[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WILDFIRES IN THE WEST: IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S RESPONSE ADEQUATE?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL
RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 5, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-178
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
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____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ------ ------
PATRICK J. HARRIS, Ohio ------
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs
DOUG OSE, California, Chairman
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Barbara F. Kahlow, Staff Director
Melanie Tory, Professional Staff Member
Lauren Jacobs, Clerk
Krista Boyd, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 5, 2004...................................... 1
Statement of:
Campbell, William, chairman, Blue Ribbon Fire Commission;
Bruce Turbeville, chairman of the Fire Safe Council;
William J. McCammon, president, California Fire Chiefs
Association; and Amy Mall, senior forest policy analyst,
Natural Resources Defense Council.......................... 73
Scarlett, P. Lynn, Assistant Secretary for Policy,
Management, and Budget, Department of Interior; and Mark E.
Rey, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment,
Department of Agriculture.................................. 27
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Campbell, William, chairman, Blue Ribbon Fire Commission,
prepared statement of...................................... 76
Mall, Amy, senior forest policy analyst, Natural Resources
Defense Council, prepared statement of..................... 145
McCammon, William J., president, California Fire Chiefs
Association, prepared statement of......................... 131
Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California:
Cover of a report entitled, ``Science Basis for Changing
Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and
Severity,''............................................ 64
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Rey, Mark E., Under Secretary for Natural Resources and
Environment, Department of Agriculture, prepared statement
of......................................................... 43
Scarlett, P. Lynn, Assistant Secretary for Policy,
Management, and Budget, Department of Interior, prepared
statement of............................................... 30
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 51
Turbeville, Bruce, chairman of the Fire Safe Council,
prepared statement of...................................... 118
WILDFIRES IN THE WEST: IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S RESPONSE ADEQUATE?
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources
and Regulatory Affairs,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Ose
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Ose, Shays, Tierney, Cannon,
Schrock, and Tom Davis of Virginia [ex officio].
Staff present: Barbara F. Kahlow, staff director; Melanie
Tory, professional staff member; Lauren Jacobs, clerk; Megan
Taormino, press secretary; Krista Boyd, minority counsel; and
Cecelia Morton, minority office manager.
Mr. Ose. Good afternoon. Welcome to today's hearing of the
Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory
Affairs. Today's subject is: ``Wildfires in the West: Is the
Bush Administration's Response Adequate?''
Given that we just got called for a vote, here's the order
of battle today. We're going to go ahead and commence the
hearing, establish the quorum. I'm going to give my opening
statement, and then we are going to recess and go to votes and
then we'll be back at the conclusion of those votes, at which
time we will swear in the witnesses and commence with receiving
their testimony.
We'll establish first that there is a quorum present with
Chairman Davis in attendance, and I will go ahead and make my
opening statement.
Today 15,000 fire fighters are on the front lines of
wildfires in California. Although we are only 2 days into the
southern California fire season, we've already had over 18,000
acres burned. It's timely that we're here today to discuss
wildfire policy in the West. Failure to properly address this
issue will result in the needless destruction of communities,
forests, rangelands, and habitats.
After 100 years of well-intentioned, and frankly misguided
land management policy, Federal lands that were once healthy
and productive are now unnaturally dense and diseased. Due to
these unhealthy conditions, our national lands have become
increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires. In 2000 and
2002, our country suffered its worst two wildland fire seasons
in 50 years. Combined, the fires of 2000 and 2002 burned over
15 million acres of land and cost the Federal Government nearly
$3 billion to suppress. The 2002 fire season was particularly
severe in the West, with Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and
Oregon reporting their worst fires in modern history.
Similarly, in 2003 California experienced its worst fire season
when 13 wildfires claimed 24 lives, destroyed 3,600 homes,
burned 739,000 acres, and cost $250 million to contain.
Faced with these escalating economic and ecological losses,
in August 2002, President Bush announced his Health Forests
Initiative. This plan sought to reduce the statutory,
regulatory, and administrative obstacles to effective fire
prevention and rehabilitation on Federal lands. As part of this
plan, in December 2002, the Bush administration proposed a
series of administrative actions that facilitated timely
reviews of forest projects, amended the project appeals
process, improved the consultation process required under the
Endangered Species Act, and created a more effective
environmental assessment process under the National
Environmental Policy Act.
As shown in the chart on display, in 2003 and 2004, the
Departments of Agriculture and Interior promulgated three final
rules, one interim final rule, and one notice to implement
these changes.
In addition to regulatory reform, the Bush administration
has sought new statutory authority from Congress to adequately
protect Federal lands from wildfires. The resulting
legislation, known as the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, was
signed into law in December 2003. It's known as Public Law 108-
148. Despite the new tools available to Federal land managers,
it is likely that the West will once again experience a severe
fire season this year. This problem was not created overnight
and it will not be solved overnight. Nonetheless, it is still
important that we expeditiously begin the process of removing
hazardous fuels and returning our national lands to their
former glory. To that end, we are here today to assess whether
the reforms realized under the Health Forests Initiative and
Healthy Forests Restoration Act are sufficient to eliminate the
barriers to effective land management policy in the long term.
Additionally, we are here today to discuss ways to enhance
cooperation and coordination among Federal, State, local, and
private entities. Fires are equal opportunists. They harm
everybody. They'll consume privately owned land in the same way
they consume adjacent Federal land, State land, or local land.
The best way to prevent catastrophic wildfires is to forge
alliances among the various stakeholders.
Last, we are here today to remind the public of the very
real fire danger that exists and of the need to vigilantly
address the issue. All too often support for wildfire
prevention and suppression is forgotten as soon as the flames
are extinguished. In March, four ballot measures to improve
fire prediction failed in San Diego County. Think about that.
The voters who were most affected by the 2003 wildfires opted
not to support actions to increase the ability of the community
to prepare and respond to wildfires. For land managers and fire
professionals to reduce the wildfire threat, they must have
public support.
Wildfires remain a significant threat to many communities
and habitats throughout the West. As we examine this issue, key
questions will include: One, is the Federal Government doing
enough to mitigate wildfire risks; two, how can stakeholder
relationships be improved; and three, are additional measures
needed to address wildfires in the short or long-term?
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. They
include the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and
Budget at the Department of Interior, Ms. Lynn Scarlett; the
Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment at
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mr. Mark Rey; the chairman
of the California Governor's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission,
Senator William Campbell; the chairman of the Fire Safe
Council, Mr. Bruce Turbeville; the president of the California
Fire Chiefs Association, Mr. William McCammon; and the senior
forest policy analyst for Natural Resources Defense Counsel,
Ms. Amy Mall. Unfortunately, we were advised this morning that
Governor Martz, who was to testify on behalf of the Western
Governors' Association was called back to Montana because of a
family emergency. Her written testimony will be submitted for
the record. The record will remain open for the next 10 days to
allow Members to submit any written questions they may have for
Governor Martz.
Now, given what I described earlier, the three of us are
going to quickly go to the floor. Before we do, I am pleased to
recognize the chairman of the full committee for the purpose of
opening statement.
[The prepared statements of Hon. Doug Ose and Governor
Martz follow:]
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Mr. Davis. Thank you. We have a vote on. I thank the
witnesses for being here today. It is an important fact-finding
hearing for us, and I want to commend you Mr. Chairman, for
holding it.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman for holding this important
hearing. Obviously, we can learn a lot that needs to be
learned. Thank you.
Mr. Ose. Thank you.
All right. We're going to recess for the purpose of getting
over to vote, and we'll be back as quickly as possible. I'd ask
the witnesses to stay in close proximity.
[Recess.]
Mr. Ose. We'll come to order again. I want to apologize for
the break. I want to welcome our two remaining panelists on
panel one. Again, the Assistant Secretary for Policy,
Management, and Budget at the Department of Interior, Ms. Lynn
Scarlett, welcome; and the Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and the Environment at the Department of Agriculture,
Mr. Mark Rey. Both are welcome. We have received both of your
testimonies and I've actually read both of them, so don't be
shocked by that.
Now, in this committee as a matter of practice we swear in
all of our witnesses, so we're going to have you all rise and
be sworn in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Ose. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
Our first witness on panel one is the Assistant Secretary
for Policy, Management, and Budget at the U.S. Department of
Interior, Ms. Lynn Scarlett.
Ma'am, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Please keep in
mind we've received your testimony, we've reviewed it, we're
making it a part of the record. If there's something you care
to summarize or add to it, this is the time to take advantage.
STATEMENTS OF P. LYNN SCARLETT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY,
MANAGEMENT, AND BUDGET, DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR; AND MARK E.
REY, UNDER SECRETARY FOR NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT,
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Ms. Scarlett. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman
and members of the committee, for this opportunity to discuss
wildland fire. We thank you for your support in helping us to
reduce the risk wildland fire poses to people, communities, and
our natural resources--risks so evident as fires burn in
California this very day.
President Bush announced his Healthy Forests Initiative in
August 2002, as we are aware. The chief purpose of that
initiative was to help us expedite fuels treatment projects so
that we could begin to quickly and efficiently tackle the
buildup of fuels on our ranges and forests.
To achieve this goal, the Council of Environmental Quality
issued streamlined environmental assessment guidelines for
fuels treatment projects. The environmental assessments are now
two to five times shorter than those only a year ago. We have
completed nine projects, piloting the guidance. None of the
streamlined environmental assessments has been appealed or
challenged in courts.
The second tool that we put forth under the Healthy Forests
Initiative was through the Departments of Agriculture and
Interior jointly adopting a new categorical exclusion for
certain types of fuels treatment activities and post-fire
restoration. Although the tool just became available after the
2004 fuels program was finalized, the bureaus have recognized
its value and are beginning to utilize it. We have done one
project under a categorical exclusion, for example, at Big
Cypress National Preserve on 1,000 acres to reduce dense brush
along a highway.
Third, we have improved procedures for meeting the goals of
the Endangered Species Act. In January of this year, the
Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce finalized
regulations making the consultation process under Section 7 of
the act more effective for fuels treatment projects.
Alternative conservation agreements under that new approach are
now in place with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management.
Fourth, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and
the Assistant Administrator of NOAA issued guidance in December
2002 directing staff to look at the long-term benefit of fuels
treatments to plants and animals rather than just short-term
impacts of a given fuels treatment project.
In addition to these tools, Congress has made it easier for
us to get fuels off the land. The President sought, and in 2003
the Congress provided, long-term stewardship contracting
authority for the Bureau of Land Management and expanded the
limited authority previously granted to the Forest Service.
Stewardship contracts or agreements allow communities, tribes,
private companies, and others to retain forest and rangeland
products in exchange for performing services for the BLM such
as fuel reduction projects. The BLM has begun using this tool.
They issued field guidance in January of this year and are
already on track to award over 30 contracts in 11 States, with
another 80 projects in various stages of planning for 2005.
One such project is the Walker/Mono Basin project near
Bishop, CA, that will remove fuels from 2,000 acres within the
wildland urban interface using a stewardship contract.
To further assist agencies in reducing risks of
catastrophic wildland fire, Congress passed the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act, which President Bush signed in December 2003.
We have responded swiftly to implement the legislation. In
February of this year, the Bureau of Land Management and the
Forest Service issued field guidance to implement the act.
Above all, working closely with communities is central to the
Health Forests Initiative and Healthy Forests Restoration Act.
The principal entity overseeing implementation of the
National Fire Plan is the Wildland Fire Leadership Council, on
which sit States, local governments, tribal governments, in
addition to Federal agencies. I have chaired this council over
the last year. How we work with our partners varies across
States and across localities. In California, the collaborative
effort falls to the California Fire Alliance, a cooperative
group consisting of Federal land management agencies, the
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the
Governor's Office of Emergency Services, and the California
Fire Safe Council and others. In Florida, local collaboration
occurs through prescribed fire councils, local cooperative
associations, and local divisions of the Florida Division of
Forestry.
Numerous other examples of Federal collaboration with our
State, tribal, and local partners are a driving force behind
all our efforts.
The 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy gives States the lead in
prioritizing communities at risk from wildland fire. Last June,
the National Association of State Foresters proposed a
methodology for all States to use in expanding collaboration
and cooperation to better prioritize fuels treatment projects.
Reducing risks in the wildland-urban interface is our highest
priority. We dedicate over 60 percent of hazardous fuels
reduction dollars to projects in or near the wildland-urban
interface. From the beginning of fiscal year 2001 to the end of
fiscal year 2004, the Department of the Interior will have
removed hazardous fuels from over 4 million acres nationwide,
including 1.2 million acres in the wildland-urban interface.
Mr. Ose. Ms. Scarlett, if I might, one thing I've learned
here is that the red light comes on to remind the witness that
they need to wrap up.
Ms. Scarlett. Sorry. Didn't see that red light.
Mr. Ose. OK.
Ms. Scarlett. I will wrap up.
Just to conclude, the investments that we have made are
allowing us to, in California, alone, expend some $21 million,
which is an increase of over 50 percent compared to 2001, to
tackle these problems.
Mr. Chairman, we understand the problems facing the Nation
and California. As we sit here today, a number of fires burn in
southern California. It is our intent through the wildland fire
efforts that we have underway in our fuels reduction projects
to begin to change the trendline and turn the corner around
these challenges that we face.
Thank you very much. I look forward to answering any of
your questions.
Mr. Ose. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Scarlett follows:]
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Mr. Ose. Our next witness is a friend of mine in my time
here in Congress. He's the Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and the Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
It's nice to see you again, Mr. Rey. You are recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. Rey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My statement for the
record includes a summary of the Department of Agriculture's
accomplishments under the National Fire Plan and Health Forests
Initiative, comparable to that which Assistant Secretary
Scarlett recounted for the Department of Interior, but I'll
submit that for the record and instead talk a little bit about
the fire season that we expect this year and then talk a little
bit about funding for Healthy Forests Restoration Act programs.
While the fire season nationally is expected to be about
average in terms of expected number of fires and acres, much of
the interior West and southwest Alaska is expected to have the
potential for an above-normal fire season. The combination of
drought and an increased of drought-stressed and insect-damaged
trees and brush has resulted in a greater potential for large
wildfires in the West. A very warm March has led to a
significant reduction of western snow packs, and southwest
Alaska snowpacks are below normal, as well.
Late March and early April storms in the Southwestern
States have delayed the onset of the fire season because it
starts first in the Southwest and then moves North. However,
the Southwest is expecting a rapid escalation to critical fire
potential in Arizona and western New Mexico later this month
and in June. June will also be an important month in
determining the fire season's severity in the Northwest and the
northern Rockies. A hot, dry June combined with current low
snowpack would likely result in a severe fire season in both of
these areas.
I'll refer you to the map over on the side, which you have
before you. It gives you a detection variance where we predict
above-normal fire seasons and below-normal. The green are below
normal, the orange are above normal. That gives you a
geographical sense of how the fire season should play out based
upon the predictive models and the information available at the
current time.
As Assistant Secretary Scarlett indicated, we are at work
aggressively implementing the Healthy Forests Restoration Act,
utilizing funds provided by Congress for fiscal year 2004.
I have to take respectful issue though, I think, with
statements that I've heard in the press for later witnesses
that analogize funding from Federal Government for programs to
assist States as analogous to virga, or rain that falls from
the sky but evaporates before it hits the ground. I think the
specific reference here was to southern California. We went
back and looked at program payout in southern California, and
so far this year we have allocated four projects that are under
way on the ground on Federal and non-Federal lands, $67 million
to date. Now, I have been in Washington a long time, but I
would have to tell you that if $67 million rained down out of
the sky on me, I think I could feel the moisture. So there is a
great deal of program implementation underway; however, we have
looked at program payout in a number of the Forest Service and
Natural Resources Conservation Service programs. One of the
limiting factors appears to be the non-Federal matching share
either in dollars or in-kind. I've directed both the Forest
Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service to look
at these programs in southern California, and, where possible,
either reduce or defer, or in an emergency situation waive the
non-Federal share if that will help accelerate program delivery
on the ground, so that is underway.
Mr. Ose. That's a change.
Mr. Rey. That is.
Mr. Ose. You're basically--I'm sorry to interrupt, first of
all.
Mr. Rey. Yes.
Mr. Ose. But, if I understand what you just said correctly,
you are lowering thresholds, waiving some requirements on
matching, and trying to make it easier for localities to
respond with Federal assistance?
Mr. Rey. Where we have that authority under existing law,
we're looking at that, and I believe can do it, and it will
help.
Mr. Ose. Thank you.
Mr. Rey. So with that, I would be happy to respond to any
of your questions, but I'd like to leave you with one thought,
and I think it is relevant to the dissatisfaction of how fast
program accomplishment is occurring, because I think there are
some people who believed that with the passage of congressional
legislation last year we would end all forest fires, and
obviously that is not going to happen. This is a problem whose
magnitude and scope is such that it's not a problem. It cannot
be solved overnight through a concerted effort and a rapid and
steady increase of our effort on the ground. This is a problem
that will be with us, but can be resolved in 10 to 12 years
time, but it is going to take that amount of time to deal with
the problem that has been over 100 years in the making.
So with that we would both be happy to respond to any
questions that you've got.
Mr. Ose. I thank the witness.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey follows:]
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Mr. Ose. I want to recognize my friend from Massachusetts
for the purpose of an opening statement.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank both the
witnesses for their testimony and in advance for their response
to questions that might be asked.
You know, the issues of wildfires certainly is a serious
one and timely, and I'm pleased that besides Under Secretary
Rey and Assistant Secretary Scarlett, we will be hearing from
other experts that work at the State and local levels. I also
want to welcome Amy Mall, who is the senior forest policy
analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who will
give testimony on the next panel.
As we sit here today, as Ms. Scarlett indicated, there are
fires raging in southern California, so we should take a moment
to salute the fire fighters there and to say how much we
appreciate the fact that they are risking their lives to
protect others, commend them for their heroism, and certainly
hope that Congress continues to provide the strategic and
financial resources necessary for them to do their jobs.
I'm glad to see that the chairman today asked the witnesses
to address the issue of collaboration between Federal, State,
and local entities. The only way to be successful in protecting
against wildfires is to make sure that it is a cooperative
effort. While the Forest Service and the Department of Interior
are responsible for the management of Federal lands, the
devastation of fires certainly is felt in the communities
living outside of those Federal lands.
A consensus effort is the only way to ensure that we are
providing the highest levels of protection for our communities,
as well as caring for our forests. Unfortunately, there is some
question about the recent Federal response, both regulatory and
statutory, whether or not that is focused on cutting out public
access to information and community participation in the name
of speeding up forest thinning projects, and I'd like to hear
some more from our witnesses on that issue.
Certainly, if that's the case it wouldn't be acceptable. As
with any government action, the American people have the right
to know how their tax dollars are being spent on forest
initiatives and how their communities will be affected, and so
on their behalf I am going to be asking and listening for
answers to three questions, which I'll not take the time of
repeating them now, but I will ask them when it is my turn, and
then ask that this statement be put on the record without
objection, Mr. Chairman, and yield back.
Mr. Ose. Hearing no objection, we'll do that.
Mr. Tierney. Good.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
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Mr. Ose. All right. We're going to go to questions here,
10-minute rounds.
Ms. Scarlett and Mr. Rey, given the things that we've done
here, either the President's Healthy Forests Initiative or the
legislation that was passed and signed into law, the
Restoration Act, do you believe additional statutory measures
are necessary in order to at least make an impact on the fire
situation?
Ms. Scarlett. I will tackle that first, and then certainly
welcome Mr. Rey's comments.
At this point, I think we have the tools in place that we
need to be able to get these fuels reduction projects on the
ground. The combination of the Healthy Forests Initiative
administrative actions we were able to take has enabled us to
expedite the delivery of these fuels treatment projects. There
are things, however, that we still need to refine and can do
better. For example, as Mr. Rey suggested, getting those grant
dollars on the ground quicker and more efficiently and with
less paperwork for the recipients is something that we do need
to work on. But, I do believe, in terms of the Endangered
Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act and
stewardship contracting, we have the tools that we now need to
do the job.
Mr. Rey. I would concur with that, Mr. Chairman. I think
what we need is a year, maybe 2 years now to get some
familiarity with the changes that have been made, both
statutorily and administratively, and then be in the position
to evaluate whether, and if so what additional changes would be
helpful. But, I think what we need now is a couple, several
good months of implementation experience to have some data to
draw on for that, to respond to that question more accurately.
Mr. Ose. This question is to both of you, to the extent
that you know. If you take into account all of the suppression
costs, that being the actual firefighting, the economic losses
to homeowners, the community, the destruction of habitat, the
loss of species and the like, how do these costs compare to the
cost of prevention? I mean, the thing that keeps running
through my mind is, ``An ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure.'' I'm trying to figure out whether that has been
quantified. Is it 16-to-1 to the ounce-to-pound scenario, or is
it something different?
Mr. Rey. One simple basis of comparison is we spent
somewhat over $1 billion in firefighting last year, but the
damage to southern California alone for the fires of last fall
was $3 billion, and that didn't count any other fires any place
else in the country. Southern California fires were the most
expensive uninsured loss from fires in our Nation's history.
Mr. Ose. Ms. Scarlett, do you have anything to add to that?
Ms. Scarlett. I think Mark Rey hit the nail on the head. I
will say right now that, in terms of fire suppression, we are
upon initial attack actually successfully putting out wildland
fires at about a 97.5 or 98 percent rate, so in addition to
being prepared and being able to achieve that initial attack
success, the real key going forward is going to be our fuels
reduction efforts, getting these forests and rangelands into
health so we don't have the kinds of catastrophic fires when
fires that are often natural do strike.
Mr. Ose. How do you quantify the cost of a fire that never
occurred? In other words, how do you compare the ounce of
prevention, so to speak, with the pound of cure?
Ms. Scarlett. That, of course, is very difficult because we
never know what fires are going to strike and where they're
going to strike and therefore what they will have prevented. I
think the best response we can give to that is along the lines
that Mr. Rey gave. When these catastrophic fires ignite and
when they spread to the degree they are doing and have the
destruction that they are putting forth, the tally is in the
billions of dollars, far larger than the amount we're actually
spending to do fuels treatment, preparedness, and suppression.
Mr. Ose. Is the conclusion, is it based on common sense
then or is it speculative? I mean, $1 billion is a lot of
money. Are you saying that there aren't any scenarios under
which you would come to the conclusion that the prevention
costs would even approach that? Is that effectively what you're
saying? I'm trying to find the scientific basis on which we're
making these determinations of an ounce of prevention is worth
a pound of cure.
Ms. Scarlett. Mr. Chairman, I think that we are going about
setting our goals in a somewhat different way rather than the
dollars and cents way. Rather, our goals are we know that we
have 190 million acres of land out there that are in poor
condition, rangelands and forest lands. We have a LANDFIRE
process that is a science process to get better vegetation
information and better information about where fires burn with
frequency from historical data, and with that try to tailor our
fuels treatment to those locations and those acres that will
most reduce the risk to communities that lie in the pathway of
potential fires. So our goal is to reduce the risk to
communities by bringing these lands into better health so that
when natural fires strike they don't cause the devastation that
we have been seeing. And, we are using science to help us learn
where best to apply those fuels treatments.
Mr. Ose. OK. I don't remember which of your testimony it
was, but one of your testimonies talked about the wildland-
urban interface and spending at least 50 percent of your
resources treating that. Are you telling us that the science
that you have been able to gather allows you to prioritize the
circumstances under which fire can be most devastating?
Mr. Rey. Yes, essentially.
Ms. Scarlett. Yes.
Mr. Rey. Based upon the condition of tracts of land, areas
of the forest or rangeland, and the amount of fuel, the amount
of woody material on there, and the proximity to communities or
structures, we can establish clear priorities for where our
initial treatments ought to be focused in treating the
wildland-urban interface.
Then, in addition, based upon data that are available about
other resource values--the location of threatened or endangered
species habitat, for instance--we can set additional priorities
for areas that we would like to have fuels reduced to avoid the
destructive effects of a fire that burns in an area that we
know is so densely packed with vegetation that the fire
intensity is going to be destructive to either ecological
values or to human life or property.
Ms. Scarlett. I will add just one thing to that. We have
both the science question--what's the condition of the land and
what's the likelihood of catastrophic fire burning in a
particular location? The other is the communities and which
communities are at risk. That element we are working very
closely with States and the National Association of State
Foresters who have developed a checklist, if you will, to help
communities identify areas of highest priority risk. We match
that up with the vegetation information that our science
provides, and that's where we target our fuels treatment
projects.
Mr. Ose. Regarding the areas that burned in California last
year, do you have any information that would indicate these
were or would have been high priority areas or any scientific
basis for sharing with us a quantification of the danger that
existed there? Do you have any base data like that?
Ms. Scarlett. From the standpoint of Department of
Interior, I have just received information on the location of
the fires. We would need to go back and look at where they are,
whether we have done fuels treatment, and whether those
locations are ones with high community presence.
Mr. Ose. You're talking about the fires that burn today?
Ms. Scarlett. Yes.
Mr. Ose. I'm talking about the fires that burned last year.
Ms. Scarlett. I'm sorry.
Mr. Ose. Have you done any sort of retrospective look at
that as it relates to the underbrush or the intensity of a fire
that might burn?
Mr. Rey. Yes. We have data that show that much of the area
that burned in California last fall would have been relatively
high priority treatment areas. Now, a substantial portion of it
isn't Federal land, but some of it was Federal land. And,
indeed, there are areas that we did treat. In fact, one of the
reasons that we were able to save the community of Lake
Arrowhead is that we were able to use one of our treatments as
a fire break to back fire from to control the fire that was
headed toward the community. So while we suffered a devastating
loss last fall, upwards of 3,000 dwellings, had we not been
able to successfully back fire using the fuel break that was
created through treatments that were already done, it is quite
possible we would have lost upwards of 30,000 homes because we
might well have lost the community of Lake Arrowhead.
Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Massachusetts for 10 minutes.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Rey, I understand that the Los Angeles Times ran an
analysis last month. They found that vegetation was the single
biggest factor in whether a house burned. According to their
analysis, 9 out of 10 houses destroyed outside of San Diego
during the San Diego County cedar fire had a flammable
vegetation within 30 feet. So are we comfortable that we are
prioritizing the activities of removing the vegetation near
homes as opposed to focusing our funding and other activities
in logging somewhere else, which I think is referred to as
``back country'' logging? Can you tell me what the ratio is
between our efforts and our financing of making homes fire-wise
versus what we are doing with regard to back country logging?
And then, if you would, tell me what empirical evidence you
have that back country logging actually works? Do we have any
studies or reports that actually indicate that's effective,
because I understand there's one Forest Service report that
raises questions about whether it doesn't exacerbate the
problem sometimes in either spreading or intensifying the fire.
Mr. Rey. Let me start with your last question and submit
for the record a report that the Forest Service released last
month. The title of the report is, ``The Science Basis for
Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and
Severity.'' This is an extensive literature search that
summarizes all of the science that we know today about the
effect of thinning and reducing fire severity and
destructiveness.
Mr. Tierney. Isn't that the report that indicates that in
some instances the back country logging can actually intensify
a fire, or is that another report?
Mr. Rey. No. There is no Forest Service report that
suggests that. There are assertions that is the case sometimes,
and there are some cases where, if the logging is done on
private property and branches and slash material are left
behind to leave fuels behind, that you can have a deleterious
effect, but that's only if it is improperly done.
Mr. Tierney. While I'll get a chance to read that
apparently, after you file it later today, can you tell me now
whether there are specific research bases in that study to
indicate that back country logging is effective? Actually,
let's put it this way--not just effective, but more effective
than would be the result of focusing on making homes firewise.
Mr. Rey. No. The report doesn't give a comparative
assessment between those two, because those two are not either/
or propositions. There is considerable value to making homes
firewise and there is considerable value in some locations to
thinning forests that are not necessarily within the wildland-
urban interface.
Mr. Tierney. But, we do have to prioritize them in some
sense if we are going to try to put our resources in it.
Mr. Rey. Sure, and we have been pretty clear that the
highest priority is to do work within the wildland-urban
interface, and over 60 percent of the work we are doing is
within the wildland-urban interface. But, there are two other
competing priorities. One is the recognition that sometimes
just working in the wildland-urban interface, alone, won't save
or make safe a community, because some of these fires can throw
embers and sparks as far as 3 miles in front of the firefront,
and if those embers or sparks land on a cedar shake roof, the
house is going to burn even if the fire didn't get any closer
than 3 miles to the community. So sometimes just treating in
the wildland-urban interface isn't enough to make communities
safe.
Additionally, there are other values outside of the
wildland-urban interface that we want to protect from
catastrophic fires. Municipal watersheds, for instance, are a
clear example. Municipal watersheds, by definition, can't be in
the wildland-urban interface. They have to be undeveloped
watersheds to assure that water quality is maintained. But, if
you have a catastrophic fire in a municipal watershed, as the
city of Denver is now experienced in showing, that's going to
materially disadvantage water quality. So that's an area where
you'd want to do work to reduce fire intensity, even though you
are not in the wildland-urban interface.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Ms. Scarlett, my understanding is that the administration's
budget request for this upcoming fiscal year, 2005, would
actually reduce the National Fire Plan's allocation by about
$325 million. Am I accurate on that?
Ms. Scarlett. Overall for the National Fire Plan?
Mr. Tierney. Yes, the National Fire Plan.
Ms. Scarlett. No. Actually, we have in our 2005 budget
overall increases. For the fuels reduction projects we have
about a $25 million increase. We have a very slight increase
for preparedness, and also a slight increase for fire
suppression activities. So, for the Department of Interior, we
have an increase, particularly in the fuels reduction areas
that we have just been talking about.
Mr. Tierney. So the whole National Fire Plan you say it's
an increased amount over the 2004 fiscal year as opposed to any
decrease?
Ms. Scarlett. That's correct, and I would let Mr. Rey speak
to the specifics of their budget.
Mr. Rey. It's the same for the Department of Agriculture.
If you look at all National Fire Plan accounts, the net effect
is an increase in 2005 requests over 2004, and 2004 was an
increase over 2003.
Mr. Tierney. When you use a net effect, you're doing some
fancy math here, so----
Mr. Rey. Some accounts that are increasing within the
National Fire Plan and some that are decreasing. In 2000 and
2001, for instance, we put a lot of money into capital
expenses, acquiring new fire engines and providing grants to
States and localities to do likewise. Some of those capital
assets don't get replaced every year, so those accounts rise
and fall on the basis of capital maintenance or capital
acquisition needs. But, the overall funding for the National
Fire Plan has been increasing.
Mr. Tierney. Are the State and local governments getting
the kind of targeted funding that you both feel they need in
order to be effective partners?
Mr. Rey. Our answer to that would be yes. I'm sure many
State and local governments would take issue with that, and
that's a creative tension in the cooperative arrangement that
we have with State and local governments. This is a problem
that's going to have to be addressed through close
collaboration with our State and local government partners, and
indeed our firefighting effort has historically been a
collaborative effort under a unified command structure with
Federal, State, and local assets all deployed.
Mr. Tierney. Let me just ask one specific question, Mr.
Rey. The interim final rule that was issued by the Forest
Service in January implementing the Healthy Forests Restoration
Act, or parts of it, anyway, seems to lay out a process by
which the public can seek administrative review and file
objections to any proposed forest thinning projects. But, when
you read it, it looks as if there is a provision in there that
prevents the public from objecting to any project that's
proposed by the Secretary or by you.
Mr. Rey. No. The point of the interim rule was to set up an
appeals process----
Mr. Tierney. Right. Which is why when I----
Mr. Rey [continuing]. To then challenges.
Mr. Tierney. So you would not interpret that in any way as
an indication reserving to you or the Secretary the specific
right to implement something without any right to object?
Mr. Rey. That's correct.
Mr. Tierney. OK.
Mr. Rey. Now, there is a responsibility that if somebody is
going to bring an administrative appeal against one of these
projects, that they have exercised their obligation during the
preceding public comment period to offer us their comments so
we could have a chance to modify the project in accordance with
their comments. If they passed on that opportunity, then the
language of the statute would prevent them from bringing an
appeal.
Mr. Tierney. I have some issues with that aspect as you're
talking about it, because I think it does limit a little too
much, but I also had read it to indicate or at least it could
be interpreted that either you or the Secretary could decide on
a project and then nobody would have a right to object. I'm
glad to hear that you're not interpreting it that way. But also
there is, in that interim final rule issued, a process for
public comments, but they seemed to be required before the
environmental assessments are even available. I'm not sure how
that is supposed to allow somebody to really make an effective
comment if the timing is such that they don't have all of the
environmental assessments at their disposal before they can do
that.
Mr. Rey. It's not before they are available; before they
are final. One of the effects of what we are trying to do is to
engage the public earlier in the decisionmaking process, so one
of the elements of that interim rule is to direct our field
people to send material to the public at an early stage of the
deliberations to solicit their comments earlier in the process
rather than later, so they will get the opportunity to
participate before the decision is final, and then when the
decision is final, presuming they have given us their comments,
they'll have a right of appeal.
Mr. Tierney. Well, that's laudable as long as the
assessments don't change between the time you send them out
early and the time the final is filed. Is that a likelihood?
Mr. Rey. Well, if the assessments change, it will change in
part because of the comments they give us, which I think is
what most people hope when they give us comments, that we'll be
receptive to what they have to say.
Mr. Tierney. All right. We will go around here, but in fact
that is partially true and partially wrong. If the assessment
changes from what they saw or commented to and the final one,
then they won't have had an opportunity to look at the final
one unless it reflects their specific objection or comment as
opposed to somebody else's, so they'll never at any point in
time get the total final product to comment on in time to make
it good.
Mr. Rey. If they believe--if they have participated in good
faith in the project before it has become final and then
believe after it became final they were subject to sort of a
bait and switch kind of an exercise, then they still have the
right to bring that up in their subsequent appeal.
Mr. Tierney. But, that's an avenue they'd have to take as
opposed to being able to just comment on it before it can be
made final. It just seems to me that there's a little bit of a
chasing your tail aspect to it that probably could be modified.
Thank you for your comments.
Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman.
I'm pleased to recognize the dean of the Utah delegation,
Mr. Chris Cannon.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you.
Ms. Scarlett, it looked like you wanted to say something
additional. Would you like to do that?
Ms. Scarlett. Yes. Thank you very much. I was going to add
to the comments Mr. Rey gave on that. One of the things we are
trying to do with the environmental assessment process is
really to engage the public. Collaboration and cooperation with
local communities is key. That up-front, early on engagement
has resulted in kind of collaborative and consensus selection
of projects, so that we hope to get beyond the litigative and
kind of appeal approach to begin with. I have been out in the
field and seen that working very successfully, and that is our
aspiration here.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you for those comments. I want to thank
our panel for being here, our esteemed panel. It is unfortunate
that Governor Martz couldn't be with us. She is a firecracker,
very interesting person. I think she would have added something
to this debate.
I'm going to start by making just sort of a regional
petition. Normally we beat you guys up a little bit, but this
is asking. We hope that, Ms. Scarlett, since in your position
in Interior you have the ability to affect policy to some
degree, we hope that you will be considering over there the
importance of funding our western counties with payment in lieu
of taxes [PILT], at a higher level in the future. I think we
are going to have a Donnybrook here over that. It would be a
lot easier if you guys would just say, ``These counties need
the money. We're not paying for their schools. We're not
letting them tax these lands.'' Are you familiar with the APPLE
project, which is an acronym that stands for public lands and
education? I forget the first part. But it is a series of
statistical analyses that show that people in the West in the
public lands States, including California, tax ourselves much
higher and have a much lower per-child payment for education
because of Federal dominance of our public lands. We need to
turn that around, to a large degree, and the first place to do
that is PILT. These counties need that money, and a full
funding of the authorized amount is not that much more, but it
would be remarkably helpful to areas that are not able to tax
because they have public lands which we decided in the Federal
Government not to sell. Now, I personally think we ought to do
that, but if we are not going to sell them or turn them over to
the States or turn them over to the counties, we need to be
paying for the use or for the benefit of those lands. And, if
our friends in the Northeast want to claim national ownership,
then we ought to have a national responsibility to pay.
I could go on like this for a long time. Let me just say I
hope you'll consider that in the next budget cycle, Ms.
Scarlett.
Ms. Scarlett. I am pleased to say that in our 2005 budget
we actually did have an amount of $227 million for PILT, which
is just a little tad over what Congress appropriated in 2004,
so I think we are making progress.
Mr. Cannon. My recollection is it was $1 million over what
we did last year. We expect that to be much higher, 40 or 50 or
60 percent higher next time.
Ms. Scarlett. Well, we look forward to working with you,
and certainly we do understand the challenges that counties
face.
I will add that we are also very interested in working in
collaborative agreements with counties in other ways and have,
for example, in Moab, UT, a collaborative partnership with a
county that actually manages our BLM lands along with State
lands for some recreation purposes, so there are a lot of ways
we can work together with counties.
Mr. Cannon. We appreciate that collaboration. Grand County,
where Moab is, is a wonderful place. I used to represent them.
I used to represent two-thirds of the State of Utah. Now I'm
down to about a quarter. But, we do care about that, and the
Western Caucus, of which Mr. Ose is a member, is anxiously
engaged on that issue. But we divert. We're talking about
forests here, and we really care about how you are doing what
we need done in our national forests.
We had a late rainy season in Utah. I don't think we are
going to have fires for a while, but I am astonished at the
amount of fire on our public lands that we already have. I
think that the American people are awakening to the fact that
we need to control this or we will devastate large areas. And,
that doesn't mean houses, which, of course, have been a very
significant problem in some places, especially California, but
certainly the forest, itself. It's the watershed. It's the
habitat of all species, including, in many cases, endangered
species, so we care about that.
Mr. Rey, we've had reports by GAO and the National Academy
of Public Administration that stress the importance of
improving cooperation and coordination among all levels of
government and the private sector in decreasing wildfire risks.
How are these partnerships working, do you think?
Mr. Rey. I think they are working very well and improving
as we go, and I think we have done a pretty good job at meeting
virtually all of NAPA's recommendations.
Mr. Cannon. Good. What do you project will happen with
those over time? Are we going to have a significant influence
on our management and elimination or limitation of fires in the
future?
Mr. Rey. Well, there are two areas where cooperative
interaction among levels of governments is bearing fruit. One
is in the organization of the firefighting effort, itself, and
a lot of work is being done and continues to be done there to
implement some of NAPA's recommendations. And, the second is in
working with communities to more quickly identify the areas of
highest priority treatment, and that's progressing very well,
as well.
Ms. Scarlett. Congressman, might I add to that? We have
created, 2 years ago, a Wildland Fire Leadership Council. It is
the first time that we have a leadership group of all the
Federal agencies, also the National Association of Counties,
the Western Governors' Association, and tribes and other public
representations working together on fire policy, and the
National Association of State Foresters. Part of that group
actually created the guidelines for developing fuels treatment
project priorities, so we are very much working with them and
looking to them for their leadership as we move forward.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you. One of the things that, in my other
committee--I chair the Administrative and Commercial Law
Subcommittee, and I think we are going to introduce a bill that
would re-establish the Administrative Conference of the United
States. That's the group that at one point in time helped
create the model for negotiated rulemaking. And if you can
negotiate a rulemaking, you should be able to negotiate a
permitting, and so if you would consider with the groups you
have just talked about the significance of potential negotiated
permitting so we can eliminate litigation, I would very much
appreciate that. This is an area of great importance, and we
ought to be able to do this in a more thoughtful manner so that
we don't just stop forestry projects which end up over-
burdening our forests with fuel, which end up in these massive
and destructive forest fires. So thank you for that. That's
very interesting. That's the sort of thing that I care about
enormously.
Ms. Scarlett, the administration decreased the wildfire
preparedness and hazardous fuel reductions budgets and rural
fire assistance. How does the administration justify that?
Ms. Scarlett. Well, overall, of course, we did increase by
$25 million in the Department of Interior fuels reduction
projects which will go on the ground in and around communities.
We also did increase very slightly in Interior our preparedness
budget, and also by about $28 million our suppression budget.
We did reduce, as you note, the rural fire assistance from $10
million to $5 million between 2004 and 2005. In part, this is a
priority setting matter. We had, as Mark Rey noted, put some
moneys out into the communities over the last several years for
them to build their preparedness infrastructure, firefighting
equipment and so forth, but with the very significant fuels
challenges we face, we felt it was the highest priority to get
dollars on the ground for those treatments at this point. We
certainly look forward to working with Congress on what that
right balance over time is between fuels treatment and rural
fire assistance.
Mr. Cannon. I think as we spoke earlier the overall money
invested in the National Fire Plan has been increasing each
year. The mix of how that money is spent and in what areas it
is invested has changed each year, and it is fair to say that
in the 2005 request we focused on increasing as much as we
could the fuels treatment account, and the rural fire
assistance accounts were decreased, in part because they were
so high earlier in the decade when we were helping local fire
departments and communities purchase their capital assets that
don't need to be purchased every year.
Now, I'm sure you are going to hear from some local rural
fire departments, ``Look, we didn't get that done in 2000,''
or, ``We didn't get enough to meet our capital needs when that
was the first priority.'' That's sort of, I guess, the kind of
thing that we talk through during the appropriations process to
figure out what the right balance is. But as compared to
earlier in the decade when those accounts were higher and fuels
reduction was lower, we felt that the best combination for
fiscal year 2005 was to reverse that slightly and make fuels
treatment higher.
I apologize for not having been able to be here earlier,
and if this is redundant let me know, but maybe briefly answer.
How many acres of land have been treated under the new
regulations for Healthy Forests, and what percentage of that
acreage is in the wild/urban interface?
Mr. Rey. About 60 percent of the lands that we are treating
are in the wildland-urban interface. Last year, fiscal year
2003, we treated a total of 2.6 million acres, which is an all-
time record, indeed. There is a bar chart over there that shows
the acres that were treated in each of the last several years.
In 2004, we're going to push close to 4 million acres, which
would be a new record, and in 2005 we're hoping to push beyond
four million acres, which would be yet another new record. And,
we hope to continue that progress into the future.
Ms. Scarlett. To put that into a little bit of context,
those increases represent a 45 percent increase in 2004 over
what we accomplished just 3 years ago, so we have had a major
uptake both in the efficiency with which we are getting this
done and in the total numbers of acres and dollars expended.
For Interior, the numbers are similar in terms of approximately
60 percent of our fuels treatment projects being wildland-urban
interface, with the remainder being things like municipal
watersheds, utility rights of way where one, of course, wants
to protect that infrastructure, and then key fuel breaks to
ensure that we have defensible space. One remembers the fire
like Sholo a few years ago, which raged 20 miles in just a
matter of hours. You need to have those defensible spaces, as
well.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I see I have gone over
my time, but I would just like to thank our panelists, who have
my greatest confidence in the job they are doing. I hope that
we can continue to solve these problems that have accumulated
over a very long period of time and which need to be turned
around so that we can retain our watershed, retain our forests,
retain our wildlife, and make America a wonderful and beautiful
place that it deserves to be.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman.
I don't know which of you might know this answer, but in
terms of the total aggregate demand for lumber in the country,
do either of you know what the total is?
Mr. Rey. Not offhand, but we could easily obtain that
information for you.
Mr. Ose. I would like to get that information, in
particular.
[Note.--The information can be found in USDA's responses to
the chairman's written questions at the end of the hearing.]
Mr. Ose. Before I proceed, I want to make that report you
referenced in conversing with the gentleman from Massachusetts
part of the record, without objection.
[Note.--The rest of this document can be found in
subcommittee files and at http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/
rmrs_gtr120.pdf].
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5222.044
Mr. Ose. Mr. Rey, does the Forest Service have any estimate
of the annual growth in board feet in the National Forests?
Mr. Rey. We can get that information. We can give you
growth, annual growth, annual mortality, annual harvest if
you'd like, and then we can easily give you total annual demand
for lumber.
Mr. Ose. Well, the purpose I'm trying to get as is to
quantify the amount of material being added to the pile, so to
speak, that can be burned.
Mr. Rey. We can get you that, as well.
Mr. Ose. So annual growth, annual harvest, annual natural
death by disease or otherwise gives you a net growth across the
country, and that will tell us from 1 year to the next how much
the forests are growing?
Mr. Rey. Or accumulating material. That's correct.
Mr. Ose. All right.
Mr. Rey. I can tell you easily the accumulation is net.
We're adding material faster than we are taking it out, and it
is dying faster than it is growing.
Mr. Ose. I have been given information that indicates that
the annual growth is about 21 billion board feet, that the
annual harvest on national forests is about 2 billion board
feet, and the annual death on National Forests is about 3
billion board feet. So under that scenario we're getting an
annual growth of 16 billion board feet. Now, I don't know
whether that's accurate or not. That's why I'm asking the
question.
Mr. Rey. That sounds about right. I mis-spoke a second ago.
The mortality is higher than the harvest.
Mr. Ose. Right.
Mr. Rey. It's not higher than the growth. So we are
accumulating more material every year out there. Those numbers
sound in the ball park, but I can get you exact numbers.
Mr. Ose. So, going back to my original question about the
aggregate demand for lumber in the country, you compare that
annual growth of roughly 16 billion board feet under this
scenario against a total market--I mean, if the market is 20
billion board feet, we have net growth per year equal to 80
percent of our total market. So the question that gets begged
is, you know, do we have to have growth to that level, or is
there an opportunity, if you will, or a need to harvest greater
amounts of dead or dying trees? In other words, we can harvest
significantly more without a net reduction in the size of our
forests?
Mr. Rey. That's correct, although when we talk about the
reduction in the size of our forests, we tend to talk about
acreage that is in forests versus acreage that's developed for
some other purpose.
Mr. Ose. Now, following that same line of thought, given
the fires that we're having in California, I would appreciate
the same kind of information based on the National Forests in
California. I have been given information that indicates that
for the El Dorado, Sierra, and Stanislaus National Forest, we
have estimated annual growth of 360 million board feet, 200
million board feet, and 300 million board feet, and we have
estimated 2004 removals in El Dorado, Sierra, and Stanislaus of
13 million board feet, 8 million board feet, and 10 million
board feet. Just in those three National Forests in California,
estimated annual growth of about 860 million board feet and
estimate 2004 removals of about 31 million board feet. So you
can see how the problem accumulates over time.
I would appreciate a clarification from the Department on
those numbers.
Mr. Rey. Yes. Those numbers, as well, sound within the ball
park in terms of what I recollect, but we can validate what the
exact numbers are for you for both the California National
Forests as well as the system, as a whole.
Mr. Ose. Now I want to followup on Mr. Cannon's points. One
of the difficulties we have in any harvest, whether it is a
post-fire harvest or a preventive action of the nature that
Health Forests Initiative or Restoration Act would otherwise
allow, is the appeals process that the Forest Service has to go
through. If I understood Mr. Cannon's comments correctly, the
initiative, itself, and the act, itself, change the appeals
process--and I think Mr. Tierney touched on this also--to
basically force people who want to participate in the
deliberative process to participate at some point before the
decision becomes final. In other words, they have standing to
appeal. They have to be in the process. They can't just come
out of nowhere at the last minute or even after the last moment
and drop an appeal. Is that correct?
Mr. Rey. That's correct. And, the reason for that change--
and that's in Section 105 of the statute--the reason for that
change is that we were finding that some people were using the
flexibility--I'll use the word ``flexibility''--of the previous
appeals process to leverage the outcome by sort of laying in
the weeds until the decision was final and then springing their
appeal full blown at a time when they had maximum leverage, and
that struck us as unfair to all of the people who in good faith
participated during the public comment period and also to the
agency people who are trying to produce a project that people
could generally agree with, because if you don't know what
somebody's objections are until the project is final, it's
pretty hard to adjust the project and to respond to those
objections.
Now, that change was unpopular in some quarters. If I was
an advocate for a particular point of view and I saw an
administrative process that gave me a singular advantage by
waiting until the end when my leverage was maximum, I'd be duty
bound, ethically bound, to represent my clients most
effectively by using the system in a way it could be used, and
I don't expect anybody in that position to necessarily be happy
that the process was changed, because the process, as it was
designed, was beneficial to the way they were using it.
Mr. Ose. Do you have any examples of the manner in which
this process might have been used to the detriment of the
forests? I'm particularly referring to what I call the ``Morgan
cut.'' I just want to run through this. This is in North
Carolina. In 1992, public scoping began for what was called the
``Hickory Knob timber sale.'' In 1994, the environmental
assessment was released. The project was found it contains
cerulean warblers, which are listed in the forest plan as a
sensitive species. The timber sale was subsequently dropped.
In April 1998, part of the old timber sale morphed into the
Morgan cut reinvention project, which is a stewardship pilot
project, and it was proposed as a regeneration harvest on 12
acres and a thinning on 8 acres, and the area did not contain
any cerulean warblers. In February 1999, the consultation was
started, and in that same month the district announced a
decision on a categorical exclusion. That decision was
appealed, subsequently withdrawn. The court subsequently
eliminated the use of categorical exclusions for similar small
projects--that would be the 20 acre type.
In June 1999, the Forest Service district re-initiates
scoping, an environmental assessment was released in November,
but a decision was delayed pending analysis related to the
endangered Indiana bat which was discovered in an adjacent
county.
In September 2000, a forest plan amendment and biological
opinion were released, both containing new requirements to
protect habitat for the Indiana bat that lived in the adjacent
county.
In September 2001, the forest completed a forest-wide
management species report in compliance with the recent court
decision affecting several national forests in the South.
In February 2002, additional surveys were completed for
sensitive species and the project's biological evaluation;
environmental assessment were reformatted to meet new regional
standards. So then the decision notice is released.
In March 2000, that decision was then appealed, and the
project is currently delayed pending outcome of the appeal.
The purpose of going through this litany is to show that it
takes 10 years to process an application on 20 acres in which
there was no cerulean warblers, which were the basis of the
original appeal.
Now, how frequent is this kind of thing occurring?
Mr. Rey. I think we can fairly describe that project as
snakebit because it went through several different trials and
still hasn't overcome them all. I don't think that level of
futility is the norm, but in general terms one of the driving
factors behind the Health Forests Initiative is that we looked
at the amount of time and money that is being consumed by
administrative process to get this work done, and what we found
in the Forest Service--and the number varies for the other
agencies, but we found in the Forest Service it's 40 cents on
every dollar; 40 cents on every dollar that you gave us to do
this kind of work on the ground was being consumed by those
kinds of administrative processes. And, so what we've tried to
do through the Health Forests Initiative is to preserve the
opportunity for the public to participate in the development of
these projects, but get the projects done in a way that doesn't
take nearly that many years or nearly that much money, because
if we continue to spend 40 cents on every dollar going through
the kind of matriculation that you've just described, it is
obvious that the money you give us isn't going to go very far,
and if that continues to be the case, it is obvious that we're
not going to stop seeing the kind of fires that we have been
seeing each of the last couple of years.
Mr. Ose. Well, let's keep in mind what our objective here
today is. It is to talk about the regulatory environment that
could be used to reduce fire exposure in some of our
communities. I want to cite another example along this line,
keeping in mind that our objective is to reduce the fire hazard
in some of our communities, our forests.
This one is from the Coconino National Forest in Arizona,
which is the home to the northern goshawk. In 1996, the forest
proposed thinning trees near a goshawk nest, partly to protect
the bird from fire hazards. The project was stopped due to
protests. Ironically, that year a fire destroyed the forest,
including the area around the goshawk nest. I don't think
that's our objective.
It seems to me that the process got twisted to an
inadvertent ending that served nobody's purpose, and I'm trying
to find out how widespread that is.
I apologize to my friend for going over my time. I'll be
happy to give him an equal amount if not more.
Ms. Scarlett. I'll add another figure that might put that
in a little bit of context. As we went through and began to
develop the administrative tools, the environmental assessment,
speed up the change in appeals process, we worked with the
Forest Service to look at how frequent that sort of
circumstance was, and approximately close to 60 percent of
Forest Service appealable projects were, in fact, appealed. The
vast majority of those, upon appeal, actually were not
successful, meaning ultimately the projects moved forward. What
that meant is, of course, 60 percent of the time--a lot of
investment of time and effort and money was suspended just to
end up where you were in the first place. That is precisely why
the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and the Healthy Forests
Initiative have been so very important to us to be able to move
forward.
Mr. Ose. To be more exact, the GAO numbers are 58 percent
of appealable Forest Service land management decisions in
fiscal year 2001 and 2002 were, in fact, appealed, and of those
58 percent, 73 percent of the appeals resulted in no changes
whatsoever.
Mr. Rey. The decisions were affirmed. That's right.
Mr. Ose. Correct. I apologize for the length of my
questions. I recognize the gentleman.
Mr. Tierney. Actually, I just have one small thing that I
want to clear up, just for information. We were talking earlier
about the budget and whether there had been cuts or not, and
maybe I wasn't fine enough in identifying, because you started
talking about net cuts and everything, and I want to make sure
we don't go. With respect to State fire assistance, the
Congressional Research Service tells me at least that in 2004
we had $51.1 million, and the request for 2005 is $34.2.
Correct me if I am wrong on that, but if I am correct would you
tell me why the disparity and what the theory is behind it?
Mr. Rey. I think those are the correct numbers, and the
difference there is that we increased State fire assistance and
comparable grant programs significantly in fiscal year 2000 and
2001, and that money went to the purchase of a considerable
amount of capital equipment, assisting communities in buying
new fire engines. And, it is our judgment that not all of those
capital expenditures need to be made every year. You don't buy
a new fire engine every year.
Mr. Tierney. I just want to go along with this step by
step. I don't mean to be rude at all, but in 2001 you had
$118.5 million, so that's where all that capital equipment was?
Mr. Rey. Right.
Mr. Tierney. And then you dropped to $87.1 in 2002, went
back up in 2003 to $89.3, then down significantly in 2004 to
$69.1 overall, and then down to $47. I think those numbers are
reflected in the State fire assistance end of it. So you have
had 4 years where you were up at over $50 million and then
dropped down to $34, so it can't all be in capital equipment or
whatever, I wouldn't assume.
Mr. Rey. Much of it is. That's the most common use of that
account. Now, as I said earlier----
Mr. Tierney. So, you're just basically saying--and I accept
it if you are saying that there are basically things that
you've taken care of, all of the capital equipment needs, and
that none of that equipment has gotten to the point that it's
so old it needs to be replaced or any big expense on that?
Mr. Rey. Generally, yes, but I'll acknowledge that I will
not be surprised if you hear from some locales who say, ``We
didn't get it done. We still need money to make some additional
capital purchases.'' That's kind of the way the appropriations
process works. We make a proposal and the Congress adjusts it
and modifies it on the basis of the testimony that they receive
during the course of the year, and at the end of the day the
accounts may not look exactly like we proposed them but we'll
finally work something out.
I think the more important thing, the big picture is that
there is a combined commitment on part of the Congress, part of
the administration, bipartisan fashion that the National Fire
Plan accounts are going to continue to increase, and that work
on the ground, which is really the most important thing,
because that's the preventative work, is going to increase, as
well.
Mr. Tierney. I guess, you know, if we are going to do that
I think it is important that the local communities obviously
participate----
Mr. Rey. Correct.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. And, have some of their needs
met, so what I'd like to know is: did you propose more and OMB
cut back on your proposal? Were there communities that you had
originally thought that they might this year get some
assistance, and OMB or somebody else in the administration told
you this wasn't the year?
Mr. Rey. No. The proposal that we sent forward was, by and
large, adopted, so we have no qualms with it.
Mr. Tierney. When you made the proposal, were there
communities that you knew needed things that you just didn't
think that you could allow for in this year's budget?
Mr. Rey. No. I think what I'm saying is we don't know at
the outset, at the beginning of each budget year, necessarily
what each community's needs are going to be.
Mr. Tierney. You don't ask them?
Mr. Rey. We do ask them, and we try to average it out
nationwide, but the Congress is going to hear from communities
during the course of the debate over the appropriations bill
this year and the accounts will be adjusted. That's the way the
process works.
Mr. Tierney. Well, it works in part. I mean, I would assume
that you hear from the communities and you try to allocate
things where they are needed, so maybe we're doing it a second
time here when we do it in Congress, but I'm assuming that
there was a point in time where you asked for community input
as to what their needs were, and I guess I want to know did you
agree or disagree with them, and did you meet their needs or
not?
Mr. Rey. We looked at several requests from different
programs and tried to strike the best balance we could.
Mr. Tierney. Balance between who? Who were you balancing?
Ms. Scarlett. I guess I would----
Mr. Tierney. Excuse me a second.
Mr. Rey. Between different accounts.
Mr. Tierney. All right. But not between the communities'
needs and something else?
Mr. Rey. No.
Mr. Tierney. You would determine that community might have
had a valid request and you just couldn't accommodate it
because you had to balance between another account.
Mr. Rey. Between all of their requests.
Mr. Tierney. Because you had an amount that you had to stay
within?
Mr. Rey. Within an increasing budget for this program area,
yes.
Mr. Tierney. But an amount that's----
Mr. Rey. It's not unlimited, but it is increasing.
Mr. Tierney. All right. But I guess, you know, I'm really
not trying to trick you or anything here, so I don't know why
we're having this struggle, but the bottom line of it is that
you had an amount that you thought that you could spend in your
department, and within that amount there were some needs that
you thought you could meet and others that you didn't think you
could meet?
Mr. Rey. Yes, I wouldn't dispute that. I think that's the
way every budget has worked since time immemorial.
Mr. Tierney. That wasn't painful at all, was it?
Mr. Rey. Yes. And, in this particular cycle, given the
importance of doing this hazardous fuel reduction work, we put
a higher premium on that, and that's something that we're going
to continue to debate over the course of the year.
Mr. Tierney. But, now we have something to tell the
communities when they come to us and say they went to you and
they had a need and you didn't accommodate it. We now know what
your thought process was, which is what I was trying to get at.
Mr. Rey. Right.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you for your answer.
Mr. Rey. And, the other complexity of it is that in the
program affected here, which is our program of assistance to
States and communities, there are other non-fire program
accounts that they told us that were very important and asked
us to fund at significantly increased levels, as well. And,
some of those had to play in the same priority setting.
What we think we did in our State and Private Forestry
budget is respond as favorably to what the States and
communities told us were their top priorities. Now, that's sort
of a national whole, listening to their national organizations.
I would concede--and I think we both recognize--that in some
cases and in some regions those national priorities aren't
going to be reflective of what a particular State would say is
their top priority, and that will work itself out as the
appropriations process proceeds.
Mr. Tierney. I thank you. It was important for us to
understand what your reason and your rationale was and how we
ended up with that differentiation in those numbers.
Mr. Chairman, I thank the witnesses for their testimony,
and I apologize to the next panel but I have to go to the floor
to manage a bill, and so I'm going to have to leave at this
point in time. I'll try to get back if I can, but I thank you
for having this hearing and I thank the witnesses for their
testimony.
Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman.
I just want to followup on this question or this issue that
you raised earlier, Mr. Rey, having to do with what
administrative adjustments might be possible in terms of the
Federal/State matching. You mentioned that there might be--and
this is important to California, because I know a lot of people
are watching the news tonight. They're not watching us, they're
watching those fires. I'm curious as to what adjustments you
have in mind along this line.
Mr. Rey. Let me be a little more specific and tell you what
I've asked our folks to take a look at. There are two agencies
involved in spending out the money that was provided in the
fiscal year 2004 omnibus appropriations bill. One is the Forest
Service and one is the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
In the Natural Resources Conservation Service, there is roughly
$17 million that has already been spent for post-fire recovery
work, and about $120 million that was provided for hazard tree
removal, both under the Emergency Watershed Protection Program.
The Emergency Watershed Protection Program requires a 25
percent match, and, in the three counties involved, San
Bernadino County and Riverside County have both come up with an
in-kind match, and San Diego County is still struggling to meet
that standard.
We do have the authority to waive that 25 or reduce the 25
percent match in an emergency situation, and what I directed
the NRCS to do is to look into whether we can reduce it or
defer it--the match money is spent later in the year or in out
years--or to waive it if there is absolutely no way the county
is going to provide its in-kind, so we'll work on that.
The Forest Service has a number of programs for which we--
--
Mr. Ose. Before we leave that one issue, will all the
counties be treated the same in terms of the waiver issue?
Mr. Rey. No. In this case we would have to declare a
specific emergency if we were going to give San Diego County a
waiver.
Mr. Ose. OK.
Mr. Rey. And, we've done that a couple of times before, so
there is some precedent for it.
Mr. Ose. Thank you.
Mr. Rey. What I'd like to see is, if that's the impediment
to getting the money out there more quickly before we decide
that we want to go that way, because it means that there will
be less money overall doing the work on the ground.
The Forest Service programs require or generally involve a
50/50 match, again either with cash or in-kind, and I've
directed the Forest Service to look into whether any of the
payout is being delayed as a consequence of difficulty in
hitting the 50/50 match. We don't have the authority, I don't
think, to waive it completely, but I think we can reduce the
share if need be or again defer the payout so that it comes in
in the out years for project support. So I've directed both
agencies to look into that in the interest of getting more work
done on the ground more quickly, particularly because all of
those program accounts are going to removal of beetle-killed
trees in those three counties in southern California.
Mr. Ose. I just want to make sure we've got a clear
understanding of what that is. The Federal Government has this
pot of money, but the only way to access it is by virtue of a
match that comes from the local or State coffers. Absent a
financial contribution from the local or State coffers, the
money stays in this Federal account unless there's a waiver of
some sort or another, and that's the thing you're looking at
now?
Mr. Rey. Correct. The only thing I would amend to what you
just said is that the State and local contribution can be cash
or in-kind.
Mr. Ose. OK. Any idea when that deliberative process will
be completed?
Mr. Rey. We can get you a work out on that in about 2
weeks.
Mr. Ose. I want to thank you for thinking about that,
because I think that is very important in California, and I
suspect it is going to be important in other communities across
the West as the year progresses.
Mr. Rey. Well, in addition to talking with you over the
last 2 days, I have been talking with Senator Feinstein and
Senator Boxer, so we have been working on this as you have
asked us to for about 48 hours now.
Mr. Ose. All right. Thank you. I have no further questions
for these panelists at the moment. We are going to leave the
record open for Members to submit questions in writing for 10
days. To the extent you can respond in a timely fashion, it
would certainly be appreciated. I do want to thank you for
taking the time to come visit with us for 1 hour and 45
minutes. It's always a pleasure to see you.
Ms. Scarlett. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ose. We're going to take a 5-minute recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Ose. I want to thank the panel for gathering so timely.
As you saw in the first panel, we routinely swear everybody in,
so if you would all please rise. Raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Ose. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
Our second panel is composed of the following individuals:
we have the chairman of the State of California Governor's Blue
Ribbon Fire Commission, Senator William Campbell; we're also
joined by the chairman of the Fire Safe Council, Mr. Bruce
Turbeville; we have joining us representing the California Fire
Chiefs Association the president of that organization, Mr.
William McCammon; and our fourth witness on this panel is a
senior forest policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, Ms. Amy Mall.
Again, you saw how the first panel worked. For those of you
who haven't been here before, what we do is we recognize each
of you for 5 minutes. We have received your testimony, your
written testimony, and we have reviewed it. To the extent that
you can summarize or add anything new within that 5 minutes,
that would be great. We would appreciate that.
Senator Campbell, it is good to see you again. You are
recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM CAMPBELL, CHAIRMAN, BLUE RIBBON FIRE
COMMISSION; BRUCE TURBEVILLE, CHAIRMAN OF THE FIRE SAFE
COUNCIL; WILLIAM J. MCCAMMON, PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA FIRE CHIEFS
ASSOCIATION; AND AMY MALL, SENIOR FOREST POLICY ANALYST,
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
be here.
Before I begin, I would like to add to what you started
with and give you the latest update on the California fires.
They have now consumed over 24,000 acres. We've lost 16 homes,
14 injuries, and the greatest threat is in Riverside County
right now with the Eagle and Cerritos fires, which threaten
over 1,000 homes.
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, I am honored to be
invited to testify before your subcommittee. My name is Bill
Campbell, and I am a retired State Senator from California who
was asked by former Governor Gray Davis and then Governor-elect
Arnold Schwarzenegger to be the chairman of the Governor's Blue
Ribbon Fire Commission. The Commission was formed on November
2nd of last year in the wake of the California's unprecedented
series of wildland-urban interface fires that ravaged southern
California in October of last year. Southern California
experienced the most devastating wildland fire disaster in the
State's history. Over 739,000 acres burned; 3,631 homes were
destroyed, including the home of your colleague, Chairman
Duncan Hunter; 36 commercial properties and 11,069 outbuildings
were destroyed; 246 injuries; 24 fatalities, including one fire
fighter. At the height of the siege, 15,631 personnel were
assigned to these fires.
Presidential declarations of disaster were declared in San
Diego, Los Angeles, San Bernadino, Ventura, and Riverside
Counties. And, in the aftermath of the fires, in San Bernadino
County a barren mountain canyon landscape impacted by a rain
storm produced a flash flood and mudslide causing even more
tragedy and destruction. Sixteen more lives were lost on this
follow-on disaster on Christmas Day of 2003, and 2 weeks ago
they found the remains of the last victim, an 11-year-old boy
15 miles from the site where he was originally located.
Thirty-four Blue Ribbon Fire Commission members comprised
of Federal, State, and local officials assembled to examine the
wildland fire disaster's response and the critical public
policy issues that impede or strengthen our firefighting
efforts. We were honored to have Senator Diane Feinstein and
Representatives Jerry Lewis and Susan Davis on our Commission.
I am truly grateful for their leadership, dedication, and
support. In addition, we had representatives from the
Department of Defense, the Department of Interior, the
Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Homeland
Security.
As you said, you have a copy of this, and so I am going to
skip some of this.
We were given 120 days to examine and deliberate on these
issues and report back to the Governor with recommendations,
and the Commission just published a report of our findings and
deliberations, and I've submitted two copies of that report for
inclusion in the official record. The executive summary of this
report is part of my submitted written statement, and I would
like to share just a few of the key Federal recommendations
from the report at this time.
The Commission recommends that the Federal agencies, to
include Departments of Interior and Forest Service, work in
conjunction with California State and local fire agencies and
the military to jointly develop and adopt agreements,
regulations, and operating policies for the deployment of
aerial assets during wildland-urban interface firefighting
efforts.
The Commission recommends that Congress increase efforts to
provide training for local fire departments through Federal
grant programs and expand the rural fire assistance grant
program.
And, the Commission recommends that sufficient standardized
frequencies be issued by the Federal communications system to
meet the interoperability communication needs of fire and
emergency personnel.
Our 48 recommendations have been categorized as primarily
public policy solutions or fiscal issues. The Commission was
sensitive to the financial plight of government at all levels
and recognized that few of the fiscal recommendations would
have meaningful value in the absence of critical public policy
changes that first must proceed them.
In summary of our Commission's examination, let me state
that the magnitude of the tragedy, not only in terms of the
loss of human life and property, but in the loss of valuable
watershed, wildlife, and critical environmental habitats, was
truly catastrophic. After a series of extensive and
deliberative public hearings, the Commission determined that,
while the bravery and dedication of California's fire service
continues to be exemplary, many lessons from similar past
tragedies had gone unlearned by those responsible for
development of fire safety and prevention policies. Foremost
among those lessons is the lack of political will to prioritize
among competing but very important public policy goals.
Vegetation and fuel management, habitat preservation, and
environmental protection have often conflicted with sound fire
safe planning in the development of wildland areas. When
adverse weather and fuel conditions combine, our fire fighters
have been given the impossible task of protecting life and
property in the face of these policy conflicts.
Additionally, the Commission recognized the difficulty the
Fire Service faces in meeting the fire protective challenges of
explosive development along the wildland-urban interface, and
among the findings and recommendations the Commission urges the
same commitment to professional training afforded the valiant
men and women of law enforcement to our California Fire
Service.
In closing, Chairman Ose and members of the subcommittee, I
believe it is essential to understand that unless and until
public policymakers at all levels of government muster the
political will to put the protection of life and property ahead
of competing political agendas, these tragedies are certain to
continue.
This concludes my oral testimony, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]
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Mr. Ose. Our next witness is Bruce Turbeville, who is the
chairman of the Fire Safe Council.
Sir, we appreciate your attendance today. We have received
your statement in writing. It has been submitted in the record.
You are recognized for 5 minutes to summarize.
Mr. Turbeville. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure
to be here. I appreciate the opportunity. I am Bruce
Turbeville, chairman of the Fire Safe Council. I'll give you
just a quick background. The Fire Safe Council actually was
formed in 1993 when we recognized that State government alone
could not enforce all of the fire prevention needs and did not
have enough money for public education. So, we looked at the
fact that public-private partnerships might help, so we formed
the Fire Safe Council looking at the insurance industry, the
real estate industry, and other entities that had a vested
interest in reducing fire damage.
As time progressed, the Council grew, and it became clearly
evident that the Council concept could be put to use at the
local level, so local Fire Safe Councils began to form, and
what that did is give us community effort, with people
understanding that they have a position and a place to deal
with their concerns as related to wildfires.
As these grew and became more entrenched at the local
level, we noticed that just the volunteerism side of it didn't
work and they needed funding. Almost simultaneously, the
National Fire Plan funding became available, and grants were
made available to continue the public education.
In 2001, during the first year we had close to 100 grants
fulfilled up and down the State, and at the time we only had 50
or 60 Fire Safe Councils. The success has been to the point now
we have 120 local Fire Safe Councils, and they are all taking
it upon themselves to do fuel treatments around and within the
communities. They are the perfect channel for the Federal grant
funds to come down from Interior and Agriculture to the county
level, the community level.
The success has been phenomenal; however, now we are
fearful of the loss of funds. The community assistance grant
total available for 2005 appears to be little, if any, compared
to what we've had in the past. We have a growing need and a
diminishing supply of funding, it appears. Just this last year
we had 393 grant requests totaling $49 million. We had
available $5 million, so 10 percent of the folks that want to
do the job. I point out again the value of the community. These
are the people that live there and recognize that there's a
problem and they want to do something about it. It is an ideal
situation, and we need to keep it going if at all possible.
The Health Forests Initiative and the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act are both programs that the Fire Safe Councils
are the perfect conduit from the top down to the bottom. As
they become in place, we're taking advantage of those and
helping them become effective.
I think the most important thing to recognize here is
you've got the grassroots willing to do the work if we just
give them a little seed money. It seems to be working better
than I ever imagined it would be, and we just can't let it
wither away.
You did ask a question, Mr. Chairman, a while back about
the ounce of prevention and a pound of cure. I think I may have
prompted that by my statement where I said for every $1 you put
in prevention you save $10 in suppression and damage. And no, I
can't prove it because I made it up, but nobody else has
disproved it. I just wanted that to be on the record.
The sort of things we have been dealing with over the last
few years as far as funding, when the finance officer for the
State of California asked me in a hearing similar to this,
``Show me a fire that you prevented,'' I can't show you a fire
prevented, but I point to all of the ones that haven't started.
I leave you with one question, and that is: why is there
always enough money to put out the fires and there's never
enough to prevent them?
I thank you for the opportunity.
Mr. Ose. That's an excellent question. I thank the
gentleman for his testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turbeville follows:]
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Mr. Ose. We're going to go to our next witness. That would
be the president of the California Fire Chiefs Association, Mr.
William McCammon.
Chief, welcome to the witness table here in front of our
committee. You're recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCammon. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chairman
Ose and committee members. My name is Bill McCammon. I'm the
fire chief of the Alameda County Fire Department in California.
I'm also the president of the California Fire Chiefs
Association and board member of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs
Association. It is an honor to provide testimony regarding the
challenges fire-service professionals and communities face in
mitigating, managing, and responding to wildland fires.
If there is one lesson we've learned about the devastating
effect of the most recent fires, it is in the end we all lose.
In the recent fires in southern California, there were
critically sensitive habitat areas where fuels management
programs were not completed prior to the fires. That habitat is
now destroyed. There were property owners that didn't manage
the vegetation adjacent to their homes. Those homes are no
longer standing. There were lives lost and critical watershed
destroyed after the fires as heavy rains caused mudslides in
the recently burnt-out areas.
In 1966, the County Supervisors' Association in conjunction
with the forest protection agencies recommended the need for
comprehensive and coordinated land use planning, including
declaration of hazardous fire areas, clearance of flammable
vegetation around developments, and standardized building codes
and zoning ordinances. In 1970, California was burning. In 13
days there were 773 fires burning over 570,000 acres, consuming
772 homes with 16 lives lost. The 1970 task force recommended,
among other things, fuel and hazard reduction programs, land
use and building code changes, and expanded fire prevention
programs.
Again, in 1972, 1978, 1980, 1985, 1991, and 1993 California
experienced devastating fires with large numbers of homes,
lives, and critical habitat lost. Task forces were formed and
reports were written with recommendations very similar to those
included in the recent Blue Ribbon Fire Commission report. In
almost all of these cases, the identified weaknesses with
suppression efforts have been corrected. It has been
recommended time and time again and proven that in areas where
there have been fuels management programs combined with
effective land use planning, the effects of fire have been
minimized.
In 2002, Congress and the Federal land management agencies
asked the National Academy of Public Administrators to examine
six fires that occurred and make recommendations on wildfire
issues. The series of reports concluded that the Nation's
readiness and capacity for hazard reduction was the least
developed of all the critical issues related to wildfire
suppression. The reports also concluded that it will
increasingly depend on intergovernmental and public and private
partnerships capable of reducing large-scale risks affecting
multiple owners. Some progress has been made to bring together
the stakeholder groups to develop common goals and practices in
California. The California Fire Alliance was formed, bringing
together Federal, State, and local government agencies to play
a role in fire policy to coordinate efforts toward the
implementation of the National Fire Plan at the local level.
The Fire Alliance has formed a grants clearinghouse that
provides a streamlined, online grant application process for
National Fire Plan grants. This program has been very
successful in moving what limited funding has been available
from State and Federal agencies to local Fire Safe Councils.
The ongoing critical challenge is to have State and Federal
agencies allocate more funding to these local programs.
California Fire Chiefs Association, in conjunction with
``Fire Engineering Magazine'' held two wildfire summits. Ten
States were represented, along with local, regional, and
national leaders. The results included recommendations, most of
which dealt with hazard reduction. We realized as a result of
the summits that greater involvement from the environmental
community is essential. Plans are already underway to host a
summit bringing the environmental community together with local
and county planners to develop more consensus around fuels
management strategies.
Even with these positive efforts moving forward, having a
coordinated political effort between local, State, and
federally elected officials to standardize regulations for
fuels management and building and zoning standards is
essential.
The grants that have been offered through the National Fire
Plan have been well received, but the total amount available
for these efforts has been diminishing. Funding for these types
of programs is, as has famously been told, analogous to virga
rain that falls from the sky and evaporates before it hits the
ground. The grants come from two different departments and five
different agencies, each with their own set of priorities, each
with different matching requirements ranging from no match to
100 percent match, and, most importantly, each with a different
system of communicating the opportunities to the local
communities.
In California this disconnected, uncoordinated process
caused the formation of the Fire Alliance. Even with the
attempts to coordinate the grant process, the system does not
promote participation and clearly does not receive sufficient
funding to come close to addressing the need.
Today in California there are over 1,100 communities that
have been identified as at risk and over 850 are adjacent to
Federal lands. This year there were 393 grants submitted
totaling over $49 million, and there was less than $7 million
available for those programs.
The recent passage of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act
at face value appears to begin to address funding for critical
fuels management programs along with community and stakeholder
involvement in the development of fuels treatment projects. The
success of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act will be
dependent upon a full commitment from all stakeholders and
sustained funding.
As I have stated in my testimony, unless we are able to
address the issues of political will, fuels management,
stakeholder consensus, and adequate funding, we will continue
to experience major wildland fires that will destroy
communities, critical habitat, watershed, and become an ever-
increasing economic drain on our society.
Thank you for the opportunity. I will be available for
questions.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Chief.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCammon follows:]
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Mr. Ose. Our fourth witness for today's hearing comes to us
from the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she serves as
a senior forest policy analyst, Ms. Amy Mall.
Ms. Mall, welcome. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Mall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for your invitation to testify today.
My name is Amy Mall. I am the senior forest policy analyst at
NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national,
nonprofit organization with over 550,000 members dedicated to
the protection of public health and the environment.
Forest Service research has found that the most effective
way to protect homes or other structures is to focus on the
building, itself, and its immediate surroundings. This is known
as making homes firewise. Last year's fires in California were
strong evidence that these methods work. Throughout southern
California, homes remained standing if they had proper home
materials, design, and landscaping, but many homes across the
West are not yet firewise, and homeowners need immediate help
with information and financial assistance. Collaboration is
essential because most of these homes and communities are not
on Federal land.
Instead of focusing on firewise activities and State and
local assistance, however, the Bush administration is spending
millions of dollars a year on logging trees miles away from the
nearest home in what is called the ``back country.'' Despite
what Under Secretary Rey asserted earlier, there are virtually
no peer reviewed empirical studies that show that such logging
leads to a systematic reduction of forest fire intensity. In
fact, I have a list with me of Forest Service research--and it
is cited in my written testimony--that shows that these
activities can actually increase fire intensity or spread.
The administration has also adopted regulatory changes that
are unnecessary, increase the burden of public participation,
and will lead to more controversy and bureaucratic
complication. The environmental review process before the Bush
administration took office worked well, with no factual
evidence that any aspect of the process seriously hampered the
protection of homes and communities. To the contrary, GAO found
that more than 95 percent of hazardous fuels reduction projects
were ready for implementation within the standard 90-day review
period. Only a tiny percentage of the projects and acreage were
delayed by litigation. And agencies already had procedures to
expedite approval, including categorical exclusions, NEPA's
emergency authority, and the Forest Service authority to exempt
appeals from the mandatory stay.
Nevertheless, in 2003 the Bush administration issued new
categorical exclusions from NEPA, allowing agencies to avoid
public environmental review on projects up to 1,000 acres of
land, regardless of the intensity of logging or the trees cut,
including old growth trees. And, after exempting many logging
projects from environmental review, the Bush administration
adopted new regulations to exempt these projects from appeal.
For projects that are still eligible for the appeal process,
new regulations set up numerous obstacles to members of the
public wanting information and input. The 2003 appeal
regulation and the 2004 protest rule under the Healthy Forest
Act share many of the same problems, making it more difficult
to oppose projects, even if those projects might increase fire
risk.
Contrary to what Under Secretary Rey said earlier, Section
218.6(A) of the 2004 interim final rule does say that
environmental assessments are not circulated for public comment
in draft form.
The 2004 protest rule also exempts from protest any project
the Forest Service claims was proposed by Under Secretary Rey,
ignoring a court decision that recently rejected a similar
exemption. Again, contrary to what he said earlier, the
regulation in Section 218.12(B) does say that it exempts
authorized hazardous fuels reduction projects that are proposed
by the Secretary or the Under Secretary of Agriculture.
The Bush administration has also used these regulations to
advance its efforts to restrict judicial review for logging
projects.
The President's fiscal year 2005 budget request also fails
to prioritize community protection. The percentage of acres the
Bush administration plans to treat in the areas closest to
communities is only 51 percent. That's in the administration's
budget request. That means that 49 percent of the acres to be
treated in fiscal year 2005, which is 1.4 million acres, would
be in the back country, far from the nearest home or community.
Some of these projects are over 40 miles from the nearest home
or community.
As discussed above, these activities can actually worsen
fire risk, according to firecologists. In addition, the
administration has proposed cutting funding for State and local
assistance by 32 percent. This will weaken collaboration and it
will reduce assistance to the jurisdictions that have the
primary responsibility for protecting western homes and
communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify
today.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Ms. Mall. I appreciate your brevity.
It's very unusual around here that somebody stays within their
5 minutes, so thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mall follows:]
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Mr. Ose. I want to recognize the gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here. I have been in Defense markups all day, so that's
why I wasn't here for the first part. This is an incredibly
important topic. My closest friend was a former fire chief in
Los Angeles County, Dave Parsons. I don't know if anybody knows
him. So, I heard a lot from him when I was out there. My
sister's home was in the Piedmont section when they had the big
open fire in the Coldecut Tunnel, and my wife's aunt and uncle
had a home in Emerald Bay that was impacted when they had fires
down there, and she and I lived a couple miles from Anaheim
when they had the Anaheim fires. Our family just hasn't had a
lot of good luck. I know it is an incredibly important topic.
Senator Campbell, you are dead right. If there is the
political will to do it, it can be done. The fact that
California has experienced more of these I think than any other
State--unless I just read it wrong--something clearly has to be
done to help that State or it is going to burn down. The sooner
we can address that, the better.
Mr. Turbeville, I agree--prevention is certainly a lot
better, whether it is fire, health care, or whatever. The
sooner that sort of philosophy can be ingrained in the system,
the better, but I don't know if we ever will.
Chief McCammon, you said the system was not coordinated to
handle fires. Help me through that. Or did I misunderstand you?
It seems like there has been enough experience in California so
that things would have been very well coordinated, unless I
misunderstood what you were saying.
Mr. McCammon. I wasn't commenting about the suppression
efforts. I think we have one of the best mutual aid systems in
the world.
Mr. Schrock. OK.
Mr. McCammon. I was talking about the grant process,
getting money from the Federal Government through the different
agencies actually down to the local Fire Safety Councils.
Mr. Schrock. I see.
Mr. McCammon. And, the complexity of that.
Mr. Schrock. You heard what Ms. Mall said. I'd be curious
what your comments are on that. I heard a lot of things about
the Bush administration, but my sister was in a fire during
another administration. My wife's family was in another
administration. We were in the Anaheim fire in another
administration. So I would be curious to know what your
thoughts are on what she said about current regulations as
proposed and created by this administration.
Mr. McCammon. Well, I don't want to comment about the
forest issues specifically because I don't have experience
there, but her comments were dead on in terms of the idea of
creating defensible space around homes. There is some issue in
the field now whether 30 feet, 100 feet, or 300 feet is the
number, but we had some wonderful examples in Ventura and Los
Angeles County last September where communities were saved
because they were built with defensible space in mind, and when
communities really get together and create those kind of buffer
zones, it gives us an opportunity to kind of slow the fire down
a little bit and really suppress the fires in those
neighborhoods.
Mr. Schrock. Help me understand defensible space. Is that
just a fire break between the green stuff and the houses, or--
--
Mr. McCammon. That's correct.
Mr. Schrock. OK.
Mr. McCammon. It is an area anywhere from 30 feet to in
some areas they are recommending 300 feet where they have fire-
resistive vegetation or no vegetation at all, so that when the
fire--those wind-drive fires, as they approach those types of
housing tracts, really need some space because you're getting
extreme flame lengths.
Mr. Schrock. But in a fireball type situation, 30 feet--
that's probably half the width of this room. That doesn't seem
like a lot of space when winds are kicking up.
Mr. McCammon. Exactly.
Mr. Schrock. As I recall, when it came from Oakland through
the Coldecut Tunnel, the fireball, and then it went on to the
Piedmont area, and that was miles away.
Mr. McCammon. Yes, it did, sir. I was there from the very
beginning and lived in Oakland and experienced that.
Mr. Schrock. Yes. I yield back.
Mr. Ose. I thank the gentleman.
I want to clarify a point here. In terms of defensible
space, the fire break issue, if you will, there have been a
number of studies and recommendations done to help flesh out
that, both in terms of national standards, where people are in
the wildland-urban interface, or with building codes across the
country. Study after study after study have shown that those
are successful, that the use of non-combustible roof material
or siding that is combustive-resistant or these 100-foot to
300-foot areas where you have clear space around your house,
those are all successfully identified by research and
implemented in the field. Curiously enough, in the context of
the same studies that identified building code standards and
clear spaces, there was also studies--and I have a compilation
of these studies right there that I'm going to enter into the
record, and this is just a sampling--there have been studies
that also talk about reducing the fuel buildup in the areas
outside that 100-foot footprint or that 300-foot footprint.
Now if, in fact, building codes in California--and many of
these communities have evolved to where construction is now
taking place with fire-resistant roof material or siding, and
if landscape design features are such that the footprint
becomes 100-foot radius for protective purposes, why is it
we're still having these significantly catastrophic fires? And,
it begs the question, it seems to me, that the causes--one of
the non-implemented features that has been highlighted in study
after study after study, which is the continuation of the
buildup of fuel within the forests.
Now, Senator Campbell, you sit on the Governor's Fire Task
Force. What has your research or study come to the conclusion
of?
Mr. Campbell. We still have the conflict there in the
public policy issue. It seems that common sense has become a
stepchild to the issue of fire protection of fire and property
in this whole debate. We had one witness in Ventura testify
that he received an order from the fire department to clean 100
feet around his house in Malibu, and he received another order
from the Coastal Commission denying him the right to do that.
These are the kinds of conflicts I think that we run into.
There was a news report in the Los Angeles Times about the
need to protect the kangaroo rat in certain areas prevented the
clearance and the clearing out of specific areas, and also the
gnat catcher. As a result we lost houses and property and, as
you know, there were 22 lives lost in the fires in southern
California last year.
So, somewhere along the line, you know, 40 miles is not a
long distance. Our front line, our fire line was more than 40
miles long at one point in southern California of fire. So for
a fire to travel 40 miles inland, and most people have never
experienced the Santa Ana wind conditions, and when you
experience them you understand that once those winds hit the
dry chaparral and shrubbery and vegetation, there's nothing
that the firefighters can do. I mean, we're getting 55 mile an
hour winds with gusts up to 70. One pilot--we had to ground the
planes at this time, but one pilot saw a piece of 6 x 8 plywood
flying by his windshield at 500 feet when he was dropping. When
you drop the retardant or the water you have to be down low so
it doesn't evaporate before it hits the ground.
So, unless we start doing the clearing and the vegetation,
then the irony of all this, as you so eloquently stated
earlier, was that the habitat and the vegetation that we're
trying to protect is also destroyed. The kangaroo rat was
destroyed along with the houses and the property and the
vegetation in the cedar fire, which is the one to which they
specifically referred. So that's where the public policy people
have to come together and say, ``We just can't allow this to
continue to happen.''
We had a fire in northern California last year called the
Cone Fire, and it burned over an area where they were doing a
demonstration project of how to control vegetation. Three of
the four areas that you looked at after the fire were
devastated. The fourth area you could hardly tell a fire was
there because they had cleaned the vegetation, they had removed
some of the unnecessary trees, they got rid of some of the
chaparral, and the result and effect was that they were able to
control the fire in that one area because they had good forest
management practices.
Mr. Ose. Mr. Turbeville, on the Fire Safe Council, near as
I can tell from the testimony, you focus on building materials
and setbacks and things like that. Now, if I'm incorrect, No.
1, I need to be corrected. But, second, as I look, I'm
wondering whether or not you share my conclusion to this point
that we've had some of these measures implemented but some we
have not, and those that we did not implement, either for
policy reasons or otherwise, are they contributing to the
issues we're dealing with today with these fires?
Mr. Turbeville. Well, one of the comments I made in my
presentation to you was the new regulations, going back to what
was presented here shortly ago--in Simi Valley, for example, in
that new construction area there was no problem at all because
of the defensible space, correct building materials, fire safe
building materials. Where those are in place, there's a much
greater chance because it is a combination effort--the
defensible space and a mosaic landscape away from the
defensible space as you get in, to reduce the fuels. It is
correct building materials and building processes. The vent
holes around the attic line or the footline open without any
covering allows sparks to get inside. Another thing that people
don't seem to realize, you've got 30 feet of clearance, you've
got 10 foot brush, and then wind. As Senator Campbell said,
you've got 100-foot flame lengths, so 30 feet doesn't do a lot
of good. So, it's all a combination and it all has to be put
together. There has to be fuel breaks within communities,
surrounding the whole community, to stop it. If you are
unfortunate enough to get a couple of houses going, it will go
house to house just because of the extreme heat generated by
the fire. If there are fuel breaks, wide streets, etc.,
hopefully you are going to be able to get in there, like Bill
said, and get the engine companies in there to stop it from
doing that. In an unprotected area, it is going to go until it
wants to stop, and that's it.
Mr. Ose. Ms. Mall, from NRDC's investigations, one of the
things I'm trying to figure out is whether we can approach this
issue from a problem-solving standpoint by doing one, two,
three, or all of the things that have been identified in these
studies. I take from your testimony that you support the
building material issue, the setback, but I detect some
reluctance on your part about the fuel issue that might be
built up in the forest. Am I correct in that understanding?
Ms. Mall. Well, if you're talking about fuel that is far
away from homes, yes, you are correct, because while there may
be some scientific studies that you've seen that shows some
areas that have been logged far away from homes ended up
burning less intensively in a fire, there are also studies that
show that areas have been logged have burned more intensively
in a fire. Therefore, the science is not conclusive.
Actually, attached to my testimony is a letter from the
Nation's top firecologist----
Mr. Ose. I read it.
Ms. Mall [continuing]. To the President saying that very
thing. And, basically in my testimony what we were trying to
say is that we do know conclusively that we can protect homes
by doing the work immediately around homes. The work far away
from homes we do not know. The Forest Service has a research
budget, and they can use the research funds to look into
getting to a better place in the science. But, right now, if
the goal of the government is to really protect homes and
communities, that's where the resources should be focused.
Mr. Ose. I actually did read your attachment from the
various individuals across the country, and I do believe what
they were saying was that the science was inconclusive as it
relates to some of the proposals under Healthy Forests
Initiative or Restoration Act.
Ms. Mall. Yes.
Mr. Ose. I have to break things down simply in my mind
because I have to remember too many different things. So it is
your testimony around houses that the removal of fuel by virtue
of 100-foot or 300-foot or whatever the setback is is effective
in preventing catastrophic fires, but that the removal of fuel
in remote locations--I think your phrase, though lacking in
technical bureaucratese, ``back country''----
Ms. Mall. Yes.
Mr. Ose. Removal of fuel in back country situations, you're
saying the science is inconclusive in terms of its impact on
fires?
Ms. Mall. Its effectiveness on fire intensity.
Mr. Ose. So it is conclusive in close proximity to houses,
but it is inconclusive in back country?
Ms. Mall. I do want to add, in proximity to houses,
removing fuel is not, as some of the other witnesses have said,
is not the only thing that will make a home firewise.
Mr. Ose. I understand.
Ms. Mall. There's also the building materials.
Mr. Ose. Right. I got that.
Ms. Mall. And landscaping. But yes, it is a different
situation closer to houses. If we are trying to protect homes
and communities, we know how to do that. What we can't know for
sure is how a fire will burn, where it will burn, where it will
start when it's out in the back country, and therefore there is
not clear science on how to move forward with those projects.
Mr. Ose. OK. I just want to make sure I understand. In that
wildland-urban interface then, as part of a larger package, the
removal of fuel from close proximity to residential structures
is an effective tool in an arsenal of tools to fight fires.
Ms. Mall. But, we're not----
Mr. Ose. But, in the back country, if I understand your
testimony, there's no conclusive evidence to support that same
conclusion?
Ms. Mall. My testimony is not that the work around the
homes will prevent a fire or will stop a fire; my testimony is
that will protect the home.
Mr. Ose. What's the difference?
Ms. Mall. Well, the difference is that we can't control
where a fire will start and when it will start and what the
wind will be that day and where it will travel, but we do know
that we can protect the home site if the fire goes in that
direction.
Mr. Ose. Does the removal of the undergrowth around a house
reduce the intensity of the fire? Is that your testimony?
Ms. Mall. Well, I'm not exactly sure how to answer that
question, but----
Mr. Ose. Well, yes or no would be sufficient.
Ms. Mall. Well, it will protect the home.
Mr. Ose. OK.
Ms. Mall. The fire will not----
Mr. Ose. So, removal of fuel in back country----
Ms. Mall. Yes.
Mr. Ose [continuing]. Won't help protect the forest? You
see, I'm trying to get an explanation of how removal of fuel in
one area----
Ms. Mall. Sure. The home site is already an open area.
There is some open space, and----
Mr. Ose. Once cleared, that's correct.
Ms. Mall. Many home sites have driveways, they are near
streets, there's a sidewalk, there's a yard, there's already
areas that are cleared. That's very different than a wild area
where there has been no clearing.
Mr. Ose. Actually, before I came to Congress I was in that
business, and the typical minimum setback from a street is 20
feet and the typical single family elevation setback from a
side yard is 5 feet, and the typical rear yard in my community
is a minimum of 20 feet, so I have more than a passing
knowledge on design standards.
Ms. Mall. Yes.
Mr. Ose. I think your point is that the open space in that
wildland-urban interface of 100 feet or 200 feet serves this
purpose.
Ms. Mall. It is a very different landscape than a wild
forest that's a natural area that has not been logged before.
Mr. Ose. OK. But removing fuel from that area around those
houses is part of the fire attenuation process or not part?
Ms. Mall. If it is brush and it is small trees, it is
extremely flammable, and that is the stuff that generally
you're removing when you're making a home firewise.
Mr. Ose. OK.
Ms. Mall. If you go into a forest and you're just taking
out the brush and you're just taking out undergrowth and very
small trees, that's very different than a logging project where
you're taking out medium or large trees. That changes the----
Mr. Ose. It changes the canopy cover and everything else,
so----
I'm sorry, I'm probably not going to make this vote, but I
wanted to ask you, in terms of the component parts that are
identified in study after study after study of what is
appropriate fire attenuation programs, in a highly urban area
like Sacramento, where I live, and you've got lot and block
subdivisions, you're seeking noncombustible materials on the
roof and fire-resistant materials in the construction
underneath the roof?
Mr. McCammon. That's correct.
Mr. Ose. OK. As a means--for instance, there are even some
communities that require sprinklers in single family houses and
apartments now.
Mr. McCammon. Yes.
Mr. Ose. In an area where we have the wildland-urban
interface, the same applications would apply to beneficial use,
if I understand your testimony.
Mr. McCammon. Yes.
Mr. Ose. And then on top of that, given the geographic
location, your testimony is that having some sort of 100-foot
setback or fuel removal program is positive in terms of
preventing a catastrophic fire?
Mr. McCammon. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ose. OK. Mr. Turbeville, I want to talk to you about
the grants process a little bit. On the grants process, I'm
told that there was a provision in the budget that was passed
by the House that sets aside $500 million protected from a
point of order, the purpose of which would be to go either to a
grants process in part or to prevent the raiding of the grants
process funding as other emergency situations arise. Are you
aware of that?
Mr. Turbeville. I'm vaguely aware of it. I just heard of it
a couple of days ago and have not had an adequate explanation.
Mr. Ose. OK. And, you followed Mr. Rey's announcement
earlier today about the flexibility in terms of the matches and
what have you. That's not part of the grants process you're
talking about?
Mr. Turbeville. I don't believe so.
Mr. Ose. OK. In terms of the fire plans that you talk about
as the body of the grassroots effort that are getting
developed, can you tell us what measures should be--I just want
to come back. I'm beating the horse to death here if I can.
What measures should be included in the establishment of these
fire plans in particular for the purpose of mitigating fire
risk?
Mr. Turbeville. Well, there's multiple things that go into
a fire plan. Also, are you talking about just a community fire
plan, or are you talking about the California State fire plan,
or----
Mr. Ose. I'm talking more specifically about the community
fire plan. I want to know how it works on the ground for some
of these fires that might otherwise be prevented in California
or any of the western States this year.
Mr. Turbeville. Basically, it's a matter, at the community
level, of working collaboratively with the fire agencies and
the other interested entities in setting priorities,
determining a chain of events that have to occur based on the
priorities. What are the biggest at-risk hazards, which ones
need what kind of work? How soon can that work be done, and
descending down from there. It is a simple planning process.
It's setting the priorities, determining who is going to do it,
how it is going to be done, and who is going to pay for it.
Mr. Ose. So, the fire plan that might exist, say, at Lake
Arrowhead might be significantly different than the fire plan
that exists in Santa Monica as compared to the fire plan that
might exist in Sacramento, CA, depending on the circumstances?
Mr. Turbeville. Theoretically, every fire plan should be
different, should take into consideration exactly what they're
dealing with at the local level.
Mr. Ose. Now, the fire plan is a plan for a snapshot in
time, a circumstantial situation, or is it something that is a
long-term effort by a community?
Mr. Turbeville. It should be a long-term effort, because
not only do we need to do the clearance of fuel around a
community, we have to remember that fuel starts growing back
immediately, so it must be maintained to be effective forever.
Mr. Ose. So, within a community's fire plan you might have
budget standards?
Mr. Turbeville. Yes.
Mr. Ose. Setback requirements?
Mr. Turbeville. Right.
Mr. Ose. Spaces between structures, width of roads for
firefighting equipment and the like, fuel reduction plans?
Mr. Turbeville. Yes.
Mr. Ose. What about the use of some of the chemicals that
I'm aware of that retard the growth or the regrowth of fuel?
Mr. Turbeville. Fuel modification through chemical
modification?
Mr. Ose. Yes.
Mr. Turbeville. If it is allowed--very difficult with some
of the environmental compliance issues. In some areas it does
work and is allowed.
Mr. Ose. OK.
Mr. Turbeville. But, it needs to be considered. If it is a
potential remedy, use it.
Mr. Ose. All right. How far afield does a community go when
it is considering a fire plan? For instance, does it address
the circumstances of fire in its watershed? For instance, if a
community draws water--like San Francisco draws water from
Hetch Hetchy. I mean, that's the No. 1 water source for San
Francisco. Does San Francisco's fire plan address conditions in
and around Hetch Hetchy?
Mr. Turbeville. Common sense would tell me that if my water
supply is coming from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, I'd better be
thinking about it, even if I am in San Francisco on the
receiving end of that water, because the responsibility--it is
someone's responsibility to consider it. You can't
automatically assume that it's always going to be there.
Mr. Ose. You may have just opened up Pandora's Box.
So, Senator Campbell, in the State of California
Statewide--I mean, you know Sacramento. We get our water from
Folsom and it comes out of the Sierra Nevadas. San Francisco
gets it from Hetch Hetchy. Shasta supplies it. How do we,
across jurisdictions, deal with this issue?
Mr. Campbell. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make one comment on
the community plans, because one of the biggest successes was
the community plan in the Lake Arrowhead/Big Bear area. That's
the evacuation portion of the plan. In Lake Arrowhead in that
area they evacuated up to 70,000 people out of those mountains
on two-lane highways without even a fender bender. It was one
of the most amazing success stories in the fire siege down
there in southern California.
Now, the water supply--San Francisco has an advantage. They
also, since the earthquake, pump water out of the San Francisco
Bay specifically for firefighting efforts. If they have to use
the salt water, they will do it. But the State water, we are in
the midst of a massive, massive drought in California all over
the State, and as we look at the fires right now in southern
California particularly, one thing we haven't mentioned is
there are over a million dead trees from the bark beetle in the
San Bernadino Mountains, and they are kindling, and they are
ready just to explode the minute heat hits them of a high
proportion. So, what we found out is we missed out in spring
this year for California. We went from winter, you know, the
April showers that are supposed to bring May flowers, we didn't
get the April showers and now we are having May fires--a bad
pun, I might add. But, nonetheless, here we are in the early
part of the season fighting massive fires already in southern
California. And, if they ever get into the mountain areas with
the dead bark beetle trees and the Santa Ana winds hit again
this fall, we could lose up to 30,000 homes in that area.
Now, the water isn't coming in as rapidly for southern
California from the State water project or from Hoover Dam or
Boulder Dam. That water supply is dwindling. The water supply
from down river out in the Imperial area is dwindling. The
water supply, Folsom Lake, if you have been out--I'm sure
you've been there--recently there's not as much water as there
is supposed to be. That's in all our reservoirs up and down the
State.
As you know, most of the water in the State of California
is used in agriculture. Overwhelmingly, about 80 percent or
more is used in agriculture, and industrial production takes
about 10 and residential used to be 5 or 7 or somewhere in that
neighborhood. So, we have a drought, a critical issue hitting
California, and we could see the same kind of fire siege this
year as we saw last year, and not just southern California but
all over the State of California.
So, what do we do? We plan. The Commission, by bringing
together the State, the local, and the Federal officials, we
worked out some real problems; however, we've got to start
moving on those problems, like the interoperability of
communications is a major problem in any siege, because you
have the communications between the Federal fire service with
Interior, with Forest Service, with the military, and with the
State, and then with the local fire departments and fire
districts, and then you throw on top of that the public
utilities and CalTrans and emergency medical, and for an
incident commander to be able to control that situation becomes
very difficult, and cell phones--individual captains on the
engines were using cell phones to communicate with each other,
and in the mountainous terrain that was difficult to do.
I don't know what to tell you, Mr. Chairman, about what are
we going to do. We're just going to hope for the very best and
rely heavily upon the expertise and the good will of the fire
fighters in California.
Mr. Ose. I want to ask each of you the following question.
Mr. Rey testified that, while the Restoration Act set a minimum
of 50 percent of these funds being spent on reduction
activities in the wildland-urban interface, they're actually
spending 60 percent. Do you have a recommendation as to what--
before you answer that, that's a 5-minute vote. Mr. Turbeville,
I know you've got a plane to catch, so unless you go now you're
not going to catch it, so I'm going to go ahead and excuse you.
Mr. Turbeville. Yes, I do.
Mr. Ose. If you don't leave now, you're not going to catch
it, so I'm going to go ahead and excuse you. I have to go make
this second vote. I will be back in about 12 minutes and we'll
finish this panel. I appreciate your patience. Mr. Turbeville,
I know your situation, so I apologize I couldn't get this done,
but we appreciate your coming.
Mr. Turbeville. I understand.
Mr. Ose. We're recessed for about 12 minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Ose. I appreciate your patience.
I was on the verge of asking about the distribution of
funds in treating fuel reduction. The testimony of one of the
earlier witnesses was that 60 percent of USDA and DOI's,
Agriculture and Interior's, combined fuel reduction funds are
being spent on the wildland-urban interface. My question is
whether or not that's too much, too little, the right amount,
what have you.
Mr. Campbell. Mr. Chairman, I hate to say this. I'm not
qualified to answer that question. I would defer to----
Mr. Ose. An honest answer.
Mr. Campbell [continuing]. Chief McCammon. But, a quick
observation is we have to do something about cleaning the
areas, not just around homes but doing some significant
mainstream management of our forests.
Mr. Ose. OK. Chief.
Mr. McCammon. Well, as Senator Campbell, I don't know that
I can speak to whether 50 percent is enough or 70 percent is
enough, but I can tell you from California's perspective we
believe more funding needs to be dedicated toward those fuels
management issues in the wildland-urban interface.
Mr. Ose. OK. So let's say 50 percent was spent last year.
We need to be higher than that. And, I don't know the numbers,
frankly.
Mr. McCammon. Well, the difficulty I think is trying to
understand where those acres are that have been managed, and,
you know, for us in California we have some significant issues
that haven't been managed, and so I can't speak to the other
States that are involved, but in California we'd like to see
more funding dedicated to dealing with those issues.
Mr. Ose. With that wildland-urban interface?
Mr. McCammon. Urban interface, yes.
Mr. Ose. Ms. Mall.
Ms. Mall. We do believe that a great deal more should be
focused in the wildland-urban interface close to homes and
communities until all homes are made firewise, especially for
people who don't have the financial wherewithal to do it
themselves. That should be the priority. It is especially
important, I want to note, in areas like southern California
where a lot of the areas at risk are not forested. Most of the
fires in southern California were not trees that were burning.
I believe, according to the National Fire Center's report that
I read this morning, most of those fires today burning are
brush fires. And, in particular, when you're logging in areas,
that's not going to help the communities that are not forested.
Mr. Ose. The pictures I've seen of the before versus after
is that it is almost chaparral-like, low manzanita type brush
with the highly combustible, almost fuel-like plant fluid that
just explodes on you when it catches fire.
Chief, is that your experience, too?
Mr. McCammon. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ose. OK. Senator, do you agree with that?
Mr. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Ose. At least in terms of the areas that we have had
such catastrophes in, that tends to be the characteristics
we're dealing with. We haven't really had what someone might
call a traditional Yellowstone type fire.
Mr. McCammon. Well, I think some of the areas in San
Bernadino County get close to that. We only saw 3 percent of
the trees that were dead from the bark beetle infestation
actually burn in those fires--the whole Grand Prix fire. But,
clearly you could have a Yellowstone type situation had those
winds continued to blow East and take the mountain out, itself.
Mr. Campbell. And, they reach a point, Mr. Chairman, where
they jump from crown to crown with those kinds of winds, and
you know, they get the underbrush later. It comes down. But
with the wind blowing at the speed at which it blows when the
Santa Ana conditions are evident, there's just nothing you can
do.
Can I go far afield for a second?
Mr. Ose. Certainly. We're an investigative committee, so
you can do anything you want.
Mr. Campbell. We played around, Mr. Chairman, in the
discussions with the predator, and the reason for that is the
predator technology can take pictures and relay information at
night time and through smoke and through fog or whatever,
through areas, and what we would like to see happen is for the
Federal Government to dedicate a couple of predators without
the military potential of the rockets, but just from the
technical aspects of their ability to look down on a fire at
nighttime and tell us what that fire is doing, because right
now it is hard to know where that fire is going to come out in
the morning if we can't look down and see what's happening, and
so I know it is top-secret technology that you're utilizing,
but if the Federal Government could provide a couple of those
available for major fires like we had in southern California,
it would give us a little indication as morning comes where we
could set up our lines and maybe have a little better
opportunity to at least slow the fire down or to stop it.
Mr. Ose. All right. Chief.
Mr. McCammon. Could I maybe elaborate on your question
about the 50 percent or 70 percent? One of the things as I've
reviewed the way this process works is that--and I spoke to it
early about the discoordinated nature of the whole process in
that you have several different agencies that are funding fuels
management programs in different areas. Sometimes I don't think
they even know which ones they are doing or not doing as it
relates to one another, and I think that there really needs to
be a concerted effort to focus on development of the community
fire plans so that we take those at-risk communities and we
start building from the community fire plan forward and then
begin to understand the types of fuels management programs that
they need and how they need to implement those and get all of
the Federal agencies working together.
I think you see the California Fire Alliance has put an
effort forward to try and do that. I think any time you can
maximize the use of funds by working together, you are going to
get a better product.
Mr. Ose. All right. I just have just a few remaining
questions.
Senator Campbell, in the report from the Commission
published in April of this year, on page 13 there was a comment
that the most destructive, costly, and dangerous wildfires
occurred in older, dense vegetation burning under extreme
conditions. What do you mean by ``extreme conditions?''
Mr. Campbell. The buildup of the area, the forest area, or
the chaparral area where all the underbrush is there and it
dies out and then you have new underbrush that grows the next
year and it dies out. It piles one up on top of the other. You
have no thinning of trees or even shrubbery or the small trees
around there.
By the way, the bark beetle is indigenous to southern
California. I mean, it's not something that just happened. But
because of the drought it dried up the sap of the trees which
was used to kill the bark beetle, and thus we have over a
million bark beetle trees dead there.
But when these extreme conditions come together with the
drought, with the dryness--and, by the way, southern California
has been racked with over 100 degree temperatures for the last
2 weeks--and the winds, and the cool breeze that blows in off
the ocean, when that stops and you have them coming in off the
desert and you have the Santa Ana wind conditions, when those
hit--let me state this again--there's nothing we can do to stop
that fire. I mean, we have to have--what we do beforehand is
more important than what we do at that point.
Mr. Ose. Are you suggesting that, so to speak, we are not
out of the woods yet?
Mr. Campbell. We're in big trouble right now.
Mr. Ose. This is going to keep coming and coming and
coming?
Mr. Campbell. No. But unless we get the good forest
management, unless we manage the forest properly to clean out
the dead vegetation, to make sure that we protect the
watershed, to make sure that we do everything that we can to
get rid of the combustible material that's on the ground and in
the area, you have growth in our forests in southern California
where you have the big trees, but all of the small trees that
are growing up around it, and feeding off the same water system
as does the large tree, and thus the drought affects all of the
large trees and the small trees die off, and they just lay
there and act as fuel for the next fire coming in.
When those things, all those combination of factors come
together, that's when we get the kind of conflagration we got
last fall. And, we're ripe for it again this year, I hate to
say.
Mr. Ose. Chief, your colleagues in the firefighting
business, frankly, have to deal with the reality of this. In
terms of where we have gone with urban development in
California and the buildup of fuel, the lack of advance
planning in some of these communities, do you see any decline
in the challenge we face in the coming days?
Mr. McCammon. For the firefighting community?
Mr. Ose. For the firefighting issues.
Mr. McCammon. No. We saw this last fall. Flame lengths and
rates of spread that we haven't seen before, and fire fighters
were asked to do things in this last fire siege that they
haven't had to do in the past. It was a phenomenal experience
down there. And, you're seeing areas throughout the State of
California where those conditions exist, and so we are having
to train our personnel in different ways than we've done in the
past. We used to take our apparatus and station at particular
structures to do structure protection. Well, we have to make
decisions about whether we want to protect those structures any
more because of the types of occurrences that we've seen.
I think that all of our comments about managing the
interface areas are appropriate, but those are long-term issues
that we're going to have to deal with, because it isn't going
to happen overnight. And, as Senator Campbell said, once you
get the urban interface area taken care of, it is growing back
all the time.
As an example, in the city of Oakland we experienced the
Oakland Hills fire; 3,000 homes, the same number of homes were
lost in southern California in 2 weeks. We did it in 18 hours.
The city of Oakland recently had the voters re-approve
vegetation management districts so they can begin to still
manage that vegetation that's growing back.
Mr. Ose. I had the unfortunate experience of becoming a
member of an insurance board a year after that fire, and we
waived limits on all the coverages. It must have cost us $2
billion. We wrote a lot of checks. So that gives you some
sense. And, that was 12 years ago. That gives you some sense of
the scope of the problem.
I don't have any further questions. We're going to leave
the record open. I know there are people here from California
who have submitted testimony or letters both to me and to other
Members of Congress. I have read those letters. To those of you
who might be in the audience, I have read those letters. We are
going to leave the record open for questions of our witnesses,
and in the context of those questions we're likely to ask
things related to your material that you submitted.
I do want to thank our witnesses for coming and visiting
with us today and providing the input. It is clear that
California remains pretty much at the center of a dilemma from
a policy standpoint, and that is: how do humans and the
patterns of growth that exist in high-growth States like
California or other western States, how do we reconcile the
demand for housing and community development with bumping up
against some areas that traditionally have not been subjected
to urban development? That's that wildland-urban interface.
We have related issues compared to as population grows in
California we're going to need water, and the water that
supplies many of these new growth areas comes from a long way
away, and so how do we protect or what do we put in place
policy-wise to protect the watersheds in those areas from
having catastrophic fires and then having a complete collapse
of the ecosystem in those watersheds that plug the natural
streams or fill up the reservoirs with silt and what have you
from erosion? These are all inter-related.
Senator Campbell, I appreciate your service in the
Governor's Commission.
Chief McCammon, obviously your day-to-day experiences are
greatly appreciated and probably not sufficiently recognized by
you and your team. We appreciate that.
Ms. Mall, we appreciate your coming and sharing with us the
viewpoint from the organization you represent.
We will share these findings and this testimony with the
rest of Congress as is normal practice.
Again, I thank you all for coming today.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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