[Senate Hearing 107-838]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-838
COMMUNITY-BASED FOREST AND PUBLIC LANDS RESTORATION ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS AND FORESTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
on
S. 2672
TO PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLABORATIVE RESTORATION PROJECTS ON
NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM AND OTHER PUBLIC DOMAIN LANDS, AND FOR OTHER
PURPOSES
__________
JULY 25, 2002
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
______
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84-745 WASHINGTON : 2003
___________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, Alaska
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
BOB GRAHAM, Florida DON NICKLES, Oklahoma
RON WYDEN, Oregon LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming
EVAN BAYH, Indiana RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CONRAD BURNS, Montana
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JON KYL, Arizona
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GORDON SMITH, Oregon
Robert M. Simon, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
Brian P. Malnak, Republican Staff Director
James P. Beirne, Republican Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
RON WYDEN, Oregon, Chairman
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota CONRAD BURNS, Montana
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana DON NICKLES, Oklahoma
EVAN BAYH, Indiana GORDON SMITH, Oregon
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JON KYL, Arizona
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
Jeff Bingaman and Frank H. Murkowski are Ex Officio Members of the
Subcommittee
Kira Finkler, Counsel
Frank Gladics, Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from New Mexico................ 2
Craig, Hon. Larry E., U.S. Senator from Idaho.................... 13
Dearstyne, Joyce, Framing Our Community, Elk City, ID............ 18
Enzer, Maia, Program Director, Healthy Forests, Healthy
Communities Partnership, Sustainable Northwest, Portland, OR... 22
Holmer, Steve, Campaign Coordinator, American Lands Alliance..... 28
Hughes, Jim, Deputy Director, Bureau of Land Management,
Department of the Interior..................................... 3
Mills, Thomas J., Deputy Chief, Business Operations, Forest
Service, Department of Agriculture............................. 9
Schulke, Todd, Forest Policy Director, Center for Biological
Diversity, Pinos Altos, NM..................................... 34
Small Business Administration.................................... 39
Wyden, Hon. Ron, U.S. Senator from Oregon........................ 1
COMMUNITY-BASED FOREST AND PUBLIC LANDS RESTORATION ACT
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THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Wyden
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Wyden. The subcommittee will come to order.
Let me first apologize to all our guests. This is a
particularly hectic week in the Senate where we are being
pulled in a variety of different directions as we try to get a
number of important issues resolved before the summer recess.
So, I am going to begin this hearing and then Chairman Bingaman
will take over for a bit, and I will return. But I want to
apologize to all our witnesses and our guests at the outset.
Today we are going to get testimony on a very important
bill, S. 2672, the Community Based Forest and Public Lands
Restoration Act. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this
important legislation. Chairman Bingaman, Senator Craig, and
others have been doing, I think, very good work on an important
issue, and I am pleased that the subcommittee is looking at
this legislative initiative today.
And I am also pleased to welcome Ms. Enzer from Sustainable
Northwest which is based, of course, in Portland. In recent
months the Subcommittee on Forest and Public Lands has
repeatedly looked at the impact of land management on forest-
based communities in addition to a field hearing on rural
resource-dependent economies that was held in Redmond, Oregon.
The subcommittee has looked at a number of issues involving
fire prevention, logging, thinning, and old growth protection.
Right now in Oregon the catastrophic fires have taken an
enormous toll and are certainly an indication of the need to
restore our forests and public lands. To date, more than
190,000 acres of Oregon have burned, and it is my view that the
best way to proceed to successful and meaningful forest
restoration is to ensure that rural communities play an active
role. S. 2672 is going to make that possible by bridging the
gap that now exists between Federal land management agencies
and rural communities adjacent to national forests and public
lands.
Certainly, there have been bitter debates in the past on
natural resources issues that have battered rural communities,
forests, and Federal land managements agencies alike, and it
seems to me that with legislation like this, it is possible to
move beyond some of the polarization, towards a more
collaborative and community based approach.
Many prominent Oregon individuals and organizations support
this bill, including Governor Kitshaber, Wallowa County Board
of Commissioners, Sustainable Northwest and other resources
organizations.
Let me turn to our chairman, who has done, as I say, very
good and bipartisan work on this issue, and I thank him for his
courtesy in terms of the scheduling this afternoon and look
forward to seeing this bill move quickly.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Wyden,
for scheduling the hearing on this bill.
This is an important bill, in my view. It is one that we
developed on a bipartisan basis with Senator Craig. And Kira
Finkler deserves particular credit for her good work in
bringing this together, and other staff for Senator Craig, as
well.
Today rural communities that have traditionally relied on
neighboring forests for their economic well-being are faced
with enormous challenges. They are faced with environmental
issues some of which are new. They are faced with unemployment,
with changes in forest management policies, and of course, the
economic uncertainty that comes with being in a global economy.
So without a committed effort to help these communities from
the national level, I am concerned that many of them will not
survive.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, we have had several hearings on
this general subject. And based on those hearings two important
facts became clear: First, forest and adjacent communities
depend on one another for their long-term sustainability. And
second, the national forests and public lands are in desperate
need of restoration to establish healthy fire-adaptive
ecosystems and to improve water quality and quantity.
As a result of those findings, Senator Craig and I began
working on this legislation to integrate communities and the
restoration efforts so that both the forests and the
communities can survive and thrive. S. 2672 represents the
culmination of those efforts.
And I want to particularly thank Senator Craig for his
willingness to work with us in drafting this bipartisan bill.
He has been a true champion, as you have, for rural natural
resource-dependent communities for many years on this
committee.
This bill is modeled in part on legislation that I
introduced 3 years ago to establish a collaborative forest
restoration program in New Mexico. Ultimately that was enacted,
and it has been implemented, and the success to date has been
impressive. Unfortunately, our restoration program in New
Mexico is now on hold because the funding for it was recently
frozen in order to pay for emergency fire fighting, and we are
trying to get that sorted out here in Congress.
But communities cannot restore our national forests and
public lands by themselves. The Federal Government is an
important partner in the effort, and this legislation, S. 2672,
provides much needed new authority and programs to improve that
partnership between the Federal agencies and the communities in
this effort to restore the forests.
So, I look forward to the witnesses, to hearing from the
witnesses, and again, I thank you for convening the hearing.
Senator Wyden. Very good.
Let us hear now from Jim Hughes, Deputy Director of the
Bureau of Land Management and Mr. Tom Mills, Deputy Chief for
Business Operations with the Forest Service.
Gentlemen, welcome. We will make your prepared statements a
part of the record, and if you could take 5 minutes or so and
summarize your major concerns, that would be great.
Mr. Mills. Okay. Do you want to go?
Mr. Hughes. Okay.
STATEMENT OF JIM HUGHES, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND
MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Hughes. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am
Jim Hughes, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management at
the U.S. Department of the Interior.
I thank you for the opportunity to provide the Department's
views on S. 2672, The Community-Based Forest and Public Lands
Restoration Act. Let me begin by stating that the Department
supports efforts to provide additional tools to help restore
forests and rangelands, and we appreciate your efforts in this
regard.
However, while we support a collaborative approach to
forest and rangeland restoration efforts, we have serious
concerns with the possible unintended impacts of this
legislation should it become law. We would like to work with
the committee to address these concerns.
And at this point I would like to say: This bill has been
looked at the highest levels of the Department, including the
Secretary, Secretary Norton, Assistant Secretary Rebecca
Watson, and the Director of the Bureau of Land Management,
Kathleen Clark. And we have looked long and hard at this and we
do really mean we want to work with the committee, because we
recognize Congress's efforts and our efforts to try and come
together and get into those forests and make them healthy and
get them restored.
Clearly, the resource management decisions we make can
greatly impact local communities and the people who live in
them. Often these impacts are especially felt by the
communities adjacent to our Federal lands. As a result, it is
critical that we work in partnership with the people who live
on the private lands that border our national parks, wildlife
refuges, and our other Federal lands.
Secretary Norton has advanced the concept of a new era of
conservation, a new environmentalism, that will help build a
healthy environment, a healthier environment, create dynamic
economies and sustainable communities. At the center of the
Department's plan to implement this new environmentalism are
Secretary Norton's Four C's: Communication, consultation,
cooperation, all in the service of conservation. And I would
like to say it fits into, I think, what you or what Chairman
Bingaman and yourself want to see in this collaboration with
the people out there on the ground.
In May 2002, Secretary Norton joined with Secretary Veneman
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Western Governors
Association to endorse a historic 10-year comprehensive
strategy to reduce the risk of wildfire. That strategy and its
implementation plan seek to promote community assistance,
reduce hazardous fuels, and maintain and restore fire-adapted
ecosystems by establishing a collaborative performance-based
framework that calls on local agency managers to work with
States, tribes, local governments, and citizens to carry out
those plans.
Thus, as we make our way through one of the worst fire
seasons in memory, we are pleased that the bipartisan call for
active management in forest and rangelands supports the
direction that the department is trying to take on these
issues.
As I noted above, although we support the concepts and
intentions behind this legislation, we have some concerns with
the practical implementation of the legislation as it affects
other forestry programs.
I would like to say, we are looking for a toolbox that we
can go out and address these issues out there as an agency.
What we are looking for are additional tools, and we want to
keep the tools we have. And I think that is where we are trying
to mesh your ideas with ours, with some of our concerns and see
if we can work with you to get this done.
Our first concern with the bill is the requirement in
section 6(a), that by the fifth year of the program, ``50
percent of all contract dollars shall be awarded to the
specific categories of entities listed in subparagraphs A
through E.'' First, given the nature of the problem, we believe
this requirement may be too prescriptive in that it mandates
generally to whom the department shall be awarding contracts.
Secondly, we believe the scope may be too broad by
including, among other things, all timber salvage and sales
contracts. The provisions would affect existing forest program,
and that is where, you know, we want to make sure we are not
going to end some of our programs by what we have in your
proposed legislation.
Section 3 of the bill also changes the Small Business
Administration definition for small business that the
Department has traditionally employed. This may have the
additional unintended consequences of excluding legitimate
small businesses from participation in the work described in
the legislation while further curtailing that flexibility that
we are seeking out there.
We do have some concerns with the monitoring section. The
administration supports monitoring as a tool to increase
accountability, but the language provided in the bill, we
think, may be too vague to be effective. To be specific, the
bill requires ``multiparty monitoring, evaluation, and
accountability process that shall include any interested
individual or organization.''
We have previous experience in forest management programs
that have an interested observer component. An interested
individual and organization can be virtually anyone whether
they live in the immediate area in the State or back in New
York City.
Finally, much of the work proposed by the value-added
centers created under section 5 of the legislation is currently
carried out through, in some cases, through other means. For
example, cooperative education study units at various
universities provide education and research. The Jobs in the
Woods Program specifically provides workforce training, and the
Small Business Administration provides marketing and business
support.
We feel if the existing programs are not achieving the
desired objectives, then we should work to modify those
programs, do that rather than establish competing and perhaps
duplicative new programs.
And finally, one thing that we strongly support, and I
think it can be tied into your bill, is the concept of
stewardship contracting with local communities and businesses.
As noted before, we are looking for tools to go out there and
address issues, and stewardship contracting authority is that
kind of tool that would allow agencies to engage non-Federal
partners in ecosystem restoration by awarding multiyear
performance-based contracts and to offer forest products in
exchange for the restoration services.
The exchange of goods and services which may be authorized
in stewardship contracts is an innovative way to provide
additional resources for habitat restoration on additional
acres of land, thus making it possible to conduct habitat
restoration work that may otherwise never be completed.
This is, or I think this is one area where we could really
work closely, you know. I think both the people in Congress and
the administration are heading down the same road.
The Forest Service has had stewardship contracting
authority on a pilot basis since 1999 and has many success
stories to tell. We have not had that authority in the Bureau
of Land Management, and we strongly would support gaining that
authority.
Even with the enactment of stewardship contracting and
community-based restoration programs as proposed in S. 2672,
underlying statutory, regulatory, and administrative issues
need to be addressed for forest management programs to be
successful. For example, in fiscal years 2001 and 2002 nearly
half of Forest Service mechanical thinning projects designed to
improve forests conditions were appealed.
At the Department, 30 percent of our timber sales are
appealed. On average it takes nine months to process those
appeals and it can take as much as three to four years. The
Department is looking at this process issue.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Hughes, I think you are considerably
over 5 minutes.
Mr. Hughes. Okay.
Senator Wyden. Can we, perhaps, have you highlight the rest
of your concerns?
Mr. Hughes. Sure.
Senator Wyden. Great.
Mr. Hughes. Finally, we think Congress, itself, has
recognized some of the problems we are facing by some recent
action in the supplemental appropriation bill. Although we do
not believe that such, you know, broad exemptions from
environmental laws are appropriate solutions, we do believe
that this dramatic action by the Congress in the supplemental
is indicative of the problems we face in completing important
stewardship projects in a timely manner.
We want to work with you. The Secretary wants to work with
you, and we look forward to doing that in the coming weeks,
sir.
Senator Wyden. Very good.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hughes follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jim Hughes, Deputy Director, Bureau of Land
Management, Department of the Interior
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am Jim Hughes, Deputy
Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at the U.S. Department
of the Interior (Department). I thank you for the opportunity to
provide the Department's views on S. 2672, ``Community-Based Forest and
Public Lands Restoration Act.''
Let me begin by stating that the Department supports efforts to
provide additional tools to help restore forests and rangelands, and we
appreciate your efforts in this regard. However, while we support a
collaborative approach to forest and rangeland restoration efforts, we
have serious concerns with the possibly unintended impacts of this
legislation, should it become law. We would like to work with the
Committee to address these concerns.
collaborative approach to management
Clearly, the resource management decisions we make can greatly
impact local communities and the people who live in them. Often these
impacts are especially felt by the communities adjacent to our federal
lands. As a result, it is critical that we work in partnership with the
people who live on the private lands that border our National Parks,
National Wildlife Refuges, and other federal lands, and work on or have
access to resources on those lands. In this context, the Department is
very supportive of a collaborative approach to forest and range
rehabilitation, and we appreciate your interest in promoting these
projects through S. 2672.
Secretary Norton has advanced the concept of a new era of
conservation a ``new environmentalism''--that will help build a
healthier environment, dynamic economies, and sustainable communities.
At the center of the Department's plan to implement this new
environmentalism is Secretary Norton's ``Four C's'' Communication,
Consultation, and Cooperation, all in the service of Conservation. The
``Four C's'' emphasizes that enduring conservation springs from
partnerships involving the people who live on, work on, and love the
land.
The Department's land managing bureaus, specifically BLM, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, are implementing this collaborative approach in their
on-the-ground resource management decisions. We believe that the basic
concepts embodied in this legislation have the potential to be an
additional tool to further help us reach our resource management goals
while supporting local economies and strengthening partnerships with
communities throughout the West. Indeed, small businesses are the
backbone of many rural economies. The Department feels strongly that
improved communication and coordination is the key toward cooperative
restoration of the lands under our jurisdiction.
In May 2002, Secretary Norton joined with Secretary Veneman of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Western Governors Association to
endorse an historic 10-year comprehensive strategy to reduce the risk
of wildfires. That strategy, and its Implementation Plan (Plan), seek
to promote community assistance, reduce hazardous fuels, and maintain
and restore fire-adapted ecosystems by establishing a collaborative,
performance-based framework that calls on local agency managers to work
with states, tribes, local governments and citizens to carry out the
plan.
One important component of that agreement, supported by all of the
signatories to the Implementation Plan, is active management. In this
context, active forest and rangeland management includes thinning that
produces commercial or pre-commercial grade products, biomass removal
and utilization, prescribed fire and other fuels reduction tools to
simultaneously meet long-term ecological, economic, and community
objectives.
Thus, as we make our way through what has become one of the worst
fire seasons in memory, we are pleased that the bipartisan call for
active management in forests and on rangelands supports the direction
that the Department is taking on these issues. As I noted above,
although we support the concepts in and intentions behind S. 2672, we
have concerns with the practical implementation of this legislation as
it affects other forestry programs. What follows is a brief review of
our concerns, followed by some suggested changes that we believe will
better enhance our resource management capabilities, particularly with
regard to wildland fire management.
concerns with s. 2672
Our first concern with the bill are the requirements at Section
6(a) that, by the fifth year of the program, fifty percent of all
contract dollars shall be awarded to the specific categories of
entities listed in subparagraphs (A)-(E). First, given the nature of
the problem, we believe this requirement is too prescriptive in that it
mandates generally to whom the Department shall be awarding contracts.
Second, we believe that the scope of the provision is too broad. By
including, among other things, all timber salvage and sales contracts,
the provision would affect existing Departmental forest management
programs. The issue presented by this legislation is whether it
provides an additional set of tools for forest and rangeland
restoration, or whether it replaces existing programs.
In this regard, the Department's agreement with the Western
Governors' Association, the National Association of Counties, the
National Association of State Foresters, and the Intertribal Timber
Council, which endorsed a collaborative approach to decision-making,
specifically states that:
[t]he projects and activities carried out under this
implementation plan are in addition to other federal, state,
and tribal forest and rangeland management activities.
(Emphasis added.)
We believe it is unintended for the authority in this legislation
to supplant existing timber and salvage sale authority of the Bureau of
Land Management's Public Domain and Oregon & California Land Grants
Forest Management programs. We will work with the Committee to correct
this oversight as this bill proceeds through the legislative process.
If it is the intent for this program to replace or supplant existing
authorities, we will need to carefully research the impact the
legislation will have on income derived by Tribes, receipts provided to
states and counties, and the abilities of already existing private
sector companies in the diminished public lands logging industry to
continue to participate in forestry management programs.
For example, we are concerned that meeting the numeric targets in
subsection (a)(2) may actually result in a concomitant reduction in
existing timber salvage and sales operations conducted by the BLM. As
noted above, we do not believe that this practical consequence was
intended. Given the need to thin what the Ten-year Implementation Plan
calls unnaturally dense, diseased, or dying forests, we must maintain
the flexibility to efficiently implement all programs.
Section 3 of the bill also changes the Small Business
Administration definitions for ``small business'' that the Department
has traditionally employed. This may have the additional unintended
consequence of excluding legitimate small businesses from participation
in the work described in the legislation, while further curtailing our
flexibility.
An additional concern focuses on the monitoring requirement in
Section 4(c)(1) of the legislation. The Administration supports
monitoring as a tool to increase accountability. But the language
provided in this bill is too vague to be effective. To be specific,
this bill requires a multi-party monitoring, evaluation, and
accountability process that ``shall include any interested individual
or organization.'' We have previous experience in forestry management
programs that have an ``interested observer'' component. An interested
individual and organization can be virtually anyone, whether they live
in the immediate area or in New York City. This requirement would add
an additional broad layer of review that may unnecessarily slow
important restoration efforts and increase the cost, complexities, and
time to complete any review. Timeliness in forest management decisions
can be critical. We would like to work with the Committee to ensure an
effective provision.
Finally, much of the work proposed for the Value-Added Centers
created under Section 5 of the legislation is currently carried out
through other means. For example, Cooperative Education Study Units at
various universities provide education and research; the Jobs-in-the-
Woods program specifically provides workforce training; and the Small
Business Administration provides marketing and business support. If
existing programs are not achieving the desired objectives, we should
work to modify those programs rather than establish competing and,
perhaps, duplicative new programs.
While we believe our concerns are significant, particularly those
with regard to Section 6, we also see an opportunity in the general
concepts advanced by S. 2672 to provide clear authority to land
management agencies for stewardship contracting with local communities
and businesses. We believe that such authority would be an
extraordinarily good fit with the objectives of the National Fire Plan.
necessary tools
As I noted above, this has been a record year for severe wildfires.
Our latest figures indicate that 102 million acres managed by the
Department in the lower 48 states are at a high risk of catastrophic
fire. Federal, state, local, and Tribal officials agree that the past
century's traditional approaches to land management and treatment of
wildland fire have resulted in unnaturally dense, diseased, or dying
forests which have contributed to the increased severity of wildland
fires. In response, a March 2002 study by the Western Forest Fire
Research Center concluded that treated stands experience lower fire
severity than untreated stands that burn under similar conditions.
Against this backdrop, stewardship contracting authority is an
additional tool that would allow agencies to engage non-federal
partners in ecosystem restoration by awarding multi-year, performance-
based contracts, and to offer forest products in exchange for the
restoration services. The exchange of goods and services which may be
authorized in stewardship contracts is an innovative way to provide
additional resources for habitat restoration on additional acres of
land, thus making it possible to conduct habitat restoration work that
may otherwise never be completed. Restoration of fire-adapted
landscapes would occur as communities, agencies, states, tribes, and
others collaborated to fashion a holistic management program to
maintain healthy ecosystems. Community assistance would be promoted
through increased, long-term economic opportunities resulting not only
from the contracted treatments, but also from the use of biomass
generated through the contractor's work.
The Forest Service has had stewardship contracting authority on a
pilot basis since 1999, and has many success stories to tell. Extending
this authority on a permanent basis to the Department of the Interior's
land management bureaus and to the Forest Service would improve both
Departments' ability to coordinate with local communities in
restoration efforts, while at the same time supporting rural economies.
In a final note, we believe long-term commitment is an important
part of the stewardship concept. Small, independent companies may be
unwilling to enter into a contract that, at a maximum, lasts three
years, because the financial risk may be too high. Therefore, we
believe an important part of any stewardship contracting authority
necessarily includes enough flexibility to allow agencies to enter into
extended-year contracts. We believe that such working partnerships will
work to increase economic stability in many rural communities.
Even with the enactment of stewardship contracting and community-
based forest restoration programs, as proposed in S. 2672, underlying
statutory, regulatory, and administrative issues need to be addressed
for forestry management programs to be successful. For example, in
Fiscal Years 2001 and 2002, nearly half of the Forest Service's
mechanical thinning projects designed to improve forest conditions were
appealed. All such projects for northern Idaho and Montana were
appealed. At the Department, 30% of our timber sales are appealed. On
average, it takes nine months to process those appeals, and it can take
as much as three to four years.
The Department is looking at these process issues. The Forest
Service is looking at its processes, as well, after concluding a nine-
month review of its regulatory and administrative framework. Forest
Service officials have estimated that ``planning and assessment consume
40% of total direct work at the national forest level. That would
represent an expenditure of more than $250 million per year.'' The
benefits of these reviews and subsequent improvements can be applied to
both stewardship contracts and community-based reform bills.
We note as well that Congress itself has made the decision, in the
conference document on H.R. 4775, the supplemental appropriations bill,
that legislative action is needed to expedite agency action to restore
healthy forests. H.R. 4775 includes language authorizing the Secretary
of Agriculture to take actions, including timber activities, to address
the risk of wildfire and insect infestation in portions of the Black
Hills National Forest. Significantly, the provision recognizes the
``extraordinary circumstances'' of the situation and, in response,
would exempt authorized activities from all environmental laws and
judicial review. While we do not believe that such broad exemptions
from environmental laws are an appropriate solution, we do believe that
this dramatic action by the Congress is indicative of the problems we
face in completing important stewardship projects in a timely manner.
We are willing to work with Members of Congress to ensure that our
bureaus have the tools to carry out management activities where they
are needed.
conclusion
In conclusion, while the Department has concerns with the practical
impacts of implementing this legislation, should it become law, we
agree with the general goal to provide additional tools that can help
restore forest and range health. In that regard, we stand ready to work
with the Committee toward a mutually agreeable solution.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony and I am pleased to
answer any questions you or the Members of the Committee may have.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Mills.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS J. MILLS, DEPUTY CHIEF, BUSINESS
OPERATIONS, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Mills. Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee,
first of all, I would like to apologize that our testimony
arrived late. I really do appreciate the opportunity to be able
to appear before the committee to comment on S. 2672 today.
We support the intended concepts embodied in this bill, but
we do have some serious reservations about some provisions of
the bill as currently drafted, and would be happy for the
opportunity to work with the committee to address those
concerns and very much appreciate the opportunities we have had
to work with committee staff to date.
There is clearly a necessity to connect rural communities
with the activities to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems
in the national forests that surround them, and active land
management is a component of that interaction that needs to
take place.
Mr. Hughes has already commented on the activity earlier
this year with Secretary Veneman, Secretary Norton, and Western
Governors to endorse a 10-year comprehensive strategy to reduce
fire risks. And S. 2672 would facilitate the development of
some important mutually respectful collaborative relationships
with communities and other players to address the needs of that
strategy.
However, we do have several concerns, and I would like to
highlight a few, and we will submit to the subcommittee a
comprehensive list of the amendments that we would ask be
considered.
First of all, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management work closely together on many, many issues. And yet
there are a few provisions of the bill, such as some of those
for funding of the restoration and value-added centers, which I
think need to be revisited so that those relationships are
accurately reflected.
Secondly, we believe that the statute should, or the bill
should designate the Department level as a responsible
official, leaving the Secretary the responsibility to delegate
authorities down or responsibilities down into the Department.
And right now there are some regional foresters, State
directors of Bureau of Land Management, for example, that are
mentioned specifically in the bill.
Thirdly, we agree with the Bureau of Land Management that
there are some provisions of the bill that are overly
prescriptive. One is the direction to hire additional personnel
to work on contracting and grants and agreements. Although we
clearly recognize that those activities need to be improved, we
have some activities underway now, and we believe the Secretary
should be given the latitude to pursue those goals in the most
effective manner possible rather than prescribing hiring of
personnel.
Fourth, similar to the testimony that Mr. Hughes just gave,
we are extremely concerned about the current provisions of
section 6(a) that would limit competition for a wide range of
activities to a specific list of entities. The combination of
designating which activities are covered with a provision about
which entities would count toward some percentage goal, and
that percentage goal being a hard target written into the
legislation, could in all likelihood create situations where
the provisions of the bill simply could not be met and lead to
unintended consequences. One or two large contracts to small
businesses that are small but still larger than the entities
listed in the current bill, for example, could preclude the
achievement of those percentages.
Lastly, Mr. Chairman, we would like to propose an addition
to S. 2672, and we concur with the testimony of BLM that the
Congress should provide both agencies with permanent
stewardship contracting authority along the lines currently
provided only to the Forest Service and only on a pilot basis
in the annual appropriations laws.
The pilot projects are testing a number of new contractual
and financial authorities. We have some independent third party
reviews of those pilot authorities now. We believe that they
are demonstrating improved work efficiencies and have a
significant potential to increase local participation,
collaboration, and investments in land management activities to
restore and maintain national forest lands.
That concludes my summary, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy
to answer any questions the committee might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mills follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas J. Mills, Deputy Chief,
Business Operations, Forest Service
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. I am Thomas J. Mills, Deputy
Chief, Business Operations, USDA Forest Service.
I am pleased to appear before you today to provide the views of the
Department of Agriculture (USDA) on S. 2672, the ``Community-Based
Forest and Public Lands Restoration Act'' introduced by the Chairman of
the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Bingaman, and co-
sponsored by Senator Craig, Senator Wyden and Senator Smith. While we
do have serious reservations with the bill as drafted, USDA does
support collaborative stewardship as envisioned under S. 2672.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to note for the record that the
committee staff provided the Forest Service an opportunity to review
and comment on a draft version of this legislation several weeks ago. A
number of these technical comments on that draft bill are reflected in
S. 2672. The Department believes we can continue that productive
relationship and we are committed to work with you and the staff toward
resolving our concerns with the bill.
S. 2672 addresses a legitimate issue: the necessity to connect with
the small rural communities that are neighbors to national forests and
other public lands and that are directly affected by the land
management decisions made regarding those public lands. These
communities are very important to our agencies. This is where our
employees live, too. Our employees and their families are vitally
interested in the economic and social well being of their communities.
We have much more than a parochial interest, however. To manage
national forests and public lands effectively, three critical
components are necessary. When one of these components is missing, it
becomes extremely difficult to manage forests and public lands for all
the range of amenities that the public demands.
First, there must be a healthy and resilient forest resource.
Second, the communities near these resources must be healthy and
viable, economically and socially to assist the agencies in conducting
the day-to-day stewardship.
Third, there must be a forest products and stewardship industry
base to serve as the mechanism by which forest management activities
are achieved.
Historically the forest products industry included many small
operators. However, over the past several decades, we have seen the
demise of many small forest products businesses, consolidations of many
larger forest products companies, and loss of industry capacity in many
regions. This loss in capacity translates directly into reduced ability
to conduct the active management necessary to restore and maintain
healthy forest resources.
Active land management is important to the success of the National
Fire Plan. Hazardous fuels reduction in and around communities is
critically important work, not just for resource protection and
restoration but for community fire protection as well. Public lands and
rural communities also directly benefit from watershed improvements
that create clean water and remove invasive weeds.
Earlier this year, Secretary Veneman and Secretary Norton joined
with the Western Governors to endorse a 10-year comprehensive strategy
to reduce the risk of wildfires. That strategy, and its Implementation
Plan seek to promote community assistance, reduce fuels, and maintain
and restore fire-adapted ecosystems by establishing a collaborative,
performance-based framework that calls on local agency managers to work
with states, tribes, local governments and citizens to carry out the
plan.
S. 2672 could facilitate the development of mutually respectful
collaborative relationships between communities, local, state and
federal entities, and non-profit organizations, conservation
organizations, and other groups who are interested in restoring the
diversity and productivity of watersheds along the lines called for in
the Plan. We have several general concerns with the bill, which I'll
highlight with specific examples. We will provide the Subcommittee a
comprehensive list of amendments for its consideration.
First, BLM and the Forest Service will work together to implement
this bill if enacted. The two agencies work cooperatively on a range of
activities. Our Service First initiative is an excellent example. The
President's FY 2003 Budget included funding to complete 22 Service
First collocations of Forest Service Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
office by the end of 2005. I would note, however, that S. 2672 would
require that both agencies have a role in designating and establishing
the Restoration and Value-Added Centers, but the bill requires the
Secretary of Agriculture to provide the annual funding to support the
Restoration and Value-Added Centers' operating costs. Funding
responsibility should be provided to both agencies.
Second, authority for the programs and related activities proposed
in the legislation should be designated at the Department level,
leaving the Secretary to delegate responsibility as appropriate.
The existing direction in Sec. 5 (d)(2) for Regional Foresters and
State Bureau of Land Management Directors to issue requests for
proposals to create Restoration and Value-Added Centers could result in
a disjointed collection of Centers. What is needed is a cohesive
network of centers that can better serve the intended purposes of
providing integrated technical assistance to rural communities and
disseminating on-the-ground ``best practices'' to other Centers and by
extension, to other rural communities.
Third, there are several overly prescriptive requirements contained
in S. 2672 that should be amended to reserve administrative discretion
for the Secretary.
For example, Sec. 4(d) would require the Secretaries to hire
additional outreach specialists, grants and agreements specialists and
contract specialists to implement this bill. Such direction is
inconsistent with the government-wide goals to improve federal
management that are encompassed in the President's Management Agenda,
which the Forest Service is committed to supporting.
In that regard, the Forest Service has developed a workforce-
restructuring plan that includes significant management reforms to
improve service to citizens and increase administrative efficiencies.
The plan addresses: (1) reducing organizational layers, (2) reducing
the time it takes to make decisions, (3) reducing the number of
managers, (4) increasing supervisory span of control, and (5) ensuring
accountability, and redirecting resources to direct service delivery
and outreach positions.
The Forest Service also plans to increase the use of competitive
sourcing for agency commercial activities and performance-based service
contracting. Such competitive sourcing initiatives could be effectively
used to implement the provisions of this bill. If workforce
restructuring or competitive sourcing, in the agency's view, represents
a more efficient way to meet need for contracting, grants or agreement
specialists, the agencies should have the discretion to pursue the
option that would result in the improved service being provided to
rural communities at the least cost.
We're not waiting to improve our services to rural communities. The
Chief of the Forest Service has recently charted a Partnership Re-
engineering Team of field and Washington Office staff that is working
now to simplify the agency's internal partnership tools and processes.
We expect to have revised processes in place early in 2003. A
particular focus of that effort is going to be the administration of
contracts, cooperative agreements, grants and other partnership
instruments.
Finally, we are extremely concerned with the requirements in Sec.
6(a) that would limit competition for a wide range of activities to the
specific categories of listed entities.
As an example, the bill's existing mandates appear to ignore the
Forest Service's current Memorandum of Understanding with the Small
Business Administration (SBA) for special salvage timber sales, known
as SSTS. Those sales are targeted for businesses with less than 25
persons. It is also unclear how other the agency's other small business
programs, which include both timber and procurement contracts, would be
affected by the bill's mandates.
In addition, Sec. 6(a) could be interpreted to apply literally to
all contracts and agreements entered into by the agencies, not just
those associated with the restoration activities conducted pursuant to
the bill, which we hope is the intent. As written, the bill language
could reach agency-wide contracts for computer equipment or other
information technology.
Even if the intent of the bill is to impose the limit on contracts
and agreements for restoration projects, it is still highly
problematic. Since the limitation is on a dollar basis, it may be
difficult to offset 1 or 2 large contracts with entities that do not
meet the standards with contracts with entities that do meet the bill's
requirements. Many Western communities have few organizations that meet
the requirements described in Sec. 6. The work of the agencies could be
seriously impacted if there are not enough of these organizations in
specific areas to attain the total values proscribed in the bill.
Achieving the plan of work agreed to with Western Governors under the
National Fire Plan would be seriously compromised.
Mr. Chairman, we would like to propose several additions to S.
2672.
We concur with BLM that Congress should provide both agencies
permanent stewardship contracting authority along the lines currently
provided only to the Forest Service under annual appropriations law.
The pilot projects are testing a number of new contractual and
financial authorities that provide the Forest Service additional tools
to achieve land management goals, including fuels reduction activities,
that meet local and rural community needs. We believe the contractual
and financial authorities being testing will demonstrate improved work
efficiencies and the significant potential stewardship contracting
holds for increased local participation, collaboration and investments
in our land management activities.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, the Forest Service knows we need to
develop and maintain effective, consistent relationships with the local
rural communities who are our neighbors just as we know there is a
vital need to restore and maintain healthy forests. Communities are
looking to public land management agencies to better integrate local
concerns with the agencies' planning so that they can work
collaboratively towards healthier ecosystems and healthier rural
communities.
This concludes my remarks on S. 2672. I will be happy to answer any
questions the committee may have on this bill.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Mills.
I hope that the list you are going to send us of additional
changes you want is not too much more comprehensive because
that looks like a lot of suggestions you already have. We are
going to work with you on this, but it looks to me like the
chairman and Senator Craig have a good bill, and I hope that we
can move ahead promptly.
And my question to you, I think, would be picking up on Mr.
Hughes's point about the toolbox and making sure that there are
tools. And my sense is that a better job can be done of using
some of the programs that are out there, and part of the
problems is that bridges are not being built to the
environmental community, some of the opponents of the agencies
that you two hail from, to try to bring people together and to
try to find common ground the way the Senators are trying to do
on this bill, and the way Senator Craig and I did on the county
payments legislation.
Tell me, and the one question I have--and the chairman was
kind enough to say he would take over for a bit. Tell me what
you are doing to reach out to some of the traditional opponents
of your two agencies in order to try to bring people together
so you can use the tools you have today?
We will start with you, Mr. Hughes.
Mr. Hughes. I think our resource advisory councils that the
BLM has, which are made up of citizens from or that represent
different categories of, you know, a cross-section of public
land users, general public, elected officials, environmental
groups, in all our States, have been instructed as one of their
duties to reach out with the Secretaries for the Four-C thing
in mind.
I know Rebecca Watson, the Assistant Secretary for Land and
Minerals, I know Kathleen Clark, and I know the Secretary has
met with a number of groups and officials. In some cases we
have been unsuccessful to start a good dialogue. In other
cases, I think, like the Everglades, and the Bay Delta, and in
some other areas, some agreements were made last year involving
some endangered species issues in the Southwest.
We have started to make some progress. I think it is
obvious, and I do not think there is anybody who would disagree
that when you go to litigation, it becomes costly. In a lot of
ways, we are sort of spinning our wheels when we go to
litigation and nothing, or it seems like nothing but the
resource itself loses.
Senator Wyden. Anything you want to add, Mr. Mills?
Mr. Mills. Yes. I think you raise an excellent point, Mr.
Chairman. One example of some work we have underway, in fact,
was initiated by Senator Bingaman with this New Mexico
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program, which certainly
provides us an opportunity that we are taking as much advantage
of as we can to bring multiple parties together, which includes
some third party monitoring, as well.
We have got some work with communities on the National Fire
Plan. We have got numerous partnership groups that have been
drawn together associated with individual national forests. But
it is also true that these are issues about which reasonable
people have quite different opinions, and getting people to the
table to find common ground is a challenge for all of us.
Senator Wyden. Well, there is no question about that, but
they have got to be invited to the table and there has got to
be an effort to try to build those kind of coalitions. And I
look forward to making sure we get a full list of your concerns
on this. And I will be back in a little bit, but I would like
to see us move this bill quickly.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to take off a bit,
and I will return.
The Chairman [presiding]. Very good. Let me, before I ask
any questions here, just see if Senator Craig wishes to make
any opening statement. If he does, we are anxious to hear that
at this point, and then we will go on with questions.
STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, U.S. SENATOR
FROM IDAHO
Senator Craig. Well, Mr. Chairman, I do have an opening
statement and let me ask unanimous consent that that full
statement become a part of the record.
The Chairman. It will be included.
Senator Craig. First and foremost, I want to thank you for
allowing us this opportunity to hear testimony on what I think
is a very important piece of legislation.
You are going to hear from someone from my State, Joyce
Dearstyne, from Elk City. Joyce is out there, at the moment,
and she is doing what many of our communities that were timber-
dependent, and in many instances still are, in an effort to
bootstrap themselves up in a ``Framing Our Community'' effort
that she will speak about.
So, I will not steal any more of her thunder, but it is so
important that we attempt, as this legislation does, and as
certainly was my goals in this legislation, to see if we cannot
effectively bring together many efforts, efforts that Tom has
just mentioned that you have going on.
When you take a community of dependency from 10 million
board--or 10 billion board feet to 1.5 billion board feet, you
change the whole dynamics of an economy. And that is what
Federal policy did in the timber-dependent communities of
primarily the Great Basin West over the last decade. In a
relatively short period of time, we turned the lights out in
those communities for one reason or another. And now what we
must do is attempt to help them.
Collaborative programs, encouraging communities to
cooperate, agencies to come together to pool resources to do
the kinds of things necessary, is tremendously important, Mr.
Chairman And if we do not get there, the dislocation that will
continue, all in the name of one ``ism'' or another belief,
does not serve the resource and does not serve a variety of our
interests.
We ought not be about pitting one group against the other.
So, that has gone on for too long, too long and too many
decades, and it brings us to where we are today.
At the same time, I think we have to recognize, as we do in
the West today, that our public lands need care. They need
involvement. They need active management in so many ways that
turning our back on them simply has resulted in the wildfires
that now sweep across the West and in ways that are
unacceptable to all of us, from the destruction of wildlife
habitat to the phenomenal loss of a resource that, properly
cared for, could retain its value for a variety of interests.
So, I must tell you, Senator Bingaman, I believe a
collaborative community-based consensus designed to improve the
management of our public forests while helping our small rural
resource-dependent communities has to be a high priority.
I think it is that transitional tool that is so critical
for all of us in many of our communities across New Mexico and
Idaho and other States, that will always have a large stake in
the public lands and the resources and the values those public
lands can spread across the private landscape and the private
resource.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Craig follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Larry E. Craig, U.S. Senator From Idaho
Mr. Chairman, thank you for scheduling this hearing. I am looking
forward to the testimony of our witnesses this afternoon because I am
committed to developing legislation that helps our rural communities
and the workers that struggle to survive in those rural communities. I
also want to welcome Joyce Dearstyne from Elk City, Idaho. Joyce and a
group of people up there on the Nez Perce have been working on the vary
kind of project that we hope S. 2672 will facilitate. I don't want to
steal her thunder so I won't tell you to much about Framing Our
Community and its efforts. Mr. Chairman many of our State's have these
home grown efforts that show great promise, such as Framing Our
Community, and we need to encourage these efforts.
I think it is important to restate my goals concerning this
legislation. First, I am concerned that many of the small resource
dependent communities need extra assistance. I want to find ways to
help the people in these communities to effectively compete for all
contracts and work that are carried out by our federal land management
agencies. Over the last decade the federal timber sale program has
slipped from more than 10 billion board feet per year to only 1.5
billion board feet. We cannot ignore our responsibility to help the
communities that have been impacted by the failure of the federal
timber sale program.
In my estimation most of our past efforts to help the mill and
woods workers have not been as successful as any of the architects of
those programs had hoped. Thus, we need to continue to make efforts to
find ways to help these workers and communities.
Second, I believe that collaborative programs that encourage
communication and cooperation between the agencies and the communities
is preferable. When a small minority is willing to utilize procedural
delay to negatively impact our ability to manage these lands, thus
injuring the rural resource dependent communities, I think we must
reward those who cooperate in finding ways to manage the land and to
help these communities.
Finally, I believe that anything this Congress does in relation to
these communities should be additive. We cannot afford to pit one
segment of the forest product industry against another segments of that
industry. We should not pit small operators against large operators. We
should not pit primary manufacturers again value-added manufacturers.
We should not pit the alternative forest product companies against the
traditional forest product companies. And finally, we should not pit
companies that want to focus on providing forest management services,
such as watershed assessments, stream restoration work or monitoring
activities, against those companies that are needed to remove fiber
from these forests to reduce the risk and intensity of catastrophic
fires.
Having read the testimony of the agencies and some of the
witnesses, including the testimony of the Small Business Timber
Council, I am convinced that this legislation must be modified to
address the concerns that we have heard. First, it is impossible to
undertake value-added manufacturing of wood products without a viable
primary forest product manufacturing base. Given the current situation
in Arizona and New Mexico and in most States with federal forests, I
believe that we must find ways to preserve the remaining industrial
infrastructure in these rural communities. Second, we are going to have
to find a way to ensure that the existing Small Business Timber Sale
Set-Aside program is maintained and that our legislation does not
conflict with this important program.
I look forward to working with you, as well as all those who have
testified, to refine this legislation. Like Senator Bingaman, I believe
a collaborative, community-based consensus designed to improve the
management of our public forests, while helping the small rural
resource dependent communities, must be our highest priority.
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much.
Let me just ask a few questions here.
Mr. Mills, this bill, S. 2672, in section 5 of the bill, it
requires agencies to provide cost share grants to create
restoration and value added centers, to provide technical
assistance to entrepreneurs and small business in marketing and
workforce training and technology development for conversation-
based businesses.
Now, we put this together based on our conversations with
the Forest Service. And currently, it requires that the centers
be ``easily accessible to rural communities adjacent to
national forests or public lands.'' One of our witnesses on the
next panel in her testimony states that, ``The centers should
be located in rural communities not just accessible to those
communities.''
Do you agree with that, or do you think we should leave it
the way it is?
Mr. Mills. Well, I think I would say, Senator, that given
the number of rural communities, it is hard or it would be hard
to have the centers in each and every one of those, and so
there are going to be some rural communities that do not have a
center in them. And so I would expect that as long as they were
fully accessible to all of the communities that needed their
services, we would be more likely to be able to deliver their
services efficiently than trying to identify all the rural
communities associated with national forests and placing a
center in them.
The Chairman. Let me ask also about section 6 of the bill,
which provides a local preference for contracting. I think you
have indicated opposition to that. The purpose of this,
obviously, is to try to ensure that these entrepreneurs,
businesses in these local communities have reasonable access to
these contracts.
Do you think that provision, that local preference
provision is objectionable? How do we meet this objective if we
do not have something like that in the bill?
Mr. Mills. No, sir, I do not think the intent is
objectionable at all, and we are certainly supportive of the
need for that capacity to exist and the mutually dependent
relationship between those communities and healthy national
forests.
Our concerns deal with the current drafting of those
provisions. And, as I tried to summarize earlier, we are
concerned that the list of activities that would be counted
towards these percentage goals in combination with restriction
of entities that would count toward the goals--for example, the
micro-enterprises, we end up with definitions quite, quite a
bit smaller than small business definitions, for example. Those
two provisions in combination with percentages that are listed
as mandates rather than goals to achieve could lead to
unachievable goals.
And so although we concur very much with the intent, we are
a little concerned about that the combination of those
provisions could lead to consequences that were not intended by
the drafters, nor achievable by us.
The Chairman. Well, I do think we need to visit with you on
your specific problems with the language. We tried to draft it
in a way that gives an option as to how the goals are met, and
one of the options is that the entity will hire and train local
people to compete--or to complete the service or timber sale
contract. That seemed to us to be pretty broad.
Mr. Mills. Well, again, it also lists the kinds of projects
that would count towards these percentages. We assume that what
is meant are any projects that are associated with the
achievement of the restoration of degraded lands which are
listed as the purposes of the bill, so that making sure that
the list in section A is consistent with that interpretation,
and again, the size of the enterprises is one of the issues
that we have some concern about. It is not that that is not a
desirable goal, but whether it is achieved----
The Chairman. Why do not we regroup with you on that and
see if we cannot work out your concerns?
Mr. Mills. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Let me ask Jim Hughes one question here.
You expressed concern about the provisions in S. 2672 that
require multiparty monitoring, indicating that was difficult.
My understanding is that the stewardship contracting authority
that you have requested also requires multiparty monitoring.
I am confused about that. How do you accept it in that
context but not in the one we are proposing here?
Mr. Hughes. No, I think the issue is, again, is, ``Do you
have to have someone from what was''--the issue that has been
raised to us is: Do you have to have someone or allow someone
from back East to monitor an activity in Catryn County or in
Reba County? Or can you, or is it sufficient to have those
people from your own State, from northern New Mexico or from
southwestern New Mexico? I think that is the issue that has
been raised to us. It again is how prescriptive this is.
The Chairman. So you do not mind the idea of multiparty
monitoring----
Mr. Hughes. No.
The Chairman [continuing]. But you just think that----
Mr. Hughes. Right.
The Chairman. And the way that it is currently required and
implemented with regard to this stewardship contracting
authority, you think that is acceptable?
Mr. Hughes. We do not have that authority in the BLM, and
this is a concern that has been raised.
The Chairman. I thought you were getting it each year in
the appropriations bill.
Mr. Hughes. No. No, that is limited to the Forest Service,
sir.
The Chairman. Oh, just the Forest Service. Okay.
All right. Let me ask if Mr. Mills has any comment about
this multiparty monitoring issue and how it works in the case
of stewardship contracting.
Mr. Mills. Well, if I could speak to--and thank you for
that opportunity. If I could speak to the provisions of the
bill as it is currently drafted, we certainly agree with
multiparty monitoring, and we know we need to move more
aggressively in that direction and provide some real good
opportunities for a number of views to be brought together.
The two particular provisions as currently stated here
says, ``The Secretary shall include any interested individual
or organization.'' And any interested individual could be a
whole, whole bunch, and it could easily get to the point where
it is unmanageable.
The second one, it talks about monitoring at the project
scale rather than bundles of projects or what has happened on a
broader watershed, ecosystem basis. And monitoring project by
project,for as many projects as I am sure we both want to
achieve, could lead to an extremely expensive monitoring
program.
The Chairman. We took the language that we included in this
bill out of the language that currently exists in law where it
talks also about any interested groups or individuals with
regard to this multiparty monitoring on stewardship
contracting.
If you could, look at it. I mean, you may still have a
valid concern, but I guess we were trying to have some
consistency, and we would be anxious if you would look at that
and tell us how to achieve that.
Mr. Mills. We would be happy to.
The Chairman. Well, I thank you both. I think this has been
useful testimony, and we appreciate it very much.
We will go ahead to the second panel, second panel of
witnesses.
Mr. Mills. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Hughes. Thank you.
The Chairman. I think the second panel was introduced
earlier by Chairman Wyden, but let me introduce them again:
Joyce Dearstyne who is with Framing Our Community in Elk City,
Idaho; Steve Holmer who is the campaign coordinator with The
American Lands Alliance here in Washington; and Maia Enzer who
is the program director with Healthy Forest, Healthy
Communities Partnership in the Sustainable Northwest in
Portland. Thank you all for being here. Appreciate it very
much.
Ms. Dearstyne, is that the right pronunciation?
Ms. Dearstyne. Yes, it is.
The Chairman. Why don't you go ahead and start? Again, we
will include all of your entire statements in the record. If
you could take 5 or 6 minutes each and summarize the main
points you think we need to be aware of, that would be greatly
appreciated.
STATEMENT OF JOYCE DEARSTYNE, FRAMING OUR COMMUNITY, ELK CITY,
ID
Ms. Dearstyne. Okay. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and
members of the subcommittee.
My name is Joyce Dearstyne, and I am the program director
of a small nonprofit organization located in the middle of the
Nez Perce National Forest in North-Central Idaho. I live in a
county that is larger than the State of Connecticut, 83 percent
of which is Federal or State land and is directly affected by
your decisions in Washington, D.C.
Idaho County, my county, has been identified by the Bureau
of Economics as a low income and high unemployment area. Fifty
percent of our children live in poverty, and 91 percent of our
local children were enrolled in the free and reduced lunch
program by the end of this past year.
Our high school children must board out with friends,
family, and even strangers to complete their secondary
education. This does not work for every child or every family,
and some just get left by the wayside with few options for
their future.
In 1999, a small group of dedicated people decided to
become proactive and formed Framing Our Community. Since that
time we have conducted an open, inclusive community development
process. And in the summer of 2001, we conducted a feasibility
study that laid out a plan for an incubation company that would
create jobs which provided year-round employment, paid a living
wage, offered benefits and health insurance, would educate
small business owners on running a successful business, would
offer a safe working environment where accidents were not
likely to occur, would support existing local businesses, and
would improve the health and quality of the forest by utilizing
small diameter, standing dead, and diseased timber from the
local forest.
The incubator's slogan is, ``Developing products that last
longer than it took the tree to grow while improving the health
of the rural community.''
During this process, Framing Our Community has found that
there is a huge void in the funding arena for projects like
ours. Even though our products are natural resource-based, we
are not covered under the Farm Bill, nor do we fit the intent
of the Forest Service Rural Communities Assistance Program.
Funding for our work, thus far, has come from private
foundations and companies with roots in the Northwest or who
have concerns for the Northwest and the State of Idaho.
Among these are the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation,
Sustainable Northwest, Avista Corporation, Wells Fargo Bank,
and the Rural Community Block Grant program initiated by
Governor Kempthorne. The only Federal funding we fit the intent
of is the National Fire Plan Economic Action Program.
Needless to say, we are very excited by the prospect of the
Community Based Forest and Public Lands Restoration Act. It is
the first Federal action that truly addresses the depressed
economy of the rural timber-based communities who derive their
income from the national forests and public lands that surround
them.
We do have a few concerns in relation to the definitions,
time line, and wording of this bill. For example, in section 3-
10 the definition of ``rural'' or ``rural area'' is defined as
not greater than 50,000 and does not even come close to our
definition of rural. We would like an opportunity to work with
you on this definition because our town now has a population of
400 and our county has a population of 15,000.
Section 4-c(1), Monitoring, should include economic benefit
so that it would read, ``Assessing the cumulative
accomplishments, economic benefits, or adverse impacts of
projects.'' We are results based.
Section 5(a), Establishments, we would like you to include
value-added product development because secondary products have
a high rate of return and will have a greater impact on rural
communities.
Section 5(d), Locations, every restoration and value-added
center needs to be surrounded by national forest or other
public lands; and where that is not possible, easily accessible
to the rural communities. The communities that have been
impacted the most by what has occurred over the last decade are
those that are in the national forests.
Section 4(d), subsection 2, delineates that the Regional
Forester and State Bureau of Land Management Director will
issue requests for proposals, but no time line has been set for
when this program should be up and running. We would hate to
see the potential good here get bogged down by an uncertain
time line.
It is also essential that these centers be given the
authority to utilize funds provided for infrastructure,
capacity building, product development, technical and financial
assistance directly to the small or micro enterprises.
I could not help but listen to Mr. Hughes state that money
has been given for research to universities. That does need to
be done, but none of that research reaches the ground. They
have no mechanism to deliver it. Business incubators like ours
could take their ideas that are developed and actually put them
on the ground.
The residents of Elk City trust that you will see this bill
through the appropriations process, and would like to thank you
for giving Elk City and other small rural communities an
opportunity to provide comments.
S. 2672 provides the means for a collaborative restoration
process that includes those rural communities that live, work,
and play within the boundaries of our public lands.
Given the tools and opportunity, organizations like Framing
Our Community can help build viable conservation-based
economies across the West.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Dearstyne follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joyce Dearstyne, Program Director,
Framing our Community, Elk City, ID
Good afternoon. My name is Joyce Dearstyne and I'm the Program
Director of Framing our Community, a small nonprofit organization
located in the middle of the Nez Perce National Forest. I live in a
county that is larger than the state of Connecticut. Eighty three
percent of the county is federal or state land and is directly affected
by your decisions here in Washington D.C.
Idaho County has been identified as the Bureau of Economics (REIS)
as a low income and high unemployment area. Fifty percent of our
children live in poverty and ninety-one percent of our Elk City
children were enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program by the end
of the past school year.
Prior to experiencing double-digit unemployment rates, we boasted a
population of 1,500 people, most of whom have left to find jobs. Our
population has been reduced to a mere 400 residents. Our high school
children must board with friends, family and even strangers to complete
their secondary education. This doesn't work for every child or family
and some get left by the wayside with few options for their future.
In 1999 a small group of dedicated people decided to become
proactive and pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Since that time we
have conducted an open, inclusive community development process that
asked our community members what type of economic development they
wanted, assessed the raw materials that were accessible and what
infrastructure was in place.
The method of change selected was a Small Timber Business
Incubator. In the summer of last year, FOC hired Harry Watt of Wood
Management Systems, Inc. to conduct a Small Diameter, Timber Frame, and
Secondary Products Business Incubator Feasibility Study. (a copy of
this study is available).
This study identified:
Available timber resources
Markets
Transportation strategy and cost
Product Development
Employee skills and development
Facility layout and costs
This study laid out a plan for an incubation company that would:
Create jobs which provide year round employment that pay a
living wage and offer benefits and health insurance
Educate small business owners on running a successful
business
Offer a safe working environment where accidents are not
likely to occur
Support existing local businesses, and
Improve the health and quality of the forest by utilizing
small diameter, standing dead and diseased timber from the
local forest
The Incubator's slogan is ``Developing Products that Last Longer
than it Took the Tree to Grow While Improving the Health of the Rural
Community.''
The next steps were to define our goal and then produce a five-year
business plan. Our goal is to create a business incubator that fosters
the development of value-added wood products and other inter-related
businesses and can create a significant economic benefit for the
region.
To meet this goal we needed to:
1. Build a modern production facility
2. Offer tenants a low initial rental fee
3. Provide equipment for shared tenant use
We also needed to offer:
1. Business management and development training
2. Marketing training
3. Connections to brokers and markets
4. In-house bookkeeping and marketing services for those who
did not wish to do their own
5. Advertising on an incubator web site
6. In-house e-commerce for immediate payment of orders
Next we worked on an in-depth five-year business plan that
outlined:
1. Business fundamentals and development
2. Startup financing
3. Markets
4. Customer profiles
5. Competitor and industry reviews
6. Sales and distribution
7. Pro-forma balance sheets and income statements
8. A contingency plan
9. Building and equipment expenses, and
10. Needed business services and training
During this process, FOC has found that there is a huge void in the
funding arena for projects like ours. Even though our products are
natural resource based, we are not covered under the Farm Bill nor do
we fit the intent of the Forest Service Rural Community Assistance
Program. The funding for our work thus far has come from Private
Foundations and companies with roots in the Northwest or have concern
for the Northwest and the state of Idaho. Among these are the
Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation, Sustainable Northwest, the Titcombe and
Summit Foundations, Avista Corporation, Wells Fargo Bank, Bennet Lumber
Products and the Rural community Block Grant program initiated by
Governor Kempthorne. The only federal funding we fit the intent of is
the National Fire Plan Economic Action Program.
Support comes in many forms other than financial, like the sharing
of lessons learned from community to community and organization to
organization, and increased capacity to make us effective in our
efforts. Wallowa Resources of Enterprise, OR and The Watershed Research
and Training Center of Hayfork, CA have both come to Elk City and
shared their successes and failures. This sharing of lessons learned
has saved us much time and many mistakes and has moved us forward at an
unprecedented speed. Thank goodness, for time to save our forest and
community is short.
Needless to say, we are very excited by the prospect of the
``Community-Based Forest and Public Lands Restoration Act'' passing. It
is the first federal action that truly addresses the depressed timber
based economy of rural communities who derive their income from the
national forests and public lands that surround them.
We do have a few concerns relation to the definitions, timeline,
and wording of this bill. For example in Section 3-10, the definition
of rural or rural area is defined as less than 50,000 and does not meet
our needs or come even close to our definition of rural. We would like
the opportunity to work with you on this definition, because our town
has a population of 400 in our county has a population of 15,500,
therefore anything over 10,000 is an urban area to us. In fact, the
closest urban area to us is Lewiston, Idaho, which has a population of
35,000 and is a two and one-half hour drive for us in good weather.
In Sec. 4c(1) Monitoring should include Economic Benefit, so it
would read, ``assessing the cumulative accomplishments, economic
benefits, or adverse impacts of projects. . . .
Sec. 5a) Establishments--We would like you to include value-added
product development because secondary products have a higher rate of
return and will have a greater impact on rural communities than sawn
lumber.
d) Locations--every Restoration and Value-Added Center should be
surrounded by National Forest System or other public lands and where
that is not possible easily accessible to rural communities that are
adjacent to National forest System or other public lands throughout the
region. In the past, monies that have gone to institutions like the
University of Idaho for research and development have never reached the
rural unemployed nor have they revered the depressed timer based
economy. Rural based organizations like FOC have the business
experience, engineering, natural resource and community development
background that is necessary to reverse this downward economic spiral
and would immediately utilize these monies to achieve on the ground
results and begin the revitalization of our rural communities. We hope
you will give us the chance by passing this bill.
Sec. 4(d) Locations subsection (2) delineates that the Regional
Forester and State Bureau of Land Management Director will issue
requests for proposals, but no timeline has been set for when this
program should be up and running. I would hate to see the potential
good offered get bogged down by any certain time, and time is of the
essence for our forest as well as others.
It is also essential that these Centers be given the authority to
utilize the funds provided for:
Infrastructure (equipment and building construction and/or
purchase)
Capacity building (training and tools for towns and
organizations to become strong and independent)
Product development, technical and financial assistance
directly to small and micro-enterprises in the form of grant,
revolving loans or lines of credit or other means to provide
access to grow capital
The residents of Elk City trust that you will see this bill through
the appropriations process and would like to than you for giving Elk
City and other small rural communities an opportunity to provide
comments on the Community-Based Forest and Public Lands Restoration
Act. Bill S. 2672 provides the means for a collaborative restoration
process that includes those rural communities that live, work and play
within the boundaries of our Public Lands. Given the tools and
opportunity organizations like Framing Our Community can help build
viable, conservation-based economies across the West.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Ms. Enzer, go right ahead?.
STATEMENT OF MAIA ENZER, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, HEALTHY FORESTS,
HEALTHY COMMUNITIES PARTNERSHIP, SUSTAINABLE NORTHWEST,
PORTLAND, OR
Ms. Enzer. Thank you. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and members of the committee for your leadership on this bill.
I am very excited to be here, and I appreciate the opportunity
today.
I am Maia Enzer, and I am the program director at
Sustainable Northwest for the Healthy Forests, Healthy
Communities Partnership. Sustainable Northwest is a Portland,
Oregon-based nonprofit founded in 1994, and our mission is to
promote environmentally sound economic development in
communities across the Pacific Northwest.
This bill incorporates the core values of community-based
forestry. It is about creating a collaborative process which
enables everyone to have a meaningful role in the care of our
public lands. It is about restoring our national forests in a
manner that does not exploit the land or the worker or deny the
role of the private sector.
It is about monitoring, ensuring that we all take a role in
understanding the ecologic and economic impact of our actions.
And it is about using the public dollar to reinvest in the land
we have taken so much from and reinvest in rebuilding the
capacity of rural communities who are inextricably linked to
our ability to care for our forests, rivers, rangelands, and
the many species that depend on them. In essence, this bill
addresses issues from the watershed to the wood shop.
I am going to focus the rest of my comments on the
importance of contracting as a vehicle for collaboration and
for building a consistent program of work for rural
communities, as well as building forest-based economies through
the proposed restoration value-added centers.
The communities with which Sustainable Northwest works have
experienced many problems with the current contracting system,
which I have detailed in my written testimony. What I will say
is the bill's focus on best value contracting places the
emphasis on getting the highest quality work for the best
price, justly spending the public's dollar.
The other provisions will help small and micro businesses
build their capacity to become strong viable enterprises and to
access the higher-value contracts. These provisions should be
about building high-scale durable jobs in rural communities. It
is not just about the number of jobs, or the number of
contracts that are awarded. It is also about the value of those
contracts. So, for us, the contracting provisions, simply put,
will help us begin to create new tools for new times.
The bill also makes important linkages between forest
restoration and value added manufacturing, and it does this by
focusing resources on developing a rural-based, value-added
sector that can capitalize on the unique wood, skills, and
heritage of western communities.
The small and micro businesses involved in the Healthy
Forests, Healthy Communities Partnership primarily use the wood
that comes from restoration projects. They work with small
diameter wood, such as the suppressed Doug Fir and many western
hardwoods, like Madrone. And they make a full range of
products, flooring, paneling, custom and round wood furniture,
gifts, and accessories.
But despite their commitment to innovation, these small
rural businesses face many financial and technical challenges,
but by working together they are finding ways to overcome those
obstacles. For example, in southern Oregon, several businesses
are sharing resources, allowing them to become more competitive
in the flooring and paneling markets. However, despite their
efforts to create markets, the lack of investment and forest
restoration has made their endeavors more difficult.
The flooring broker that we work with has done a good job
of building strong markets for suppressed Doug Fir flooring.
However, the business members that I work with do not have a
consistent supply of suppressed Doug Fir, despite the severe
forest health problem and the predominance of that species
across our landscape. Therefore, they are having trouble
meeting the market demands they have created. This is a very
big challenge if you are trying to introduce a new product into
the market.
This project, as well as the others described in my
testimony, demonstrate the promise and the potential of these
restoration and value added centers. As models, they outline
the various forms that the centers may take based on the
appropriate community context. These centers have the potential
to create real change in communities like Hayfork, California,
Elk City, Enterprise and Lakeview, Oregon, Twisp, Washington,
and countless other small communities that I know this
committee has heard from.
The bill should ensure that the centers do not become
another program or field office of the agency or large
educational institution. However, those entities should be
important partners in this endeavor. They are critical to the
process, but the centers should be about helping communities to
rebuild their institutional capacity and positioning them to
build strong conservation-based economies as they envision
them.
The centers should be bringing expertise into the
community, rather than forcing people to leave home to find
help or other resources. The centers will not be successful if
they adopt a traditional approach of economic development by
locating them on primary transportation corridors in emerging
urban centers or existing cities. It is important that the
centers be located in rural communities close to the resources
and the businesses they will serve.
This will also ensure that the centers are operating under
the same constraints and the same environment that we expect
these types of business to thrive under.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on this
important piece of legislation. Your bipartisan work to create
opportunities for communities and to restore public lands is
providing a lot of hope for the communities and business that I
work with.
We do support the concepts of this bill and hope that our
feedback will help ensure that the provisions in the
legislation provide opportunities for implementation rather
than increased process or bureaucracy. Attached to the
testimony are section- by-section suggestions for improvements
in the bill, and we look forward to working with you through
this process.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Enzer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Maia Enzer, Program Director, Sustainable
Northwest, Portland, OR
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on S. 2672 the
Community-based Forest and Public Lands Restoration Act. This bill
provides an opportunity to help rural communities play a meaningful
role in the restoration of our public lands while simultaneously
providing the tools to build viable, conservation-based economies in
rural communities. We support the principles and concepts presented in
the bill and are pleased to offer our perspective on the issues.
I am Maia Enzer, Program Director at Sustainable Northwest for the
Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities Partnership. Sustainable Northwest
(SNW) is a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit organization founded in
1994 and dedicated to forging a new economy in the Pacific Northwest
one that reinvests in the people, the communities, and the landscapes
of the region. The mission of the organization is:
To build partnerships that promote environmentally sound
economic development in communities of the Pacific Northwest.
The Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities Partnership (HFHC) is a
regional collaborative dedicated to building capacity in rural
communities to perform forest restoration and ecosystem management
services, and to manufacture and market the wood by-products of such
activities. We have members in northern California, Oregon, Washington,
and Idaho. Our partners are small and micro-businesses, community and
regional non-profits, land management agencies, environmental groups,
and others committed to promoting restoration in an environmentally and
socially responsible manner. Towards that end, they have signed a
Vision & Values statement, which guides our comments in this testimony
(see attached Vision & Values statement).
As a Partnership, we face many challenges, including: an
inconsistent program of work around restoration; contracting mechanisms
that are difficult for smaller businesses to access; and limited
investment in rural entrepreneurs interested in value-added
manufacturing. Senate bill 2672 appropriately addresses these
challenges, providing opportunities to overcome them.
creating an interdependence between healthy forests
and healthy communities
The Community-based Forest and Public Lands Restoration Act
provides an integrated approach to the restoration of our public lands
by providing mechanisms to restore and maintain healthy forests and
healthy communities. It does this by creating a comprehensive program
of forest restoration work. The core values of community-based
forestry, echoed by many organizations and individuals across the
Northwest, are incorporated into this bill. Senate bill 2672 provides
direction to create collaborative processes that enable interested
participants to have a meaningful role in the care of our public lands.
It provides mechanisms to restore our national forests in a manner that
cares for the land and the worker, and recognizes the critical
contributions of the private sector in these efforts. Further, this
bill recognizes the need for and provides the means to do monitoring,
which the linchpin to successful restoration, from both an
environmental and social perspective. And at its heart, the bill calls
for using the public dollar to reinvest in the land that has provided
so much, while also investing in rebuilding the capacity of rural
communities to do restoration work and to create a viable economy based
on this work.
As we have seen in countless rural communities throughout the West,
there is an inextricable link between the way we care for our lands and
rural community well-being. This bill makes a positive contribution to
improving both land and community.
removing barriers to implementation
Restoring Ecological Integrity
Every summer destructive wildfires remind us that our public lands
are not healthy enough to allow natural processes, such as fire, to
play their appropriate role on the landscape. This summer is no
different. Decades of fire suppression has led to problems with fuel
loads, insects and disease, noxious weeds, and other threats to
ecosystem health.
Overcoming institutional barriers in the Forest Service
The Forest Service faces a number of institutional challenges that
forces them to cobble together a program of restoration work. First,
their budget and structure do not support the design and implementation
of such a program. They are forced to use old budget structures to
support restoration. Second, they must apply contracting and
procurement rules that simply do not fit the objectives of restoration,
nor support the new type of high-skill restoration worker. Third,
monitoring, a crucial step for understanding impacts and being able to
manage adaptively, is often left out of the work. Fourth, the Forest
Service lacks the institutional structure to support a collaborative
approach to working with the public.
The barriers facing the Forest Service are not easily remedied, and
we recognize that they cannot all be removed instantaneously or
simultaneously. However, we strongly believe that Senate bill 2672
places the correct emphasis on the fixing problem by focusing its
purpose on creating, ``a coordinated, consistent, community-based
program to restore and maintain the ecological integrity of degraded
National Forest System and public land watersheds.'' The right
combination of steps taken through this bill will go far in helping to
facilitate implementation of sound restoration projects through
collaborative processes.
we need new tools for new times
Supporting restoration and collaboration through contracting and
procurement
Now I would like to address some of the specific attributes of the
bill, starting with contracting reforms.
The communities with which Sustainable Northwest works have
experienced many problems with the current contracting system, which
makes it difficult for small, local contractors to access forest
restoration work. For example, on the Fremont National Forest between
1994 and 1999 local firms captured 33 percent of all service contracts;
however, of these, 83 (of 88) were valued at less than $25,000 and only
one was over $100,000.\1\ In Trinity County, California local firms
only capture approximately seven percent of the work. In Wallowa
County, Oregon during the 2000 field season, local firms captured about
20 percent of the service work, but the total value of these contracts
was only $210,000 (and of this total, one contract was worth $150,000,
leaving $60,000 worth of work in the remaining contracts). Clearly, it
is not simply the number of contracts that matters, but also their
value. These counties, and many others surrounded by public lands, are
coping with high unemployment and increasing poverty. Meanwhile, the
bulk of the valuable contracts go to large companies in urban areas,
sometimes hundreds of miles away. Despite this seeming inequity, we
recognize that this is not an 'either or' situation: we need businesses
of all sizes to take on the important and vast scope of restoration
work, but we also need to make room for small and micro-enterprises to
access the full range of restoration work.
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\1\ Kauffman, Marcus. 2001. An Analysis of Forest Service and BLM
Contracting and Contractor Capacity in Lake County, Oregon. Sustainable
Northwest. Copies available on request.
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There has been considerable dialogue around contracting mechanisms
used by the Forest Service, and we are encouraged by the continued
experimentation with the National Stewardship Pilot Program. Many of
the issues involved in contracting must continue to be tested through
that venue. However, we know that the current system was created in a
different social, ecological, political and economic context and has
unintentionally created barriers for small and micro-businesses to be
able to compete for work on public lands. The changes presented in
Senate bill 2672 (Section 6) are a positive step in the right
direction. While we have some suggested changes (see attached section
by section comments) we applaud your efforts to create a better climate
for competition by providing mechanisms that will help small and micro-
businesses to build their capacity to compete for this new kind of
work. By focusing on best value contracting, you have placed the
emphasis on getting the highest quality of work for the best price,
justly spending the public's dollar.
We are also pleased with the focus on collaboration in the bill. In
the last decade, communities throughout the West have learned the
central role of non-profit organizations in helping communities adapt
to change, and have experienced the value of working in partnerships
with local businesses to support their economic viability. This is
especially true in relation to work on public lands. Many of the
success stories about collaboration with the Forest Service have come
through relationships initially built through State and Private
Forestry branches of the Forest Service. In order to empower National
Forest System employees to work with nonprofit entities, it is
necessary that they have the authority to enter into cooperative
agreements, an authority which they currently lack. We commend you for
including this provision in the Community-based Forest and Public Lands
Restoration Act (Sec. 4(b)).
building new forest-based economies
One of the visionary attributes of this bill is the linkage made
between forest restoration and value-added manufacturing. S. 2672
focuses resources on developing a rural-based value-added sector that
can capitalize on the unique wood, skills, and heritage of this region.
This is a positive step forward in the level of investment which, to
date, has been limited. We need investment to catalyze our business
sector.
Sustainable Northwest's Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities
Partnership works with small and micro-wood products businesses
throughout the Pacific Northwest who use the wood by-product from
restoration projects. They work with small diameter wood (suppressed
Douglas Fir) and underutilized or lesser-known species (i.e. Madrone,
Tan Oak, and Juniper), to make a range of products including: flooring,
paneling and molding; posts and poles; custom and roundwood furniture;
and gifts and accessories. As rural businesses in the Pacific Northwest
have been gearing up to utilize the by-products of restoration
projects, they have become acutely aware of the challenges small
businesses face in the global economy. Among these challenges are:
Lack of capitalization to build inventory and expand
production capacity
Isolation from transportation corridors and major
marketplaces
An unreliable supply of raw materials for processing
Unavailability of a trained workforce
Need to build business skills necessary to take a business
``to the next level''
Few opportunities to exchange ideas, innovations, and
resources with peers
While we have begun to address these challenges, a key lesson
learned is the importance of public-private partnerships and business-
to-business relationships. Our most effective Partnership growth has
occurred where groups of businesses have come together to address a
common challenge.
For example, in Southern Oregon, several businesses are sharing
resources, allowing them to be more competitive in the flooring and
paneling market. By having loggers, sawyers, lumber dryers, millers and
brokers all working together, this group has developed a successful
mini-industry that is creating jobs by adding value to the small
diameter Douglas Fir which dominates the forests of the region.
In Hayfork, California, a business incubator was developed to
provide the resources that allow start-up entrepreneurs to build
businesses based on the restoration of forests. By supplying the roof
over their head, access to tools and business resources, and networks
with peers, the incubator has created an environment of opportunity.
Our community partners in Okanogan County, Washington have been
piloting restoration projects on National Forest lands and assessing
community capacity to utilize the materials that will flow from these
projects. By evaluating the existing business infrastructure they have
been able to determine products that can be manufactured now and areas
where additional investment, such as equipment and inventory, may be
needed. The local non-profits have also awakened regional enterprises
to the opportunities that exist for building businesses around the
restoration work and the processing of its residual material.
Each of these projects demonstrates the promise and potential of
Restoration and Value-added Centers. As models, they outline the
various forms that Centers may take, based on the appropriate community
context. Also, to meet our objectives of responsible forest restoration
and community economic development, we need to foster and support many
small enterprises - We need to do small scale on a large scale. Perhaps
most importantly, ongoing efforts in the Pacific Northwest represent
the necessity of a coordinated and well-supported approach to
community-based forest restoration.
We commend your inclusion of Restoration and Value-added Centers in
the bill, as we believe they are a key element to helping mitigate the
challenges these businesses face. Too many communities have lost the
infrastructure they need to support existing businesses, or create new
enterprises. We need to foster a business environment that will
encourage the establishment and growth of small, but highly effective
restoration-related enterprises. We need to encourage vertical
integration at the community-scale. These Centers have the potential to
create real change in communities like Hayfork, California; Elk City,
Idaho; Enterprise and Lakeview, Oregon; Swan Valley, Montana; Twisp,
Washington; and countless other small communities. These Centers offer
rural-based businesses a way to build a future tied to their heritage
in natural resources, their commitment to their community, and their
vision for a future based on environmentally-sound economic
development.
general comments of concern
Our support for the concepts and principles of this bill
notwithstanding, we do have concern about some of its aspects. I would
like to highlight them:
1. Streamlining implementation and working within existing processes
and selection of projects
We are concerned that there is not sufficient clarity in terms of
how projects will be selected through this bill. It is important that
this legislation help to facilitate implementation and not create
unnecessary analysis or process. Currently other efforts are examining
how to ensure that the existing planning and analysis processes can
add-value to how projects are identified and implemented. We do not
think it is necessary to create new process or to use this bill as a
way to solve those process issues. This bill must remain focused on
facilitating implementation within as many of the current laws and
processes as possible. However, there is insufficient guidance on how
to use those existing mechanisms. (please see suggested changes in the
attached section-by-section comments).
2. Location of the Restoration and Value-added Centers
These Centers need to be located in rural communities, not just
accessible to them. The Centers will not be successful if they adopt
the traditional approach to economic development of locating along
primary transportation corridors in emerging urban centers or existing
cities. S. 2672 shows genuine commitment to supporting rural
communities and building viable economies through the restoration and
maintenance of our public lands. It is critical that these Centers be
located in rural communities, close to the resources and the businesses
they will serve. This will also ensure that the Centers are operating
in the same environment as the businesses they serve.
3. Definitions
We are encouraged by the bill's focus on small, rural communities
and small and micro-enterprises. However, some terms in the bill need
to be more clearly defined or they may be misunderstood and misused,
thus diminishing the positive contribution this bill can make in
implementing its stated objectives. For example:
Definition of Local: It is important to provide land management
agencies with further guidance on what is meant by 'local' to ensure
that those who live closest to the project site are able to access the
work laid out in the provisions of the bill. (see attached section-by-
section comments).
Definition of Rural: As currently written, the definition of rural
is unclear. We need to look more carefully into this definition to
recommend new language that will ensure that small rural communities
are truly the beneficiaries of this legislation. The current language
is not sufficient for the needs of the communities and businesses we
work with.
conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important piece of
legislation. Your bi-partisan work to create opportunities for
communities and to restore our public lands is commendable. We support
the concepts of this bill and hope our feedback will help ensure that
the provisions in this legislation provide opportunities for
implementation, rather then increased process and needless bureaucracy.
Attached to this testimony are section-by-section suggestions for
improvements to this bill. We look forward to working with you through
this process.
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Holmer, go right ahead with your statement.
STATEMENT OF STEVE HOLMER, CAMPAIGN COORDINATOR, AMERICAN LANDS
ALLIANCE
Mr. Holmer. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf
of American Lands Alliance, I just wanted to appreciate your
leadership on this question, as well as you and Senator Craig.
American Lands supports the intent of the Community-Based
Forest and Public Lands Restoration Act to promote restoration
and to foster community-based businesses and citizen groups in
rural communities to carry out needed restoration projects. We
believe this bill offers a critical opportunity that should not
be passed up to further the dialogue on restoration.
To this end, we have a number of suggestions that we
believe will help the legislation better promote sound
ecological restoration on the ground, and ensure that the
Forest Service follows the intent of this program.
Incorporating these suggestions will strengthen growing
agreement among many sectors of the public on the need for an
effective and ecologically sound approach to forest
restoration.
During the past year, the conservation community, together
with input from forest practitioners and community forestry
groups, has drafted restoration principles to promote
ecological forest restoration and implement sound restoration
policies and projects on the national forests. The principles
clearly distinguish hazardous fuel-reduction projects designed
to effectively protect homes and communities from projects
designed to restore ecological integrity in fire-dependent
ecosystems and elsewhere. This is a distinction currently
overlooked by the U.S. Forest Service.
These principles are currently undergoing a peer review
process and will be published later this fall. To support this
program, we urge the Congress to establish a new line item
called ``Ecological Restoration'' in the Interior Bill, as
outlined above, and fund this program at about $200 million a
year. I think that would be a good, solid beginning for this
effort.
In our view, we would like to see a comprehensive approach
taken to restoration. And so, restoration can also mean
conservation. In our view, we need to look at the landscape and
determine the areas that have the highest ecological integrity,
and make sure that those areas are protected and not further
degraded. So, for example, old growth forests, roadless areas,
endangered species habitat, places like this have been
identified and we believe should be protected. And I would just
like to take a moment to thank you for your leadership on the
Roadless Area Conservation Act, which we think is an important
step towards establishing this comprehensive approach.
I did include three case studies in our testimony about
existing projects happening on the national forests, and rather
than go through all the details, I would just like to summarize
by saying that in all three of these projects, there are very
positive elements that we would like to support. However, there
have been elements included in these projects which we think
will undermine ecological integrity and, therefore, in all
likelihood, or already have been, they will be opposed by
conservationists.
And so we would like to develop this criterion in a process
where we can have noncontroversial projects that do not include
the logging of old growth trees, do not include logging in
heavily degraded watersheds, and that kind of thing. So, when
we look at what the Forest Service is doing right now, we do
feel like they need some additional direction.
With these lessons in mind, we would like to recommend some
specific changes. We do feel like there needs to be
environmental safeguards added to the legislation;
specifically, protection for old and large trees, roadless
areas, and endangered species habitat. We think a prohibition
on new road construction would also be extremely beneficial,
and we feel that these provisions would help ensure the
resulting projects will enhance ecological integrity, and help
reduce controversy and public opposition to projects involving
the cutting of trees or that are proposed in ecologically
sensitive areas.
We also believe that economic safeguards need to be added.
We are very concerned about how financial incentives can skew
management decisions, and we have seen this over time. The
timber sale program is really, and the excessive road
construction is, a major reason why we need to do so much
restoration on the forests. So, we would like to see this bill
avoid using timber sale contracts to accomplish these projects.
However, we do recognize that restoration byproducts derived
from an ecologically-based project may have value secondarily.
And so we are willing to explore other contracting methods to
do those kinds of projects.
Another key point that we would like to make is that we
feel this bill does propose or places too strong of an emphasis
on utilizing trees as restoration byproducts. When we look at
restoration, we feel like there is a broad range of activities
that should be included in this program. We currently have an
$8 billion road maintenance backlog, for example. There is a
tremendous amount of work and jobs that could be created
working on those issues. Invasive species is a growing threat
to the national forests. We would like to see additional
emphasis, and we do appreciate the additional funding that is
going into that program at this point.
We are very concerned about stewardship contracting. We do
feel like that includes some internal financial mechanisms that
could ultimately undermine the restoration objectives of those
projects. And one of the examples is a stewardship project.
We do feel like the project criteria is a little bit
unclear here. We feel there needs to be an up-front assessment
done before we go in and do activities to determine what the
highest priority for an area might be. For some places,
reducing fuel loads might be the top issue, but for other
areas, invasive species or dealing with the road system might
be the highest priority. So, we think that this up-front look
will help steer the projects in the direction that would most
benefit those particular areas.
We would strongly support the provisions included in
section 6 to direct forest management activities to a smaller
scale while utilizing best value contracting. We believe this
language will support a smaller-scale approach, and hopefully
move us away from large-scale industrial forestry. We think it
will also help foster the creation of new businesses and a
restoration economy that can sustain rural communities while
providing effective community protection and forest protection.
Also, about the value added centers, we think that they can
also provide valuable assistance in utilizing and interpreting
science, and also in training the work force to carry out these
restoration projects.
We wish to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership on this issue, and for this opportunity to testify.
And we look forward to working with you and your staff as
this legislation moves forward towards passage.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Holmer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Steve Holmer, Campaign Coordinator,
American Lands Alliance
On behalf of American Lands Alliance, representing the interests of
grassroots forest conservation activists around the nation, I wish to
thank you Mr. Chairman for this opportunity to testify and for your
leadership on efforts to restore National Forests and other public
lands.
American Lands supports the intent of the Community-Based Forest
and Public Lands Restoration Act to promote restoration and to foster
community-based businesses and citizen groups in rural communities to
carry out needed restoration projects. We believe that this bill offers
a critical opportunity that shouldn't be passed up to further the
dialogue on restoration.
To this end, we have a number of suggestions that we believe will
help the legislation better promote sound ecological restoration on the
ground and ensure that the Forest Service follows the intent of this
program. Incorporating these suggestions will strengthen growing
agreement among many sectors of the public on the need for an effective
and ecologically sound approach to forest restoration.
a program for ecological restoration is needed
There is a tremendous need to carry out ecological restoration on
many parts of the National Forests due to damage caused by past
logging, roadbuilding, grazing, mining and more recently the
introduction of off road vehicles and invasive species to the public
lands. There is a huge potential to create a highly-skilled workforce
and family wage jobs to carry out this work.
Unfortunately, the Forest Service is rapidly giving restoration a
bad name by proposing large scale logging projects and promoting them
in the name of restoration and stewardship. An increase in use by the
Forest Service of the commercial timber sale program to ``restore''
federal lands poses risks that inappropriate logging will adversely
affect fish and wildlife habitat and ecologically sensitive landscapes.
There is a great need to fund projects that are based on ecologically
sound principles and criteria.
This points to the need to create a new program whose goal would be
to enhance ecological integrity by restoring natural processes and
resiliency in priority areas on the National Forest. These priority
areas and the restoration methods must be determined by comprehensive
restoration assessments that address a broad range of restoration
questions at multiple spacial scales which identify root causes of
degradation, determine priorities for restoration, and appropriate
methods for restoring degrading systems. Active restoration projects
could involve road removal, culvert removal, prescribed burning, fuels
reduction, invasives species control, fish and wildlife habitat
rehabilitation, reintroduction of extirpated species and other
necessary activities based on the priorities established in the
ecological restoration assessment.
To prevent abuses, there would need to be ecological safeguards and
positive economic incentives to implement ecological sound forest
restoration. Guidelines should include: taking a thoughtful, careful,
and conservative approach; use of appropriate contracting techniques
rather than commercial timber sales for restoration; no new
roadbuilding; protecting roadless areas and areas of high ecological
integrity; replacing low bid contracts with best value contracts that
are based on desired ecological, community and workforce objectives--
which ensure that contractors possess the necessary skills and
capacities to carry out high quality work; and requiring that project
budgets include realistic and dedicated funding for assessment,
monitoring and evaluation.
restoration principles under development
During the past year, the conservation community--together with
input from forest practitioners and community forestry groups--has
drafted Restoration Principles to promote ecological forest restoration
and to implement ecologically sound restoration policies and projects
on national forests. The Restoration Principles clearly distinguish
hazardous fuel-reduction projects designed to effectively protect homes
and communities from projects designed to restore ecological integrity
in fire-dependent ecosystems, a distinction overlooked by the Forest
Service.
The Principles are currently undergoing peer-review and will be
published later this fall. To support this program we urge Congress to
establish a new line-item called Ecological Restoration as outlined
above and fund this program at $200 million for FY 2004.
ecological restoration also means conservation
In addition to supporting active restoration projects, restoring
ecological integrity to the landscape also means not allowing the areas
of the highest ecological integrity, such as old growth and mature
forests, and roadless areas, to be degraded. To this end, we urge that
as part of a comprehensive restoration program, areas of the highest
integrity be permanently protected. This would include:
1. Old growth and mature forests
2. Roadless areas 1,000 acres and larger.
3. Threatened and endangered species habitat.
4. Unimpaired riparian and aquatic systems.
5. Large and old trees
6. Other high integrity areas identified by restoration
assessments.
It is important to recognize that even these important ecological
areas may need restoration. However, active restoration should not be
applied in these areas unless it can be shown that there is a high
degree of scientific and stakeholder support, and that there are no
other means for restoring or maintaining ecological integrity.
All restoration projects should:
Take a thoughtful, careful and conservative approach Comply
with all environmental laws
Comply with ESA recovery plans
Require restoration assessments before projects begin
Include monitoring plans and adequate funding for
assessment, monitoring and evaluation.
Take a comprehensive approach (i.e. include road closures,
erosion control, ecologically sound grazing management,
invasive species control etc.). Allow no new road building
Recognize variation in forest type and fire regimes
Use the least intrusive methods possible that will be
effective in order to avoid negative cumulative effects to
watersheds and wildlife, with the exception of road
obliteration.
sheep basin restoration project goes awry
On the Gila National Forest the Sheep Basin ``Restoration'' Project
illustrates a basic disagreement that often keeps us from effective
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 idea was to move beyond this the
usual forest management conflicts to watershed restoration that would
benefit all stakeholders.
After years of dialogue an astonishing 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 in an equally astonishing move 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 effective methods to 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. This story outlines the basic disconnect
between the Forest Service and conservation groups as well as many
rural communities that are working toward ecologically sound, effective
solutions to community protection.
east rim vegetation management project--kaibab national forest
This project is intended to improve forest size distribution, to
improve wildlife habitat for late seral species; reduce infection
centers of dwarf mistletoe and road management. However, the project
proposes to log 8 million board feet of timber over 7,500 acres,
including old growth trees.
The Kaibab Plateau country on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
contains some of the most extensive stands of old-growth forest
remaining in the Southwest. These forests contain an incredible
diversity of wildlife, including the densest breeding population of
northern goshawks in North America, the endemic Kaibab squirrel and the
famous Kaibab mule deer herd. While partially included within Grand
Canyon National Park, most of the Plateau is administered by the Kaibab
National Forest. Teddy Roosevelt was so inspired by the area that in
1906 he declared it to be the Grand Canyon Game Preserve, the only such
area in the Southwest.
Despite the critical ecological importance of the forest on the
Kaibab Plateau, the Forest Service continues to propose timber sales
that log thousands of mature and old growth trees. For example, the
East Rim Vegetative Management Project would log over 8 million board
feet of old-growth ponderosa pine, mixed-conifer and spruce-fir forest.
Much of the proposed logging within the East Rim timber sale will occur
directly on the edge of steep canyon directly bordering a designated
wilderness area. Erosion and sedimentation caused by the logging
operations will directly impact a genetically pure population of the
threatened Apache trout less than a mile from the sale's boundaries.
iron honey restoration project--coeur d'alene national forest
The Forest Service is proposing aquatic, vegetative and wildlife
habitat improvement activities in the 21,600 acre Iron Honey Resource
Area, located at the upper end of the Little North Fork d'Alene River
drainage. The purpose and need for this project are to: 1) Improve
Water quality, fish habitat and riparian habitat by reducing sediment
and increasing large woody debris in the streams; 2) Trend the
vegetative species composition toward historical levels, which included
species more resistant to insect and disease; 3) Increase age-class
diversity and reduce old-growth fragmentation; and 4. Reduce fire
hazard and potential fire severity.
However, the project includes 1,919 acres of even-age management
(clearcutting), 70% canopy removal average, and 27 million board feet
of logging, or 5,500 log trucks of trees. The Forest Service is also
currently is proposing 34.2 miles of road work scattered throughout the
entire 22,000 acre project area, including permanent and temporary road
construction as well as road reconstruction.
The Coeur d'Alene watershed provides 80% of the water for 400,000
people and there is great concern that logging and road building in
this area will harm the water supply of the City of Spokane. The Coeur
d'Alene Ranger District already has 11 miles of road per square mile,
making it the district with the highest road density of any other
Forest Service ranger district.
Flooding caused by logging and road building is the main mechanism
for heavy metal transport from the flood plain of the Coeur d'Alene
River to the Lake Coer d'Alene and the Spokane River. During the five
to nine years the Forest Service believes it would take the watershed
to return to ``normal'' the main stem of the Coeur d'Alene River will
be in the middle of intense cleanup.
The Forest Service cannot insure that during those five to nine
years there will not be a rain on snow event, which would cause
flooding in the basin, potentially redistributing heavy metals. The
removal of vegetation in the North Fork is the predominate factor
leading to rain on snow events. As a result, this project could cause a
significant reduction in ecological integrity as well as contribute to
flooding that spreads heavy metal contamination.
recommendations for improving s. 2672
With these lessons in mind, we would like to recommend the
following changes and additions to S. 2672 to ensure that the laudable
goals of the bill are realized.
Environmental Safeguards
We recommend that language be added to the bill protecting old and
large trees, roadless areas and endangered species habitat. We also
urge a prohibition of new road construction and reconstruction. These
provisions will help ensure the resulting projects will enhance
ecological integrity and will help reduce controversy and public
opposition to projects involving the cutting of trees or that are
proposed in ecologically sensitive areas.
Economic Safeguards
There remains a concern that commercial incentives and commodity
production should not be allowed to drive restoration project design
and implementation. The current timber sale program continues to give
priority to economic interests and is not appropriate for restoring
forests. Past timber sale practices and the excessive construction of
timber roads are a significant reason why restoration is currently
needed on the National Forests. Therefore, we urge that the bill avoid
the use of timber sales to pay for restoration projects.
However, restoration by-products derived from ecologically based
restoration projects may have value secondarily. Alternative
contracting mechanisms must be developed that are driven by ecological
objectives. Other contracting and funding mechanisms that are worth
further consideration are cost share grants as well as cooperative and
participating agreements.
Definition of Restoration
The term to restore means to enhance ecological integrity by
restoring natural processes and resiliency. Effective forest
restoration should reestablish fully functioning ecosystems. Ecological
integrity can be thought of as the ability of an ecosystem to support
and maintain a balanced, adaptive community of organisms having a
species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable
to that of natural habitats with in a region (Karr and Dudley 1981).
Restoration is More than Wood Bi-Products
The bill as proposed places strong focus on utilizing trees as
restoration bi-products. The bill language does not identify a
framework for ecological restoration and associated employment
opportunities nor identify other activities that are must be part of
truly sound ecological restoration efforts. These include but are not
limited to: road de-commissioning, improving aquatic habitat (e.g.
culvert removal, recruitment of woody debris in streams, etc.).
Principles of restoration must include passive and active
strategies for restoration. Passive restoration is ceasing activities
that have been determined by a restoration assessment to impede natural
recovery processes. Cessation of degrading activities is a priority
when it has been determined by a restoration assessment to impede
natural recovery processes. Passive restoration should take precedent
where it is vital to eliminate or reduce the root causes of ecosystem
degradation, including stopping destructive logging, road-building,
livestock grazing, mining, building of dams and water diversions, off-
road vehicle use, and alteration of fire regimes. This form of
restoration, which should be based on thoughtful analysis and planning,
must be distinguished from passive management, which has been
criticized as mere neglect.
Project Criteria Unclear
The legislation establishes a program to create new restoration
projects but does not discuss how the projects are selected and by
whom. We recommend a landscape scale assessment be completed to
determine restoration priorities for a specific area. For example in
some areas, reducing fuel loads may the be the highest priority, but
for other areas, removing invasive species may be more important. This
guidance is needed to ensure the projects meet the ecological needs of
each area.
s. 2672 supports the creation of a restoration economy
American Lands supports provisions included in Section 6 of S. 2672
to direct forest management activities to a smaller-scale while
utilizing best-value contracting. We believe this language will support
a smaller scale approach moving away from larger scale industrial
forestry. It will also help foster the creation of new businesses and a
restoration economy that can sustain rural communities while providing
effective community protection and forest protection and forest
restoration approaches.
The Forest Restoration and Value-Added Centers authorized in Sec. 5
may prove valuable in providing assistance in utilizing and
interpreting science and training a work force with specific skills in
forest restoration.
We wish to thank you again Mr. Chairman for your leadership on this
issue and for this opportunity to testify. We look forward to working
with you and your staff on this legislation as is moves towards passage
to accomplish the restoration of ecological integrity across America's
forested landscape.
______
Statement of Todd Schulke, Forest Policy Director, Center for
Biological Diversity, Pinos Altos, NM
We are writing to brief you on a disturbing turn of events
concerning the Negrito Watershed, the collaborative project you help
initiate in the early nineties. As you know there has been 10 hard
years of work building agreement in Catron County around watershed
restoration, ecological protection, and local employment opportunity. A
recent decision by the Gila National Forest to log large trees in the
Sheep Basin ``Restoration'' Project (the first phase of the Negrito
plan) ignored the ground-breaking agreement between the Catron County
Citizens Group and conservation groups to limit thinning to small
diameter trees. By choosing controversy over cooperation the Gila
forced appeals by conservation groups dedicated to the protection of
large and old trees.
The Center for Biological Diversity has participated in several
field trips with the Gila National Forest and the Catron County
Citizens Group. We have also commented several times on the proposed
restoration plans. We have made it clear that if the Gila followed
basic restoration principles (including a diameter cap to cutting large
trees) that we would participate in an agreement to proceed with the
Sheep Basin project.
The Catron County Citizen's Group has also maintained that they
support a using a restoration approach to the prescriptions used on
Sheep Basin. They have strongly supported use of a diameter cap on the
project. Even Don Weaver, member of the citizen's group and former head
timber staff on the Reserve District of the Gila National Forest, wrote
letters stating that the ecological objectives of the project could be
reached using a diameter cap.
All parties interested in the Sheep Basin project were then
astounded when the Gila National Forest made the decision to log large
trees from Sheep Basin. The Center appealed the project, though we have
offered to rescind the appeal if agreement can be reached on the
diameter cap. The Catron County Citizen's Group has written letters to
the Gila outlining their concerns with logging large trees and
illustrating on-the-ground examples of healthy old growth trees that
are marked to be logged for no apparent reason. Thus far there has been
no indication that the Gila plans to alter the decision in order to
honor the agreement built between the Center and the Catron County
Citizen's Group (CCCG).
To further add salt to our wounds the Gila National Forest admitted
in comments back to us that Sheep Basin was not a restoration project
but that they didn't want to change the name so that they wouldn't
confuse anyone.
``Although the project was scoped with the title Sheep Basin
Restoration Project, only grasslands are proposed for
restoration work. Desired conditions are based upon the Gila
Forest Plan as amended and not intended to restore these
vegetation types. The original project title was retained to
avoid possible confusion with other projects'' (From Sheep
Basin Comment Analysis). Both conservation groups and CCCG are
far too experienced and involved to be ``confused''.
The Gila also admitted that though there are wildland urban
interface areas within the Sheep Basin project that they had no plans
to treat them at this time.
``Although the wildland urban interface biological opinion
considered some areas within the Negrito watershed, there are
no proposals to treat these areas at this time.'' (From Sheep
Basin Comment Analysis.)
A final concern with the Sheep Basin project is that though the
Forest Service has plans to log approximately 90 million board feet of
timber from the Negrito Watershed, they have done no cumulative effects
analysis on the potential damage caused by so much logging concentrated
in one watershed. In fact the Gila has combined the next 2 phases of
the Negrito plan, proposing to log millions of board feet of timber on
up to 10,000 acres, making the cumulative effects concern very real.
This situation is a good illustration of many upcoming Forest
Service projects in Arizona and New Mexico. Many of the new projects
developed in Region 3 are timber sales that log large trees under the
guise of forest restoration and community protection. As you know there
is plenty of evidence showing that logging large trees is ecologically
harmful while often time actually increasing fire danger. As disturbing
is the apparent disregard of the Forest Service of progressive
agreements between rural communities and conservation groups. This is
particularly disturbing in light of the legitimate efforts that need to
be made to protect communities from the risk of forest fires. There is
plenty of room here for agreement. The Forest Service simply has to
honor these agreements when they develop or we will never see the kind
of cooperation that we know you envision.
We thought you might be particularly interested in the Sheep Basin
project given your past support of the Negrito Watershed Plan and your
commitment to building agreement and encouraging cooperation between
rural communities and conservation groups. We would appreciate any help
you can offer toward resolution of this perplexing problem.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Senator Craig has not had a chance to ask his questions.
Let me defer to him at this point for any questions he has.
Senator Craig. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And
thank all of you for being here, especially for the trek out of
Elk City, I suspect to Spokane.
Ms. Dearstyne. No. It was Elk City to Lewiston, Lewiston to
Boise, Boise to Phoenix, Phoenix to D.C.
[Laughter].
Senator Craig. Okay. Ouch.
[Laughter].
Senator Craig. Yes. For those of you who missed the
opportunity to get to Elk City, it is at the end of 50 miles of
beautiful drive in the back countries in the back forests of
Idaho into a small forest-bound community of wonderful beauty.
And, in this day and age, very frustrated people.
But I do, Joyce, thank you for being here because some of
what you are trying to do there is so extremely valuable toward
what we are looking at with this legislation, both the Chairman
and I.
If I were to give you a clean sheet of paper and suggest to
you that you put down, let us say, three things that this
Congress and the administration could do to help your efforts
in Elk City, what might those three things be?
Ms. Dearstyne. It would be to designate us as one of the
value added centers; give us the ability to spend those monies
in supporting efforts of restoration; and taking those products
then and utilizing them to develop the secondary wood products
that will give us a much higher rate of return than what
dimensional-sawn lumber does, because that would directly
affect those people within our communities who have hung on and
not moved out, and give them an income that would be year-
round, have a living wage and benefits. And it would be to a
scale that we could handle.
Senator Craig. Yes. We know that in Elk City you still have
a primary forest products manufacturing facility, and I am
wondering if your operation could be replicated in a community
that does not have the manufacturing base or has, let us say,
lost its manufacturing base that Elk City still has.
Ms. Dearstyne. Yes. What we did was we did not so much
develop a model as we did a process. And our process started
with going to the community and asking them what type of
development they wanted to see. Then, we did an assessment of
what the raw materials were in our area that could actually be
accessed.
Senator Craig. Yes.
Ms. Dearstyne. And from there, we did an assessment of our
infrastructure. We then went out and built our project around
that foundation, and we realized that we could utilize small-
diameter timber in the process of timber framing buildings that
would last hundreds of years, and get a much higher rate of
return. We could also take what is known as drop-off from a log
that is used to cut for a timber, and that could be utilized by
a furniture manufacturer, a decorative furnishings
manufacturer. And we then took the waste from that and we will
burn it in a commercial wood-burning stove that heats the
radiant heat system in our floor. There will be no waste.
Senator Craig. Well, Joyce, thank you.
Steve, you have been before our committees on numerous
occasions to testify over a variety of aspects of forest
management. And as we struggle to find a policy that meets some
of the criteria that the chairman and I are striving to
accomplish, and creates the new dynamics in a forest community,
I hear coming from you though something that frustrates me a
bit in your testimony. And some of it is a bit of the old
rhetoric, the old growth, roadless rhetoric that--well, I am
not so sure that it has not put some in trouble today, and I do
not know how to deal with it.
We have a great frustration in the West at this moment.
While Idaho is fortunately enough just drying out, so it has
not experienced the Mission Ridge near Durango, or the fires in
Medicine Bow, or the Stamford fire in Dixie, or the fires that
are burning now in Oregon, but there is something very unique
about those fires at this moment: 75 to 95 percent of them are
in roadless areas at this moment, and are burning out of them
into nonroaded areas.
While I am maybe willing to go out and carve out and
protect old growth, there is 64 million acres of roadless area
out there and, by definition, not all of it is old growth. And,
clearly, the forest health problem of today that might allow us
the dynamics for a new small log operation or small diameter
operation that could be a product, an end product, of the
stewardship and the cleaning and the defueling of our forests
that an Elk City or some other community could arrive from, it
is going to take a few roads to get there. And yet you are
suggesting, I think, by your testimony that we do not enter
those areas. How do we deal with it then?
I do not need to tell you. You have been around a long
while and studied this every bit as much as I. But the fires
the West is experiencing today are devastating. They are taking
out the ecosystems, the watersheds, the wildlife habitat. There
is not a new logging operation today, properly designed, moving
lightly on the land, thin and clean, that in any way does the
kind of damage that those fires are doing. Generationally, they
are destroying now 3 million, almost 4 million acres to date.
And I do not know how we get to new dynamics if we operate them
on the old foundation.
Mr. Holmer. Well, I----
Senator Craig. Talk to me about that if you would.
Mr. Holmer. Yes, I would. To respond to your first point
about the nature of today's fires, a lot of the same language
and rhetoric was used about the Yellowstone fires in 1988.
``The National Park has been destroyed,'' I think was heard
many times. But if you go to Yellowstone today, you will find a
resilient ecosystem and abundant wildlife.
And, in fact, it did not wipe out endangered species. It
did not destroy the National Park. And, so, I do think that
there is a bit of hyperbole going on.
Historically, over the last 10 years, only 18 percent of
the lands that have been burned have been National Forests
lands, and when you start looking at, particularly on the
roadless area issue itself, the roadless EIS was very clear
that roadless areas are not the highest priority areas for
treatment. There are so many acres that are closer to homes and
communities which have been shown to be where the treatments
have the most effect that, according to the EIS, roadless areas
would not be a priority for treatment for another 20 years.
And, so, we do believe in community protection. We support
efforts to create defensible space around homes, create
defensible zones for firefighters to operate. And, in fact, we
have been doing extensive research and literature reviews, and
working with scientists, to develop what we consider a better
definition of the wild land/urban interface. And I believe they
have come out with 60 meters around homes and a total of a 500-
meter firefighter safety zone. So for the high priority areas,
we are totally willing to support activities to reduce fuels in
those areas.
We have seen problems with commercial logging in the back
country actually increasing this problem by logging large
trees, leaving slash behind, drying out the forest. And so we
do feel like there is still a lot to be learned, and a lot of
questions about the idea of landscape-wide thinning.
So, I do feel like when you look at the science, it does
support protection of old growth. It does support protection of
roadless areas, but that does not mean that there would never
be any restoration activities or fuel-reduction activities in
those areas. If it was determined to be a priority, the
roadless area conservation rule allows for activities to remove
those fuels in roadless areas. And, so, we feel like the
discretion has been retained by the agency if you do have a
high-priority situation. But, again, we feel the emphasis
should be much closer to home.
Senator Craig. Okay. Well, I must tell you that I find your
rhetoric not changed from 5 years ago or 3 years ago.
Mr. Holmer. My rhetoric is based----
Senator Craig. Habitat is----
Mr. Holmer [continuing]. On Forest Service science.
Senator Craig. Habitat; 3 million acres, almost 4 million
now, habitat. Do not tell me wildlife and water resources have
not been wiped out in the last month that might have--and I am
not going to suggest that in a decade we get to hardly any of
it. But we might get to some of it. Urban interface is
critical, but urban interface is not everything. And why should
our tax dollars be paying for that which the private landowner
ought to do? Our tax dollars ought to be dedicated to
protecting the public resource, and yet these fires that we are
putting out in our National Forests today are dedicated to
protecting private land, private property.
I find it very frustrating. I guess, you know, one other
conclusion that I would draw--and, Mr. Chairman, I will only be
a limited amount of politically incorrect here.
But we just passed a supplemental appropriation bill where
one Senator thought his forests were so special that he would
exempt them.
Mr. Holmer. My organization was not part of that settlement
agreement, but I do understand that this was an attempt to
resolve a dispute that had been going on for quite some time.
So, I----
Senator Craig. So, we exempt that forest because it is
okay, but for the rest of them it is not.
Mr. Holmer. I do not think it is really a good example for
adopting a nationwide policy of----
Senator Craig. I think it is a perfect example, and you
know it as well as I do. I have been through the Black Hills,
and I suspect you have, too.
Mr. Holmer. I have, and I would describe----
Senator Craig. They have the same problems----
Mr. Holmer. I would describe the Black Hills as a manicured
forest. It has been one of the most intensively managed
forests. It has one of the highest road densities. So, to
suggest that the Black Hills have not had adequate management
over the last 20 years is ridiculous.
Senator Craig. So we exempt it?
Mr. Holmer. I totally disagree with that policy. I would
have opposed that if I had known it was coming.
Senator Craig. Thank you. At least you would be consistent.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Steve.
And, Joyce, thank you.
The Chairman. Let me ask a couple of questions. The bill,
as we have drafted it, requires the appropriate regional
forester to select the recipients of the grants to create these
centers, these restoration value added centers. The testimony
from the Forest Service witness stated that they would prefer
the Chief of the Forest Service to do the selecting instead of
the regional forester.
Do you have any views on whether this should be done by the
regional forester or by the Chief of the Forest Service here in
Washington? Ms. Dearstyne, did you have any thoughts on that?
Ms. Dearstyne. No, I have not. Our regional forester has
just taken office within the last 3 to 4 months. So, I really
cannot base any comment.
The Chairman. Okay. Ms. Enzer, did you have a thought?
Ms. Enzer. Sure. I think that it is very important that
these centers be able to reflect the regional context. In some
places, they have lost an enormous amount of infrastructure in
the industry, and people may want--the way that this is
written, they can put a proposal together that reflects what
they want to do. Do they want to focus on training people how
to do restoration work on the land? Do they want to focus on
processing the byproducts of those activities? Do they want to
do both?
And I think that by having the regional office work to
select these centers, they are going to be much closer to that
regional context. They are going to understand the dynamics
there much better than I think Washington, D.C. may be able to.
I also would hope that it would happen perhaps more quickly,
and each region would be able to deal with it on its own.
I guess I would also just say that I think that the centers
do not have to be very large, huge, you know, institutes. These
centers are things that will be built at community scale. They
are centers that will reflect the needs of places like Elk City
or Hayfork.
And while earlier today they said that if it is not
accessible to all communities, that that is not a good idea, I
guess, from my point of view, these centers will help to
rebuild some of that institutional capacity where it has been
lost. The centers should not belong to the Government. The
centers should be run by the local nonprofits or whoever is
successful at winning the RFP for them, and they will be
responsible for sustaining those centers over time.
And I think in the bill you have provided for kind of a
tiering off, not to eliminate the role of the Forest Service as
a good partner. They are critical. We could not do it without
the Forest Products Lab and the research stations. But this is
about communities creating a future for themselves, and I
really like the way that you designed it in the bill.
The Chairman. Mr. Holmer, did you have a thought on any of
this?
Mr. Holmer. Well, I would agree with Maia. I think that
there are very real regional differences in terms of what the
priorities and needs on restoration are. What needs to happen
in the Southwest is probably not what probably needs to be
happening in the Southeast, for example.
The Chairman. So, you favor keeping the decision making on
these grants at the regional level?
Mr. Holmer. Yes. We would be comfortable with that.
The Chairman. Okay. Well, I think this has been useful
testimony. We will continue to call on each of you for more
input. And we appreciate the detailed suggestions that we have
received on ways to improve the legislation.
So, thank you all very much and that will conclude our
hearing.
[Whereupon, at 3:35 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[The following statement was received for the record:]
Statement of the U.S. Small Business Administration
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) administers the
Natural Resources Sales Assistance Program. The purpose of this program
is to aid and assist small businesses in obtaining their fair share of
Federal property offered for sale or disposal by other means. Within
this Program, SBA's efforts have been concentrated on the sales of
Federal timber. SBA reviews timber sale plans and programs from the
National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and
recommends changes which will ensure that the small business community
is given an opportunity to compete for a fair share of Government
timber sales offered. SBA tracks the purchase of timber by small
businesses in order to calculate their share of the market and to
determine the need for set-aside timber sales. If small businesses
purchase less than 10 percent of their market share, then SBA
designates the timber set-aside sales. Over the last five years, the
number of timber sales for purchase by small business has declined from
1,494 timber sales in FY 1996 to 572 sales in FY 2000.
We have reviewed S. 2672, the Community-Based Forest and Public
Lands Restoration Act, and we are currently evaluating the total impact
that this legislation will have on small business timber sales.
This legislation will establish a joint community-based program for
the restoration of National forests, to be administered by the
Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture. The
Secretaries will implement projects under the program to assist small
rural communities to perform much needed ecological restoration.
The legislation would also empower the Secretaries to develop
partnerships and contracts with non-profit organizations, conservation
groups, small and micro businesses, and other entities to perform
needed restoration work, and to use the by-products of such restoration
in value-added processing. S. 2672 requires that these Secretaries
limit competition and reserve contracts including special salvage
timber sales, timber sale contracts, and service contracts for the
above mentioned entities.
The SBA has questions regarding the definition of small business
and the limitation on competition for timber sale purchases envisioned
by S. 2672.
Definition of Small Business. It appears that this Bill as proposed
will only benefit a narrowly tailored segment of the small business
community. The size classifications for ``micro-enterprise'' (5 or
fewer people) and ``small enterprise'' (6 to 150 people) conflicts with
the current SBA Regulations for the purchase of Government owned timber
(500 or fewer employees) and Government-owned Special Salvage Timber
(25 or fewer employees).
Limiting. Competition on Timber Sale Purchases. As you are aware,
small business timber sales have declined significantly over the past
10 years. Small business sawmills and loggers have been severely
impacted by the reduced amount of Federal timber available for
harvesting, and many have either shut-down their mills, or have gone
out of business.
To stay in business, many small sawmills and loggers have changed
their focus to purchase Federal timber sales through fuel reduction
contracts, service contracts, and when available, special salvage
timber sales. While these contracts offer another alternative for
business and timber harvesting, the amounts of timber, and the timber
by-products that these contracts yield are small, and can only be
considered as supplemental at best. In fiscal year 2001, six special
salvage timber sales were offered to small business.
Although unintended, it appears that S. 2672 may impact timber
sales, and if so, any reduction of these contracts would represent a
significant loss to the small business community
Thank you for the opportunity to provide our views on this
important legislation.