited environmental analysis process for
fuels projects on at risk landscapes, placing reasoned limits on the
amount of process and documentation required. This expedited process
would still allow for extensive public input, including an opportunity
to appeal and litigate projects, and require a complete assessment of
environmental effects and public input. But instead of taking upwards
of several years to complete, this administrative process would be
complete in 120 days.
If 120 days isn't enough time for ``process'', I ask my Colleagues,
how much is?
Next, my legislation would replace the current Forest Service
appeals process, which invites conflicts, moves slowly and discourages
meaningful public participation during the early formulation of
projects, with a more collaborative predecisional review process.
Unlike the current appeals framework, the predecisional review process
would allow the appeals officer to enter into collaborative dispute
resolution with appellants and other interested stakeholders, and
authorizes the appeals officer to sign off on negotiated agreements, so
as to avoid the months-long remand process.
Next, my legislation would continue to give opponents of thinning
projects implemented under this process the authority to challenge
agency actions in federal court. Once challenged in federal court, the
Secretary would be required to stay the project for 45 days, during
which time the court would decide on the merits of the overarching
cause of action. The legislation gives the judiciary the authority to
appoint special masters to ensure disposition of legal challenges
within the 45-day time frame. And it also includes the caveat that, if
the judiciary feels like it can't dispose of the challenge in that time
frame for Constitutional reasons, it can extend that deadline at its
discretion.
Additionally, the Healthy Forest Act would apply the Black Hills
National Forest sufficiency rider to the aforementioned thinning
project in Colorado's Routt National Forest, with an understanding that
other Members may wish to propose one time exemptions to thinning
projects in their Districts that are similarly bogged down in
bureaucracy, appeals or lawsuits. If nothing else, it will be
interesting to find out if what's good for Mr. Daschle's goose is good
for everyone else's gander.
My bill would expand stewardship contracting authority for the
Forest Service and Department of Interior agencies, as the
Administration has called for and my Colleague from Virginia Mr.
Goodlatte has tirelessly championed in recent months. And it would
authorize hazardous fuels reduction funding over the next 8 years at
the levels requested by the bipartisan Western Governor's Association.
Lastly, the bill creates rigid monitoring safeguards to protect
against the kind of Chicken Little attacks that some environmental
groups have already begun to levy against the bill. It would require
the General Accounting Office to conduct an annual programmatic
assessment to ensure that this new expedited process is giving the
public a meaningful opportunity to comment on projects, and to
challenge those projects after the fact, both administratively and in
the Courts. What's more, the bill directs the Secretaries of Interior
and Agriculture to create a scientific monitoring panel, consisting in
part of appointees of the Chairman and Ranking Member of this Committee
and its counterpart in the Senate, to assess the relative success of
fuels projects implemented under this act. The bill specifically
requires that panel to catalogue any abuses, should they occur.
So what emerges, Colleagues, is a bill that gives our land managers
the tools to move with greater dispatch to reduce the threat of
wildfire, but in a way that provides hard-hitting and objective checks
and balances.
As this process and my legislation move forward, I would say to my
Democratic Colleagues that nothing in this bill is sacrosanct, except
the underlying mission to establish a more reasoned and efficient
process. I repeat the overture that I've made to a few of you
personally already--lets sit down, work out the details, and move
forward in a bipartisan way.
I hope that my Democratic Colleagues will see and accept this olive
branch. Don't let the fiery rhetoric of those defending the status quo
burn that down too.
______
[A letter submitted for the record by Mr. McInnis follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1551.021
The Chairman. Mr. Rehberg.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DENNIS R. REHBERG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MONTANA
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The most common question asked when you return from a break
is, how was your break and what did you do? Well, I brought
along a newspaper to show you what I have been doing. I have
been fighting fire on my own ranch, fire that got into the
trees, fire that we had an inability to get out because we
didn't have roads to get in there. Thank God I don't have to
deal with the Federal Government. I only have to deal with the
State of Montana. The Bureau of Land Management did come and
help me fight that fire. But we live with this every day. I am
a little tired right now because I have been up many nights
fighting this fire.
These are human problems, but not only that, they are
environmental problems. I am glad that finally Senator Daschle
recognized this problem. My bill, H.R. 5214, I thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and the members of the Committee that have co-
sponsored that legislation and for giving us this hearing
today.
I am glad that Senator Daschle finally recognized the
problem. So what I did is in House Resolution 5214 I am
attempting to do for the other 49 States what Senator Daschle
felt necessary to do for his own State.
What this Congress has done--and I take issue with Mr.
Miller as well on his comments about these fires creating this
heartache and this desire to change these environmental laws.
No. We have been calling for this since 1988, and this Congress
has failed to act. In the year of 2000, we burned almost a
million acres in Montana, and the Congress failed to act. We
are now seeing fires in Arizona, Colorado. Other States are
starting to see the same problems that we have been living with
in Montana and Idaho for many, many years, and there is one
thing we know that will happen: These fires will occur again.
I, as well as Congressman McInnis, take a little issue with
the comments about interface. Fires don't respect fences.
Twenty-mile-an-hour winds create a situation where you don't
know where the fire is going to go.
Now, fire can be a tool to manage your property in. I am
not that far out of the management of property, I am not that
far into being a Congressman yet that I have lost sight of what
it takes to manage land. And there are only so many tools in
your satchel, and one is grazing, and undergrazed grass kills
grass as much as an overgrazed grass. CRP does in fact create
fire danger.
One of the other tools that is in your satchel would be
fire. But an uncontrolled fire is a catastrophe. It kills
animals, it kills the environment, it kills trees.
So if we don't come up with the various tools to be used
and look at perhaps logging companies a little different than
we have in the past, we are loving our forests to death. They
are dying out there, and we are the reason for it. You can sit
in Congress all you want and talk about all these various laws
that are important to be in place, but one thing I have learned
since I have been here for now about 21 months is, everybody
admits there is a problem, something needs to be done, and
people in Congress support reform as long as it doesn't change
anything. But we have got to change something in our forests,
because what we have done now is we have created a situation
where judges and lawsuits are making the determination in our
natural resource policy.
For those of you on the Committee and those that are in the
audience that have actually managed forests or managed
pastureland, you know that you have got to get on your hands
and knees. You have got to count the bugs. You have got to see
what the manure is doing. You have got to look at your water
cycle. You have got to look at your mineral cycle. And a judge
sitting in a black robe behind a desk making a determination
based on briefs filed by opposing parties is not the way that
we have got to manage our forests.
Finally, Senator Daschle has recognized the problem, and I
think it is important that we recognize his recognition and
support the exact same legislation verbatim that he was willing
to put on a rider in the U.S. Senate. So, Mr. Chairman, I hope
you will incorporate either my bill into one of the other
bills--.
I tremendously respect Mr. McInnis and thank him for
continually bringing this issue out in his Subcommittee, as has
Mr. Goodlatte; and I served on that Subcommittee in the
Agriculture Committee. I thank Mr. Shadegg as well and am proud
to co-sponsor his legislation. It is fine time within this
Congress to quit talking about the management of our forests,
quit loving them to death, quit allowing ourselves to divvy in
the corners and sue each other back out of those corners, and
try and actively manage our public lands for the betterment of
not only the people and the economy and the jobs--and it is not
about money, but the environment, the animals, and ultimately
building a more secure future for the communities in this
Nation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank the gentleman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rehberg follows:]
Statement of Hon. Denny Rehberg, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Montana
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for scheduling this hearing today to
consider the National Forest Fire Prevention Act, my legislation to
expand the Daschle rider so it applies to fire-prone National Forest
lands across the nation, not just those in the Black Hills of South
Dakota. My bill is supported by many of my colleagues on this
Committee, evidence that it is time to change the system.
Many of America's public lands have become so overgrown and
neglected that they are now powder kegs just waiting to erupt. We all
have watched the wild fires rage across the forests--destroying homes,
property, and the environment in their wake--and it is time to stand up
and address the problems facing America's forests.
Montana experienced total forest devastation during the summer of
2000, when 655,000 acres of the Bitterroot National Forest burned. I
have personally witnessed the devastation wrought by wildfires. Just
this past week, Montanans asked me, as their voice in Washington, to
push for sound forest management that reduces fuel loads and prevents
fires from ruining the lives of those caught in their deadly path.
Forest fires are not Democrat or Republican issues. They are public
safety issues. Mother nature has already unleashed the awesome power of
fire throughout the West this year and burned more than 6 million acres
- an area the size of New Hampshire.
This year's fires alone have driven tens of thousands of people
from their homes, destroyed more than 2,000 structures, and caused the
deaths of many firefighters. These fires have also killed hundreds of
millions of trees, devastated habitat, and severely damaged forest
soils and watersheds for decades to come. Though such devastation can
hardly be quantified, the total cost of these fires is already more
than a billion dollars.
We must do something to improve the process to give forest managers
the tools they need to manage for a healthy ecosystem and treat the
forest to prevent further devastation.
That is why I introduced legislation, the National Forest Fire
Prevention Act, to address this serious situation. My legislation takes
the common sense policy, originally outlined by Senator Daschle, and
extends its benefits to the rest of America. The National Forest Fire
Prevention Act simply allows forests facing the most serious public
safety threats to be treated by the Forest Service, without waiting for
the full completion of lengthy and burdensome bureaucratic processes.
The bill does not overturn NEPA or NFMA, though it will no doubt be
inaccurately characterized as doing so. There is no language in the
bill to overturn those laws and is not an intended consequence of the
legislation.
A healthy forest makes for a healthy community. We can't lose sight
of that. But a delicate balance must be struck. We must have strong
laws to protect the environment, there's no question about that. Yet
those same laws should not be so burdensome that they prevent local
forest managers from implementing common-sense land management
solutions.
I'm encouraged by the President's plan - it's certainly an
important step toward improving the health of America's forests. We
simply must implement some regulatory streamlining so we can clear out
the dead, dying, bug-infested timber that is making our forests
unhealthy and prone to wildfires.
I look forward to hearing the testimony on my bill, and the
proposals introduced by my colleagues Mr. Shadegg and Mr. McInnis, as
well as the President's Healthy Forests Initiative. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for bringing us all together to consider each of these
proposals today.
______
The Chairman. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Shadegg.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN B. SHADEGG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Shadegg. Thank you. It is a great privilege for me to
be back here and testify, and thank you for your support--.
The Chairman. Your microphone is off.
Mr. Shadegg. I thank you and thank Chairman McInnis for
working with me on this issue and for his co-sponsorship of my
bill.
I want to take this opportunity to welcome Dr. Wally
Covington of Northern Arizona University to the hearing. He is
a nationally recognized expert in this area, and I think we
will enjoy his testimony. I think he can teach us a lot.
It is a great privilege for me to be back in the Resources
Committee. If I had my preference, I never would have left the
Committee, and I would be here permanently. But it is nice to
be back amongst you, even just for today.
If I have a single message to get across, it would be a
message to address to this Committee that we simply cannot
allow partisan preconceptions to stop us from acting today on
this issue. I respect Mr. Miller immensely and his knowledge
and his expertise, but I have to say, fundamentally, the
concept that we may not need this legislation is simply wrong.
The second point I want to make is, we can find a
compromise here. When you look at the incredible consequences
of the policies we have pursued, you recognize we not only can
find a compromise, we must find a compromise. This year has
been one of the most catastrophic periods in the history of
wildlands fire and fire management. A total of 6.328 million
acres have been consumed by fire already this year, including
almost 650,000 in my own State of Arizona. We have to do
something about this.
There are, of course, many causes for these wildland fires,
but--and we will hear more from Dr. Covington later about what
those causes are. They include long-term policy of suppressing
every fire, but they also include, importantly--and I think
this is the significance of Senator Daschle's legislation--they
include a recognition that we have collectively allowed an
excessive buildup of unnatural fuels, of high fuel load in our
forests. Everyone has come to an agreement on that point.
That was the key to Senator Daschle's legislation. He
recognized and those who worked with him on that compromise
recognized that we have this high fuel load, that it is
dangerous, that it is doing severe damage, that it leads to
high temperature crown fires, and that those high temperature
crown fires do severe damage.
Recognizing that, you have to ask, how did we get there?
And the answer is, the policy we have in place is not working.
The current law, as Mr. McInnis clearly articulated and Mr.
Rehberg articulated, does not serve our interests. It allows a
single individual to bring a lawsuit and to stop good public
policy from going forward to allow these fuel loads to buildup.
We can do something about that, and I think it is important,
and I--.
Again, Mr. Miller, I hope you would be listening to this
because I think you are key to this discussion, Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. I am listening. I can think and listen at the
same time.
Mr. Shadegg. I appreciate that.
It seems to me we can find a middle ground. Each of the
bills before you today contains a middle ground. All three of
them are proposing that there are compromises that could be
struck here.
Mr. McInnis's bill says, all right, we won't take out the
administrative process altogether, but we will expedite it.
Mr. Rehberg's bill follows the compromises set forth in the
Daschle legislation.
My own bill says, let us look at the experts in the field,
the regional forester, and defer to his judgment and let him
make a decision about whether or not we must act in a given
area, base that on good science, and then allow that action to
occur without an unnecessary delaying lawsuit which can result
not only in damage to the forest but in damage to habitat.
In my own State of Arizona, lawsuits were filed by well-
intended environmental groups in the area later plagued by the
Rodeo-Chediski fire. Those lawsuits stopped the thinning of
area which was critical habitat for a number of endangered
species, including 21 northern goss hawks and 12 spotted owls.
The reality is, as a result of that litigation, the forest
was not thinned. As a result of the fact that the forest was
not thinned, we had a high-intensity crown fire, as Dr.
Covington will explain to you, and it absolutely destroyed the
habitat.
You can go to my State of Arizona, you can go to my
colleague Congressman Hayworth's district, and you can walk
through that fire and you can walk through sections of the fire
which were not treated and they are destroyed. There is nothing
living. It is a moonscape. It is gone. I beg you. Come there
and see it. And you can walk 20 feet across a line to a section
of the forest that was treated, that was thinned as Dr.
Covington and other experts advocate, and you can hardly tell
the fire was there, and you have a continuing habitat where
these endangered species can live.
But we are in charge of this. We have to change the policy;
and, if we don't, then we will be responsible for what is going
on.
My legislation includes a number of compromises. It is an
effort to reach a reasonable balance. It says the regional
forester must examine the area, he must make a certification,
he must certify that the project is necessary to save that
section of the forest. I believe it is critical for us to find
a common ground here, and I appreciate the Committee's
willingness to undertake this important task.
The Chairman. I appreciate the gentleman's comments.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shadegg follows:]
Statement of the Hon. John Shadegg, a Representative from the State of
Arizona
Let me first thank Chairman Hansen for the opportunity to testify
at today's hearing, and Chairman McInnis for working with me on this
issue. Let me also take the opportunity to welcome Dr. Wally Covington
of Northern Arizona University who is a nationally recognized expert in
the area of forest ecosystem restoration. I am happy to be back in the
Resources Committee...even for only one day...to speak with you about
the crucial issues of wildlands fire prevention and forest management.
This year has been one of the most catastrophic periods in the
history of wildlands fire management. A total of 6.328 million acres
has been consumed by fire this year including 649,000 acres in my own
state of Arizona, 993,000 acres in Oregon, and an incredible 2.2
million acres in Alaska. Nor has the destruction of this fire season
been confined to the West: Georgia has lost over 159,000 acres to fire
this year and other Eastern states have also been hit hard. In fact,
over 5 million acres have burned annually in three of the last four
years.
Why have recent fire seasons been so devastating? While there are a
variety of reasons, one which most objective observers will agree on is
the lack of proper management of our National Forests and other federal
lands. Many National Forest areas have an unnaturally high fuel load,
including dense stands of younger trees. As Dr. Covington will discuss
in greater detail, this is in contrast to pre-settlement vegetation
patterns in many types of forests, most notably ponderosa pine and dry
mixed conifer forests which, under more normal circumstances, feature
lower densities of larger, more fire resistant trees. In forests of
these types, reducing the fuel load through removal of some trees is
needed to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic fires and restore
healthy forest ecosystems.
While objective observers can agree on the need to thin trees as a
necessary part of managing a healthy, relatively fire resistant forest,
current law allows even a single radical individual who is not
interested in objectivity to stop even the most scientifically
defensible project. Laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act
and the Endangered Species Act were written to allow citizens to use
the court system to ensure that federal agencies were making
responsible land and resource management decisions. However, they have
been seized upon by radical groups and individuals as means to bring
activities which are legal and legitimate to a standstill under the
guise of environmental protection.
Ironically, the actions of these groups and individuals are
actually worse for the environment than the actions they seek to
curtail. They attack projects primarily on the basis of short-term
considerations and often with the primary objective of preventing
thinning projects which include a commercial component.
However, the result of these attacks is the inability to remove
excess trees from forests and the consequent overcrowding of unhealthy
trees and build-up of fuel load. The long-term results are high
intensity crown fires which wipe out all vegetation and wildlife, cause
erosion by removing the plant structure which holds soil in place, and
create air pollution. The excess fuel load causes these fires to burn
at such high heat that the soil in many areas is literally sterilized.
An excellent example of the irony of the actions of these groups
occurred this summer in my state of Arizona. The Center for Biological
Diversity used the National Environmental Policy Act to sue the Forest
Service in May, 2000 to stop a tree thinning project in the Apache-
Sitgraves National Forest. This is an area which, according to Brian
Segee of the Center, was home to endangered species including 21
Northern Goshawks and 12 Spotted Owls. The Center succeeded in stopping
the project and thus prevented the Forest Service from reducing the
fuel load by removing excess trees.
This June, the high fuel load in this area caused the Rodeo-
Chediski fire to burn at an intensity which wiped out the habitat of
these Northern Goshawks and Spotted Owls. Presumably these birds were
able to fly away but thanks to the Center, their habitat is now a
charred wasteland. To further show how the Center was able to bring
this, now obviously needed, thinning project to a halt, I am submitting
for the Record of the Hearing an article from the Scottsdale Tribune on
the issue.
To ensure that badly needed projects can move forward in the
future, I have introduced H.R. 5309, the Wildfire Prevention and Forest
Health Protection Act of 2002, along with 19 of my colleagues. H.R.
5309 is designed to break the current gridlock on responsible forest
management by allowing projects involving the removal of trees to
proceed if they meet certain criteria.
The legislation allows the Forest Service to proceed with a tree
removal project on National Forest lands if the Regional Forester finds
that the project will take place in an area with a high fuel load and
that a significant possibility exists that a crown fire could occur
which would cause extreme harm to the forest ecosystem. This criteria
is based on the fact that fires in areas of high fuel load burn at such
a high intensity that they devastate the ecosystem. Alternatively, a
project could proceed if it involves trees which are either dead or
severely damaged by fire. This criteria acknowledges that dead and
dying trees can pose forest health concerns by providing an environment
conducive to insect infestation.
In addition, the process incorporates two safeguards to ensure that
these projects are in fact necessary for responsible forest management.
First, the Regional Forester must make all decisions regarding the
necessity of the projects on the basis of the best available scientific
information to ensure an objective factual basis for the project.
Second, the Regional Forester must certify the necessity of the
projects to both the Chief of the Forest Service and Congress. This
gives a meaningful opportunity for Congress and Forest Service
headquarters to oversee the Regional Forester's findings and override
them if they do not believe that the project is warranted or factually
supported.
Once the Regional Forester has made these findings on the basis of
the best available science and given Congress and the Chief of the
Forest Service the opportunity to oversee his findings, the project may
proceed without legal challenge or review using the exact same language
inserted by Senator Tom Daschle in the Supplemental Appropriations Act
for fiscal year 2001. Unlike the Daschle approach, H.R. 5309 embodies
greater flexibility because it is not project specific: it can be
applied to projects in any Forest Service region which meet the
science-based criteria and can withstand the oversight. Perhaps most
importantly, it treats all areas of the country equally instead of
decreeing that certain areas are more equal than others.
In closing, let me again thank Chairmen Hansen and McInnis for the
opportunity to participate in today's hearing. I look forward to the
testimony of the witnesses and to passing legislation which will break
the gridlock in forest management.
______
[An article submitted by Mr. Shadegg follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1551.019
The Chairman. I would ask unanimous consent the gentleman
from Arizona be allowed to sit on the dais with us. And thank
you so much for being here.
Secretary Norton, Secretary Veneman, we appreciate you both
taking a place there.
Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Chairman, we are not going to ask
questions of the Members then?
The Chairman. Both of these Secretaries, Mr. DeFazio, have
to leave in a very short time, so we thought to accommodate
them we would do that. After they are done, if you would like
to ask questions of our colleagues--.
Mr. DeFazio. Well, are we going to get a chance to ask the
Secretaries questions?
The Chairman. Well, that depends on how long it takes, I
guess.
Mr. DeFazio. The first--you know, we have been here for
half an hour and we have heard from four Republican members,
one Democrat who represents a much more urban area. I represent
the most--the largest fire in the United States. I hope I have
an opportunity at some point to speak on the issue today, Mr.
Chairman. That is all.
The Chairman. Of course you will be.
I appreciate the two Secretaries being with us at this
time.
Secretary Norton, we will turn the time to you.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, if I can make an adjustment in
terms of the schedule. I conferred with Secretary Veneman. We
both have--I have a plane to catch. She has another commitment.
I can stay until 11:15.
The Chairman. Fine. Whatever you folks want.
Ms. Norton. She has to leave at 10:45.
The Chairman. Secretary Veneman, we will hear from you.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANN VENEMAN, SECRETARY, UNITED
STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Secretary Veneman. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, it is an honor
to appear before you today. I do want to apologize for having
to leave early today. We had other commitments before this
hearing was scheduled. Under Secretary Mark Ray, who is here
with me today, will be available to stay and answer the
questions of the Committee for those that come up after I am
finished.
It is also an honor for me to appear here today with
Secretary Norton. We have worked very closely together on the
issues related to our public lands, and I feel truly honored to
be able to serve in this administration with her.
The issues that we are discussing today are very important
to the President and to both of us as Secretaries of our
respective departments that deal with public lands. Our Nation
is experiencing a devastating fire season, one as severe as the
previous record-setting season of the year 2000; and to date
wild fires have burned 6.3 million acres. This year matches the
number of acres burned in the year 2000 and doubles the 10-year
average for the number of acres burned.
Firefighting costs for the Forest Service this year alone
are projected to exceed $1.25 billion. Hundreds of communities
have been affected, and thousands of people have fled their
homes. Thousands of homes and structures have been burned. Most
tragically, 20 firefighters have lost their lives.
Most agree that this is not acceptable. Our Nation cannot
afford to continue on a course that will result in more severe
fire seasons like the one that we are having this year. We
cannot afford the environmental devastation these fires cause
to our forests, our rangelands, our rivers, and our air. We
cannot afford the terrible human toll they take on communities
and families, especially when human lives are lost.
Last May, Secretary Norton and I, along with a bipartisan
group of 17 western Governors, signed an historic 10-year
comprehensive strategy and implementation plan to proactively
reduce the risk of wildfire to communities and the environment,
and we appreciate that the leadership that this Committee has
shown in passing House Concurrent Resolution 352, which
endorsed the 10-year strategy.
The 10-year strategy and implementation plan acknowledges
the need to actively manage our forests, to thin crowded trees,
remove underbrush and deadwood, and to restore healthy, fire-
resistant forest conditions. They outline the process through
which Federal, State, and local parties are cooperating to get
work done in a timely way. They also recognize the critical
need to reduce catastrophic fire risks both around communities
and in strategic areas across the broader landscape.
Yet, notwithstanding the unprecedented cooperation achieved
through the 10-year strategy and implementation plan, land
managers continue to face burdensome procedural requirements,
appeals, and litigation that threaten to delay critical
projects until it is too late.
The Forest Service estimates that planning and analysis
consumes 40 percent of the total work at the forest level.
Routine prescribed fire treatments can take 6 months to plan.
Projects that involve forest thinning or other mechanical
treatments require 2 to 4 years of analysis at a cost that can
exceed a million dollars per project.
Once project planning is completed, the Forest Service is
often confronted with time-consuming appeals and litigation
that add months and sometimes years to the process. Between
January of 2001 and July of 2002, 48 percent of all proposed
Forest Service mechanical fuels reduction projects were
appealed. In northern Idaho and Montana, 100 percent of
projects were appealed. Unless our land managers have the tools
and flexibility that they need to work with States, local
governments, and communities to make good decisions in a timely
manner, we will not achieve the goals of the 10-year strategy
and implementation plan; and that is why President Bush has
announced the Healthy Forest Initiative.
The central purpose of the Healthy Forest Initiative is to
provide the tools needed to actively manage our forests and
rangelands and to make them less prone to devastating wildfire.
The Healthy Forest Initiative focuses on what we leave on the
land rather than what we take from it. It recognizes that time
is not on our side and that resource managers working closely
with States and local communities must be empowered to act
quickly and strategically to make forests, rangelands, and
communities more fire safe.
Today the administration is transmitting to Congress
proposed legislation to implement key elements of the
President's Healthy Forest Initiative. The legislation has four
parts.
First, it authorizes emergency fuels reduction projects in
priority areas that pose the greatest risk to people,
communities, and the environment. These include areas
surrounding communities, municipal watersheds, areas affected
by disease and insects, and burned areas prone to catastrophic
reburn. It provides a process for selecting these projects that
is consistent with the 10-year comprehensive strategy and
implementation plan, and it allows for the timely consideration
of legal challenges.
Second, the legislation provides authority for Federal land
managers to enter into long-term stewardship contracts with the
private sector, non-profit organizations, and local
communities. This authority focuses again on what we leave in
the forest for the overall long-term health of the forest. It
allows contractors to provide valuable services, such as
thinning trees and removing brush and deadwood and to utilize
the materials which may have incidental value. It also provides
incentives for contractors in local communities to invest in
needed equipment and infrastructure, such as biomass plants, to
produce energy.
Third, the legislation repeals the rider that was added to
the fiscal year 1993 Interior appropriation bill that imposes
extraordinary administrative appeal requirements on the Forest
Service that are not required of any other Federal agency.
Finally, the legislation establishes a standard of review
for Federal courts to ensure that they weigh the risks of
irreparable environmental harm caused by catastrophic fires
against the effects of management activities that reduce fire
risks.
The President intends to work cooperatively and in a
bipartisan way with Congress, Governors, and local communities
to move forward on these legislative proposals. We acknowledge
the good work that this Committee has already done, including
the legislation proposed by the Chairman and many other members
of the Committee as we heard today. We look forward to working
with you on the Healthy Forest Initiative and as we cooperate
to make our forests, our rangelands and our communities
healthier and more fire safe.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
appear before you today.
The Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Veneman.
The Chairman. Secretary Norton, we will turn the time to
you, ma'am.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GALE A. NORTON, SECRETARY,
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Secretary Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to talk with you all today about the Healthy Forest
Initiative.
As Secretary Veneman mentioned, her Department and mine
have worked very closely together on this project and on
coordinating our overall fire management program; and in
cooperating with her on the presentation today I would like to
focus on some of the visual issues here, to talk about
essentially how these problems look.
As I have talked with people who may not be as familiar
with our forests as I think most of these Committee members
are, I found that there is some misunderstandings and failure
to grasp what the reality of the situation is, and I think
looking at some of the photos is most helpful.
First, let me introduce Rebecca Watson, who is our
Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management. She
oversees, among other things, the Bureau of Land Management.
The first set of photos that we have here--and these are
also found in the President's Healthy Forest Initiative report
that was included in members' packets--shows what has happened
in forest areas throughout the West.
In the 1890's, when the top picture was taken, we see a
cabin that is in what forests usually looked like at that time,
a ponderosa pine-type forest that has a great deal of open
grassland between the trees.
The next photo was taken, the same cabin, the same forest
in the 1980's. In that area, we see vastly more dense forests.
Across the board in the West in many of our forest areas there
are 15 times as many trees today as there were in the early
1900's.
That cabin was moved early in the year 2000, and during the
summer of 2000 a fire came through and destroyed the entire
forest behind the cabin. It was an overly dense area that was
subject to the same kind of catastrophic fires that we are
concerned about; and had the cabin not been moved, it
undoubtedly would have been destroyed.
But the last picture was taken earlier this year, and it
shows that the trees are indeed dead.
The difference between the dense forests and what we see
with fire behavior there and a natural forest is illustrated
here. Fire is truly a natural part of our ecosystem, and we
don't want to guard against fire entirely. What we want to
guard against is the catastrophic fire that occurs in overly
dense forests.
As you see here, the flames are very small. They are really
focusing on the undergrowth and small trees.
The next picture is one that shows what happens when a fire
goes through a dense forest. This is a catastrophic fire. This
is hitting the crowns of the trees. It is destroying old trees
that would have survived the much smaller natural fires that we
see going through.
In order to make the changes that need to be made, we are
talking about thinning the forests. And thinning the forests
takes our forests from an overly dense set of trees to ones
that are much more--are further apart and that have cleared out
the small trees and the underbrush.
And if you can put up the before and after photos.
We have some areas where the fires have gone through, but
the trees were thinned. And we have essentially the areas that
were thinned and the areas that were not thinned. If you can
just hold up both of those photos together. Hold up the other
Squires photo.
This is an area in Oregon, and the fire has gone through
this area. I am sorry, we haven't--that one. Yes. OK. Well, I
am looking for the after-fire photos here. Well, I will tell
you what. Just hold up the Rodeo-Chediski photo. OK. This--all
right.
This is an area that was not treated in the Squires area in
Oregon--I apologize--and, as you can see, it is a devastated
forest.
The same area--the furthest back photo that is up there.
The next one. This is an area where the fire actually went
through. You can see there is some burned areas, but it is a
very little problem. Then the Rodeo-Chediski fire shows it most
clearly.
We have in the same area in Arizona where the areas were
treated and untreated. You can see thinned and unthinned. Where
the thinned fires, the trees are still alive. The same fire
went through both of these forest areas. The unthinned area
obviously is devastated. The thinned area, the trees are
surviving.
That is the result we want to get. We want to get our
forests into a condition that will survive fires, that will
restore the natural ecosystems.
Now, from the Department of the Interior perspective, we
have something over 50 million acres of forested lands in the
lower 48. We manage our forests, for the most part, with the
ecosystem of the forest in mind as the primary factor. We have
some areas that are timber areas, especially on Indian
reservations and in our Oregon and California designated lands
that are BLM areas managed for commercial timber.
But we also see the effects on the forest ecosystems. Birds
like the white-crowned sparrows, western bluebirds, Rufus
hummingbirds, white-headed woodpeckers, Lewis woodpeckers and
so forth are historically common to the West, but they are
species of birds that require open areas. Their populations are
declining because of the lack of open areas. The dense forest
ecosystems are not conducive to those kinds of wildlife. So,
for the management of wildlife and the enhancement of our
forested areas for wildlife, we need to have more active
management of the forests.
The Department of the Interior worked with the Department
of Agriculture on our program with the Western Governors, the
National Association of Counties and so forth to come up with a
plan for dealing with the fire problem. We look forward to
using the collaborative process that was identified in
cooperation with those groups in order to identify the areas
where emergency fuels treatment needs to take place, and our
legislative proposal would provide that that process could go
forward on 10 million acres. That would be areas in watersheds,
areas that would be affected by disease, wildland urban
interface and other high priority areas.
For the Department of the Interior, the stewardship
contracting approach is a new one. The areas where we would be
looking are sometimes areas that might be considered commercial
timber areas, but, for the most part, our lands are not that.
We are going to be trying to be creative, to identify ways of
shifting some of the costs for the thinning that needs to take
place for the health of our forests onto the private sector and
finding some way to get other people involved in this process.
Frankly, for us, it is not going to be easy. We might have
to look, for example, to a small landscape company that would
be willing to thin out an area of juniper in order to have us
pay for part of the contract, but they could keep wood for
firewood or for mulch. That is the kind of contracting that we
see perhaps taking place for the Department of the Interior.
That, for us, gives us a way of expanding our ability to do
fuels treatment. It is not something that is just being done in
the context of the areas of the Pacific Northwest that we
usually think of as the area of commercial forest. For us, it
covers our rangelands and our forests that are not commercial-
type forests.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Veneman and Secretary
Norton follows:]
Statement of Hon. Ann M. Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture, and Hon.
Gale A. Norton, Secretary of the Interior
Chairman Hansen and Members of the Committee:
We appreciate the opportunity to meet with you today to discuss the
President's Healthy Forests Initiative and legislation that will
improve fire management and forest health on our public lands.
We would like to provide for the record written comments on the
legislation that is being heard today. Our Departments are reviewing
these bills and evaluating how they compare with the Administration's
proposals. We want to commend the Committee and particularly,
Subcommittee Chairman McInnis, for his active attention to the issue
and the energy he has put into drafting a legislative proposal. We
would also like to thank Representatives Rehberg and Shadegg for their
proposals. There are common themes in our legislation and we look
forward to working with you as the legislation moves through the
process.
The need for a plan to restore our forests and rangelands to long-
term health has never been greater. Today, the forests and rangelands
of the West have become unnaturally dense and ecosystem health has
suffered significantly. When coupled with seasonal droughts, these
unhealthy forests, overloaded with fuels, are vulnerable to unnaturally
severe wildfires. Currently, a 190 million acres of public land are at
increased risk of catastrophic wildfires. It is in this context, and
during this severe and ongoing wildland fire season, that we discuss
President Bush's recently introduced Healthy Forests Initiative and
legislation designed to promote efficiency and timely and more
effective implementation plans to restore and sustain healthy forests
and rangelands.
The nation is experiencing one of the worst wildfire seasons in
modern history. The Hayman fire in Colorado, the Rodeo-Chediski fires
in Arizona, the McNally fire in California and the Biscuit fire in
Oregon have come in sequence over the last several months. These
incredibly fast moving, destructive fires have resulted in catastrophic
environmental, social and economic impacts. They have been the worst in
each state's history. These infernos, along with over 60,000 other
wildfire starts, have burned over six million acres so far this year,
matching the pace of the previous record-setting 2000 fire season and
doubling the 10-year average. Based on current fuel conditions and
weather predictions the potential for more fires remains high through
the fall. The cost of fighting these fires has been staggering.
Firefighting costs for the Forest Service alone will exceed $1.25
billion. Hundreds of communities and thousands of people have fled
their homes, and, most tragically, 20 brave firefighters have lost
their lives.
Our firefighters are more effective than ever, controlling over 99%
of all fires on initial attack. Yet, as the severity of the season
demonstrates, even our best firefighting efforts are not enough without
an effective strategy to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. In
May of this year, working with the Western Governors' Association and a
broad cross-section of interests including county commissioners, state
foresters, tribal officials and other stakeholders, we reached
consensus on a 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy and Implementation Plan
to reduce fire risks to communities and the environment. The plan sets
forth the blueprint for making communities and the environment safer
from destructive wildfires. The plan calls for active forest management
focusing on hazardous fuels reduction both in the wildland-urban
interface and across the broader landscape. Active forest management
includes: thinning trees from over-dense stands that produce commercial
or pre-commercial products, biomass removal and utilization, and
prescribed fire and other fuels reduction tools. We want to thank
Representative Pombo and the members of the House of Representatives
for initiating and passing House Concurrent Resolution 352 endorsing
the Collaborative 10-Year Strategy. We take seriously our
responsibilities under the Implementation Plan. For example, within
five weeks of signing the Agreement, we completed detailed work plans
to address the 23 implementation tasks identified in the Plan.
Timely and strategically placed fuels treatment projects are
effective in preventing or stopping fires. A recently published study
by the Western Forest Fire Research Center concluded that treated
stands experience lower fire severity than untreated stands that burn
under similar weather and topographic condition. This report was
released in March before this fire season, but we have many examples
from this summer including the Squires Fire near Medford, Oregon, where
untreated forest burned intensely while fire dropped to the ground in
the treated areas giving firefighters the chance to attack the fire
safely. On the Rodeo-Chediski and Cache Mountain Fires, damage to
forest stands was minimized in areas treated to reduce hazardous fuel
3-5 years earlier.
In order for the 10-Year Implementation Plan to succeed, the Forest
Service and Interior agencies must be able to implement critical fuels
reduction and restoration projects associated with the plan goals in a
timely manner. Too often, however, the agencies are constrained by
procedural requirements and litigation that delay actual on-the-ground
implementation. A June 2002 Forest Service study, The Process
Predicament, identified three factors most contributing to project
delay: 1) excessive analysis; 2) ineffective public involvement; and 3)
management inefficiencies.
The situation in this country has reached a point where the
roadblocks which prevent agencies charged with the responsibility for
forest health to implement management decisions must change. On August
22, 2002, President Bush announced Healthy Forests: An Initiative for
Wildfire Prevention and Stronger Communities. The Healthy Forest
Initiative will implement core components of the 10-Year Implementation
Plan, enhancing and facilitating the work and collaboration agreed to
in that document. The Healthy Forests initiative directs the agencies
to improve regulatory processes to ensure more timely decisions,
greater efficiencies and better results in reducing the risks of
catastrophic wildfires by restoring forest health. The President's
initiative directs us, together with Council on Environmental Quality
Chairman Connaughton, to: improve procedures for developing and
implementing fuels treatments and forest and rangeland restoration
projects in priority forests and rangelands in collaboration with local
governments; reduce the number of overlapping environmental reviews by
combining project analysis and establishing a process for concurrent
project clearance by Federal agencies; develop guidance for weighing
the short-term risks against the long-term benefits of fuels treatment
and restoration projects; and develop guidance to ensure consistent
NEPA procedures for fuels treatment activities and restoration
activities, including development of a model Environmental Assessment
for these types of projects.
In accordance with the Healthy Forests Initiative, we have
submitted to the Congress for consideration a legislative proposal
designed to accomplish more timely, efficient, and effective
implementation of forest and rangeland health projects. The intent of
this proposal is to significantly increase and improve forest and
rangeland health and to prevent the damage caused by catastrophic
wildfires.
The first section would expedite implementation of fuels reduction
projects, where hazardous fuels pose the greatest risk to people,
communities, and the environment, consistent with more targeted
legislation passed in July. In implementing projects under this
section, the highest priority will be given to wildland urban interface
areas; municipal watersheds; and forested or rangeland areas affected
by disease, insect activity, or wind throw; or areas susceptible to
catastrophic reburn.
Section 2 would authorize agencies to enter into long-term
stewardship contracts with the private sector, non-profit
organizations, and local communities. Stewardship contracts allow
contractors to keep forest products and other vegetative material in
exchange for the service of thinning trees and brush and removing dead
wood. Long-term contracts provide contractors the opportunity to invest
in equipment and infrastructure needed to productively use material
generated from forest thinning to make forest products or to produce
energy.
Section 3 would remove a rider contained in Section 322 of the
Fiscal Year 1993 Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations bill that
imposed extraordinary procedural requirements on the Forest Service
that are not required of any other Federal agency. The goal of
meaningful public participation and consensus building will be better
served through pre-decisional public notice and comment rather than
through post-decision appeals.
The fourth section would address standards of injunctive relief for
activities necessary to restore fire-adapted forest and rangeland
ecosystems. This section is designed to ensure that judges consider
long-term risks of harm to people, property and the environment in
challenges based on short-term risks of forest health projects.
In addition, the Administration will work with Congress on
legislation to supplement the Agriculture and Interior Departments
effort to fulfill the original promise of the 1994 Northwest Forest
Plan.
President Bush's proposed Healthy Forests Initiative is based upon
a common-sense approach to reducing the threat of catastrophic
wildfires by restoring forest and rangeland health. Our goal is to
ensure the long-term safety and health of communities and ecosystems in
our care. Our responsibility is to ensure the long-term health of our
forests and rangelands for the use, benefit and enjoyment of our
citizens and for generations to come. These are goals and
responsibilities that we take seriously and we fully commit ourselves,
our agencies and the resources you have provided us with to fulfill
them. We appreciate the continued bipartisan support we have received
from the Congress, and we look forward to working with you on these
legislative proposals.
______
The Chairman. May I ask the two Secretaries, do you have
any time left that we could ask you some questions? All right.
I will--they have quite a heavy schedule. It reminds me of Mr.
Babbitt, who used to come in here and do the same thing.
Mr. DeFazio, do you want to take 5 minutes? Go right ahead.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETER A. DEFAZIO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. DeFazio. Well, Mr. Chairman, you might remember at many
times I disagreed with the past administration and didn't
support those sorts of activities, either.
Since I didn't have an opening statement, since the largest
fire thus far this summer is still burning in my district, an
area shared with Representative Walden, and there is a lot to
say about this, I can use most of this for an opening
statement, hoping that the Secretaries are listening.
I raised this issue previously with Secretary Veneman and
Assistant Secretary Rey in terms of the needs for thinning and
a way of, as I described it to Assistant Secretary Rey, Nixon
going to China. Mark, you could bring a lot of credibility to
this.
We have a choice, Mr. Chairman. We can either engage in the
old battles here, let us repeal the environmental laws--and
that is whole problem--or we can deal with this seriously. And
I don't think we are dealing with it seriously. I just heard
about a bill that the administration is going to propose that
we don't have before us or they have sent up today. We don't
have that bill before us. I would hope that before the
Committee marks up a bill we would be allowed to perhaps hold a
hearing on the administration's bill and we will be given a
little bit of time to prepare.
I found out about this on Thursday. I believe most
Democrats found out about this on last Thursday before Labor
Day weekend. We didn't have adequate time to prepare.
There are experts in my district who do bring incredible
credentials to this issue who are pretty neutral on it who do
look at the problem and propose real solutions, as opposed to,
hey, let us have fun. Senator Daschle snuck something into a
bill. Nobody knew it was there. Let us beat the hell out of him
for it, and let us beat the Democrats over the head with it,
and let us pretend this is a solution to our problems. It isn't
the solution. Now, let us get to the seriousness.
I mean, Secretary, just on the Bitter Root, I just changed
your headlines a little bit. Unmanaged forests, no, that is a
mismanaged forest in the second one with all the overgrowth. We
are talking about a hundred years of mismanagement, Democrat
and Republican mismanagement of the forestlands of the United
States. It is going to take a long time to dig out of this
hole, and it is going to be very expensive.
Here is the problem. We have got to talk about paying for
it. It is great--I was talking to loggers down in the southern
part of my district who are unemployed; and they said, you
know, we go out and buy some equipment. We would be happy to
work on these projects, but we have got to know that there is
some predictability here. If we are going to make the
investment, we need to know this project lasts 3 years, 5
years, 10 years. How much work is there going to be out there?
They are not going to make the investment to get back into
business.
There are plenty of people who are qualified and could do
it, but the Federal Government hasn't been willing to put up
the money, neither Democrat nor Republican. Let us not turn
this into a partisan issue, let us not go back to the old
battle. Let us really deal with the problem.
I see some kernels of potential agreement with
Representative McInnis and with what Mr. Shadegg said, but the
point is, when you look at the study--and I don't know if
either of you are familiar with this, but the FI A biozone,
which has not been peer reviewed and studied yet, but it is
available in draft, from--been done at Oregon State University
at the research station. They just did an intensive analysis of
one forest in Oregon and Washington--in Oregon and California.
In that one forest, after you net out what you could
possibly make, because particularly on the east side forest
there is very little value. Juniper for mulch, juniper doesn't
biodegrade; it is not a very good mulch. But, you know, I mean,
there is not much value there. They made great fence posts, and
we might be able to market the juniper there.
But the point is, $1,685 per acre, 2.7 B--billion--dollars
outlay net for one forest. We are talking about mismanagement
of the Federal forests over a hundred years that, if we were
willing to make the investment, realistically, over the next 10
years, with all the commercial value that could be realized--
and most of that is westside Oregon, Washington, Northern
California--for any commercial species that might come out and
need a thinning, you are talking about probably a net outlay by
the Federal Government of $50 billion or more.
That is what we need to hear from this administration. We
didn't hear it from the last one. I don't know that we are
going to hear it from this one. But the point is, we can't--
let's not go back. Let's not go back. I mean, let us not go
back and fight the forest wars all over again. The current
forest policy of the United States of America is a failure, and
it is a bipartisan failure accumulated over many years with
many contestants on either side. And let us not feed either
side of this battle. Let us try and break through. Please, let
us try and break through.
There are things that we can do that bring vast agreement
between environmentalists and industry and the people in the
local communities who are the ones most impacted by this stuff.
But there are other things that just feed back into the old
wars, and that is where I am afraid we are headed with this
hurry-up.
Mr. Chairman, I ask respectfully that we hold another
hearing on this issue. We have all the bills, including the
ones the administration has just mentioned, today before us. We
have it at a time when the Secretaries and other interested
parties have the time to sit with the Committee and go into
these things in detail. Let us deal with this issue seriously.
Let us not use it for political advantage, I beg you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. The time of the gentleman has expired.
I ask unanimous consent the gentleman from California, Mr.
Herger, be allowed to sit on the dais. Hearing no objection, it
is so ordered.
On the majority side, questions for the two Secretaries.
Mr. McInnis is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I would address
it to both Secretaries.
I keep hearing up here that there are proposals to throw
all environmental laws out. Have you seen any proposal or does
the proposal that the President intends to put in in front of
the U.S. Congress propose in any sense whatsoever to throw the
environmental laws out?
Secretary Norton. Congressman McInnis, that is certainly
not our proposal. Our proposal is a very reasonable approach.
We have a collaborative process that we would work with the
Western Governors and local stakeholders to identify priority
areas for an emergency treatment project, and that would be a
substitute for the ordinary NIBA analysis that would be done in
that situation. It would still have the same kind of process
that would be done for the overall management of the forest
areas or the BLM districts or so forth.
We have land-use plans, and those land-use plans would be
addressing the overall plan for the health of that area. So you
would have that overall guidance document in place, and then
for the emergency treatment we would use a collaborative
process instead of producing all of the paperwork.
Mr. McInnis. Madam Secretary.
Secretary Veneman. Yes, Congressman. I think that one of
the things that is important to recognize about these proposals
is it is not calling for an elimination of input but more
upfront collaboration so that we don't continually get into
delays in the process because of continued appeals and court
actions, so that we can create the kind of predictability that
Congressman DeFazio is talking about.
I think that a couple of things also are clear in terms of
some of the issues that were brought up.
One, we don't want this to be a partisan debate either. It
is a bipartisan issue. We have worked with a bipartisan group
of Governors in proposing the various plans and the
implementation. We had bipartisan representation in Oregon last
week when we announced the programs with Senator Wyden and
Governor Kitzhaber being with us, because these issues are
long-term issues, as you say. One of the proposals in this
legislation is to create the exact kind of predictability and
investment that Congressman DeFazio talked about, and that is
allowing us to enter into some long-term contracts so that
those investments can be made so that we can have the
predictability and we can get the long-term plans that are
going to be necessary to deal with this long-term and long-time
problem that you have identified.
So I think that, in fact, the legislation does address a
number of these issues that have been raised, and we need to
work together in a bipartisan way to accomplish the kind of
results that we all need.
Mr. McInnis. I would also like to be point out that will
probably be brought to your attention, is that there is a new
study out by the Forest Trust in regards to the report--a
comparison in the two government reports of which I mentioned
earlier on factors affecting timely fuel treatment decisions.
When you take a look at that, let me tell you that it is based
on a faulty--the premises is based on a faulty comparison. It
is not accurate. When we came out with our new numbers, we are
focused on the mechanical removal of mechanical thinning. That
is--it is very clear in the title of what we are attempting to
figure out what appeals have delayed that. So I don't want this
to distort the effort that I am making, frankly, to get
accurate numbers of what this appeal or paralysis by analysis
is doing.
Finally, with the remaining seconds I have, Mr. DeFazio, I
think the comments I heard from you are some of the best
comments I have heard. I would invite you to come to my
Subcommittee. Because in my Subcommittee it has become a
partisan warfare on describing a thinning of--it can't be more
than seven inches, or something like this, study after study
thrown in our face. And I would like you to come in and broker
a little bipartisanship in that Committee, because it seems
that everybody talks about bipartisan, but as soon as we get
into that Committee they lock horns, and it is a little easier
said than done.
Mr. DeFazio. I will be happy to work with the gentleman,
and I will talk to him afterwards.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. On the minority side, Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, I thank Secretary Veneman and
Secretary Norton for joining the Committee hearing.
The Chairman raised the issue in opening remarks, and there
has been a lot of agreement here, that this has been a
mismanaged policy in the past, and the crux of that has been
around an intensive fire suppression policy.
What are you envisioning in the future in dealing with the
issue of fire suppression? Under our most optimistic policies
and treatment, it is going to be a long time before we can
outguess the lightning strikes. We have the forests in such a
shape that just with the natural causes of fire, what is it
that we are going to do, both on the Interior lands and the
Forest Service lands, with respect to suppression? We are
always subject to Monday morning quarterbacking when the winds
change and weather change, and yet we know an extensive
suppression policy has gotten us into the situation where we
are now.
Secretary Norton. We undergo a process of looking at each
individual fire to decide if that is something that ought to be
allowed to burn or should be suppressed. We have had a number
of fires, even in this drought year where all of the forests
are so fire-prone, where we still have allowed some fires to go
forward.
We had, for example, one that is on one of the Department
of the Interior lands where we are monitoring that, but it was
allowed to burn.
In most years we can make better use of natural fires and
allow those to do some of the prescribed burn-type thinning for
us. This year has been such a drastic year, we have not been
able to use that as much as possible.
We have to make the balance of protecting homes and
protecting from the catastrophic fires. If we get to a stage
where we have thinned out our forests where it is back to a
more natural state in our forests, then fires are not so
catastrophic and do not have the same ecological effect that
they have today, so we can judge it more just from the impacts
on human habitation.
Today we have to look at human habitation and the
devastation to habitat that may also be caused.
Mr. Rey. In the Forest Service, I think we have a pretty
good example of how we can increase the use of prescribed fire,
once we have refused fuel loads, so fire can be used safely. In
our southeast region where we do a lot of prescribed fire, it
is because we have forests where the fuel loads have previously
been reduced, so we can use prescribed fire as a primary forest
health tool.
Mr. Miller. Do you have the same policy as the Secretary,
fire by fire?
Mr. Rey. Basically the same policy, that is correct.
One thing that I think is worth adding, it is probably easy
to beat ourselves up for 100 years of mismanagement, but I am
not sure it is fair to our predecessors. At the turn of the
century, we had an incomplete understanding of the role of fire
and natural ecosystems in a large number of catastrophic fires,
so the reaction at that time based upon what was known is not
necessarily a bad reaction. Indeed, it was a reaction that was
necessary at that time to convince people that you could
protect forces and that forests were worthy of a long-term
investment. It was the basis for the development of what we now
call scientific forestry. But, like anything else, too much of
a good thing is dangerous and we now know that we overreacted
and suppressed fires in cases where we should not have.
The Chairman. On the Majority side, Mr. Walden.
Mr. Walden. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I share both the passion and concern of my colleague from
Oregon, Mr. DeFazio. Forty percent of this Biscuit fire, over
204,000 acres, burned in my side of the district. And I have
had a lot of other fires, including the Squires fire which the
President and the secretaries were at, and I want to thank you
for coming to Oregon and I want to thank the President for not
only coming out, but meeting with the firefighters and for
speaking out on the need for reform and change.
As I rode back down the hill with the President, with
Senator Wyden and Senator Smith, he was very clear on his
openness to work to find a solution. I sense in terms of
legislation coming up here that there is an opportunity for us
to weigh in and try to figure out a solution here. He was
certainly open to that in the briefing and in the private
discussions we had.
Mr. Miller's comment was intriguing because I agree we
cannot always outguess lightning, but the Forest Service did
try on the McCache area where they tried to do a vegetation
project. It took years to go through the process. ONRC appealed
it. It was the fire this year that burned two of the houses at
Black Butte, 500 of the 1,000 acres were proposed for
treatment, but because of their appeal that was later thrown
out, did not get treated, and that is where the fire burned.
Occasionally we do try and outguess the lightning, and most
of the time firefighters put out these blazes. I was amazed by
the number of dry lightning strikes in my district, and it is
an enormous percentage that get put out right away. Very few
actually get away, but when they do, we have these catastrophic
fires. I am concerned about where we are in terms of getting in
and doing the treatments and the time delays and this enormous
fight we are having over what size tree is allowed to be cut.
Shouldn't we be managing based on the health of the trees?
I hear these comments about saving old growth. I like being out
in old growth, too. We do need to preserve some. The point is
you can have a 24-inch diameter diseased tree up against a 30-
inch healthy tree. Doesn't it make sense to take out the
diseased one regardless of its diameter?
How do we get to an answer on old growth?
Secretary Norton. Certainly we need to look at these
situations on a case-by-case basis. From our perspective, what
we would like to see are some open areas for wildlife. From our
wildlife management perspective, we may want to do some things
that are not dictated just on cut out every tree smaller than X
or leave every tree bigger than X.
Our proposal is not about trying to go after old growth.
That is not what we are talking about here. We also need to
have the on-the-ground flexibility to be able to manage to what
a particular forest needs.
Mr. Walden. Does this proposal prevent any appeal or any
comment by people?
Secretary Veneman. No, it does not. And I think that is
important here. The public input process is what is important.
The proposal attempts to put much more of that up front in the
planning process as opposed to leaving it to appeal after
appeal after appeal. That actually is impacting the overall
health of the forest, whether it is cleanup after a fire or it
is dealing with the underbrush and the fuels load, is that we
want to be able to come in and actively manage but with proper
planning and input.
I might add that in response to your question about what
you take out of a forest, as I said in my opening statement,
what is critical here is what we leave behind. The Healthy
Forest Initiative is about leaving behind a healthy forest that
can withstand some fire, that can protect communities and
protect people.
Also, it is very important that this year I think we have
had one of the most successful suppression years that we have
ever had because we have suppressed, in early outbreak of fire,
99.6 percent of the fires; and yet we have had one of the most
devastating fire years because the areas that are burning are
not well-thinned and they are not healthy and they are not well
maintained, and that is what this initiative is really all
about.
Mr. Walden. I would just point out that on the Squires
fire, 37 tankard sorties were flown out of the Medford tankard
base. We are delighted it was able to remain open and we are
doing our part on this end to make sure that it is upgraded and
will remain open and active for the future.
The Chairman. On the Minority side, Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There is a lot we still do not know, but we know that we
cannot go back to the days of lawless logging and we cannot
allow the smoke from these fires in the West to obscure the
fact that the real question is not whether to have a fuels
reduction program, but where to clear and what to clear.
I have a couple pictures that I think, after listening to
the hearing, identifies the issues that this Committee needs to
resolve to try to improve our fuels reduction program.
The picture we are looking at here is a 500-year-old
Douglas fir in the Mount Baker National Forest. I was up there
a week ago, and we were taking a core sample of it, aging it.
That tree is an interesting tree in that it does something that
fire-resistant trees do: It survives fires. It survived a fire
60 to 80 years ago--our core sample disclosed that--that burned
through the forest. These are the fire-resistant trees. We do
not want to take these fire-resistant trees out of the forest.
The controversy in these forests that lead to these appeals
are the fact that the Forest Service frequently in mechanical
thinning projects has attempted under the guise of a fuel
reduction program to sell commercial timber to generate revenue
rather than to protect the ecosystem from catastrophic fire.
This tree was not marked for logging. I used it for a
demonstration.
This next picture was. This is a tree from an Oregon forest
in an alleged fuel reduction program, a tree that is clearly
not the sort of toothpick trees that we consider part of the
fuel-reduction effort that ought not to be the ones that are
cut.
The diagnosis that I have is where we have controversy is
in the mechanical thinning programs, where citizens have blown
the whistle on commercial sales under the guise of fuel
reduction programs. How do we solve that problem?
The proposal that has been given under this bill and by the
administration is to reduce the ability of citizens to blow the
whistle on the government that they elect and pay for. We do
not think that the answer to this problem is to reduce citizen
involvement. In an administration that believes in local
control, it seems to me to be a little bit ironic that its
response to this issue is to reduce citizen involvement in
decisionmaking. I would suggest that there are things that we
need to do, can do successfully, to reduce controversy about
these issues. And I will propose a bill that will do these four
things, and I would hope you would support it.
No. 1, we will focus these fuel reduction programs where
they ought to be focused and that is in the urban/wildland
interface. If we have 39 million acres at risk for fires, and
we do not have as much to do about 1 to 2 percent of them a
year, we ought to be focusing in the urban/wildland interface
to first protect people's houses from burning down. But we are
not doing that now.
The Forest Service last year in the acreage it treated,
two-thirds of the acres it treated was not close to anybody's
house or a town that was under threat. We need to say 85
percent of your budget is used first to protect people's homes
from burning down. That ought to be the national priority when
we have to husband our resources.
If we look at the Los Angeles forest, you are spending huge
amounts out in Timbuktu, and you are not spending money right
next to people's houses that are in danger of burning down the
next time there is a lightning strike. It is a priority issue.
No. 2, we have to have definitions on a forest-by-forest
basis of what trees we are going to cut down. The reason we
have citizen concern about this is that the Forest Service does
not offer citizens clarity or certainty as to what will be cut
and what will not be cut. The Forest Service on a forest-by-
forest basis needs to adopt maximum diameter cuts so that
citizens will know what the rules are in a local input
decisionmaking process.
No. 3, we need the funds from commercial sales from these
programs to go to the general fund and not the Forest Service.
The reason we need to do that is if we create an incentive for
any agency to generate revenues by doing program X, you going
to get program X. And it is asking too much of the Forest
Service to ignore the fact if you sell timber out of this
program you make money and if you just do thinning you do not,
and to ask it not to be influenced by that fiscal situation.
No. 4, we need to involve the States more, and the
Governors have led a step forward in this. We need to create a
grant program for the States because when the Governors looked
at this issue they did not waive environmental laws or reduce
citizen input, they welcomed it. We need to welcome citizen
input to come up with locally generated solutions. I ask you to
consider those four ideas, and I throw it open for your
response.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired. They can
give you a written response.
The Chairman. Mr. Inslee.
Secretary Veneman, I know you have to leave at 10:45. Let
me just say we appreciate you coming to the Committee. We know
this is a very emotional issue with a lot of people. The
Committee and many of the members have talked to me about many
of the things that you have alluded to. Many fall in the realm
of the idea of the amount of your money and budget that goes to
adjudicate issues, that really that money should be used for
advancing the Forest Service or the Interior.
I was appalled when I called BLM and talked to Mr. Bosworth
about the amount of money that it takes to litigate these
areas. It is unbelievable that the budget has gone that far in
the years that I have been here. Somehow we have turned over
the management of the public lands of America to people who
wear black robes and are not scientists and do not have a good
understanding of the issue.
I hope in Mr. McInnis's bill and Mr. Shadegg's bill we can
incorporate some of these issues to alleviate that huge
problem. We really should probably double your budgets just to
adjudicate these issues.
We thank you for being here. It is 10:45. That is the time
you needed to leave. I appreciate you being here.
Does the Committee have further questions? They have two
very competent assistants.
Mr. Rehberg. Mr. Chairman, my question is for Mr. Rey.
Secretary Veneman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rehberg. I thank the Bureau of Land Management team for
coming out on our fire. They responded very quickly, and we
appreciate them being there. Please pass that along to your
folks.
Mr. Rey, I would like you to respond to Mr. Inslee. I take
some offense with people trying to manage forests from
Washington, D.C. It is easy to look at a picture, but can you
look at that picture and tell us exactly why that a tree needs
to be cut down? I doubt it.
Mr. Rey. At the risk of offending you further by suggesting
how we could manage these two stands from Washington, D.C., let
us look at the first picture first.
That picture is on the west side of the Cascades Forest on
the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. It needs to be
thinned, but it is Fire Regime 4, which means that fire is a
less frequent visitor in this section. That would not be one of
our top priorities for thinning. If we were to thin it, we most
definitely would not cut the tree that Mr. Inslee is looking
at.
Now the other picture, that is the Ponderosa pine site on
the east side of the Cascades. That would be Fire Regime No. 1,
which is the most frequent Fire Regime, and depending on the
ecological circumstances involved or its proximity to the
wildland-urban interface, a priority for treatment.
Now, one of the things that I have learned to become
suspicious of over the years is pictures that show me part of a
tree and not all of the tree. I would like to see the crown of
that tree to see if it is diseased, dying, or dead so I can
evaluate whether its removal would be necessary just for that
reason. But beyond that, even if it is a perfect and live tree,
I am looking at a stand density that is large.
In some sites we will have so many trees of medium to large
diameter per acre, that to get down to the stand densities that
we want that we know that can withstand fire, we are going to
take out some larger-diameter trees even if they are healthy,
because we are concerned about the quality of the stand that we
leave behind, not because we are necessarily looking to remove
large-diameter trees.
Mr. Rehberg. I have not heard you talk about loggers. Your
decision was made based upon the commercial value of that tree.
Mr. Rey. Whatever commercial value comes from one of these
thinning operations is in our view incidental, not dispositive
or motivating in why, when, or how we do it.
Mr. Rehberg. That would be the mantra if you are trying to
keep change from occurring. If you want it exactly as it is,
you would always throw up the commercialization of the forest
as opposed to seeing perhaps timber companies being a tool to
create a better environment.
Mr. Rey. If there is incidental value to taking out a tree,
provided that your primary purpose is the health of the forest
that you leave behind, I think it makes some sense to recover
that value by creating jobs and products. But the real
challenge is not to take out the big trees, but what to do with
the small trees. If we can by writing longer-term contracts
provide for stability of supply, we can add value to smaller-
diameter material by using that stability to attract
infrastructure investments that do not exist now that can
utilize that material.
This is a 2x8 I joist. It structurally has the same
properties as a 2x8 of sawn lumber which would have to come
from a tree at least that big or bigger. This joist is
comprised of 12 one-eighth-inch strips on either side, with a
particle board insert in the middle. You don't need anything
bigger than 4 to 6 inches in diameter to manufacture this. A 4-
to 6- inch tree, put it on a lathe, instead of sending it
through a head saw, peel it instead of sawing it, cut the sheet
of veneer into strips, glue the strips together, grind up what
is left to make the particle board and you have a 2x8.
Mr. Rehberg. I would like to ask you one more specific
question. The pictures were put up of the Bitterroot. The
Forest Service made the recommendation that they would like to
see 38 sales on the Bitterroot. It was appealed. You did not
appeal that appeal.
Did you not appeal that appeal because your determination
of 38 or 39 sales was inadequate and wrong, or did you make it
because the laws were in place to take the appeals process so
far beyond the salvageability of those trees that it was not in
the best interests of the Federal Government to do it? Did you
compromise for the sake of compromising, or did you back off
because you were wrong in the first place?
Mr. Rey. We settled that case through a mediated settlement
because the issues involved were time-sensitive. It was a
choice between trying to see what we could agree to treat, or
treating nothing.
Mr. Rehberg. So the health of the forest was dictated by
the law and an appeals process as opposed to doing the right
thing for the forest?
Mr. Rey. That is what our land managers would say, yes.
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. [Presiding.] We are going to have two votes.
We will continue for another 5 minutes, and then recess until
probably 11:20, at which time we would ask the second panel to
testify. Hopefully we will be able to expedite so we can
finish. We have 5 more minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. HILDA L. SOLIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Ms. Solis. Mr. Chairman, I apologize for arriving late. We
recently had a fire in my district that is still not fully
contained. There are 15,000 acres that have burned in the Los
Angeles National Forest. I am getting details now from the
Forest Service as to how that got started, but one of the
concerns that I have which was echoed earlier was how we deal
with communities and populations that are near these areas
which are fire-prone. What we are seeing is a lot of possible
hazards to the locales and to structures there. Already we have
spend $1.9 million in trying to contain the fire in this
particular location.
I would hope that we could have some input from the Forest
Service to better understand what kinds of support we actually
need in areas that are adjacent to these communities. We are
talking about a heavily populated area that is visited
extensively during the summer. We have thousands of families
that go up there and camp. I would like to hear what kinds of
plans there are for that.
Secretary Norton. We have an agreement with the Western
Governors Association, the National Association of Counties,
and others that would establish a process for prioritizing our
fuels treatment programs, and so we would envision a
collaborative process that would have local public meetings,
the local county commissioners would be involved, as we are
deciding what to do to try to prevent the possibility of
catastrophic fires in the future.
So in that planning process stage, we would have a lot of
involvement, in contrast to what Mr. Inslee was suggesting.
That would be our involvement at that stage of the process,
if that addresses your question.
Ms. Solis. One of the concerns that I have is there are
constituents who are distressed that they lost their property,
their cabins. What kinds of decisions are made that would allow
for those structures to be destroyed? Obviously there are
issues about personnel. How many appropriate personnel were
assigned and made available at this particular site?
Mr. Rey. That was one of our fires. We would be willing to
sit down and give you our post-suppression report and go over
what the initial attack strategy was so you can see for
yourself the decisions that the fire managers on the ground
made. I would be happy to visit the forest with you and walk it
through from the time of ignition to the early stages of
initial attack. We have done that in a number of cases with
local and Federal elected officials so they can see some of the
variables that our fire managers have to confront when there is
an ignition.
The Angeles is a particularly challenging forest for us
because our fire models show that there is no place on the
Angeles where an ignition will not reach a dwelling or a
neighborhood within 6 hours if we fail on initial attack. So
the entirety of the Angeles for all practical purposes is in
the urban/wildland interface, and that is Fire Regime 1, so
fire is a very frequent visitor.
In southern California, we have a cooperative agreement
with Los Angeles County and the California Department of
Forestry. They do the majority of initial attack work, and we
come in behind them. But I think the best thing for us to do is
to sit down after we get that fire suppressed and walk through
the attack strategy and see how it played back.
Ms. Solis. I am distressed to hear it will not be contained
until next week. This will be a 10-day approach to this
particular problem.
Mr. Rey. It is not that we are dilly dallying to contain
it. It is the practical realities of getting containment in
that topography with gusting winds that are challenging.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Inslee, you have 35 seconds of time.
Mr. Inslee. Mr. Rey, I trust your judgment there is risk
here, but why the Forest Service spent $9.8 million in the
Plumas National Forest, which is way away from dwellings, and
21 times less than that in the Angeles forest, which your
testimony just told me is 6 hours away from burning down
homes--why do you prioritize in that way? Doesn't it make sense
to change that prioritization?
Mr. Rey. Much of the money spent on the Plumas National
Forest was as result of a congressional earmark placed in the
Department of Interior appropriations bill by Senator
Feinstein.
We are supportive of the work that was done there. It was
necessary. There are wildland/urban interfaces on the Plumas.
That is why the money was spent there.
Clearly the wildland/urban interface is a top priority. It
is not our only priority. We acknowledge that it is a top
priority, and we will be moving resources into places like the
Angeles.
In 2002, our investment in the wildland/urban interface as
opposed to outside of it flipped over. Sixty-nine percent of
our work was done in the wildland/urban interface. The balance
was outside of it. So that the statistics you cited from 2001
have reversed themselves dramatically. I think that trend will
continue as we move more aggressively into the wildland/urban
interface. It is a top priority. It is not our only priority.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Inslee, your time is up. Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I want to thank you for the bills you and the others have
put forward, and thank our witnesses for being here today. I
appreciate all the hard work they have done.
I have one brief question that may require you to get back
to us with a written response. We have heard about the costs of
dealing with our forests and cleaning them up. Enormous numbers
of dollars are argued out here as a reason not to do it. But
what I would like you to do is to give me an estimate of the
cost of the firefighting that has taken place or will take
place as a result of not doing it, and sort of compare those
two on economic and operational costs to fight fires when we do
not go in and prepare not only our forests and our wildlands
for fire resistance compared to a fire operation that takes
place afterwards? I think that is a fair comparison to make and
I know that we have spent a lot of money in the last few months
just fighting fires, in addition to the lost resource revenues.
I would ask if that can be provided.
Secretary Norton. We will take a shot at that.
Mr. McInnis. The Committee will recess. I think it is going
to be about 20 minutes. We will try to be back in order at
11:20.
[Recess.]
Mr. McInnis. The Committee now will have our second panel
of Mr. Burley, Mr. Creal, Mr. Covington, Mr. Calahan, and Mr.
Schulke. I would defer to Mr. Hayworth for a special
introduction.
Mr. Hayworth. Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much.
It is a special honor to welcome a friend and constituent,
who remains a constituent at least until the realignment and
the formation of the 108th Congress, known formally as William
Wallace Covington, known to us in Arizona and across the United
States as Dr. Wally Covington.
Dr. Covington has been a leader in forest health and
ecological restoration since he became a professor at Northern
Arizona University in 1975. Today he directs the Ecological
Restoration Institute at NAU, the Nation's foremost applied
research institute for forest restoration. Dr. Covington
practices what I would like to refer to as enlightened
environmentalism. He cares a great deal about the preservation
of our forests and environmental resources and has provided us
with some of the best scientific research in the field. We are
grateful to have Dr. Covington here to testify. We thank you
for coming back and doing this hardship duty in Washington, and
we look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Flake. I just want to echo Mr. Hayworth's sentiments.
Anybody from Arizona has heard of Dr. Covington's work, and
anyone who has visited and toured the forests with him knows of
his commitment and knowledge and experience. I look forward to
benefiting from that today.
Mr. McInnis. We are going to go ahead and proceed. We will
allow each panelist to testify for 5 minutes, and I ask
everybody to respect the 5 minutes because we are going to try
to move through this and finish early in the lunch hour because
of other commitments that the Committee has.
Mr. McInnis. We will go ahead and start with Mr. Covington.
Mr. Covington, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM WALLACE COVINGTON, REGENTS' PROFESSOR AND
DIRECTOR OF THE ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION INSTITUTE, NORTHERN
ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
Mr. Covington. Thank you very much.
Where we are right now is where many people have been
predicting where we would be for generations of professional
ecologists and natural resource managers.
I would like to start by saying that I feel that we have to
be very careful in defining what the problem is and have some
very clear thinking about moving forward in resolving the
problem.
Large catastrophic stand-replacing fires are natural in
many western forest types. This includes chaparral, large pole
pines, spruce fir types, and some other forest types. There is
very little we can do to change that fact other than type
conversions. The major opportunity here for dealing with a
restoration-based hazardous fuel reduction is the Ponderosa
pine, the drier forest types. That is where the bigger problems
are. I think everyone is in agreement on that. Over 90 percent
of the fire-suppression expenditures over the past several
decades have been in this type.
The next point that I want to make is state that the
problem is a very complex one. It is not just about drought. We
have always had periodic droughts in the West; we always will.
But the problem is we have droughts intersecting with fuel
conditions that are unprecedented in the evolutionary history
of especially the Ponderosa pine type. It is not just about
houses burning. Although the loss of a home is tragic, houses
can be rebuilt in months. Ecosystems take centuries. Degraded
watersheds take millennia. And it is not just about crown
fires. Crown fires are just the latest in a long series of
symptoms of degrading ecosystem health. They include the loss
of native biological diversity, the decline of watershed
function, increased erosion and sedimentation, and unnatural
insect and disease eruptions.
It is not just about too many trees. We have too few old-
growth trees. There has been a tremendous population crash of
old-growth trees and far too many younger trees. It is not just
about small trees. In restoring ecosystem health, we also have
to look at removing some of the larger trees that have invaded
areas where they should not be, especially wet meadows, open
parklands. These openings that are so important to so many
species that Secretary Norton alluded to.
It is not just about 40-acre stands or a quarter-mile strip
around a town. It is about greater ecosystems that have become
so degraded and fragile that they are no longer sustainable;
and instead of an asset, they are a liability to our generation
and to many generations to come unless we get on this problem.
To restore these degraded ecosystems, we need to approach
restoration of greater ecosystems.
Let me say a little bit about what a greater ecosystem is.
First, for dealing with the problem of houses burning, it is
pretty straightforward. It is a matter of building new houses
with fire-resistant material, thinning immediately around the
house, fire-wise landscaping, and then not building too close
to highly flammable vegetation. It is a bit more of a complex
problem when we are not just concerned about protecting human
houses, but we are concerned about protecting Mexican spotted
owl sites and the houses of other species. Those species
require this greater ecosystem approach.
By greater ecosystem what I mean is if we want to protect
watersheds and critical habitat for humans for present and
future generations and for other animals and for plants as
well, we need to think on the greater ecosystem scale and we
need to act at the greater ecosystem scale.
What is the greater ecosystem? It is a large chunk of the
landscape that includes not only wildlands but embedded human
communities. These typically occur on a scale of 100,000 to 1
million acres. It is not just a little problem here of
protecting houses.
I try to get my students and other people who have been out
in the woods with me to think of themselves as time travelers
from future generations, from 10 generations into the future.
If you are here from 10 generations into the future, you see
the problem very differently from the way you would look at it
just from a narrow perspective: my house which may burn down in
the next few months. The treatments are pretty straightforward.
Ecological restoration deals not just with fire hazards,
but with restoring comprehensively greater ecosystem health for
human beings as well as for the rest of the members of the
greater ecosystem community. These involve retaining trees
which predate settlement, retaining sufficient presettlement
trees needed to reestablish approximate presettlement
structure; thin and, where environmentally sound, remove those
trees, rake heavy fuels from the base of especially old-growth
trees.
We know from the early research that I did almost 30 years
ago that prescribed burning cool fires can kill the old-growth
trees from what we call hot-footing, from heavy fuels at the
base of those trees. Old-growth trees are very rare and
critical elements of the landscape.
We must burn to emulate natural disturbance regimes, seed
with natives, and control exotics. There are many benefits to
taking an ecological restoration approach instead of just
looking at this as a hazardous fuel reduction or a house
burning problem.
Ecological restoration approaches eliminate unnatural
forest and insect disease outbreaks. I mean unnatural, too. I
am not talking about endemic or natural of dwarf mistletoe
infestation, bark beetles and so on. It protects critical
habitats for threatened and endangered species. It enhances
native plant and animal biodiversity, improves watershed
function and sustainability; and again not just for current
generations, but for generations yet unborn.
The final point that I need to make is that there are
solutions, and we can do it. We need to take a restoration
approach. We need to be comprehensive in our thinking. And the
final point that I have is this truly is a fork in the road.
The decisions that we make today influence our great great
grandchildren. Down the fork we are headed right now are
degraded landscapes. Biodiversity has crashed. They are
unsustainable. Down the other fork, if we move forward in a
coherent fashion, are sustainable landscapes that will bring
many benefits to human beings and other organisms on the planet
for many generations to come.
Thank you very much for asking me to speak at this meeting.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Covington.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Covington follows:]
Statement of Dr. William Wallace Covington, Regents' Professor and
Director of the Ecological Restoration Institute Northern Arizona
University
Chairman Hansen, and members of the Committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify on a subject of personal importance to me and of
critical importance to the health of our nation's forests and the
people and communities that live within them.
My name is Wally Covington. I am Regents' Professor of Forest
Ecology at Northern Arizona University and Director of the Ecological
Restoration Institute. I have been a professor teaching and researching
fire ecology and restoration of forest health at NAU since 1975.
Throughout my career I have applied my academic skills to real world
problems. I chair Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull's Forest Health/Fire
Plan Advisory Committee and am a member of the National Commission on
Science for Sustainable Forestry.
I have a Ph.D. in forest ecosystem analysis from Yale University
and an M.S. in ecology from the University of New Mexico. Over the past
27 years I have taught graduate and undergraduate courses in research
methods, ecological restoration, ecosystem management, fire ecology and
management, forest management, range management, wildlife management,
watershed management, recreation management, park and wildland
management, and forest operations research. I have been working in
long-term research on fire ecology and management in ponderosa pine and
related ecosystems since I moved to Northern Arizona University in
1975. In addition to my publications on forest restoration, I have co-
authored scientific papers on a broad variety of topics in forest
ecology and resource management including research on fire effects,
prescribed burning, thinning, operations research, silviculture, range
management, wildlife effects, multiresource management, forest health,
and natural resource conservation.
I am founder and director of the Ecological Restoration Institute
located in the Office of the President, Northern Arizona University.
The ERI is recognized as the national leader in forest restoration-
based fuel reduction technology transfer, outreach, in-service
education, public information, and mission oriented research for forest
restoration. The Institute and its partners in federal, state, private,
and NGO sectors have the talent and expertise in place and are applying
it to get operational scale forest health restoration treatments on the
ground. Working with partners, the Institute has built strong local,
state, regional, and national support for restoration-based fuel
treatments.
WE MUST ACT INTELLIGENTLY NOW WHILE CONSIDERING THE IMPACT OF OUR
ACTIONS ON THE FUTURE
What is needed today is clear thinking. Fuzzy thinking can be a
major threat to marshalling the nation's resources to address the
critical problem in time to prevent catastrophic losses that will
affect generations to come.
There is plenty of blame to share over the current state of our
forests. This hearing is intended to go beyond the blame to solve the
crisis. It is my role and obligation as a scientist and as a
professional forester to bring honest, objective, facts and informed
recommendations to this committee. I will attempt to do so in this
statement.
My testimony will focus on the science of forest restoration and
how to reverse the trend of increasing catastrophic wildfires in the
dry forests of the West by implementing science-based forest
restoration treatments.
WHAT MUST BE DONE
1. We need to act swiftly and with great care so that future
generations do not inherit yet another forest management
crisis. The best way to do this is by following a
scientifically rigorous, environmentally responsible, and
socially and politically sound approach. Such an approach must
begin with careful definition of the problem.
a. Large, catatrophic stand replacing fires are natural in
chaparral, lodgepole pine, spruce/fir and other forest types.
We can do little to change that.
b. Such fires are not natural in the ponderosa pine and dry
mixed conifer forests and are a major threat to ecosystem
integrity and sustainability
c. According to a 1999 GAO report over 90% of the fire
suppression expenditures were spent in the frequent fire
forests of the West.
d. There is abundant relevant scientific research in the
ponderosa pine type that began in the 1890's and continues
today that provides a sound scientific framework for
implementing the science and practice of restoration. We have
solid information about presettlement forest conditions,
changes in fire regimes over the last century, deterioration of
overall ecosystem health, and ecological responses to thinning
and prescribed burning--the key elements of any attempt to
restore ecosystem health in ponderosa pine and related
ecosystems. We know that current overcrowded stands of trees do
not sustain the diversity of wildlife and plants that existed a
century ago. We know this by examining the data of early
naturalists and scientists.
2. The problem is complex
a. It's not just about drought we have always had periodic
droughts and always will, but the forest has never had the fuel
loads that exist today
b. It's not just about houses burning--although the loss of a
home is tragic, houses can be rebuilt in months. However,
ecosystems take centuries, and watersheds millenia
c. It's not just about crownfires--crownfires in ponderosa
forests are just the latest in a long series of symptoms of
failing ecosystem health, other symptoms include disease and
insect infestations and before that the loss of native
biodiversity, the decline of watershed function, and increased
erosion and sedimentation
d. It's not just about too many trees--it's about too few old-
growth trees and far too many younger trees
e. It's is not about cutting trees--it's about thinning
forests (as opposed to logging) and implementing a range of
techniques to restore ecological integrity and create a long
term solution
f. It's not about 40-acre stands or a quarter mile strip
around a town it's about greater ecosystems that have become so
degraded and fragile that they are no longer sustainable, and a
liability rather than an asset to present and future
generations
3. There are solutions, and we can do it
a. To restore these degraded ecosystems, it is essential that
we restore entire greater landscapes, and do so quickly--time
is clearly not our ally
b. We must do so in a systematic, scientifically rigorous
fashion
c. For protection of structures such as houses, the science
seems pretty clear: use fire resistant materials, fire
resistant landscaping and don't build too close to heavily
fueled landscapes
d. For protection of watersheds, critical habitat for humans
and other animals and plants we have to think much bigger. Here
we need to think and act at the scale of greater ecosystems--
large chunks of the landscape that include not only wildlands
but also embedded human communities. These greater ecosystems
typically occur on a scale of 100,000 to 1,000,000 acres
e. The treatments are straightforward, they include:
i. Retain trees which predate settlement
ii. Retain postsettlement trees needed to re-establish
presettlement structure
iii. Thin and remove excess trees
iv. Rake heavy fuels from base of trees
v. Burn to emulate natural disturbance regime
vi. Seed with natives/control exotics
4. There are many benefits from ecological restoration in these dry
forest types beyond the reduction of crownfire
a. It eliminates unnatural forest insect and disease outbreaks
b. It enhances native plant and animal biodiversity
c. It protects critical habitats for threatened or endangered
species
d. It improves watershed function and sustainability
e. It enhances natural beauty of the land
f. It improves resource values for humans, not just for
current, but also for future generations
g. In cases where a road system is in place and small wood
processing facilities are available, the trees removed can
often help defray the cost of restoration treatments and
provide jobs and income for local communities
5. There are challenges to implementing restoration
a. It could be expensive in the short term, but it will save
money and resource values over time
b. It is important that we assure that trees that are removed
are being removed for the purpose of restoring natural forest
patterns and processes
c. Political maneuvering over setting one-size-fits-all
diameter caps can interfere with cost effective, ecologically
sound restoration
6. There are consequences if we fail to implement restoration based
hazardous fuel reduction at the greater ecosystem scale
a. Piecemeal solutions will treat symptoms and not the
underlying disease
b. Scientific evidence supports the prediction that if we do
not act quickly the number, size, severity, and costs of
wildfires in the dry forests of the West will increase
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Design treatments starting with solid science, set standards for
effectiveness, and measure progress
Research to date indicates that alternative fuel reduction
treatments have strikingly different consequences not just for
fire behavior but also for biodiversity, wildlife habitat, tree
vigor and forest health. Treatment design should be based on
what the forest requires to maintain health and reduce
catastrophic fire. Science-based guidelines should be developed
and become the foundation for treatments. In addition, they
should be the criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of
treatments. Guidelines will help guide managers and provide a
base of certainty to those that are distrustful of land
management agencies. The standard should be clear if a
treatment does not permit the safe reintroduction of fire and
simultaneously facilitate the restoration of the forest it is
not a solution.
2. Reduce conflict by using an adaptive management framework to design,
implement and improve treatments
We can wait no longer. Solutions to catastrophic wildfire must
be tested and refined in a ``learning while doing'' mode. Two
of the barriers preventing the implementation of landscape
scale treatments are the unrealistic desire for scientific
certainty and a fear that once an action is selected it becomes
a permanent precedent for future management. Scientific
certainty will never exist and the past century of forest
management demonstrates the need for applied research and
active adaptation of management approaches using current
knowledge. We should expand our environmental review process to
provide approval of a series of iterative treatments, provided
they are science based, actively monitored and committed to
building from lessons learned and new information.
3. Rebuild public trust in land management agencies by continuing to
support a broad variety of partnership approaches for planning
and implementing restoration-based fuel treatments
The lack of trust that exists between some members of the
public and land management agencies is the genesis for
obstructionist actions. The only way to rebuild trust is to
develop meaningful collaborations between the agencies,
communities and the public. There are emerging models of
various forms of collaborative partnerships working to reduce
the threat of fire while restoring the forest for its full
suite of values. Their success depends on meaningful community
collaboration, human and financial resources and adequate
scientific support to make well informed management decisions.
Congress, federal agencies, universities, and non-governmental
organizations must support these communities to help them
achieve success.
We are at a fork in the road. Down one fork lies burned out,
depauperate landscapes--landscapes that are a liability for
future generations. Down the other fork lies health, diverse,
sustaining landscapes--landscapes that will bring multiple
benefits for generations to come. Inaction is taking, and will
continue to take, us down the path to unhealthy landscapes,
costly to manage. Scientifically-based forest restoration
treatments, including thinning and prescribed burning, will set
us on the path to healthy landscapes, landscapes like the early
settlers and explorer saw in the late 1800s.
Knowing what we now know, it would be grossly negligent for us not
to move forward with large-scale restoration based fuel treatments in
the dry forests of the West. Inaction is now the greatest threat to the
long-term sustainability of these western ecosystems.
Thank you very much for asking me to appear before the Committee.
______
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Burley, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. BURLEY, PRESIDENT, BURLEY & ASSOCIATES,
LLC, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN FOREST RESOURCE
COUNCIL
Mr. Burley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have heard here
today, I think clearly, that we have a serious issue with
wildfires. We have seen them throughout the West this year. We
had a historic season in 2000. I think it is clear we have a
problem. I agree with the comments earlier that this should not
be a partisan issue. It is our public lands and communities
that are at risk. My particular area of expertise in eastern
Oregon, we have seen quite a few fires over there, some homes
lost, and we really need to get out and get something done.
The American Forest Resource Council does represent the
forest products industry in 12 States. I have spent a lot of
time going throughout the West the last couple of years. I was
also on the Governors' collaborative team that helped write the
10-year strategy and implementation plan. I think the outcome
is extremely useful, and I hope to see it implemented. But the
problem is that we have a process issue that needs to be dealt
with because all of the funding and all of the support for that
plan is not going to happen if we do not deal with this
gridlock issue, this ``analysis paralysis'' as it is coined.
Nobody is asking that these environmental laws be repealed.
What we are asking is that they be made to work, that they go
back to the original intent. The administrative appeals
process--early in my career I spent 10 years working for the
U.S. Forest Service, the last 12 years working for the
industry. Throughout that entire time I have always felt the
best thing we can do is get rid of the administrative appeal
process because it has become abused in my opinion. It is an
opportunity for people who do not like a decision, despite the
fact that they have participated throughout the entire public
process.
And I think this example typifies my point. This is again
the Oregon Natural Resource Council's appeal of the McCache
vegetation project which was up in the central Oregon area. The
McCache project was about 2-3 years in the NEPA process, public
comment, draft documents out, public comment on those, and yet
the appeal on this said the goals of reducing risk for
firefighters and the public are inappropriate. They say that
the McCache area is not very populated and you cannot
realistically change fire behavior enough to make a difference
for the firefighters.
The point is that the McCache area, when that fire started
by lightning strike, immediately they had to evacuate a youth
summer camp. They then put two communities on notice, Black
Butte Ranch as well as Camp Sherman. Within a 5-mile radius of
the start of this fire, we had private industrial lands that
had a tremendous amount of investment in them. We had two
resorts, plus a full-blown community with 1,400 homes, all
within a 5-mile radius of this fire. So to me, when we see the
appeal process being used or abused in this case to stop
projects that are well intentioned, scientifically based, that
have gone through the NEPA process, to me I think this is
indicative of a system that is broken.
Again, I repeat, with all of the money and the
collaborative plans and all the efforts that we have put into
this, if we cannot deal with this gridlock problem, we are not
going to get anything done, and all the science in the world is
going to be trumped.
The last comment before I am out of time here, regarding
the science I urge extreme caution in avoiding one-size-fits-
all prescriptive direction. We have seen in eastern Oregon and
eastern Washington since 1993, have seen this 21-inch diameter
limit and it has been problematic to the Agency in trying to
get the work done on the ground because these professional land
managers that are trying to do the right thing out there, when
they have these types of arbitrary, politically correct
forestry--as we sometimes refer to it, these restrictions
placed on them--it ties their hands and makes it more difficult
for them to do the job.
Using the pictures that Representative Inslee had, what
happens out there has to be based on the site-specific
conditions and we cannot sit here in Washington nor can we sit
in Portland, Oregon and say what they should be doing in upper
northeast Oregon. It is the person that goes out on the ground
and looks at the specifics and decides what needs to be done.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burley follows:]
Statement of Charles H. Burley, President, Burley & Associates, LLC for
the American Forest Resource Council
Executive Summary
The forest health crisis facing our federal forests can no longer
be ignored. There are 72 million acres of National Forest System land
at high risk to catastrophic wildfire. Another 26 million acres are at
high risk to insect infestation and disease. That is enough to burn a
path from New York City to Los Angeles 62 miles wide. The total federal
land area at risk to catastrophic wildfire is 190 million acres.
Effective fire suppression and a passive forest management
philosophy have created this monumental crisis. It is going to take
scientifically based, active forest management to restore our forest's
health.
Local land managers must be empowered to make decisions on forest
health treatments based on site-specific conditions. In some cases they
may recommend thinning and harvest, in some cases prescribed burning,
and in other cases no treatment may be appropriate. The key to success
is the local land managers who possess the site-specific knowledge and
expertise must have all the tools at their disposal to make these
decisions.
It took a long time--maybe one hundred years--to get into this
forest health crisis and it is going to take us a long time and a great
deal of funding to get out of it. Healthy forests don't just happen and
every day we delay makes the problem exponentially worse. Every day we
delay management projects we increase the risk a new wildfire will be
sparked or an insect infestation will occur, or a disease epidemic will
spread.
The federal land management agencies are drowning in paperwork and
red tape. The President has asked Congress and the Council on
Environmental Quality to throw them a lifeline; restore common sense to
the management of our federal lands. The application of NEPA and
appeals must be brought back in line with the original intent--to
prepare a detailed statement for major federal actions significantly
affecting the quality of the human environment--instead of the unending
planning and analysis process it's become.
Treating the unhealthy forests around homes and communities is
important work and needs to be done to protect human life and property;
however, most wildfires don't start in these areas. They start in
overgrown, unhealthy forests typically far from communities and rural
residences. These fires destroy wildlife habitat, threaten our drinking
water, degrade air quality for hundreds of miles, and pose great risk
to property and human life.
Fire is a natural part of a healthy ecosystem and can be quite
beneficial. The problem is our public forests are not healthy. Fires in
these forests tend to burn hotter, faster, and larger than anything
that occurs in nature. Healthy forests don't just happen. We need to
actively manage our forests, return them to healthy conditions, and
then allow fire to be naturally reintroduced where and when it's
appropriate.
Testimony
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Charles Burley and I am the
president of Burley & Associates, LLC. My testimony today is on behalf
of the American Forest Resource Council (AFRC). The AFRC represents
about 80 forest product manufacturers and forest landowners--from
small, family-owned companies to large multi-national corporations--in
twelve states west of the Great Lakes. AFRC's mission is to create a
favorable operating environment for the forest products industry,
ensure a reliable timber supply from public and private lands, and
promote sustainable management of forests by improving federal laws,
regulations, policies and decisions that determine or influence the
management of all lands. Nationally, the industry has sales of over
$195 billion annually and employs 1.6 million people.
Over the past several years we have experienced record-breaking
fire seasons. The 2000 fire season, which until this year was the worst
on record, generated significant interest in addressing the risks of
wildfire. This led to the collaborative efforts of western governors,
federal, state, local and Tribal governments and interested
stakeholders, including the forest products industry, to develop the
``Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to
Communities and the Environment: 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy
Implementation Plan''. The Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture
adopted this plan on May 23.
This year we are again experiencing a record setting fire season.
As of August 31, over 6.3 million acres have burned which is more than
twice the 10-year average of 3.1 million acres. We've also, tragically,
lost the lives of 20 firefighters and over a thousand structures,
including homes.
Communities throughout the West are impacted either directly or
indirectly. Direct impacts include evacuations and structures lost.
Indirect impacts include decreased air quality and reduced tourism as
we saw with Denver and Florence, Oregon this year.
There are numerous contemporary reports from the Government
Accounting Office, National Fire Protection Association, National
Research Council, and other equally qualified bodies pointing out the
increased risk of wildfires and their impacts to our nation's forests
and communities. I won't belabor this by listing and citing all the
reports and statistics.
Suffice it to say that it's become readily apparent that we have a
major problem with the risk of wildfires across our country. These
problems won't go away and the sooner we address them the sooner forest
health can be restored. Something must be done and done quickly.
Actions taken must treat the problems and not the symptoms. The
fundamental problem causing the increased risk of wildfire is the poor
forest health and excessive fuel loads on our public lands. I cannot
overemphasize the need for urgent, decisive, and direct action to treat
these problems.
The President's Forest Health Initiative, which was released on
August 22, outlines the tools necessary to accomplish this. Some argue
the President's proposal is simply another excuse to log the public
lands or to turn the key over to the industry. But there is evidence
that proper management can help reduce the risk of wildfires.
In a recent study of the fire hazards in Montana, it was reported
that comprehensive, ecologically based prescriptions ``achieves far
greater hazard reduction immediately post-treatment, and is far less
expensive to employ. It is also superior in terms of longevity and
extent of effectiveness compared to the treatments with a singular
focus on small-tree removal. 1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Fiedler, Carl E., Charles E. Keegan III, et al, ``A Strategic
Assessment of Fire Hazard in Montana'', Report submitted to the Joint
Fire Sciences Program, September 29, 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another report that looked at actual on-the-ground management pre-
and post-fire concluded that the ``results unanimously indicate that
treated stands experience lower fire severity than untreated stands
that burn under similar weather and topographic conditions.
2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Omi, Philip, Erik Martinson, ``Effects of Fuels Treatment on
Wildfire Severity'', Western Forest Fire Research Center, Colorado
State University, March 25, 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So why aren't we doing more? There's this 800-pound gorilla on our
back that Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth calls the ``analysis
paralysis.'' This analysis paralysis is the result of a patchwork of
laws and regulations that has accumulated over the past few decades.
The two that most directly affect the agency's ability to get work done
are NEPA and the administrative appeals process.
NEPA
A recent Forest Service internal study of NEPA 3 had
some very interesting results. This analysis of NEPA used business and
process workflow models to show the activities necessary to conduct
project planning and comply with NEPA and other laws within the context
of a timber sale. These results include:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Internal Forest Service report, ``Complexity of Laws Introduced
in Project Planning'', USDA FS Inventory & Monitoring Institute,
October 8, 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Undue impacts in terms of time and costs during the
planning phase of a project.
Considerable complexity caused by the exponential
interactions among the laws that govern environmental analysis within
project planning.
Potential for interruption in the project analysis/
decision making process by other State and Federal agencies with
environmental regulatory authority.
An intense level of detail (time & effort) has been
introduced into the process, due to risk mitigation and burden of proof
(as it relates to public comment).
Case law is often over interpreted and inconsistently
applies, which can result in additional time and effort being expended.
There are many detailed and technical comments on NEPA which I'd be
happy to provide you if requested. I also wish to note the CEQ is
looking at this problem with its NEPA Task Force. We applaud this
effort and are submitting detailed comments on NEPA through that
process. The bottom line is that the application of NEPA must be
brought back in line with the original intent--to prepare a detailed
statement for major federal actions significantly affecting the quality
of the human environment--instead of the unending planning and analysis
process it's become.
APPEALS
The U.S. Forest Service is rather unique in that it is one of only
a few, if not the only, federal agency that has an administrative
appeals process. Prior to the enactment of the Appeals Reform Act
(Section 322 of Public Law 102-381, the Department of the Interior and
Related Agencies Appropriations Act 1993), the appeals process had been
the result of agency rulemaking. The passage of the Appeals Reform Act
marked the first time Congress legislated the appeals process.
Like so many things in life, the appeals process was well
intentioned when first instituted. Unfortunately, over time, it has
become a process all too often abused by individuals and organizations
that wish to delay or stop Forest Service activities from being
implemented--this is particularly acute if the project involves
harvesting trees.
For example, a recent Forest Service internal report 4
documents the fact that 48 percent of mechanical treatment decisions
for hazardous fuels were appealed in fiscal year 2001 and 2002 (through
June 27).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ ``Factors Affecting Timely Mechanical Fuel Treatment
Decisions'' (July 2002) USDA Forest Service Internal Report
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The appeals process has become a formality or simply part of the
agency doing business. Whenever the agency estimates the time to plan a
project, it always allows for at least a 90-day appeal period.
Appeals are problematic in that the timeline set aside for them is
excessive given all other factors. In fact, most NEPA scoping and
public comment periods are less than the time allowed to file an
appeal. This is counter intuitive given the fact that most appellants
have already participated in the process, are familiar with the details
and thus should require little time at the end to decide whether to
appeal or not.
But perhaps more importantly, the appeal period is increasingly
being used to simply block or delay projects. Appellants also use the
informal disposition provision to effect changes in the project at the
exclusion of others that had participated in the process prior to the
final decision.
Solutions Needed
The American Forest Resource Council supports the recently
completed plan entitled ``A Collaborative Approach for Reducing
Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment: 10-Year
Comprehensive Strategy Implementation Plan.
This plan was the result of months of collaborative work by
representatives of federal, state, local and tribal governments and
interested stakeholders. It clearly lays out the goals, specific action
items, and performance measures to ensure our nation's wildfire risks
are being addressed appropriately. Being a collaborative plan, no party
got everything they wanted. Nevertheless, with the broad base of
support, we are confident the plan will be successful.
One essential element for success in restoring forest health and
reducing the risk of wildfire is adequate funding. It's imperative that
Congress familiarizes itself with this plan and funds it for success.
The performance measures provide for monitoring both for outcomes and
wise use of taxpayers' dollars.
It's also important to point out that the plan, given it's
collaborative development, is a balance of differing points of views.
Participants maintained the flexibility to ensure when decisions are
made at the local level, the necessary tools are available to get the
work done both effectively and efficiently. This includes active forest
management when and where it's appropriate.
There must be recognition that scientific forest management cannot
be arbitrarily limited. To be truly effective, management must be free
to utilize all the information and technology that's available. One
specific example here is the arbitrary 21-inch diameter limit in
eastern Oregon and eastern Washington. Such one-size-fits-all, top-down
prescriptive direction does more harm than good in the long run.
Stewardship contracting authority is another means to help
accomplish forest health restoration goals. This presents opportunities
to treat areas otherwise not available under ordinary contracting
methods. Stewardship contracting has the added benefit of supporting
local communities and keeping receipts local where they can do the most
good.
More importantly, however, all the above changes won't do any good
if we don't realize substantive, structural changes to the project
planning process. Long-term structural changes must occur if we want to
have a reasonable, cost-effective process to meet the intent of NEPA
yet get work done in a timely manner.
Short-term we must realize immediate relief in the form of
exemptions and ``alternative arrangements'' as already allowed in the
CEQ NEPA regulations. Exemptions may not be politically attractive but
they are not without precedent. In a 1998 Report for Congress by the
Congressional Research Service 5, it was shown that
``Congress has often enacted provisions that modify the application of
[NEPA] or specify the extent of the documents that need be prepared in
particular instances or contexts.'' This includes instances of
exempting certain federal activities from NEPA compliance (vis-a-vis
Senator Daschle's recent language regarding the Black Hills National
Forest), pronouncing certain analyses to be sufficient or adequate
consideration under NEPA, and limiting the scope of NEPA analysis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ ``Statutory Modifications of the Application of NEPA'', CRS
Report for Congress, 98-417A, May 1, 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We face an emergency crisis with the wildfires and immediate action
is necessary. Without short-term relief from the process gridlock, we
will in all likelihood be here again next year having this same
conversation.
Our national forests and other public lands are a treasure that
must be carefully managed for the benefit of future generations as well
as for today's. I urge you to take the necessary action in support of
the President's Forest Health Initiative, provide short-term relief
from the gridlock, and institute structural changes to make the process
more effective in the future.
This concludes my testimony and I'd be glad to answer any questions
you may have regarding this important issue.
EXAMPLES OF GRIDLOCK
McCache Vegetation Project
Santiam Pass is a major highway corridor over the Cascades in
Central Oregon. Much of the area in Santiam Pass is within the
Northwest Forest Plan. About a decade ago the forest suffered an
epidemic of spruce budworm resulting in extremely high mortality of the
dense stands of fir and spruce. Due to the early spotted owl lawsuits,
the agency was enjoined from doing anything in the area despite the
common knowledge that the area was at high risk of wildfire. This risk
was particularly acute given the proximity of the communities of
Sisters, Black Butte Ranch, and Camp Sherman. After the injunctions
were lifted and the Northwest Forest Plan was in place, the agency
began planning restoration activities in the Santiam Pass area.
One of these activities focused on the Cache Mountain area. The
McCache Vegetation Management Project decision notice was signed in
October 2001. It said,
This decision will guide the stewardship efforts in restoring
the forests in this unique Late Successional Reserve. The
project area was hit hard in the 1990s by the spruce budworm,
and over 1/3 of the forest stands have moderate to very high
mortality. The decision addresses what type of actions the
Forest Service will take to reduce the risk of losing important
habitat for plants and animals and to restore forest health.
Other important goals are to reduce fuels in order to lower the
risk to people (local residents, visitors, and fire-fighters)
from severe wildfire. The types of management actions addressed
in this decision include removing dead and dying trees and
dense shrubs, thinning dense forest stands, and re-introducing
low-intensity fires. These restoration activities would occur
on about 5,000 acres of the 15,000 acre project area.''
(McCache Decision Notice, October 19, 2001) (emphasis added)
This project had gone through NEPA with all the obligatory public
review and comment periods. Nevertheless, there were some environmental
groups that did not like the final decision, despite their involvement
throughout the process. Consequently they appealed the final decision
in December 2001.
One appeal, from the Oregon Natural Resource Council (ONRC), felt
the objectives of reducing the risk of wildfire were inappropriate. In
its appeal, ONRC stated:
``The goal(s) of reducing risk for firefighters and the public
are inappropriate.'' ,and
``The McCache area is not very populated and you can't
realistically change fire behavior enough to make a difference
for the firefighters.
This ONRC appeal, and those of others, was denied in the early part
of this year. Unfortunately, by that time, it was too late to implement
the project this past field season. As a result there was no vegetative
management done on or in the vicinity of Cache Mountain as planned.
On July 23 this year around 5:30 p.m. lightening struck Cache
Mountain and started a fire in the immediate vicinity of where
treatments that had bee appealed were planned. Forest Service briefing
materials on the fire had the following to say:
Threatened resources: ``Potential threat to Suttle Lake
recreation complex 1-2 miles north, Black Butte Resort (about
1300 homes) four miles east, Weyerhaeuser land and timber
directly east, bald eagle and spotted owl habitat near Suttle
Lake, and Santiam Wagon Road.
Remarks: ``Fire is actively burning in extreme dry heavy dead
and downed fuels on the north side of Cache Mountain. Fuels on
the east side of Cache Mountain are brush and bug-killed
whitebark pine and fir.
By July 29, the fire had grown to 4,200 acres. During the course of
the fire, a church summer camp and Black Butte Ranch, a resort and
residential development, had to be evacuated. By the time the fire was
contained, it had burned two homes in Black Butte Ranch approximately
4-5 miles from where the fire started. In addition, valuable resources
on public land such as spotted owl habitat was lost, and an adjacent
private forest landowner lost a large investment in its plantation.
Now no one can say with certainty that had the McCache project been
implemented there would have been no fire or it would not have grown to
the size and cause the damage it did. But chances are pretty good that
had the project been implemented, the fire could have been controlled
sooner and the damage less severe.
The other lesson that can be learned from this is that time is of
the essence. Fires won't wait for us. We have to get out in front and
the NEPA and appeals processes are not conducive to effective and
timely action.
Little Canyon Mountain
The Little Canyon Mountain is located in eastern Oregon and is
typical of the problems associated with wildland-urban interfaces
(WUIs). The mountain is owned and managed by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). Because of its size and the lack of BLM resources in
the immediate vicinity, the agency has an agreement with the Oregon
Department of Forestry (ODF) to provide fire protection for the area.
Nearly three years ago, a BLM employee who is familiar with the
Little Canyon Mountain and a homeowner in the WUI, recognized the need
for restoration and fuels reduction on the mountain. He prepared an EA
that sat on his supervisor's desk for two years despite cries from the
communities to do something before disaster strikes.
During this year's fire season, there was renewed interest in
implementing the EA that still has not been signed. When the BLM was
asked why not, the response was they don't want to be sued by the
environmentalists. Instead, the BLM Prineville Office expressed its
desire to collaborate with the environmentalists and others to develop
a level of trust before anything is done on the mountain.
In fairness to the BLM, they are doing some treatments strictly in
the interface area but it's questionable whether this will be effective
in the event of a large fire on the mountain. The ODF recently visited
the site and wrote BLM urging action. In its memo, the ODF states,
``Many ``green'' trees show visible indicators of ongoing attack or
severe stress that makes attack in the near future nearly certain. The
standing dead fuels with retained needles will promote sustained crown
fire runs with extreme rates of spread in the near term. Absent
treatment, these fuels will convert to heavy down fuels that create
different, but equally difficult, control problems. Either condition is
likely to lead to stand-replacement fires. The close proximity to
populated areas also introduces high risk that such events will be
community-replacement fires.
Little Canyon Mountain highlights the problems federal agencies
face with the constant threat of appeals and litigation from opponents
of active forest management. As a consequence, public and private
resources and properties are put at risk. In cases such as this
delaying activities is inviting disaster.
``Beschta Report''
The ``Beschta Report'' typifies problems associated with the NEPA
process. This report is a compilation of views by several scientists
regarding resource issues to consider when planning for the salvage of
fire-killed timber. There's some question of the scientific robustness
of the report and the degree to which it was peer reviewed. But few
would argue that the recommendations, which outline the factors to
consider when planning salvage sales, are not without merit.
However, the report exemplifies the issue of new information and
how best to treat it. Some argue it's not new information in that the
recommendations are factors normally considered anyway. Others argue
that the report represents the best available science and the science
supports the position of no salvage logging.
The first question is how does the agency evaluate the quality and
validity of the information in the report? Is it truly science just
because a scientist wrote it or is it just his opinion shared by
others?
The second question is how does the agency utilize the information
in the report? In this case, when the report was first released, the
Regional Forester issued a directive to the field saying they had to
incorporate the report in all salvage sale environmental documents.
Subsequent to this direction, when environmental documents were
released and the ``Beschta Report'' was not found in the ``four corners
of the document'', i.e., the actual words ``Beschta Report'' and its
recommendations weren't physically found in the EA, then the EA was
found by the courts to be inadequate.
Early this year, after losing a court case, the Regional Forester
issued another directive again stating the report must be mentioned in
the environmental document. This only made the situation worse. The
Regional Forester should have looked at the report and realized it's
not the source of information but the information itself that was
relevant. That is a directive to ensure when salvage logging is
planned, the environmental document should address certain factors such
as sedimentation and soil compaction--factors in the Beschta Report and
also factors that should be included nevertheless.
This response gets the agency out of the box of having to find the
words ``Beschta Report'' in the environmental document. It also gets
away from having to respond in similar fashion when the next piece of
new information is forthcoming.
______
Mr. McInnis. Dr. Creal, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF DR. TIMOTHY H. CREAL, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE
FOREST COUNTIES PAYMENTS COMMITTEE, SUPERINTENDENT, CUSTER
SCHOOL DISTRICT, SOUTH DAKOTA
Mr. Creal. Mr. Chairman, thank you for asking me to be here
to speak today.
My name is Tim Creal. I am superintendent of schools in the
Custer School District in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Actually I am here today representing the Forest Counties
Payments Committee of which I am a member. The seven-member
committee is comprised of four nonFederal members appointed by
Congress, and three Federal members representing the Forest
Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the White House
Office of Management and Budget.
The committee was created by Congress to advise Congress on
long-term solutions for making payments to States and counties
where national forests and Revested Oregon and California Grant
lands exist. The committee is to evaluate certain impacts to
States and counties and make recommendations on policy and
legislation. Recommendations are to be consistent with
sustainable forestry. In addition to its responsibilities to
Congress, the committee is chartered as an advisory committee
to the Secretary of Agriculture under Federal Advisory
Committee Act guidelines.
The Forest Counties Payments Committee has conducted an
extensive public comment effort to understand the issues
affecting many of the 772 counties, parishes, and communities
where public lands exist.
The committee held listening sessions in many regions of
the country. These were all announced in the Federal Register.
Sites include Portland, Oregon; Pendleton, Oregon; Boise,
Idaho; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jackson, Mississippi;
Tallahassee, Florida; Reno, Nevada; Rapid City, South Dakota;
Washington, D.C., and we still have one listening session to do
in Rhineland, Wisconsin.
All comments made by the public and elected officials were
documented by a court reporter and they are part of the
official record and are on the Committee's website. A summary
of these issues from the listening session and alternatives for
future payments was included in an interim report of which this
is the document that was recently submitted to Congress.
Members of the Committee met in August to begin developing
recommendations for future payment options. During this
meeting, the Committee discussed the need to make a
recommendation to Congress regarding an issue the public raised
at several, almost all, if not all of our listening sessions.
The current Forest Service appeal regulation governing
decisions on projects has created a tremendous amount of
frustration among people who try to work with the Agency
collaboratively. This is all people. Many of these citizens
depend on timely decisions that affect their communities, and
they are concerned about solving forest health problems. The
work they do together and with the Agency can be undone by
someone who did not make an effort to find solutions for
addressing forest management issues.
Based on what it heard, the Committee felt it was important
to make a recommendation to Congress now, rather than wait
until a report on the payment options is submitted early next
year at the end of the 18-month timeframe. That recommendation
was recently submitted to the six Committees in Congress who
had jurisdiction over our work.
The recommendation includes two parts. The first is to
repeal the statutory language that requires the Forest Service
to have an appeals process for projects implementing resource
management plans. The Forest Service should then review their
current regulation at 36 CFR 215 and propose needed changes.
When the Organic Act was passed in 1897, Congress recognized it
could not develop regulations that would adequately address the
unique biologic and social differences of the forest reserves.
As a result, it vested authority in the Secretary to develop
appropriate regulations for the management of these lands.
The full authority to create and manage an administrative
appeals process needs to be returned to the Secretary. The
Committee stopped short of suggesting any specific changes to
the appeal regulation. These decisions should be made as part
of a review process in developing a new regulation with public
comment and discussions in Congress.
The terrible effects from wildfires this year have caught
the attention of the American public, Congress, and the
President. As we stated in our earlier letter, a bias for
action is needed. The Forest Counties Payment Committee
recommends that Congress provide language to exempt from
appeal, salvage and restoration activities from wildfires
occurring in 2002. This would provide the Forest Service time
to review the current appeal regulation and determine what
changes are needed under these circumstances.
Mr. Chairman, our Committee members are aware that
different ideas exist for managing public lands. It is clear to
us, having listened to people from many parts of the country,
that they do not object to reasonable laws and regulations for
these lands. However, they have told us that some of those laws
and regulations are not working well. The Forest Service appeal
regulation is one of the biggest concerns the Committee heard
about.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I would be happy
to answer any questions.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Creal follows:]
Statement of Dr. Timothy H. Creal, Superintendent, Custer School
District, Custer, South Dakota, Representing Forest Counties Payments
Committee, an Advisory Committee to Congress
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting
me to speak to you today. I am Tim Creal, Superintendent of Schools for
the Custer School District in South Dakota. I am here today
representing the Forest Counties Payments Committee of which I am a
member. The seven-member Committee is comprised of four non-federal
members appointed by Congress, and three federal members representing
the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the White House
Office of Management and Budget. The Committee was created by Congress
to advise it on long-term solutions for making payments to states and
counties where National Forests and Revested Oregon and California
Grant lands exist. The Committee is to evaluate certain impacts to
states and counties, and to make recommendations on policy and
legislation. Recommendations are to be consistent with sustainable
forestry. In addition to its responsibilities to Congress, the
Committee is chartered as an Advisory Committee to the Secretary of
Agriculture under Federal Advisory Committee Act guidelines.
The Forest Counties Payments Committee has conducted an extensive
public comment effort to understand issues affecting many of the 772
counties, parishes, and communities where these public lands exist.
Listening sessions were held in many regions of the Country and
announced in the Federal Register. All comments made by the public and
elected officials were documented by a court reporter, and are part of
the official record. A summary of issues from these listening sessions
and alternatives for future payments was included in an Interim Report
recently submitted to Congress.
Members of the Committee met in August to begin developing
recommendations for future payment options. During this meeting the
Committee discussed the need to make a recommendation to Congress
regarding an issue the public raised at several listening sessions.
The current Forest Service Appeal Regulation governing decisions on
projects has created a tremendous amount of frustration among people
who try to work with the Agency collaboratively. Many of these citizens
depend on timely decisions that affect their communities, and they are
concerned about solving forest health problems. The work they do
together, and with the Agency, can be un-done by someone who did not
make the effort to find solutions for addressing forest management
issues. Based on what it heard, the Committee felt it was important to
make a recommendation to Congress now, rather than wait until a report
on payment options is submitted early next year. That recommendation
was recently submitted to the six Committees in Congress who have
jurisdiction over our work.
Our recommendation includes two parts. The first is to repeal the
statutory language that requires the Forest Service to have an appeals
process for projects implementing resource management plans. The Forest
Service should then review their current regulation at 36 CFR 215, and
propose needed changes. When the Organic Act was passed in 1897,
Congress recognized it could not develop regulations that would
adequately address the unique biologic and social differences of the
forest reserves. As a result, it vested authority in the Secretary to
develop appropriate regulations for the management of those lands. The
full authority to create and manage an administrative appeals process
needs to be returned to the Secretary.
The Committee stopped short of suggesting specific changes to the
Appeal Regulation. Those decisions should be made as a part of
reviewing and developing a new regulation, with public comment and
discussions with Congress.
The terrible effects from wildfires this year have caught the
attention of the American public, Congress, and the President. As we
stated in our letter, a bias for action is needed. The Forest Counties
Payments Committee recommends that Congress provide language to exempt
from appeal, salvage and restoration activities from wildfires
occurring in 2002. This would provide the Forest Service time to review
the current Appeal Regulation, and determine what changes are needed
under these circumstances. Mr. Chairman, our Committee members are
aware that different ideas exist for managing the public lands. It is
clear to us having listened to people in many parts of the Country,
that they don't object to reasonable laws and regulations for these
lands. However, they have told us that some of those laws and
regulations are not working well. The Forest Service Appeal Regulation
is one of the biggest concerns we heard about.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I would be happy to answer
any questions you, or members of the Committee may have.
______
Mr. McInnis. Our next witness is Mr. Calahan.
STATEMENT OF DAVID CALAHAN, RETIRED FIREFIGHTER
Mr. Calahan. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank
you for your invitation to testify today. My name is David
Calahan. I was born and raised in Oregon, a son of a timber
faller. My first job out of high school was working in the
woods as a choker setter. For 30 years I have lived in the
wildland interface of southern Oregon. My home is located in
the Applegate Valley which is west of Medford. I am on 80 acres
of land, surrounded on three sides by 6,300 acres of BLM land.
I retired from the Medford Fire Department in November 1999.
The Medford Fire Department also protects the rural area around
Medford, so firefighters are trained in wildland fires and work
closely with all of the local fire agencies.
I would like to advise anyone in the rural area as to how
best to make their homes less likely to be lost to a forest
fire. I am not opposed to logging or thinning, and I do both on
my properties.
In 2001 I helped defend homes threatened by the Quartz
fire. This summer I worked as a volunteer on the Squires fire
which started 3 miles from my home. Within a few hours of the
fire's ignition, I was on the scene defending an absentee
friend's buildings, and I continued for another 4 days
monitoring hot spots. This is the fire that burned the tree
stands recently visited by President Bush. I have observed
firsthand the burned landscape, having taken multiple hikes
through much of the fire area to learn what really happened on
the ground. Once again I was shown that forest fires burn in a
mosaic pattern, burning hot in some areas, cooler in others,
and sometimes it only underburns or the fire skips areas
completely.
During the President's visit, the press and the public were
shown very unrepresentative and misleading pictures of how the
Squires fire burned in relationship to thinning. There are a
number of areas burned by the Squires fire where thinning had
recently been done on BLM lands, and yet overall the tree
sustained severe mortality. The photos submitted were taken in
the Squires fire area which show areas burnt with quite the
opposite effect. These are stands that BLM had thinned which
burned quite severely. Photos 1 through 3 show recently thinned
stands where very little will survive. These photos demonstrate
thinning may help reduce a fire's severity if the weather
conditions are working for you. But when weather turns against
you, thinned areas can suffer even more than untouched areas.
These photos show where thinning, described as fuel reduction,
took place and there were large stumps where mature trees were
cut, trees that are the most fire resistant.
One of the downsides of thinning is it lets in more sun and
wind that dries out the forest, making it potentially even more
prone to severe fire. In the same canyon were places that BLM
had not yet thinned. There are many places in the Squires fire
that had beautiful burns, where the fire burned cool and stayed
on the ground.
Photos 4, 5 and 6 show a stand BLM plans to thin soon, but
at the time of the fire was untouched. Trees planned for
removal are marked with the blue paint. The trees in these
photos are still healthy.
The effect of this burn was to do exactly what we want fire
to do, a nice beneficial underburn. The aftermath of the
Squires fire shows multiple factors at work to create a mosaic
burn pattern. The untreated, heavily burned stand shown by
President Bush and the press illustrates only one part of this.
This was an area above the private land logged by Boise
Cascade. Boise's land is 200 acres and was completely stripped
of its commercial timber approximately 4 years ago and left
covered with logging slash and small conifer trees. When the
fire came through this industrial logged area, it burned very
hot. The fire came out of this private land and traveled a
short distance through BLM land to reach the ridge viewed by
President Bush. Most of this area of the ridge burnt severely,
whether thinned or not. As the fire crested over the ridge, it
became less severe due to burning downhill.
This can explain the area President Bush also visited,
showing a stand of trees thinned by BLM and had burned less
intensely. In any fire, you will get many different kinds of
burns, which is mostly determined by weather and terrain. Fuel
density is many times overruled by weather and terrain. The
point is, individual stands cannot be used as an example of how
fire will treat a certain area in the future. There are simply
too many factors, of which fuel density is only one and
sometimes a small one. My experience and observation in
fighting forest fires have convinced me that logging of the
larger, mature trees can lead to fires burning much hotter.
As I saw repeatedly in the Squires fire, some areas thinned
by BLM burned much hotter and did more damage to the remaining
trees and soil when compared to areas that had not been
touched. I would like to get the message across that most fire
in the forest, when it is not threatening someone's house, is a
good thing. We know that we got into this high fuels situation
by denying fire, and in the more remote areas by changing our
approach to fire is the only way we are going to get out of it.
We also need to be willing to spend the necessary money to do
the rural interface thinning. We need to remove the premise
that logging mature trees is an acceptable way to pay for
thinning.
We cannot log ourselves out of this problem. Logging
practices and the building of more new roads contribute to the
fire problem. The act of logging makes a firefighter's job far
more hazardous due to the slash created once a tree is felled.
Thinning has a role, but from the moment a tree hits the
ground, the fuel increases and it can only return to nearly the
level it was before the trees fall with intense management
through prescribed burns or hand piling and burning the ground
fuels.
In the year or two before that can be accomplished, we have
increased the ground fuel loading by 3 to 15 tons per acre, and
within a decade you need to return to think again as Mother
Nature will fill those open spaces created between the
remaining trees with lots of brush. We need to protect people
and homes from the risk of fire through community protection
projects which focus first on the wildland interface. Thinning
the forest will not solve fire problems.
I will be happy to answer any questions. Again, thank you
for inviting me.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Calahan, I think your remarks
appropriately should include not just the house but the
watershed situation and wildlife areas as well.
Mr. Calahan. I agree.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Calahan follows:]
Statement of David Calahan, Retired Firefighter
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Inslee, Members of the Committee:
Thank you for your invitation to testify today.
My name is David Calahan. I was born and raised in Oregon, a son of
a timber faller. My first job out of high school was working in the
woods as a choker setter. For 30 years I have lived in the wildland
interface of southern Oregon. My home is located in the Applegate
Valley, which is west of Medford, on 80 acres of land bordered on three
sides by 6300 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. I retired from
the Medford Fire Department in November, 1999. The Medford Fire
Department also protects the rural area around Medford, so firefighters
are trained in wildland fires and work closely with all the local fire
agencies. I continue to work on the thinning of small fuels around my
property and I love to advise anyone in the rural area as how best to
make their home less likely to be lost to a forest fire. I am not
opposed to thinning or logging and I do both on my own properties.
In 2001 I helped defend homes threatened by the Quartz fire. This
summer I worked as a volunteer on the Squires Fire, which started just
3 miles from my home. Within a few hours of the fire's ignition I was
on the scene defending an absentee friend's buildings (house, shop and
new barn), and I continued another four days of monitoring hot spots.
This is the fire that burned the tree stands recently visited by
President Bush. I have observed first hand the burned landscape, having
taken multiple hikes through much of the fire area to learn what really
happened on the ground. Once again I was shown that forest fires burn
in a mosaic pattern, burning hot in some areas, cooler in others and
sometimes it only underburns or the fire skips areas completely.
During the President's visit, the press and the public were shown
very unrepresentative and misleading pictures of how the Squires Fire
burned in relation to thinning and other treatment of the land.
Attached are photos that will show areas burnt with quite the opposite
effect.
There are a number of areas burnt by the Squires Fire where
thinning had recently been done on BLM lands and yet overall the trees
sustained severe mortality. As the attached photos illustrate (all
taken in areas burned in the Squires Fire), stands that the BLM had
thinned sometimes burned quite severely. Photos no. 1, 2, & 3 show
recently thinned stands, and you will see that the fire burned up into
the trees' crowns, scorching them far up the trunks, killing the
needles (most of the needles on the trees in these photos are missing
or brown) and the tree. These photos demonstrate thinning may help
reduce a fire's severity if the weather conditions are working for you.
But when the climate/weather turns against you, thinned areas can
suffer even more than untouched areas.
You can also see from these photos where thinning (described as
fuel reduction) took place there are large stumps where mature trees
were cut, trees that are the most fire resistant. One of the downsides
of thinning is it lets in more sun and wind that dries out the forest
making it potentially even more prone to severe fire.
In the same canyon were places that BLM had not yet thinned. One
such area I saw was about 60 acres that had a beautiful burn where the
fire stayed on the ground and only scorched the trees when it got to
the very top of the hill. Photos no. 4, 5 & 6 show stands BLM plans to
thin soon but at the time of the fire was untouched. Trees planned for
removal are marked with blue paint. This stand and other untouched
areas in riparian zones burned cool and the trees remain healthy. The
trees in these photos are not scorched high up and the forest canopy is
mostly undamaged. The effect of this burn has been to do just what we
want fire to do, a nice beneficial underburn. Over time, some of the
scorched small trees will die from the effects of fire and/or lack of
light, reducing the stand density and leaving the strongest, largest
trees to withstand future fires as they withstood the Squires Fire.
The aftermath of the Squire's Fire shows multiple factors at work
to create the mosaic burn pattern. The untreated, heavily burned stand
shown by President Bush and the press illustrates only one part of
this. This was an area above private land logged by Boise Cascade.
Boise's land (200 acres) was completely stripped of its commercial
timber approximately four years ago and left covered with logging slash
and small conifer trees. When the fire came through this industrially
logged area covered with logging slash it burned very hot. The fire
came out of this private land and traveled a short distance through BLM
land to reach the ridge viewed by President Bush. Most of this area of
the ridge burnt severely whether thinned or not. As the fire crested
over the ridge it became less severe due to terrain burning downhill.
This can explain the area President Bush also visited showing a stand
of trees that had been thinned by BLM and had burned less intensely. In
any fire you get many different kinds of burns, which is mostly
determined by climate/weather (wind, humidity, inversion layers, etc.)
and terrain. Fuel density is a factor which is many times overruled by
climate and terrain. The point is, individual stands cannot be used as
an example of how a fire will treat a certain area in the future. There
are simply too many factors of which fuel density is only one.
The Squires Fire also illustrates problems with the `defensible
fuel profile zones,' or shaded fuel breaks located on ridges that
federal land management agencies have started to favor recently. This
is a wide strip on each side of a ridgetop with very few trees left
standing. The DFPZ on the northern flank of the Squires fire failed to
stop the fire and a number of the few trees left after the treatment
were killed.
My experience and observations fighting forest fires in the
wildland-urban interface have convinced me that logging of larger,
mature trees in the backcountry can lead to fires burning much
``hotter,'' which is very damaging to the health of the forest. As I
saw repeatedly in the Squires Fire, some areas thinned by BLM (where
they cut down larger and mature trees), burned much hotter and did more
damage to the remaining trees and the soil when compared to areas that
had not been touched
I would like to get the message across that most fire in the
forest, when it isn't threatening someone's house, is a good thing. We
know that we got into this high fuels situation by denying fire and, in
much of these more remote areas, changing our approach to fire is the
only way we will get out of it.
We also need to be willing to spend the necessary money to do
wildland interface thinning. We need to remove the premise that logging
mature trees is an acceptable way to pay for the thinning. We cannot
log ourselves out of this problem. Logging practices and the building
of more new roads contribute to the fire problem. This is partly
because of opening up the forest to sun and wind, as I discussed above.
Partly, too, the act of logging makes fire problems bigger and a
firefighter's job far more hazardous due to the slash created once a
tree is felled. Thinning has a role, but from the moment a tree hits
the ground the fuel increases and it can only return to nearly the
level it was before the tree's fall with intense management through
prescribed burns or hand piling and burning the ground fuels. In the
year or two before that can be accomplished, we have increased the
ground fuel loading by 3 to 15 tons per acre (figures supplied by the
BLM). And within a decade or less you need to return to thin again, as
Mother Nature will fill those open spaces created between the remaining
trees with lots of brush.
I believe we need to protect people and homes from the risks of
fire through genuine community projects which focus first and foremost
on protecting homes in the wildland interface. As my inspection of the
Squires Fire area and the attached photos show, thinning the forest
does not reliably solve fire problems.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I would be
happy to answer any questions you might have at this time.
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Mr. McInnis. Mr. Schulke.
STATEMENT OF TODD SCHULKE, FOREST POLICY DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
Mr. Schulke. My name is Todd Schulke. I am a forest policy
director for the Center for Biological Diversity. I sit on the
Arizona Governor Jane Hull's Fire Forest Health Advisory
Committee, Senator Bingaman's Collaborative Forest Restoration
Program Advisory Committee, and the Southern New Mexico
National Fire Plan Implementation Team.
Based on my experience and the Center's research, we
believe that the bills that are being considered will actually
make the problems worse and will certainly increase public
controversy on this issue. Much has been made about fuels
reduction projects being blocked by conservationists. The truth
has been shown by various reports, including the Southwest
Fuels report that I provided you. When one sifts through the
rhetoric, it becomes obvious that the vast majority of all
fuels treatments go unchallenged.
Eleven timber sales that were challenged in Region 3 that
showed up on Mark Rey's list that claimed 48 percent of all
mechanical fuel treatments were challenged. The Center appealed
seven of these. Each included destructive salvage logging,
logging of mature and old-growth trees, and/or drastic
overstory removal. A current analysis of the NEPA docket in
Region 3 showed a total of 244 thinning, burning and logging
projects. Of these 244, 10 are controversial, less than 3
percent.
Mr. Schulke. This site-specific analysis corroborates the
GAO report that showed the vast majority of fuels projects are
not challenged.
There are obviously disagreements about logging large
trees. To illustrate this, I will discuss a few projects in
detail.
The Sheep Basin project on the Gila National Forest emerged
from the early collaborative planning process that was
initiated by local conservationists and supported by Senator
Bingaman. After years of dialog, an agreement was reached.
Conservationists and locals agreed that there should be a
diameter cap to stop logging of large trees. However, the Gila
National Forest disregarded this agreement, and the project was
repealed.
The regional forester upheld that appeal because there was
not a cumulative effects analysis done. This illustrates the
value of citizen involvement in oversight of environmental
analysis.
Another relevant example of a project that was challenged
is the Baca Timber Sale in the recent Rodeo fire in Arizona.
Ninety-five percent of the trees in this area were below 12
inches. The Forest Service wanted to log over 25 percent of the
volume in large trees.
The Rodeo fire began on the heavily logged White Mountain
Apache Reservation, but the Baca sale only covered 2 percent of
the area. It is really impossible to say that this challenge
resulted in or played a signature role in the Rodeo fire.
The Center's challenge of this timber sale has received a
lot of attention, but the fact of the matter is the Forest
Service and the local community approached us and asked us to
release 1,300 acres for community protection treatments. We
readily agreed, and after 2 years the thinning was not done
even though there was not legal constraint to doing so.
In Ashland, Oregon, the Ashland Watershed Protection
Project was initiated after a timber sale was proposed that
would cut four-million-board-feet trees as large as three feet
in diameter. The community of Ashland was concerned about the
logging, and an alliance formed that developed an alternative
for the final EIS, and this alternative was chosen.
These examples show that appeals are often--often improve
projects, the projects can be implemented in a timely manner,
and the forest protection laws are also implemented.
The scientific basis for supporting the above action is a
clear understanding that focusing fuels reduction near
communities is the most effective and efficient way to protect
communities.
There is also growing agreement on the need to thin small
trees to get fire back into forests. Consider the quotes in
front of you in my testimony. I will read a couple:
Fuel treatments that reduce basal area density from above,
i.e., removal of the largest stems, will be ineffective within
the context of fire management. That is from Omi and Martinson
at Colorado state.
Clearing underbrush and dense thickets of smaller-diameter
trees through prescribed burns is more effective at preventing
catastrophic fires than cutting down more fire-resistant trees.
Dr. Tom Swetnam, for the University of Arizona.
The Center for Biological Diversity recently completed a
report that analyzed the stand structure in all the forests in
the West and showed that 90 percent of all the trees in the
West are below 12 inches. They are small.
In restoration efforts, it is also critical to recognize
differences in forest types. In a recent oped, Secretaries
Norton and Veneman asserted that forests in the West
historically had 25 trees per acre. So much for taking things
forest by forest. This information is just not true. The
forests of the West varied dramatically and still do.
It will take several years to complete effective fuels
reduction in areas near communities. During this time we should
be implementing pilot forest restoration projects to learn more
about how to do this right.
Recently, a coalition of environmental groups developed a
proposal that would again focus most of the energy on
protecting homes and communities and thinning small trees to
reintroduce fire back into the back country.
In closing, I would like to say it is a waste of time to
continue the argument over ecologically destructive and
scientifically unsupportable timber sales that log large trees.
There is a tremendous amount of work to be done in areas where
there is strong scientific agreement and social support. All
the parties involved in these complex and challenging issues
need to begin working together in this emerging zone of
agreement and get on the job with protecting communities from
fire. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schulke follows:]
Statement of Todd Schulke, Forest Policy Director, Center for
Biological Diversity
My name is Todd Schulke. I'm the forest policy director for the
Center for Biological Diversity. I sit on Arizona Governor Jane Hull's
Fire and Forest Health Advisory Committee, Senator Bingaman's
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program Advisory Committee and the
Southern New Mexico National Fire Plan Implementation Team. I also live
with my wife and 2 young sons in a fire prone ponderosa pine forest on
the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico.
Based on my experience and the Center's research on community
protection and forest restoration, we believe that the bills being
considered by this committee will not contribute to fire risk reduction
or the protection of communities. These proposals may actually make
fires worse in some cases and will certainly increase public
controversy.
I will discuss the following points:
1. Timber sale challenges do not get in the way of legitimate
fuels reduction;
2. The reasons timber sales are appealed;
3. How the appeals process has helped improve some fire
projects;
4. Community Protection and Forest Restoration Science
5. Recommendations for an ecologically sound fire policy.
Timber Sale Challenges
Much has been made about fuels reduction projects being blocked by
conservation challenges. The truth of the matter has been shown by the
various reports including the GAO report, Mark Rey's report, and the
Southwest Fuels Reduction report that I provided.
When one sifts through the rhetoric about who challenged what
projects it becomes obvious that the vast majority of all fuels
reduction, such as wildland urban interface work and prescribed burning
have gone unchallenged even though virtually all of these projects are
eligible for litigation. The large numbers of projects approved under
categorical exclusions get through this NEPA shortcut (and other
efficient analyses) precisely because generally all parties agree these
fuels reduction efforts are not controversial. The trend here is
obvious, timber sales that log large trees get challenged--legitimate
fuels reduction projects do not.
Eleven timber sales that were challenged in Region 3 showed up on
Mark Rey's list that claimed 48% (155) of all mechanical fuel
treatments were challenged nationwide. The Center for Biological
Diversity was the appellant on seven of these 11 projects. The projects
challenged by the Center all include destructive salvage logging,
logging of mature and old growth trees, and/or drastic overstory
removal.
An analysis of current projects on the NEPA docket in Region 3
showed a total of 244 thinning, burning, and logging projects. Of these
244 projects, 10 (less than 3%) are currently either being challenged
or under consideration for challenge (pending alternative chosen in
decision). Again, each of these 10 projects includes destructive
salvage logging, logging of mature and old growth trees, and/or drastic
overstory removal.
This site-specific analysis corroborates the GAO report showing a
vast majority of fuels projects are not challenged. It also casts doubt
on the percentages shown in the Rey report that neglected to consider
non-controversial thinning and burning, as did the other 2 reports.
Projects Appealed by Conservation Groups
There are obviously deep disagreements concerning logging of mature
and old growth trees, particularly in the backcountry far away from
homes. Some of these conflicts are outlined in 2 reports that you have
(Southwest Logging report, American Lands Alliance Fuels Reduction
report). To further illustrate the issues I'll discuss a few projects
in more detail.
On the Gila National Forest the Sheep Basin ``Restoration'' Project
illustrates the basic disagreement that keeps us from moving beyond
debate and to focusing our efforts into action. The Sheep Basin project
emerged from an early collaborative watershed planning process that was
initiated by local conservationists and supported by Senator Bingaman.
The watershed chosen is in Catron County, N.M.--a nationally known
hotbed of environmental conflict. The idea was to move beyond this
conflict to watershed restoration that benefited all stakeholders.
After years of dialogue an agreement was reached. A several
thousand-acre project was identified for thinning and other restoration
activities. Conservation groups and the Catron County Citizen's Group
(interested in utilization of restoration by-products) agreed that the
project should proceed with a diameter cap limiting logging of large
trees.
However the Gila National Forest disregarded the agreement by
choosing an alternative that will log large trees, though over 90% of
the trees in the area are below 12'' and all other parties agreed there
were alternatives to logging big trees that would meet both ecological
and economic objectives.
The decision to log large trees (in this case healthy trees up to
35'' more than 20 miles from the nearest community) resulted in an
appeal. By ignoring this unusual agreement the Forest Service chose
controversy over cooperation.
The Regional Forester upheld the appeal because essentially no
cumulative effects analysis had been done. This decision is typical of
appeals--in every positive appeal decision, the Forest Service finds
itself in violation of the law and sends the project back to the
individual forest for further analysis.
Conservation groups had been warning the Gila for several years
that they needed to address cumulative effects, as the Forest Service
plans to log approximately 90 million board feet off 60 million
contiguous acres in a single watershed. This successful appeal, that
caused the logging plan to be sent back to the forest so cumulative
effects could be analyzed, illustrates the value of citizen involvement
in oversight of environmental analysis processes.
Another relevant example of a project that was challenged is the
Baca Timber Sale, on the edge of the recent Rodeo fire in N. Arizona.
This sale was proposed in an area where 95% of all trees were below
12''. But the Forest Service wanted to log over 25% of the volume from
trees over 16''. This same area has also recently been logged under the
Jersey Horse Timber sale. Further, the Sitgreaves National Forest is
the most heavily logged forest in the Southwest. The Rodeo fire burn
area alone contains over 2100 miles of logging roads. (See Baca Timber
Sale Fact Sheet)
The Rodeo Fire began on the heavily logged White Mt. Apache
Reservation with reservation land accounting for over 50% of the total
fire area. The Baca Timber Sale covered only 2% of the Rodeo fire area
and burned toward the end of the fire. It's impossible to say that the
challenge to the Baca sale played a significant role in the Rodeo Fire
saga. The bottom line is logging proved to be ineffective in stopping
the Rodeo fire, especially during the 100-year drought conditions.
The Center's challenge of this timber sale has received a
tremendous amount of criticism (it was highlighted in President Bush's
Healthy Forest initiative as an example of analysis paralysis). But the
truth of the matter is that twice the Forest Service and the community
of Forest Lakes requested release of areas for community protection
treatments. We readily agreed both times to fuels reduction on over
1300 acres. Though the second release of 1000 acres was agreed to in
November of 2000, the Forest Service had not implemented the thinning
project even though there were no legal constraints to doing so.
In the case of the Rodeo fire it would have made much more sense to
implement aggressive home protection treatments near communities rather
than last ditch efforts in the face of a drought driven fire. The
residents that lost their homes and those that lived in fear that it
would happen to them, would have been much better served if the Forest
Service had focused on protecting their homes proactively rather than
trying to push through another timber sale.
The Ashland Watershed Protection Project is an example of public
involvement improving agency decision-making. Initially, the Ashland
Watershed Protection Project was named the HazRed Timber Sale Project,
a four-million-board-foot timber sale that would have logged trees as
large as three feet in diameter.
The community of Ashland was concerned about the proposed logging,
and several groups and individuals appealed the project. As a result, a
diverse group of residents formed the ``Ashland Watershed Stewardship
Alliance,'' which met twice a week for six months. The Alliance
included representatives from the mayor's office, small- business
owners, forest workers, members of the Society for American Foresters,
environmental groups, and other concerned citizens.
During the public comment period the Alliance produced a proposal
that became the basis for the development of a new alternative that was
included in the Final Environmental Impact Statement. A modified
version of this alternative was approved by the agency as the Ashland
Watershed Protection Project.
Implementation of the project began in 2001 and will continue for
several years. Treatments include the following:
Treatment of 10 percent of Ashland's municipal watershed.
It reduces fuels on national forest lands using manual treatments (e.g.
brush cutting, pile and swamper burning) directly within the Wildland
Urban Interface (WUI) zone and in areas within the interior proposed
for prescribed understory burning.
Prescribed under burning in area-wide treatments in
suitable and manually pre-treated areas and fuel break maintenance are
also taking place.
The project does allow for some overstory tree removal,
but a 17-inch diameter cap has been imposed on trees marked for
removal. Trees 17 inches or greater in diameter in southern Oregon are
typically considered late successional and have developed resistance to
fire.
These projects illustrate various aspects of the issues surrounding
timber sale challenges. These examples show that following appeals
projects are often improved, often get implemented in a timely manner
(with community support), and ensure that forest protection laws are
being implemented.
Community Protection and Forest Restoration Science
The scientific basis supporting the actions mentioned above is the
clear understanding that focusing fuels reduction on areas near
communities is the most effective and efficient method to saving homes
and lives. The best available science shows treatment of an area of up
to one-quarter mile is justifiable for home protection, fire fighter
safety, and other community values. (CBD WUI paper). The area beyond
one-quarter mile should be considered wildland forest and subject to
restoration oriented treatments such as prescribed burning.
There is broad agreement that prescribed burning is an effective
method for reduction of forest fire intensity. Reintroduction of fire
is also critical to the long-term enhancement of ecological integrity
in fire dependent forests. An extensive prescribed burning program
should be implemented when it will be safe and where it will be
effective.
There is also growing agreement on the benefits of fuels reduction
focused on small diameter trees, brush and ground fuels to lessen the
severity of forest fires and to facilitate reintroduction of beneficial
fires where appropriate. Consider quotes by prominent fire ecologists
from universities around the West:
``...fuel treatments'' that reduce basal area or density from above
(i.e. removal of the largest stems) will be ineffective within the
context of wildfire management.''--from ``Effect of Fuels Treatment on
Wildfire Severity'' (Omi and Martinson 2002), Western Forest Fire
Research Center at Colorado State;
``...clearing underbrush and dense thickets of smaller-diameter
trees through prescribed burns is more effective at preventing
catastrophic fires than cutting down more fire-resistant large trees.
``It's clearly the small-diameter trees that are the problem,'' Swetnam
said, citing trees 8 to 10 inches in diameter. - Dr. Tom Swetnam,
director of the Tree Ring Lab at U of AZ (Arizona Daily Star, June 25,
2002);
``The small trees and surface fuels contribute most to fire risk,
as they provide ``ladders'' for the fires to climb from the surface
into the tree crowns. Forests where ``ladder fuels'' are limited and
tree crowns (or the crowns of groups of trees) are separated won't
support a crown fire. Thus, ``thinning from below'' to remove the
smaller trees, e.g. those 8-10 inches in diameter or less, greatly
reduces the intensity with which fires will burn through a forest.'' -
Dr. Penny Morgan--University of Idaho, House Resources Committee
Hearing, July 11, 2002.
The Center for Biological Diversity recently completed a report
using Forest Service information that showed more than 90% of all trees
in the West are 12 inches in diameter or smaller. This shows that any
overstocking problems in our forests are clearly in the small tree size
classes. (See Forest Structure in the West Report)
In restoration efforts it is critical that differences in forest
types be recognized. In a recent USA Today oped, Secretary's Norton and
Veneman asserted that forests in the West historically had 25 trees per
acre. This gross generalization is simply not true for most of the
West. Certainly there were forests with lower stand densities
historically but to erroneously claim that western forests universally
had 25 trees per acre would lead us to apply restoration based on
faulty historical information and ecological theory. This would
certainly lead to more damage to ecosystems.
Unfortunately there is a dearth of empirical research concerning
the effects of thinning on fire behavior. Omi and Martinson found 6
relevant papers--2 of those studies from New Jersey and 1 from Florida.
Clearly, more work needs to be done in this area before considering
large-scale forest restoration that involves thinning.
It will take several years to complete effective, focused fuels
reductions in areas near communities. During this time it will be
important to implement pilot forest restoration projects to develop the
knowledge base necessary to avoid causing widespread ecological harm.
Recommendations for Community Protection
Recently a coalition of grassroots and national conservation groups
developed a proposal for a comprehensive community protection program.
The elements of a focused and effective program would include:
1. Community protection as the Forest Service's top wildfire
management priority.
2. Focus of resources on priority work that protects homes and
communities by:
Providing funds and expertise to fireproof buildings;
and
Thinning trees and removing other vegetation within
the Community Zone (up to a maximum of 500 meters from a
community's buildings).
3. Outside the Community Zone: avoid controversy, delay, and harm
by preparing dry forest sites to burn cooler and more controllably by
clearing brush, thinning only small trees, and using prescribed fire
through best value and/or service contracts.
4. Prohibiting road construction and major reconstruction in
national forests, activities, which double the chances that a fire will
occur and, when fires do occur, can increase severity.
FUNDING
1. Providing $2 billion per year for five years for community
protection.
2. Of new funding, 75% to state/tribal fire assistance through
Block Grants for community protection, including public education and
outreach on making homes ``firewise,'' homeowner cost share grants,
seed money for community protection, and treatment of non-federal lands
in the Community Protection Zone.
3. Direction that 90% of all hazardous fuels treatment funding
(planned fiscal year 03 appropriations and added funds) be spent within
the Community Protection Zone on lands adjacent to projects funded by
block grants.
4. Reallocation of Forest Service and BLM personnel so that the
number of FTEs working within the Community Protection Zone is
proportionate to amount of funding spent within the Community
Protection Zone, assisting communities in public education and planning
for fire safety and fuel reduction work.
PROCESS
Promotion of community involvement, timeliness, accountability and
local employment by:
Using an open process that incorporates local priorities
for structural safeguards and fuels reduction in the Community
Protection Zone;
Excluding work that requires new roads or major road
reconstruction;
Using existing legal authorities that agencies have
successfully used to accomplish work promptly and without controversy;
Requiring an efficient multiparty monitoring program,
including planned timelines for all funded hazardous fuels reduction
projects on federal lands with a monthly report-back mechanism to
advise Congress of unplanned delays of greater than 60 days.
Awarding best value and service contracts (including
monitoring contracts) to local cooperatives, small and micro-
businesses, and other entities that train and use local employees.
This outline provides and effective and efficient framework for
protecting communities from forest fires that can be the basis for
developing widespread agreement need to facilitate rapid protection of
homes and lives from the risk of forest fires.
In closing I'd like to say it is a waste of time to continue the
argument over ecologically destructive and scientifically unsupportable
timber sales that log large trees. There is a tremendous amount of work
to be done in the areas where there is strong scientific and social
support. All parties involved in these complex and challenging issues
need to begin working together in this emerging ``zone of agreement''
and get on with the job of protecting communities from the risk of
fire.
Thank you.
Appendix
A. Southwest Fuels Reduction Report
B. Southwest Logging Report
C. American Lands Fuels Reduction Report
D. Baca Timber Sale Fact Sheet
E. CBD Wildland Urban Interface Paper
F. Small Tree Quote Report
G. Forest Structure In the West Report
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Mr. McInnis. I thank the panel.
We will go ahead and open for questions or comments. I will
initiate that.
First of all, Mr. Schulke, I want to make it very clear to
you that our focus here is not just on old growth or, as you
say, big trees; it is a focus on the forests as a whole. And I
see out there some of the more radical organizations--not to
say that yours is--but some of the more radical organizations
are constantly trying to pull this argument into old growth in
an effort to bolster their arguments that we shouldn't touch
the forests at all. I think you would find the testimony from
the Secretaries, any of the bills here, it is a very small
percentage of old growth that is necessary. That is not where
the focus is, and I think you need to acknowledge that we are
looking at the forests as a whole.
The second point I would like to ask is you is, you use the
number 244 thinning projects and how little you appeal them.
Can you tell me what number of the 244 were not appealable
because they had categorical exclusion?
Mr. Schulke. Not at this time, but I can get you that
information.
Mr. McInnis. I think that would be very pertinent as to
your 244.
Part of the problems of the GAO study is that in their
initial one--which, by the way, they have even withdrawn their
support of their own study. They said it is inaccurate. But
part of their problem was that they considered thinning
projects that you couldn't appeal in the first place. That is
what threw out the numbers. Now, that is GAO's own numbers.
Mr. Schulke. But Mr. McInnis--.
Mr. McInnis. So I--.
Mr. Schulke. --you can't litigate those projects.
Mr. McInnis. I am the Chairman. You may speak when I am
finished.
Mr. Schulke. Thank you.
Mr. McInnis. My point here to you is that I think it is
very important we know what number the 244 that were
categorical exclusions.
The other point I would like to make to the Committee as a
whole is, keep in mind, I happen to agree that controlled or
prescribed burns are helpful. But my understanding--and I could
be corrected. But my understanding is that one out of every 20
or one out of every 22 controlled burns gets out of control.
This is a very risky, very dangerous proposition. So I don't
want people to think that this is the automatic answer, these
prescribed burns. You saw it in New Mexico, what happened a
couple of years ago. We saw it in Yellowstone. Those were
prescribed burns that got out of control, and I am sure we
could come up with a number of others. So, one out of 20.
So while I support that, we also have to work very
diligently that making sure--to put whatever safeguards we can.
I found the testimony--Mr. Burley, your testimony,
especially interesting. And it was helpful for--excuse me. Mr.
Covington, I'm sorry. I got--Mr. Covington. I found that
testimony very helpful, and I appreciate some of the comments,
things I didn't even think about there.
Mr. Calahan, your testimony was interesting. You are a
fireman. I used to be a volunteer fireman. I have been in the
wildfires, and in my district this year I have gone to most of
those. That is why we need to custom look at every forest.
Obviously, in some of the areas you saw, you didn't think
thinning was necessary. In your own yard, you thought thinning
was necessary. It just shows that we cannot categorically say--
and I am not saying that you have. But we can't categorically
dismiss thinning as helpful.
We had a terrible fire down in the four corners at the
park, the Mesa Verde National Park this last summer about a
month ago, and they--it is a textbook example which saved the
headquarters and saved many of the ruins, the thinning--and the
superintendent will tell you categorically that it was the
thinning that saved their headquarters and these facilities
from burning. They had just finished the thinning last year.
You can go up and you can look. You can see where the fire
came from all sides, and it stopped right where the thinning
was completed. So, thinning works sometimes; sometimes thinning
doesn't.
With that, I will be happy to--yes, Mr. Udall. And let me
mention one other thing. We had heard earlier testimony about
old growth trees don't burn, or apparently they are very fire
resistant. In the Hayman fire--and I think Mr. Mark Udall was
on a tour recently. On the Hayman fire, we lost trees that were
over 500 years old that will take over 20 generations to
replace. They were not fire resistant. That fire burned so hot,
it burned down a grove of these trees or a group of these
trees. So these trees are not fire resistant, as some might
imply.
Tom Udall. Mr. Tom Udall.
Mr. Tom Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I very much
appreciate the panel being here and having your testimony
today. I think that the testimony has shown that all of us
really need to learn a lot about this area in terms of
embarking on policies.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Udall follows:]
Statement of Hon. Tom Udall, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Mexico
First I would like to thank Secretaries Norton and Veneman for
coming here today to discuss these very important issues facing
America's forests today.
This season's wildfires have burned more than twice the ten-year
average on public and private property across the West. Scientists,
environmentalists, and even lawmakers agree that 100 years of fire
suppression and a record drought year contributed to the conditions
that set the stage for this year's fire season. And, we can all
understand that clearing some of the fuel that feeds these fires is
necessary. However, that is where our agreement ends.
The Administration's ``common sense'' policy for managing our
National Forests is not common and makes no sense. This policy
perpetuates and expands the current unsound practice of not spending
our limited resources in the communities that need them most, and
instead spend them in the backcountry. The General Accounting Office
(GAO) was asked by several Members of Congress to review the steps the
Departments of Agriculture and Interior have taken to date regarding
implementation of the National Fire Plan. In that report, the GAO
identified the need for two things--more and better interagency
coordination, and better focus on identifying and responding to the
highest-risk communities in the wildland/urban interface area. So why
is the Administration looking to move resources away from these high-
risk communities?
I am equally concerned that the proposal essentially cuts the
public out of having a say in land management decisions when it gives
the agency the authority to proceed without environmental checks and
sideboards. The key to land management now and in the future is to have
all stakeholders involved in the process when it comes to our lands.
All fire season, the Administration and other public officials have
blamed environmentalists who appealed forest thinning projects for the
catastrophic wildfires. The Administration wants to exempt a range of
agency actions from the National Environmental Policy Act, the very law
that epitomizes open and thoughtful decision making by allowing the
public to have a say in and look at the environmental impacts of a
logging or development project. This cornerstone of good government has
kept a check and balance in place that has helped to improve countless
projects on public lands.
Even more troubling, the Administration and sponsors of
legislation, have based this massive environmental policy overhaul on
false premises. The Administration and the bill sponsors somehow would
have us believe that if the environmentalists had not held up so many
thinning projects, the fires never would have happened. They cite a
July Forest Service report claiming nearly half of all thinning
projects have been appealed as the smoking gun leading to the
conclusion that appeals must be stopped. Yet, just one year ago a GAO
study revealed that only one percent of hazardous fuels reduction
projects had been appealed.
Last month, Representative Inslee and I asked the Forest Service to
provide the documentation to support its report's claims. Only by using
suspect methods in their data collection, and cooking the books, can
the Forest Service make the outrageous statement that almost 50 percent
of all thinning projects were appealed. According to a Forest Trust
analysis of the appeals report, the Forest Service report used
selective sampling to skew the numbers. The Forest Service report only
surveyed mechanical fuel treatment appeals and ignored all other forms
of fuel reduction treatments. But, in 2001, mechanical treatments
accounted for a mere 15 percent of all hazardous fuels reduction
efforts. So looking at the larger universe of fuels treatment projects,
of 244 such projects in the Southwest region, only 2 are opposed. Let
me repeat that only 2 projects out of the 244 in the Southwest were
appealed. That's less than 1%
Furthermore, the Forest Service definition of mechanical fuels
treatment projects in the report was so broad that virtually any timber
sale was included. Almost 90 percent of the appealed projects in the
Forest Service report include timber sales. In fact, many of the
appealed projects listed in the Forest Service report are not even fuel
reduction projects, once again illustrating the biased and unreliable
nature of this report. And that's just the point: when the agency
proposes controversial projects outside of the wildland urban
interface--timber sales in the name of forest health, they're likely to
be scrutinized and challenged.
At a time when Members of this committee are demanding better
science in the implementation of environmental laws, I do not see how
we can establish a national policy based on such mistruths. To think
that thinning projects would fire-proof our forests is seriously
misguided.
This is not, as the President has said, a common sense approach to
forest management. If we are to truly address wildfire management and
improve forest health, we need a common sense approach that allows the
people to continue to play a role in land management. Thank you.
______
Mr. Tom Udall. Mr. Covington, to start with you, when we
heard earlier testimony that, you know, about a hundred years
and we have been in mismanagement and we have had overgrazing
and we have disconnected native Americans from the land and
they used to use burning to manage the land and then we have
had this very aggressive fire suppression, when did we first
start thinking that fire suppression was not the way to go? You
seemed to indicate in your earlier comments that we have known
for a couple of generations. And why? You know, what is your
take on that and why has it taken the bureaucracy so long to
realize that and put a policy in place, in your opinion?
Mr. Covington. Thank you, Mr. Udall.
The--just historically--I will try to make this short. I
tend to talk in 50-minute units, being a professor. But the
short version of that is there was a tremendous idealogical war
when the Secretary of Interior was Noble back when John Wesley
Powell and Gifford Pinchot were duking it out. John Wesley
Powell advocated for managing western lands close to natural
conditions, including fire. Powell actually learned how to use
fire from the Paiute people of northern Arizona, Southern Utah,
was a strong advocate of it. He was not formally educated in
forestry, forestry of the day. Pinchot was. Pinchot was
educated in western European forestry, where fire was the enemy
of the mixed mesophytic forests that were over there. So they
were at ideological loggerheads, basically. Pinchot won that
argument. That sent us down the point where we are today.
As a young man, when I was first becoming educated in fire
ecology, fire was still fundamentally bad in western forests.
By the time I was into my master's degree program there was
some, well, yeah, you know, people have been saying for a while
fire is a good thing as long as it is a natural fire. Now we
are at the point where--as a matter of fact, when I started
working in Northern Arizona University in 1975, the West had
just--the Forest Service had just said we will start using
prescribed burning, not let fires go.
We have won kind of the battle that prescribed fires can be
good, but it is too late. In the 1940's, we could have used
prescribed burning to do the thinning and restore forest
ecosystem health.
One of the first research projects I did started in 1975. I
tried this, and to my great surprise it did not kill the trees
that needed to be removed, it killed the old growth trees. And
I did not want to believe that. That data hit me square in the
eyes. I did it repeatedly, which led me then to realize that in
dense forests of ponderosa pine and related types, you have to
go in and mechanically thin those trees so you can safely then
reintroduce the natural process of fire.
So, anyway, that is just a little bit of the background.
Steve Pine, by the way, has a great documentation of this.
I know you know of Pine's work and so.
Mr. Tom Udall. So was it in the 1940's that people like you
were urging the Forest Service to start to change in terms of
the usage of fires and that?
Mr. Covington. People like me? Maybe. But not me, clearly.
While I have some years on me, I wasn't here then.
Mr. Tom Udall. I am not giving you all those years. I am
just trying to document. Because you said for generations we
have known this.
Mr. Covington. In the 1940's, Harold Weaver started working
on the Coleville Reservation up in eastern Washington. My
subsequent students and grad students have continued the
prescribed burning project. Harold Weaver, following on
Leopold's statements, said: Fires are going to get worse in the
ponderosa pine mix dry forest types. They are going to get
catastrophic. Insect and disease problems. We have got to
reintroduce fires.
Do you know what the response of the mainstream community
of land managers, of forest managers, and fire experts were at
the time was, that is just a bunch of Paiute forestry. That is
what ignorant, uneducated people do to the land.
That fight went on. It started in Arizona with Harry
Calender. Weaver came over. Biswell from California came over
and worked with the White Mountain Apaches--which is, of
course, where the Rodeo-Chediski fires started--to start doing
prescribed burning on grand scales. But still the mainstream
didn't get it until now it is too late under dense forest
conditions.
We simply--you cannot kill--safely kill the trees that need
to be removed to restore natural conditions, biological
diversity and so on with prescribed burning.
Mr. Duncan. [Presiding.] The time of the gentleman has
expired.
Mr. Hayworth.
Mr. Hayworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank all the
panelists. Especially pleased to have Wally here.
Wally, let us continue on with what you were talking about
earlier, maybe to amplify a couple of these things. If you
could crystallize for us the difference between ecological
restoration and hazardous fuel reduction.
Mr. Covington. OK. Hazardous fuel reduction treats a
symptom of ecosystem health, but just one symptom. Ecological
restoration seeks to treat, in a sense, the entire patient. So
with ecological restoration approaches we are not merely
concerned about unnatural fire behavior or unnatural insect and
disease outbreaks, but we are concerned about unnatural crashes
of the species in the ecosystem, unnatural eruptions of
species, losses of long-term soil processes, losses of
watershed function. So it gets then what we are trying to do
with ecological restoration, get at the whole problem, not just
a part of it.
Mr. Hayworth. Wally, I am reading different documents--and
I thank Mr. Schulke for being here. Going through his testimony
I see I guess what message was released from the Center for
Biological Diversity: Southwestern National Forests Threatened
by Logging.
Maybe we need to get a definition here. Professor
Covington, in your mind, what is the difference between logging
and thinning? And is there a scientifically standardized
definition of the distinction between the two?
Mr. Covington. Well, there is a professional--and I am also
a professional forester, as you know, J.D. And in the
profession we differentiate between logging. The purpose of
logging is to provide wood for wood utilization. The purpose of
thinning is to improve land conditions. So, it is--what I like
to emphasize is again that ecological restoration would be
using thinning to improve land conditions.
Then, as Mark Gray said, as almost incidental to the land
health restoration project, where roads exist, you may be able
to, in an environmentally, socially, and politically sound
fashion, remove those excess trees and then get some
utilization for the human component of the ecosystem to, you
know, have jobs and also to help defray some of the cost.
Mr. Hayworth. In your opinion, do you share the assessment
that I see in Mr. Schulke's notion that our forests are
threatened now by logging in the Southwest?
Mr. Covington. No, I don't think they are. That was true
some years ago. Right now, the greatest single threat by far to
the vast ponderosa pine dry forest types, the dry mix conifer,
dry Douglas types is unnatural, severe catastrophic crown fire.
There is just no doubt at all that that is the largest single
threat to the long-term sustainability to these ecosystems.
Mr. Hayworth. I thank you very much, Professor.
Let me turn to Mr. Calahan. Thank you for coming, sir; and
we appreciate your first-hand knowledge of what was transpiring
in Oregon. My friend Congressman Walden especially is concerned
about that.
Our documentation says you are a retired firefighter. I
guess you obviously had to come out of retirement, given the
severity of what was going on with your property and what was
happening to your neighbors there.
Mr. Calahan. I think firefighters are like moths to the
flame, you know.
Mr. Hayworth. What are you doing now, sir?
Mr. Calahan. I seem to be plenty busy. There is plenty to
do. But I am working on my own property. I lost a hundred fir
trees this year due to drought in 1 year.
Mr. Hayworth. Well, we thank you for coming down and being
a part of this; and I thank all who join us here today.
Obviously, we have some differences of opinion. Mr.
Schulke, can there be a meeting of the minds, or are we
destined to fall into the traps of demonizing each other as we
continue ad infinitum? Is there any realm of compromise that
the Center would accept, from just hearing some of the
testimony that you have heard?
Mr. Schulke. Absolutely, Mr. Hayworth. Absolutely.
I don't know if you have heard the outcome of the meeting
we had with Senator McCain a couple weeks ago in Flagstaff, but
we talked about that exact thing.
One thing I will provide you. This is a newsletter that I
brought that shows some of the efforts that we are working on
to do forest restoration which involves the kind of small tree
thinning that I was suggesting, and economic development to
utilize those small trees. This is a Center project. So, we do
have a lot of agreement. There is a lot to move forward
together on here.
Mr. Duncan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Mark Udall.
Mr. Mark Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I also want to welcome the panel, and thank you for your
compelling testimony.
Dr. Covington, I think we could all sit and listen to you
for a 50-minute block. I look forward to taking advantage of
your expertise.
I had an opportunity, as Congressman McInnis suggested, to
tour the Hayman fire, and I spent some time with Dr. Kaufman,
who I think you probably know. One of my concerns is that we
are really focused on I think what you call the dry forest
environment, and there is a lot of talk about the ponderosa and
Douglas fir ecosystems. Then people then tend to lump, in my
experience, other forest types into that particular situation.
I would urge all of you and all of us here to help begin
the education process. I think it is really necessary when it
comes to the general public to help them better understand we
do face--it is not just one forest type. Lodgepole, for
example, are subject to stand replacement type fires as we saw
in Yellowstone. We have both environmental and social
considerations we have to take into account when it comes to
lodgepole.
I called on the Forest Service to study with a scientific
panel the Hayman fire to better understand the behavior of that
fire, because even today we are hearing a lot of anecdotal
evidence. We see the photographs that--the two Secretaries were
here. Those of you on this panel have made various observations
and then drawn some conclusions, and I think it is all very
well-intentioned, but there is more work to be done to analyze
the fires, as terrible as they have been, to help us understand
where we might go in the longer run.
I do appreciate the science emphasis here, because those of
us here get caught up in the policymaking and by extension the
politics.
I was pleased--I think my colleague, Mr. Hayworth, I think
has stepped out, but he represents a district where there has
been significant fire this summer. I get the sense from Mr.
Hayworth that he is really looking for some common ground, as I
think all of us here on the Committee are.
Mr. Calahan, I was just really impressed with your
testimony. I am going to ask you questions, probably unfair,
but if you were in a position where you could direct resources
and personnel in this challenge we face, what would you do?
What would you do to reduce the hazards of wildfire and protect
property and human life?
I think you come with a great credibility and your
testimony was very powerful in that you give us a sense that
you understand the environment, you understand forests, but you
also want to protect and preserve forests, but you are not
adverse to logging and fuel reduction efforts when necessary.
Mr. Calahan. Thank you. I think probably, at least in our
area, in the Applegate Valley, we are becoming educated, the
citizens are, about the vulnerability of their homes. In fact,
there is a bill I believe that was just passed, it has been
introduced and been worked on, where you will be fined if you
are a contributor to this fire if you don't do the fuels
treatment around your home. And I think that is moving ahead
rather well. The public is becoming aware that they need to be
responsible for their own property in any way they can.
There was a little bit of funds that came out that helped,
and you could get about $330 to do some thinning around your
home if you qualified. So that is a step in the right
direction.
But I see very little of the money that is happening in BL
M and the Forest Service being applied to the rural interface,
that area where the private land and the government land is.
They are concentrating it out, they do big blocks of land, but
it is up here on a hill where everybody can see it, but it is
not really doing the area we need. I would like to see that
drawn into these places where people want to put their homes
next to BLM land. BLM land, where the Forest Service is a great
neighbor because they don't come around too often, but they are
a bully when they do come around.
I may stand alone in this one, but I think we are really
making a mistake when we go out on something like the Biscuit
complex and deploy 92 plus cats and try to stop it at every
hill and dale. That was a remote fire. When it comes to the
communities, if we had already done our homework, that wouldn't
be such a problem. But protect our communities and the private
lands.
But I see where we need to back up to one of those natural
breaks or one of those where we have a road and a somewhat bald
ridge and back off and let the fire burn to you, because you
have to understand that this fire is doing a good thing. It is
one of the few ways we are going to be brought back to zero,
because we cannot go out and manage all these lands and thin
them all. We just don't have a prayer. There is too much. It is
too big. We need to put the money where it needs to be.
I also think we need to separate logging and thinning. They
are two separate--I mean, they are related, but we are trying
to tell these BLM managers and Forest Service managers that
they have to make this pay for itself. And when you throw in
all this little stuff, they have got to throw in something big
in order to make it pay for itself.
Mr. Mark Udall. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for indulging.
I think, if I could just add a final comment, Mr. Calahan,
you make the very good point that we need to continue to do all
we can to have our fuel reduction and our thinning debates and
policy-setting here and separate the logging debate and the
logging policy; and the more we can do that I think the more
successful we can be, understanding that they are at least
cousins and perhaps even siblings.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much. The time of the gentleman
has expired.
Governor Rehberg.
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Covington, it just goes to show you, you can hear the
same testimony and view it two different ways. I have
particular problems with Mr. Calahan's testimony because I
think it is a simplistic view of the kinds of problems that are
created within a forest. Now, I guess my question to you is, is
the thinning--first of all, are you familiar with the Squires
fire? Have you seen it? Have you been there?
Mr. Covington. Yes. I haven't been on there.
Mr. Rehberg. Based upon your knowledge of the ecology of
the forest, is the thinning of the forest what creates the
potential for a more severe burn, or is it some other factor
within that forest that created the more severe burn?
Let me tell you the direction I am heading from, just to
give you a little hint. My background is grass. I know grass
inside and out. There is nobody in this room that knows more
about grass than I do. That is why I talk about undergrazed
grass kills it every much as overgrazed grass.
So, if you have a forest canopy, you have got thick trees,
you have got pine needles. When you have got pine needles, you
have a severe burn. Not only do you have the crowning, but you
also have a severe burn on the ground because of the pine
needles. If you have a thin forest, you have a better
opportunity for better grass, but from an ecological
standpoint, unless you change the management of the way you
treat those grasses, some day you are going to have the same
problem but on the ground. You are going to have too much
grass. Because grass in itself, when the sun is shining and it
is raining or it is snowing, builds upon itself and it
eventually becomes such a wolfey plant that it creates a fire
danger at a more severe level on the ground level.
So my question is, based upon his testimony, is it in fact
the thinning that created the more severe fire? And he uses the
term: One of the downsides of thinning is that it lets in more
sun and wind that drys out the forest, making it potentially
even more prone to severe fire. No. What happened is the sun is
going in and you are not doing anything to manage the ground
and, as a result, you are creating a different kind of a fire
damage.
Mr. Covington. In brief, thinning is not thinning is not
thinning, right? So if you do too little thinning and you leave
the slash, the thinning debris on the ground, it is true that
you can get greater wind movement, greater sunlight drying out
of that surface and you can get--you can actually increase the
severity of the fire.
Mr. Rehberg. Because of the slash, not because of thinning.
Mr. Covington. Because of the slash. Well, but also because
there is better wind movement and it dries out more if you do
too little thinning. It is kind of like if you go in--you know,
if--God forbid, but I go into my doctor and he says, you have
got a tumor, you know, that is malignant. And he says, well,
you know, I will tell you what I am going to do. I am going to
go in and remove 10 percent of that, and then we will come back
in another 3 years and we will remove another 10 percent, maybe
20 percent of it. That can make it worse.
The tree population eruptions are a cellular disorder. They
are like a cellular disorder in the body. So if you remove only
part of the problem, you can make it worse. However, in the
case of ponderosa pine, frequent fire types, if you go in and
remove the excess trees that should be removed to restore more
natural conditions, there is no way that large crown fires can
occur. It simply will not occur.
As you have pointed out, fires will occur in the surface
vegetation through the grasses and wildflowers and shrubs.
Those fires for the most part can be controlled with direct
attack. You can put people in front of those fires with hand
equipment and stop those. It doesn't take a huge fire line like
Mr. Calahan was talking about, you know, in the conditions that
we have now.
So, does that answer your question?
Mr. Rehberg. I had mentioned in my opening statement the
tools that are available to manage a forest; and I would
suggest that in my business, you know, if I have got a
mismanaged pasture that I am moving into, one of the things
that I do consider is a prescribed burn. Because I may have too
much sagebrush because I purchased a piece of property that
used to be farmed and they have gone back and now it is
sagebrush.
But you clearly understand that when you go in with a
prescribed burn to change the ecology of that land, unless you
change the management after the burn, what have you solved? And
isn't that the same issue that we are talking about here, is
that if we don't in fact change the management of the entire
ecosystem in the long-term, yeah, maybe we did go in and thin
and create a more difficult problem. That is why we have to
look at it from the ecological system standpoint.
Mr. Covington. Exactly. And within the absence of fire or
other forms of management of the understoring vegetation, you
may have a healthy--let us think of the trees as sort of the
lungs or something like that in the body. You may have healthy
lungs, but if you are not paying attention to the herbaceous
and shrub layer, then you don't have a healthy body or a
healthy ecosystem.
Mr. Duncan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Rehberg. If somebody could ask Mr. Burley perhaps, it
looked like he was trying to wave a response of some sort.
Mr. Duncan. Just very quickly.
Mr. Burley. It will be brief, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted
to follow on on Dr. Covington's comment.
You know, when you are managing these stands--I mean, there
are multiple objectives, as he has pointed out, under ecosystem
restoration. But with respect to fire behavior specifically, I
mean, you have got different fuel classes. We have got fuels
that are a thousand hour classes. They are large chunks of
woody material that will sit there and burn for thousands of
hours, and you have got very fine light fuels. So to say that
just thinning will increase the fuel load, you have to kind of
look at what fuel class is it. Because the lighter finer fuels
aren't nearly as dangerous or have as severe an impact on the
stand when the fire does burn through it.
But it is also--you know, it also points out--I think Dr.
Covington's answer points out that it is more than just--you
know, it is more than just the fuels and the number of trees,
that you have to look at the crown closure. There is so many
factors involved in this thing, which is why it just makes it
all the more difficult to try and write a one-size-fits-all
prescription.
Mr. Duncan. All right. I understand that Chairman McInnis
accidentally skipped over Mr. Inslee a while ago, so we are
going to go next to Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. It has happened before. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I just want to note Mr. Rey's comment about trying to find
commercial value for some of the real thin trees is something I
think worth investigating. I hope we can work on that together
to find a way to have value inducement for the very, very thin
products.
But I want to focus on what I think really is the crux of
our issue here, and that is, how do we get to a fuels reduction
program that citizens have trust in their government, that is
motivated by a desire to have healthy systems rather than to
increase commercial productivity? And I think that is the real
question. How do we design a system to do that?
I think Mr. Calahan's statement about the issue of what
happens when you essentially tell the Service to finance a
fuels reduction program by selling big trees, you are going to
end up with controversy with citizens. Because they are going
to make decisions to cut down big trees because that is where
the commercial value is, rather than being a decision driven by
science on ecosystem values. And that is the crux of this.
To me, financing this system by selling big trees is a
little like selling your kidney to finance an operation on your
good kidney--or your bad kidney. That is not the way to finance
the fuel reduction program, for two reasons. One, there is not
enough money to do it or even close enough. No. 2, it creates
these perverse incentives to cut big trees. And that is why we
have ended up with some appeals in the mechanical portion of
our project.
We have the additional problem--and I hope we can find a
bipartisan solution to this--but this is not a moment where the
citizens, after this administration has tried to roll back, you
know, rules against arsenic, protection on clean air,
protection of our coastal waters, anything on global warming,
try to roll back discharge rules on toxic waste for mining, and
now they expect the citizens to just trust them. That is what
they are asking. This is not a moment where citizens are
reacting real positively to that request, and we need to find
some fences around this program so citizens can have confidence
that these decisions are made for fuel reduction purposes
rather than commercial timber harvest.
Now, I have proposed a couple things, and we are going to
propose legislation to try to do that in a couple ways: one, to
have the funds from any commercial productivity go to the
general treasury rather than the Forest Service; two, to ask on
a forest-by-forest, boutique way of individualized, customized
diameter requirements, customized to the circumstances of each
forest, with exceptions for diseased trees perhaps or
exceptions for exceptional density in the woods perhaps. Those
are two ideas that I have proposed to try to give citizens more
confidence that these decisions are made for the right reasons.
So I guess, let me ask you, Mr. Burley, first, those are
two ideas I have proposed. Do you have any others or do you
have any comments on how you think we could increase citizens'
confidence that these decisions as to which trees to cut are
based on a fuel reduction motivation rather than a commercial
timber sale?
Mr. Burley. Well, speaking as a professional forester also,
I think it would be helpful if we demonstrated trust in the
profession. And I think these are professional managers out
there, and they need to be given the tools and the latitude and
be empowered to do the job.
You know, I--personally, I wouldn't feel qualified
questioning, you know, somebody that is designing a nuclear
submarine because that is not my area of expertise. And I don't
know how else to answer that, sir. I mean, it--granted, it is a
real issue; it is a trust issue. I know that. But these are
professionals and, you know, they know what to do. They are
educated, they read the science, they stay abreast of what is
going on. And by tying their hands through these arbitrary
restrictions, I think we are just--we are creating more
problems than we are solving.
Mr. Inslee. Mr. Calahan, do you have any thoughts in this
regard?
Mr. Calahan. Well, dealing with the Medford BLM quite a bit
in the last few years because of a project that is behind my
place, it is actually the follow-up to the Squires fire area, I
find that there is a lot of people in the agency that really
are trying to speak out, but they are so limited. They are
afraid. You know, they have got a job. They have got health
insurance. They want to stay there. And they are trying to make
changes from within the agency, but the agency itself is still
like that train going down the track. It has so much momentum
on this cooperating with the logging industry that they just--
they are overruled. The people that care are overruled most of
the time.
The changes are happening subtly. In the last decade or so
I think we have really made some inroads into the agencies as
far as--because of people that care and the citizens input. We
are actually helping the forest. It is coming about, but it is
a slow process.
Mr. Inslee. Well, you know, I think Congress needs to help
in that movement, and I will tell you why. The Forest Service
has been told by the administration essentially to finance this
on their own. They want to do more fuel reduction programs, but
they haven't doubled the appropriation to do it. The
appropriation they have given the Forest Service only allows 1
to 2 percent a year of all the acreage that they themselves
have identified of needing these treatments. They have
essentially told the Forest Service, go finance this by cutting
down big timber. And that will get us nothing but more appeals,
many of which are rightful, because these decisions are being
made for the wrong purposes.
I empathize with the individuals in the Service, but
Congress needs to help them move along. And I want to thank the
panel and thank Mr. Chair.
Mr. Duncan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
I am next on our side. I don't really have any questions,
but I do want to commend Chairman McInnis and Mr. Shadegg and
Governor Rehberg for their very reasonable and moderate
approaches that they are taking to this very serious problem.
Chair McInnis Chaired hearings of the forest Subcommittee
in early 1998 in which I participated four and a half years
ago, at which time we were warned that some 40 millions acres
out West were in imminent and immediate danger of catastrophic
forest fires. Then, again, those warnings were repeated in a
hearing in early 2000, two and a half years ago. And those
warnings came true in 2000, when we had seven million acres and
$10 billion--seven million acres burn, $10 billion worth of
damage.
The worst thing, though, about this whole situation is, as
we heard the Secretary of Agriculture say this morning, 20
firefighters have lost their lives this year. I had a young
woman from my district in Tennessee who was a firefighter out
there who, in a fall, is now paralyzed from--I am told is
paralyzed from the waist down. And the sad thing is that many
of these fires were preventable.
I want to read for the record a couple of quotes I have,
that the Washington Times had a story recently that said: There
are simply too many trees--quoting Dale Bosworth, head of the
U.S. Forest Service. Quote: We have so many more trees out
there than under natural conditions. There might have been 40
to 50 ponderosa pine per acre at one time. Now you have the got
several hundred per acre.
The June 27th Washington Post had a headline reading,
quote: Did politics put a match to West wildlands? Unquote.
Jay Ambrose, the director of editorial policy for the
Scripps Howard newspaper chain, a very moderate, middle-of-the-
road newspaper chain, wrote that: The most flammable and dead
trees and underbrush should have been removed, but, quote, the
extreme environmentalists hate the prospect. It is
unconscionable to them that anyone might make money off the
forest. Never mind that a multi-use public-private plan would
help save the national forests from high heat scorching fires
that will slow renewed growth, and never mind that mechanical
thinning would give firefighters a chance of controlling fires
and protecting homes without risking their own lives. The
extremist idealogy spits on private enterprise. Unquote.
Then Robert Nelson, a professor at the University of
Maryland, wrote a column about this, and he said this. He said,
in fact, over the last decade it was more important to the
Clinton administration to promote wilderness values by creating
roadless areas and taking other actions to exclude a human
presence. This aggravated last summer's tinderbox forest
conditions and continues to threaten public land.
He said, Federal policies, quote, have produced an enormous
buildup of small trees, underbrush, and deadwood that provide
excess fuels to feed flames.
I think it is pretty clear, you have to cut some trees to
have a healthy forest and prevent forest fires, yet amazingly
there are extremists who seem to be dictating much of this
debate who don't even want the removal of the dead and dying
trees.
Professor Nelson said in a similar statement to Mr.
Bosworth, he said: In many Federal forests, tree density has
increased since the 1940's from 50 per acre to 300 to 500 per
acre, and that these forests are filled with dense strands--
quote, are filled with dense strands of small stressed trees
and plants that, combined with any deadwood, to provide virtual
kindling wood for forest fires.
I recently read Bill Bryson's book about hiking the
Appalachian trail, and in that book he noted that New England
was only 30 percent in forestland in 1850, but now it is 70
percent in forestland--New England.
The Knoxville News Sentinel in my hometown reported a
couple of years ago that Tennessee was 36 in percent forestland
in 1950, while today the State is half in forestland. Yet, if I
went in any school in my district and asked the young people
there, are there more trees today than there were 50 or 100 or
150 years ago, they would all say there is many fewer trees
now.
We have a lot of misinformation out about this, and it is
causing a lot of problems. I will say again that if any of us
burned one tree in a national forest, we would be arrested; but
these policies we have been following have caused millions of
acres to burn and have cost many, many lives, and it is time
for a change I think.
Next, we will hear from Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Covington, on your principles here: Retain trees which
predate settlement; retain post-settlement trees needed to
reestablish presettlement structure; thin and remove excess
trees; rake heavy fuels; burn to emulate; seed with natives/
control exotics.
Then you go to the challenges: Could be expensive, in the
short-term, save money and reduce resource values over time;
important we assure that trees are removed or being removed for
the purpose of restoring natural forest patterns; and,
political maneuvering over setting one-size-fits-all diameter
caps can interfere with cost-effective, ecologically sound
restoration.
Now those sound like principles that most people could
agree on. I think that the two key things, if you can focus on
this, is, how, without being prescriptive, can we be certain
that the trees being removed are for the purposes of restoring
natural forest patterns and processes? That is kind of the nub
of the argument here. I mean, we have some bad history with
some salvage sales where really prime timber, particularly east
side in Oregon was cherry-stemmed in order to make--because the
Forest Service was told, you have got to pay for this stuff,
and so they added those trees in.
It seems to me one of the things we have to do, we are
going to have to admit up front a lot of this isn't going to
make money; in fact, it is going to cost a lot of money. Would
that be sort of one way to--I mean, how would you get at that
level of confidence? Because that is really the key controversy
that is swirling here between industry and environmental
advocates.
Mr. Covington. Well, that is an excellent question. I spend
a lot of time thinking about this and actually working with
various groups to try to figure out how to do that. I think it
would be ill-advised to try to set a national sort of a policy
or even a forest level policy on diameter caps, for example, or
on how to control aggressive exotic species or what frequency
to burn the sites on.
The issue--it is out there at this tree and this
subwatershed, this four acres, this hundred acres, to
politically, what I have great hope in, is of collaborative
partnerships of various forms, you know, citizens, base groups,
collaborative community groups who can work with the concerned
agencies and landowners, whether they are State or Federal
agencies or landowners, to try to come to a level of
understanding about how environmentally, socially, politically
and ecologically sound restoration treatments might best be
implemented.
I have a tremendous faith and respect for such democratic
processes and for people who are coming to the table with the
idea of let us do something so that we can pass the land on in
a better condition than we received it.
The Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership there around
Northern Arizona University has been a model kind of case study
in this sort of work, but there are many others around the
country. That is one.
Mr. DeFazio. Quincy Library Group, if you are familiar with
that.
Mr. Covington. Well, the Quincy Library Group, I have some
familiarity with it. I haven't looked into the politics of it
very much.
I am, this fall, will be working more closely with the
citizens base group, the Applegate partnership up in the
vicinity of the Biscuit fire.
So it just--let me close this off by saying, you know, I am
not all that bright, frankly. You know, I am an ecologist. I am
a conservation ecologist. I am a forester. Many of the
political, social, economic sides of this are a stretch for me
to do well to get into them and still maintain my depth in
that.
I do have working with me in the Ecological Restoration
Institute a number of gifted persons. One of them is Hannah
Cortner, whose special area is the human dimension of ecosystem
management, the social, political, more philosophical concerns.
So, anyway, that just, in a nutshell, that is the way--I
wish Hannah were here. I would pass this off to her.
Mr. DeFazio. Yeah. I mean, as law-makers and as, you know,
trying to move forward from what we see as sort of gridlock in
this, I am not sure--I mean, your--I would agree with your
sentiments, and I think there is some potential for that, but
how we move that process forward is not--does anybody else have
an idea how to get past this sort of--this level of confidence
issue, something that we could do?
You know, it is just critical I think that we back off from
the controversy and potential controversy and--go ahead.
Mr. Duncan. The gentleman's time has expired. I am going to
give you extra time, Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
Mr. Duncan. But try to make these answers brief so we can
get to the other members.
Mr. Burley. I will do that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I agree with Wally. I mean, it is an education problem as
well; and I think the collaborative efforts can be helpful,
provided they, too, have some sideboards on them.
We have seen, for instance, in Oregon, we have the Blue
Mountain demo area that Governor Kitzhaber was--I mean, that
was his thing, and 7 years later it has very little to show for
it. We had a lot of meetings. And I think people, you know,
kind of--the trust level got up.
Mr. DeFazio. So your answer would be sideboards, something
to move the process along?
Mr. Burley. Yeah. There needs to be sideboards.
Mr. DeFazio. Something to move the process along.
Mr. Burley. Right. Because 7 years from now we are going to
be right back here asking the same questions.
Mr. DeFazio. Given the Chairman's prescription, can anybody
answer briefly?
Mr. Creal. I would like to respond to that. The Secure
Rural Schools and Communities Act really addresses that with
regional advisory Committees; and we are seeing great success
through that Committee work, where they are building trust and
building those relationships back up between the diverse
groups.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. So if we imposed a structure for the
Committees or locally oriented Committees with some mandate to
go out and address these problems?
Mr. Creal. Well, one of the most powerful parts, though, is
that they have resources.
Mr. DeFazio. Sure. The sections two and three. Yeah. Right.
Mr. Calahan?
Mr. Calahan. Well, I see all this small fuel out in the
forests, the smaller--basically, you don't count anything less
than six inches and call it commercial value, you know. There
are countries in this world where women go out and find a stick
anywhere for their fire and it is important to them. We are
blessed with all of this excess wood, but it is not being
utilized. It is basically being chopped up and put on that pile
and being burned.
I wonder if there isn't some sort of push toward finding a
better way of utilizing those small products. And I don't just
mean poles by chipping them up and getting them out of the
woods. Maybe if the government put some energy into that
direction, it might be a help.
Mr. DeFazio. Sure. Like biomass for electric generation
something, like that.
Mr. Schulke. Mr. DeFazio, I mentioned earlier in my
testimony the zone of agreement, finding those places where we
do agree and starting from there. I would refer you to Senator
Bingaman's Community Forest Restoration Project, where there
were parameters set up in a bill and there is a panel that
makes decisions and--within those parameters, and $5 million a
year gets spent on projects that the conservation community
agrees with because they are in on making those decisions. So,
yeah, there are models out that work. Getting rid of the loss
is going to make that--.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the indulgence.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. Walden, and then Mr. Shadegg.
Mr. Walden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calahan, I appreciate your coming here from our
district and testifying. I think your comments are very
helpful. I especially agree with your comment about sometimes
it is the natural barriers that actually are what stop the
fires, the ridge tops, the creekbeds, whatever it may be, a
road, something like that.
I, as you know, was up there with the President on the
Squires fire, and there were four firefighters there who also
met with him and talked to him about the Squires fire. There
were actually four--I think most of them--I may be wrong, but I
think all four actually fought that fire were engaged--one of
them certainly was, because he was the one that took the
pictures that were used. And a couple of them also had been
involved in some of the thinning efforts and some of the
restoration efforts on the lands there. But to a one of them,
they said, you have got to help us do this kind of work. Every
one of them said that.
I was impressed by that, because not only had they done--
some of them done the pre-thinning, but they had also been
there fighting the fire then. And it was--they made it clear to
us up there--you know, we can't control what the media decides
to cover out of an event, but they made it clear that when that
fire came up that ridge, that even though they had done some
thinning, it came with such force that it just wiped it out. So
that was conveyed to all of us on the ridge top. Then it
crested over, and in some areas it had been thinned. And
then--.
The picture that you have here, the one that Mr. Inslee
used as well with the blue paint on the tree, is that not from
a proposed timber sale that has been appealed for 18 months or
thereabouts?
Mr. Calahan. No, that is not. That is down the ridge
probably three-quarters of a mile.
Mr. Shadegg. So it is not the Superior sale that has been
held up?
Mr. Calahan. Well, Superior is the logging company that got
the contract to do the Spencer project. But you are speaking--.
Mr. Walden. I guess that is what I am trying to sort out.
Because I talked to some of the Boise folks today, and they
were talking about their sale. And, yeah, it did burn through
their land, as you say, in your testimony. About 2 days into
the fire they thought it finally hit, and then it kind of
wandered through there a couple of days. And there was some
slash on the ground, obviously.
Mr. Calahan. A lot of slash, sir.
Mr. Shadegg. But they had replanted as well. So you had
young conifers, and there was slash on the ground, no doubt.
But they were indicating that it actually started on the BL M
lands, and by the time it hit their property it was going
pretty good.
Mr. Calahan. Both sides of that ridge surrounding the Boise
land is pretty much what I call toast, and some of it is
thinned toast.
Mr. Shadegg. Right. We saw that as well. So I think you are
right in that sometimes, even when you have done the thinning,
what comes at you you cannot stop for whatever reason.
Mr. Calahan. Absolutely correct.
Mr. Shadegg. But I have also been with Mr. Burley out in
the Dechutes forest where they have done a thinning project
and--or were in the middle of it and a fire came through. And,
boy, that was real obvious, that the lodgepole was going to
survive, most all of it where it had been thinned out, and the
ponderosa pine clearly was going to survive. You could just see
this clear line where they had stopped work for the day before
the fire; and the other side, the soils were, however you
describe them, totally destroyed. It was like flour. And that
most of the ponderosa was destroyed and all the lodgepoles.
So I really think we need to move forward in a
collaborative way to try and do the best we can on this, and I
intend to work with our Chairman and Mr. DeFazio on that.
Because it really bothers--as an Oregonian, I don't want
charcoal forests; I want green, healthy ones.
I also heard Mr. Rey--and I don't know if you were here
when he testified--but repeatedly make clear it is not their
intent to make this a logging operation in the former sense of
the word. That if trees were taken out that were commercial
grade, it would be very incidental to what they are trying to
do. So I think they are trying to get at what some of my
colleagues have indicated, you have got to sort of divide out
logging from ecosystem restoration.
So I hope we can work together on this. I think we have to
as a country, because America's forests are going up like never
before in my memory. It costs us, as I understand it, twice as
much to fight these fires as to go in and do the restoration
work; and I didn't hear anybody on the panel today from the
administration saying we are going to pay for this by cutting
big trees. That is not--I haven't heard them tell me that on
the record or off, and yet I hear it from Mr. Inslee, who is
not here at the moment, but I don't hear that out of the
administration. I don't think that is practical.
I do think they are going to have to come forward with a
fairly substantial appropriation as we did in the fire plan to
try and address this.
The final point I would make, because we have talked a lot
about now we have got to protect around homes, and I fully
agree with that. I also think we have got a lot of private
forestland out there that abuts Federal land, and we are losing
it. Boise Cascade lost nearly 10,000 acres of 30- to 50-year-
old trees because the fire roared off the Federal land in some
cases, including here in Squires, onto their land. Some of the
back fires had to be set there.
I know there are other private, State, and county
forestlands that get burned up; and they are not always, you
know, completely properly managed, either. But I do think, as
the Federal Government, what I have seen is a real delay in
managing--gaining and managing these lands that we have, and
they abut private lands that in most cases or at least some are
better managed. I think we have got a liability there, frankly,
or should morally, that we need to take care of our lands.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman--I know I am out of time--the
comments about local decisionmaking I think are really
appropriate. Your comment, Dr. Covington, about one size
doesn't fit all, it is a problem we faced on the east side
where they just arbitrarily set a 21-inch limit on breast
height you could cut. Well, what does that really mean? It is
supposed to be a temporary rule. It has been there for 8 or 9
years, you know, and then meantime we don't get things done.
So, I want to get something done. I want to work in a
bipartisan manner to do that so we have green forests and not
black ones.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much. The time of the
gentleman has expired.
Mr. Shadegg.
Mr. Shadegg. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the Committee
indulging me as a guest today and getting to go last. I also
thank all of the witnesses. I think their testimony has been
educational and helpful.
It is difficult to try to bridge this gap, but I am
encouraged by the compromise discussions that have occurred
here today. I had some discussions with Mr. DeFazio. His speech
at the beginning of the hearing could have been my speech. My
speech was his speech. Let us get past the politics and get to
a policy that works, because there are clearly some problems
with the current policy.
I also find it encouraging when everyone on my side of the
aisle says we should not be doing logging. We should not allow
a forest restoration project distorted into a logging project,
and we should not be paying for it with logging. I think there
is agreement on this side of the aisle on that.
I am encouraged when I hear Mr. Inslee talk about
commercial value. I am encouraged when I hear Mr. Schulke say
they support thinning and even, I believe he said, economic
development. I think we can find a common ground, and I think
we have got to.
I want to focus my questions on three topics. Dr.
Covington, you are the focus. I want to discuss this urban-
wildland interface. I want to discuss the issue of cutting only
small trees and the question of caps. With all due deference to
Mr. Calahan, I heard today a certain degree of thinning did not
work, and in some instances thinning made the fire worse. I was
a little shocked to hear that because that is contrary to
everything else that I am hearing.
First, Dr. Covington, tell me, should we be focusing
exclusively on the urban-wildland interface? Do you agree with
that?
Mr. Covington. No, I do not. Again, it is a matter of
perspective. With complex problems like this, it is often best
to break them down into subproblems and then prioritize them.
In the urban-wildland interface insofar as houses being
burned down and threats to firefighter lives, that is a very
high-priority area. However, I do not feel we can wait until we
have solved that problem completely before we at least start
addressing some of the other problems.
From a future generations standpoint, I am very concerned
about the Mexican spotted owl. You lose 12 Mexican spotted owl
houses, and that is a much bigger impact to the Mexican spotted
owl population than losing thousands of human houses. We need
to set priorities and then move forward in them, but I don't
think that it makes sense just because we have subproblems that
you prioritize them and you only do this one and wait until you
get that one solved before you go to the next one.
Mr. Shadegg. It is odd to me that some of the strongest
environmental groups are saying we ought to work only on the
urban-wildland interface when they ought to be the ones
reminding us that we better save the most remote stuff. I share
that concern.
Second, this issue of removing only the small trees and the
caps, I will tell you I have read every number in the world on
caps, from 6 inches to 16 inches and above, and during the
Rodeo-Chediski fire we got into a blame game. There is no point
in looking back. Let us look forward, and should we be looking
at just small trees? Caps may be a way of giving some relief
that we are not going to cut big trees, but the point was made
earlier that big diseased trees should not necessarily be
saved. I would like you to talk about caps and diameters.
Mr. Covington. Cap diameter limits, the maximum size of
trees, it is not really an ecological issue from an ecological
health standpoint.
From a fire behavior standpoint, it is clear that in the
areas where the most severe unnatural fire behavior is, the
Ponderosa pine forest, it is predominantly the small-diameter
trees. You remove those, and you will not see crown fires
again. That is simple, if that is your only issue is the
elimination of crown fires.
If, however, it is an ecosystem health issue, we cannot get
something for nothing. So for every tree that you leave in an
ecosystem in excess of the natural carrying capacity of the
land, of the natural density of the land, it comes at the
expense of grasses, wildflowers and shrubs, and then the
associated and dependent food web for those flora. If we are
just concerned about eliminating crown fires, we can set
diameter caps and that will do it. If we have this
intergenerational perspective and we are concerned about
passing on biologically diverse ecosystems to future
generations, I think we have to be very cautious about
politically expedient across-the-board rules like that.
Mr. Shadegg. Third, this issue of thinning did not work by
Mr. Calahan's observation, and some areas that were thinned
burned worse. How do you respond to that?
Mr. Covington. This can happen. One of the problems we
have--and the Biscuit fire was also predominantly in a frequent
fire ecosystem. In the unnatural, heavily loaded, feud-loaded
ecosystems, greater ecosystems, when we get a fire start, we
get a plume-dominated fire behavior. Under plume-dominated fire
behavior, you buildup the big cumulus cloud above the fire.
Eventually that reaches a weight and cools enough that it
collapses. When that collapses, it drives wind out, air out, in
all directions at very high rates of speed. It is just like a
bellows in a foundry.
In those circumstances, it would not matter if there was
one tree standing per acre, and with that kind of heat coming
out there, 1,000 degrees, well above the ignition point of
organic matter, it is going to burn like hell. That is another
reason why we have to think big about this. We have to think
about the greater ecosystem.
Mr. Shadegg. Mr. Schulke, if you were convinced that the
larger trees proposed to be removed were being removed for the
reasons that Dr. Covington said, and determinations were not
being made for commercial logging purposes or by people who
were going to get a commercial benefit out of it, would you
still have a concern about removing some of those bigger trees
if they were removed for ecological reasons?
Mr. Schulke. If you look at the old-growth Ponderosa pines
out in the woods, they have mistletoe in them. They have the
disease that seems to be anathema to the Forest Service. Yes,
we would have a problem with that. Oftentimes mistletoe creates
nesting sites for the spotted owls.
Mr. Shadegg. You are saying you might not necessarily agree
with Dr. Covington about which was a diseased tree?
Mr. Schulke. Diseased trees are part of the natural
ecosystem, plain and simple. I would say a large percentage of
old-growth trees have mistletoe in them. Should they be logged?
No.
Mr. Shadegg. What you are saying is no large tree should be
removed, period, and you just fundamentally disagree with Dr.
Covington on that point?
Mr. Schulke. Generally. And the problem is that the logging
report that somebody referred to earlier, those are the kinds
of projects that are abused all the time by the Forest Service,
and they are cutting large trees in many cases, and they--.
Mr. Shadegg. I am saying if we can figure out a mechanism.
Mr. Schulke. But that is the problem; we cannot.
Mr. Shadegg. Dr. Covington, do you want to respond to that?
Mr. Covington. I Chaired the Arizona Forest Health Fire
Plan Advisory Committee that Todd has done a lot of hard work
on, and I appreciate the work he has done.
One thing that Todd and I talked about after Senator
McCain's hearing in Flagstaff on conflict resolution is perhaps
if there were a diameter cap, let us say there were a 16-inch
cap, if we could specify under what conditions there would be
exceptions to the cap, that might be a way to move forward.
Frankly, this does revolve around ideological warfare and a
lack of trust. I have a lot of faith in the profession. My
students are out there. They are post-Earth-Day-educated, and
they have a strong land ethic.
We tend to, I think, all too often bring up the ghost of
the past in trying to deal with this. The old forester, the
idea of a forester with his head full of sawdust, and there is
no tree that, once it reaches financial maturity, you zip it
down, that is gone.
The bottom line here is there are some ways to move forward
with this. We do need to be very careful to police these
projects. Good intentions are not enough. We do have to have
well-informed decisionmaking on this. One of the things that we
have kicked around in the advisory Committee, Governor Hull's
advisory Committee, is requesting maybe the National Research
Council of the National Academies, and the Ecological Institute
would also be glad to take a leadership role in this, too, but
together kind of a biophysical basis of restoration in fire
management in these forest types, the social-political-economic
basis of it, and then some management guidelines, but not
prescriptive management guidelines, guidelines that would
instead advise local groups on how to use this information to
develop adaptive management experiments to operationally learn
while we are doing.
Let us go ahead and approach these big projects, use the
best information we have, and we have to find out whether it is
working or not, otherwise we will just keep doing things that
do not work.
Mr. Shadegg. We thought fire suppression was working, and
we discovered it did not work.
Mr. Duncan. Mr. DeFazio, and last questions?
Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Dr. Covington, you talked about this tremendous distrust,
and hopefully in the future we can move beyond that. Just to
get something now, you said there would be a possibility of
establishing on some sort of a basis diameter caps, and if you
can specify the conditions under which exceptions would be
made, and I assume that would be done on a forest basis or some
smaller unit because there is an incredible amount of diversity
in tree species. How would you determine the exceptions?
Mr. Covington. We have put some thought into this, some
with BLM's Mount Trumbell's projects where we first confronted
this concern.
One example of an exception to the diameter cap would be--
and this is in the Forests Forever document prepared by the
Southwest Forest Alliance and the Center for Biological
Diversity and other members of that group--is that one of those
exceptions would be where trees have invaded a park or
grassland or a wet meadow. One of the classic examples of that,
some of my collaborators in the environmental community, when
they visited one of our first cuts up at the Mount Trumbell
area, BLM lands, came in and said they are cutting old-growth
trees. One tree had a 28-inch diameter. We went in and got a
cross-section of it and looked at it. It was 90 years old. It
was a postsettlement tree, but it was growing in a swale, in an
area that was a wet meadow. In presettlement, that would have
been a lot of grasses and wildflowers in it, a critical hotspot
for biological diversity. To restore that area, that tree had
to be removed.
By the way, that area before treatment did not have a blade
of grass or wildflowers on it, because where do trees come in
and thrive? Areas that are most productive. They are not only
most productive for trees, but also these critical other
elements in the ecosystem. There are some other examples that
demonstrate that.
Mr. DeFazio. Historically that tree would have been
prevented from growing in that area by the periodic fires that
swept through, so starting sometime around the time of fire
suppression, the tree became opportunistic even though it was a
species that was widely found in that area?
Mr. Covington. Exactly, although it was not so much fire
suppression as it was fire exclusion. The first fire exclusion
was by almost mandated overgrazing on public lands. The purpose
of that overgrazing was not to produce livestock. The reason
foresters were behind it was fire was the greater evil. By
overgrazing, you eliminate the grasses and the grass
competition, so it is a perfect opportunity for a population
expansion.
Mr. DeFazio. Is there a place where we can find a list of
these exceptions that have at least been put in place for that
ecosystem there?
Mr. Covington. No, there is no place you can go for it, but
I would be glad to think this through with some other folks.
Mr. DeFazio. We have to probably think pretty quickly.
Mr. Covington. Can do.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio.
I will just say one additional thing. At the hearing I
mentioned that 4-1/2 years ago the Forest Subcommittee staff
told me that in the mid-1980's the Congress passed a law that
the environmental groups wanted saying we would not cut more
than 80 percent of the new growth in the national forests, but
at that time we were having approximately 23 billion board feet
of new growth per year, yet allowing less than 3 billion board
feet to be cut, less than half of that that was dead and dying.
Yet I know that if somebody went to most people and said,
horror of horrors, we are cutting 3 billion board feet a year
out of the national forests, that could be stated in such a way
that people would think that it is terrible. Yet it was just a
tiny fraction of what the environmental groups wanted in the
mid-1980's, yet they had to keep raising the bar.
I think what we need in this debate is a little moderation
and balance. The debate is being controlled now and has been
for several year by extremist groups, and we have these groups
all over the country that protest any time anybody wants to dig
for any coal, cut any trees, or drill for any oil, or produce
any natural gas. That hurts the poor and the lower-income and
the working people because it drives up prices and destroys
jobs. I know that most of these environmental extremists come
from wealthy or upper-income families, but they are hurting a
lot of the middle and lower-income people in this country. We
do need some moderation and balance in this debate.
Mr. Shadegg. Mr. Chairman, I would like to formally request
to put my opening statement in the record and a newspaper
article.
Mr. Duncan. Your opening statement and any additions
thereto will be put in the record at your request.
Mr. Shadegg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Duncan. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statements of Mr. Gallegly and Mr. Herger
follow:]
Statement of Hon. Elton Gallegly, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Califrornia
Mr. Chairman, I support the President's ``Healthy Forest
Initiative'' and have cosponsored the bills before us today (National
Forest Fire Prevention Act and Healthy Forests Reforms Act) because the
cost of inaction is too high. We are in the middle of the worst
national fire season in recent memory. My district contains a small
portion of the Angeles National Forest, which had 60,000 acres burned
this year. In addition, 30,000 acres burned in my district during the
massive ``Wolf Fire,'' in the Los Padres National Forest.
In my district, the fires were created by drought conditions that
forced forest managers to curtail forest fuel reduction practices, such
as prescribed burning. Last year, the Angeles National Forest reduced
fuel on 3,800 acres, this year only 458 acres. In addition, forest fuel
reduction funds are rapidly drying up. The entire fuel clearing budget
for the Los Padres is only $487,000. Merely half a million dollars is
used to pay for brush thinning and controlled burns for over 2 million
acres of national forest. Los Padres officials say they are capable of
treating up to 10,000 acres of forest land, but funding only allows for
6,000.
Natural occurrences, such as droughts, are beyond our control.
However, many forests in California and across the West faced a lack of
funds and a burdensome NEPA process that ties up fuel reduction
projects for years and wastes taxpayer funds.
We pay a high price for not providing the resources necessary to
prevent forest fires. Many communities are adjacent to national
forests, and people's lives and property are threatened. Many of these
forests also contain many endangered species and historic artifacts.
The Los Padres National Forest in my district is home to endangered
species such as the California condor and arroyo toad. The forest is
also home to many priceless Native American sites. All that is put at
risk by not addressing the man-made causes of wildfires.
Mr. Chairman, our communities deserve to have the best preventative
measures to stop wildfires before they happen. I therefore urge this
committee to act and pass a package that truly prevents wildfires.
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Statement of Wally Herger, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to be here today to discuss this incredibly important
issue.
Secretary Norton and Secretary Veneman, thank you so much for being
here. Those of us who represent heavily forested areas are so relieved
that President Bush and you are taking a proactive role to finally
restore some common sense, reasonableness and balance to our forest
policies and to the regulatory quagmire that has put our forests in
serious jeopardy. And I want to commend you for standing up and doing
the right thing in the face of the political attacks and half-truths
from the radical environmental community.
Let me briefly tell a story from the Six Rivers National Forest,
which is located partially in my Northern California District, that I
think is a poignant demonstration of the lunacy of environmental
extremism and of how it has gone far beyond environmental protection to
a policy of gridlock, and ultimately, environmental devastation.
In 1995/96, winter storms caused a severe blowdown and breakage of
trees in the Six Rivers National Forest that created an emergency fuels
situation with extremely high potential for catastrophic fire. The
local Forest Supervisor at that time pleaded for special permission to
do expedited salvage and restoration work in the area that would
prevent the downed wood and debris there from becoming fuel for the
next devastating fire. She called it ``a true emergency of vast
magnitude'' and said, ``it is not a matter of if a fire will occur, but
how extensive the damage will be when the fire does occur.
Unfortunately, her plea was denied by the former administration.
The local Forest Service officials were left to wrestle over the next
two to three years through a time-consuming regulatory and procedural
quagmire. By 1999 only 1,600 acres were treated when, just as the
Forest Supervisor predicted, a fire raged through this area burning
more than 125,000 acres. In the areas of the most intense blowdown the
fire created a moonscape with, as officials later described, ``ashes
three feet deep, and nothing green remaining.
Since the 1999 fire, the local Forest Supervisor, Lou Woltering,
and his staff have been working diligently to implement a community
protection project that would remove excess fuels and create fuel
breaks along ridges in the area so firefighters can protect three local
communities against the next devastating fire, which is not a matter of
if, but when. It is important to note that of the 120,000 acre burn
area from the original fire, the Forest Service's plan was to treat
only 1,050 acres. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the
project took 2 years to prepare. For this project--one that is designed
to protect public health and safety--the final environmental record was
10,000 pages long!
Yet, even after all that environmental analysis, it was appealed by
a coalition of environmental groups and recently halted by an activist
judge--seven years after the original blowdown. It was stopped NOT
because there was some demonstrated harm to species or to the
environment, but because of a technicality. The judge ruled in part
that the Forest Service failed to take into account a document called
the Beschta Report, a 1995 paper commissioned by a coalition of
environmentalists about the effects of salvage logging. Courts have
sometimes showed support for the paper, even though it contains many
unsubstantiated statements and assumptions and has never been published
in any scientific journal, nor subject to any peer review!
Four or five years from now, unless the Forest Service is given the
authority to go in and do their job in this area, the burned and downed
trees will be fuel for the next fire, threatening the neighboring
communities and the people who live there.
These Forest Service officials tried to do the right thing for the
local communities and for the environment. But they were stopped cold
by the radical environmentalists. What the environmental community has
left us with is a scorched landscape. THAT is their idea of
environmental protection.
Let me take this opportunity to publicly commend the local Forest
Supervisor, Lou Woltering, and his staff for their hard work and
dedication. These folks cannot reasonably be expected to disprove every
possible negative. But that is essentially what they are being required
to do under the layer upon layer of regulatory and court-imposed
analytical and process requirements that exist today. The system has
elevated form over substance. And land managers are being set up to
fail, because any radical group with a postage stamp, an agenda and a
sympathetic judge can find some report or scientific document that has
been overlooked, or an analysis that has not been done. This needs to
change. Local managers need to be given flexibility to do their jobs,
with the help and involvement of local communities.
I believe that is precisely why, Madam Secretary, we must
streamline our regulatory process in such a way as to allow these
managers to go about the serious business of restoring our forests to a
healthy condition and protecting our communities. I look forward to
hearing from you today on the President's initiative and on the various
legislative proposals that are being considered as possible
opportunities to get us to that important end.
Thank you.