[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LOCALLY GROWN:
CREATING RURAL JOBS WITH
AMERICA'S PUBLIC LANDS
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS
AND PUBLIC LANDS
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
Thursday, July 15, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-62
__________
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Chairman
DOC HASTINGS, Washington, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Don Young, Alaska
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Elton Gallegly, California
Samoa John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey Jeff Flake, Arizona
Grace F. Napolitano, California Henry E. Brown, Jr., South
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Carolina
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam Louie Gohmert, Texas
Jim Costa, California Rob Bishop, Utah
Dan Boren, Oklahoma Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Gregorio Sablan, Northern Marianas Doug Lamborn, Colorado
Martin T. Heinrich, New Mexico Adrian Smith, Nebraska
Ben Ray Lujan, New Mexico Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
George Miller, California Paul C. Broun, Georgia
Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts John Fleming, Louisiana
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Mike Coffman, Colorado
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Jason Chaffetz, Utah
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Cynthia M. Lummis, Wyoming
Islands Tom McClintock, California
Diana DeGette, Colorado Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Lois Capps, California
Jay Inslee, Washington
Joe Baca, California
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South
Dakota
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts
Frank Kratovil, Jr., Maryland
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
James H. Zoia, Chief of Staff
Rick Healy, Chief Counsel
Todd Young, Republican Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Republican Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS AND PUBLIC LANDS
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, Arizona, Chairman
ROB BISHOP, Utah, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Don Young, Alaska
Grace F. Napolitano, California Elton Gallegly, California
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam Jeff Flake, Arizona
Dan Boren, Oklahoma Henry E. Brown, Jr., South
Martin T. Heinrich, New Mexico Carolina
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Louie Gohmert, Texas
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
Islands Paul C. Broun, Georgia
Diana DeGette, Colorado Mike Coffman, Colorado
Ron Kind, Wisconsin Cynthia M. Lummis, Wyoming
Lois Capps, California Tom McClintock, California
Jay Inslee, Washington Doc Hastings, Washington, ex
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South officio
Dakota
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
Ben Ray Lujan, New Mexico
Nick J. Rahall, II, West Virginia,
ex officio
CONTENTS
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Page
Hearing held on Thursday, July 15, 2010.......................... 1
Statement of Members:
Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona, Prepared statement of.................... 11
Herseth Sandlin, Hon. Stephanie, a Representative in Congress
from the State of South Dakota............................. 2
Lujan, Hon. Ben Ray, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Mexico........................................ 1
Lummis, Hon. Cynthia M., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Wyoming....................................... 2
Statement of Witnesses:
Curtis, Wes, Vice President for Government Relations and
Regional Services, Southern Utah University, Cedar City,
Utah....................................................... 48
Prepared statement of.................................... 49
Dearstyne, Joyce, Executive Director, Framing Our Community,
Inc., Elk City, Idaho...................................... 41
Prepared statement of.................................... 43
Jensen, Jay, Deputy Under Secretary, Natural Resources and
Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture................ 3
Joint prepared statement of.............................. 5
Laurance, Joseph A., Douglas County Commissioner, Roseburg,
Oregon..................................................... 18
Prepared statement of.................................... 19
Lee, Don L. (Bebo), New Mexico Public Lands Council, and New
Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, Alamogordo, New Mexico. 54
Prepared statement of.................................... 56
Mondragon, Rachael, Owner, Urban Interface Solutions, Taos,
New Mexico................................................. 63
Prepared statement of.................................... 64
Moseley, Cassandra, Ph.D., Director, Ecosystem Workforce
Program, University of Oregon.............................. 33
Prepared statement of.................................... 35
Parker, Melanie, Executive Director, Northwest Connections,
Swan Valley, Montana....................................... 73
Prepared statement of.................................... 75
Sobeck, Eileen, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and
Wildlife and Parks, U.S. Department of the Interior........ 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
Troy, Kristin, Executive Director, Lemhi Regional Land Trust,
Salmon, Idaho.............................................. 68
Prepared statement of.................................... 70
Vasquez, Victor, Deputy Under Secretary, Rural Development,
U.S. Department of Agriculture............................. 9
Joint prepared statement of.............................. 5
Additional materials supplied:
List of documents retained in the Committee's official files. 81
von der Esch, Leigh, Managing Director, Utah Office of
Tourism, Statement submitted for the record................ 59
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON ``LOCALLY GROWN: CREATING RURAL JOBS WITH
AMERICA'S PUBLIC LANDS''
----------
Thursday, July 15, 2010
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, D.C.
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:51 a.m. in
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Raul Grijalva
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Grijalva, DeFazio, Herseth
Sandlin, Lujan, Bishop, Young, and Lummis.
Also present: Representative Minnick.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BEN RAY LUJAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
Mr. Lujan [presiding]. I would like to call this hearing to
order. There are some old misconceptions about Federal lands in
the West and the agencies which manage them. Some assert that
our public lands are job killers and that the Federal land
managers want to seize private land, halt industries, and harm
economies. These accusations are wrong, and they undermine
western communities by framing their struggles as a choice
between economic development and conservation. That is a false
choice, which ignores that many communities are successfully
both.
Given that the folks actually live in the West that we are
going to be hearing from today, we will be well served to
listen to them. Their approach is not to tear things down, but
rather to build consensus, and even collaborate with old
adversaries. And their goal is to apply the principle that the
long-term health of the community and the land, and the well-
being of our rural communities are all linked.
We will hear today from public land managers, county
commissioners, ranchers, and environmentalists, small business
owners, and educators, and they will tell us about the ways
that they are working together to chart a new path to
prosperity using our public lands.
I know that this has not been an easy road at times,
especially in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the
Great Depression. But for those communities that were dependent
on just one commodity for their development, this evolution is
extremely critical. We look forward to hearing your stories
today, but we also need to learn from them. So I also invite
the witnesses to share with us the challenges and obstacles
that you have faced in implementing your projects. I want to
hear your frustrations, but more importantly, I want your input
on how we can better support your efforts.
Whether doing a round-up, battling a wildfire, or
confronting a flood, rural communities are well suited to
teamwork, and they always have persevered. Today, as they forge
novel partnerships to create sustainable jobs, revive
communities, and restore the unique western landscape, they are
riding a new and promising chapter in the rich history of the
American West.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for traveling so far
today in what I know is a busy time of year to join us,
especially in this humidity. I understand that Ms. Troy, who is
on our third panel, even left a Salmon River rafting trip to
come testify today. Now, that is sacrifice.
I look forward to hearing from you today, and I now turn to
the Ranking Member for any opening comments that she may have.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CYNTHIA LUMMIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING
Ms. Lummis. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to
welcome the panelists. We are delighted that you would join us
today. I find some irony, I must admit, in the fact that we
just passed a bill moments ago by the full Natural Resources
Committee that will actually kill jobs on Federal lands, and
now we are having a hearing on how to create jobs on Federal
lands. That does seem to be the tone that we are fighting on
the minority side of the aisle this year.
So I am looking forward to hearing what opportunities you
see, in spite of the tide of job killing bills that are coming
out of this Congress, on how we might repair some of the damage
being done these two years, and how we might go forward in a
direction that really does solidify a commitment to multiple
use on public lands. And again, I am really delighted that you
are here. Thank you very much for joining us.
Mr. Lujan. Ms. Herseth Sandlin.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I too
want to thank all of our witnesses on the first panel and the
second panel for the insights you are offering to our
Subcommittee. As I often hear when I visit forest communities
in the Black Hills of South Dakota, one of the things that
would do the most to create rural jobs while improving both
forest health and increasing our energy independence would be
to increase the production of renewable energy off of our
Federal lands.
We have enormous resources here as it relates to biomass,
either for co-generation or advanced biofuels. In the Black
Hills National Forest, for example, only 15 percent of the
100,000 tons of dry slash that is removed from the forest every
year, only 15 percent of it is used. The rest of it is piled up
and burned. So I think we all can agree that that defies common
sense. I mean, I hope we could agree that that defies common
sense, in light of energy independence goals, healthy forest
management, the amount of time that we can put into a forest
plan that can address some of the concerns that some might want
to raise without completely eliminating the option and allowing
the Department of the Interior to put together the maps, as
they have been doing, for where the wind energy may be on
Federal lands, where the solar energy may be on Federal lands,
where other resources are that we could extract on Federal
lands. They should be able to do it for biomass as well.
So when we have valuable forest resources going to waste
rather than being put to work to create domestic energy and
rural jobs, you can imagine the frustration of us since a very
inappropriate definition was adapted in December of 2007,
instead of an expanded definition for biomass like we
successfully passed in the 2008 Farm Bill as it relates to
renewable biomass. And it would go a long way in addressing
this issue.
So I look forward to--I know, Mr. Laurance, you include
discussion of this in your testimony. I will be interested to
hear from our Administration officials if we are any closer to
supporting a definition from all of you in support of renewable
biomass that works for our Federal forests. And I yield back
and thank the Chairman for the recognition.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much. And I will tell you, as
this Congress moves forward to see what needs to be done to
make sure we have good partnerships, where we are creating
jobs, working on legislation to address the impacts and needs
of what has happened in the Gulf, but as we look at energy
around the country, there are good partnerships out there, and
we are going to hear about some of those today.
So with that, I am looking forward to the testimony, and we
would like to begin with Mr. Jay Jensen, Deputy Under Secretary
of Natural Resources and Environment for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
STATEMENT OF JAY JENSEN, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY, NATURAL
RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jensen. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting us today to discuss how
USDA is using partnerships and collaboration to create jobs and
prosperity in rural communities and near public lands.
The USDA Forest Service, as the nation's second largest
public land manager, manages 193 million acres of forest and
grassland, directly providing not only clean air and water, but
jobs and livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Rural Development, whose $31 billion in loans, grants, and
guarantees in 2009 equates to being one of the largest banks in
America, plays an instrumental role in financing essential
development for communities in and around our public lands.
It is a privilege to be part of this historic partnership
that we are charting here, as these two agencies have never
worked as closely with common purpose on our forested lands. By
building business relationships, we are accelerating innovation
and investment, creating jobs and growth, while fostering a
stewardship ethic that spans differences among citizens and
interests.
After recreation on the national forest system lands, which
provide 224,000 jobs and accounts for over $14 billion in gross
domestic product, timber management and related production is
the second highest economic value derived from Forest Service
activities, accounting for approximately 4.5 billion in GDP in
2005. Further, we need to update these numbers, but the last
comprehensive analysis in 2002 of all Forest Service activities
found that the agency sustained or maintained more than 473,000
jobs and contributed 23.7 billion in GDP.
Building on this, it is our strong belief that we are on a
course to accomplish even more work on national forest system
lands today and produce more jobs from those lands over time as
the agency carries out the All Lands Landscape-Scale Forest
Restoration vision championed by Secretary Vilsack and Forest
Service Chief Tidwell.
I understand you will hear other testimony today in support
of this, and outlining that we can create and maintain on
average 20 jobs for $1 million invested in forest restoration.
It is clear we need to build an economy around forest
restoration, a forest restoration economy, if you will. We need
to maintain what little forest management infrastructure we
have left in our communities, both the human infrastructure and
the brick and mortar infrastructure, and build new
infrastructure around emerging opportunities and markets like
woody bioenergy to economically sustained communities, while
simultaneously restoring our forests.
The path to get there is through collaboration and
partnerships. Community-led efforts are playing a central role
in delivering these benefits, while stewardship contracting,
and the President's Fiscal Year 2011 proposed integrated
resources restoration budget line item are key administrative
tools to get there. The authority to enter into 10-year
stewardship contracts is particularly important, as it gives
the private sector the certainty it needs to finance necessary
infrastructure investments. Clear, consistent, and predictable
tools are key.
Additionally, the $690 million integrated resource
restoration line item is an essential new tool needed to get
more work done, as it allows greater agency flexibility to
tailor projects. A prime example of this is our current work in
southeast Alaska. The USDA Forest Service and Rural Development
are working in partnership to deliver jobs through a transition
framework on the Tongass National Forest.
Through this framework, a team of agency officials is
coordinating with communities and interests to diversify the
region's economy and to foster job growth based on a broader
suite of forest restoration goods and services than has been
attempted in the past. To bridge this transition, the agency is
combining existing timber contracts with several long-term
stewardship contracts to supply the existing forest products
industry.
Another example is the 4 Forest Restoration Initiative in
Arizona. The initiative is a landscaped-scale restoration
effort being collaboratively developed to protect communities
from wildfire. Emanating from the successful collaborations
that brought us the first major long-term stewardship contract,
the 150,000-acre White Mountain Apache-Sitgraves stewardship
contract, this second generation collaborative seeks to restore
approximately 2.4 million acres of ponderosa pine forest. This
is exactly the type of effort envisioned by Secretary Vilsack,
and provides the kind of predictability needed for business
investment.
One more example can be found in the Ouachita National
Forest in Arkansas. Restoration of short-leaf pine, bluestem
grass ecosystem habitat for the endangered red-cockaded
woodpecker has been a focus for several years. But through
collaboration and a focus on science-based projects, regular
timber sales are occurring, providing a predictable, good
supply to the mills in the region. Forest restoration goes hand
in hand with economic development.
And my testimony today would not be complete without
mention of the work supported by the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act. Americans are heading back to work this
summer, with the $1.15 billion provided to the Forest Service
as it hits the ground. Hundreds of projects are underway, such
as the Woody Biomass Utilization Partnership, a public-private
partnership in southwestern Idaho investing 9.75 million in
sawmills, a pellet mill, and dry kiln infrastructure.
And President Obama is serious about jobs on public lands.
The recently launched America' Great Outdoors Initiative in
predicated on collaboration and partnerships. The agenda is
grounded in finding the most successful local initiatives
across the country to spur conservation on public lands while
simultaneously promoting economic opportunity.
These are just a few examples that I was glad to share with
you today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Thank you.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Jensen and Mr. Vasquez
follows:]
Joint Statement of Victor Vasquez, Deputy Under Secretary, Rural
Development, and Jay Jensen, Deputy Under Secretary, Natural Resources
and Environment, United States Department of Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting us today to discuss rural job creation and the importance of
collaboration among individuals, interest groups, and communities and
the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Rural Development
and Forest Service agencies.
Today we will discuss the value of partnerships and community
collaboration in job creation, and provide examples of successful
collaborative economic diversification efforts of the Forest Service
and USDA Rural Development throughout the United States. We believe
that collaboration can leverage the unique capabilities of each agency;
can accelerate our efforts to assist rural communities in creating
prosperity and jobs; can develop shared land stewardship through
citizen engagement; and can be an effective tool to bridge differences
among interest groups and to consider the needs of the public.
Our USDA strategy includes working collaboratively across interests
and jurisdictions to support locally driven regional economic
development strategies, to increase economic opportunity, and improve
the quality of life in rural communities. We have held listening
sessions around the country to develop ideas to stimulate the economy.
These collaborative efforts help create jobs and economic prosperity in
renewable energy production, recreation and tourism, regional economic
planning, infrastructure development, and natural resource management.
RECENT EFFORTS
Our agencies accomplish much of our work through collaboration with
a diversity of partners, leveraging millions of appropriated dollars
annually that creates and maintains rural jobs.
Our most recent data for fiscal year 2009, the Forest Service
entered into 8,931 grants and agreements with partners, under which it
contributed $1.02 billion, and leveraged $461.8 million, for a total
value of partnered efforts of $1.48 billion. The Forest Service
distributed American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA)
contracts and grants in FY2009 totaling $1.12 billion. In that same
year, including substantial additional investment made possible by the
ARRA and leveraged funds, Rural Development provided over $31 billion
in loans, grants, and loan guarantees for rural housing, community
facilities, infrastructure, and business development.
SOME EXAMPLES
The Southeast Alaska Transition Framework--Last summer, we visited
southeast Alaska, visiting native communities and attending listening
sessions with local officials and residents. While there, we co-hosted
two economic diversity workshops to better understand how USDA can
support a diversified economy and range of opportunities for Southeast
Alaskan. At the close of these workshops, USDA regional staff committed
to hold similar workshops in every community in Southeast Alaska; those
sessions have brought about new ideas and possibilities for leveraging
the agencies of the USDA and have become a blueprint for Rural
Development and the Forest Service to work in local communities all
across the nation. The following initiative was the result of this
trip.
The Forest Service and Rural Development in Southeast Alaska have
formed a team to help local communities transition to a broader
economic base, based on a suite of goods and services that can provide
diversified jobs and community stability, where timber historically
provided the backbone.
The transition is based on shifting management emphasis towards
multi-year stewardship contracts and young growth management. This
strategy is supported by both the timber industry and environmental
groups as a way to maintain the health and diversity of the forest, and
meet market demand. The USDA team will coordinate with State and local
governments, tribal entities, local stakeholders, non-profit and for-
profit organizations to diversify economic opportunity and create and
maintain jobs on a broader suite of goods and services. The first of
several long-term stewardship contracts will be implemented by the
Forest Service in 2011 which will give the existing forest products
industry the needed supply to maintain current jobs while Rural
Development works to retool and transition to the new framework. Next
steps include development of a Strategic Plan, infusion of Rural
Development program funding, and targeting business and infrastructure
needs to help stimulate growth of new businesses and job creation.
The Appalachian Regional Development Initiative--Rural Development
is collaborating with the Forest Service, the Appalachian Regional
Commission, and a host of additional federal agencies on the
Appalachian Regional Development Initiative, which seeks to provide
federal support for regional economic development efforts across
Appalachia, including those focused on sustainable natural resource
development, recreation and tourism, and green job creation. Over the
past six months, an Interagency Working Group hosted five listening
sessions across the Appalachian region to gather feedback from local
stakeholders on the challenges and opportunities to diversifying and
strengthening their regional economies. The Working Group gathered
additional public comments through an online outreach page, and a team
of government economists crafted a holistic assessment of the region's
economic assets and challenges to development in the region. In the
coming months, we will announce a new federal strategy for supporting
development efforts in Appalachia, focusing on supporting
comprehensive, community-driven planning with sustainable natural
resource development.
Stewardship Contracting--The Forest Service through stewardship
contracting has the ability to enter into 10-year contracts, enhancing
industry's ability to create and maintain jobs. The private sector now
has the kind of certainty needed to work closely with financial
institutions to secure the types of loans and financing to build the
infrastructure needed, both human and brick and mortar, to economically
sustain communities while simultaneously restoring our forests.
Stewardship contracts help meet local and rural community needs
through collaborative planning and implementation and contribute to the
sustainability of rural communities by improving forest health and
natural resource resiliency, providing opportunities for local income
and employment, and fostering greater public involvement in project
stages. In FY 2009, the Forest Service entered into 141 stewardship
agreements and contracts on 88,304 acres, including vegetation
treatments for product, health, and fuels reduction, wildlife habitat
and watershed improvement, road improvement, and utilization of forest
biomass for energy production. The President's FY11 budget supports the
use of this tool to facilitate greater accomplishment in the forest and
greater economic development in communities.
Secure Rural Schools--The Forest Service will have 118 Secure Rural
Schools and Community Self-Determination Act Resource Advisory
Committees (RACS) fully functional by the end of the year in 33 states.
These groups collectively select projects that will benefit national
forests and nearby communities. Oftentimes, these projects are
contracted, and thus, help local communities economically. In selecting
the projects, RAC committees collaboratively learn each other's views,
interests and desires for national forest management and come to
agreement on projects to recommend. The result has been an unequivocal
success. Investment in such a collaborative process is a key ingredient
to finding project success. As testament, not one project selected by
RACS for funding has ever been appealed or litigated.
National Forest Scenic Byways Program--Two of the goals of the
National Forest Scenic Byways Program are to support and enhance rural
community economic development, and to increase public awareness and
understanding of national forest activities and the importance of
sustaining healthy, productive ecosystems. The National Forest Scenic
Byways Program, with 137 national forest scenic byways, is a success
because it unites rural communities, empowers collaboration among
diverse partners, and offers travelers a way to ``make the journey as
important as the destination.'' We have found that tourism can be
greatly increased as well. On the Kangamanus Scenic Byway in the White
Mountain National Forest, approximately 6 to 7 million visitors enjoy
scenic overlooks, hiking trails, and numerous historic sites. After
Scenic Byway designation, local communities, citizens, and forest
officials forge agreements on signage, tourism facilities, and roadside
attractions and stops. Oftentimes, the new relationships prove to be a
catalyst for new marketing and funding opportunities available through
the National Scenic Byways Program and State transportation agencies.
The emphasis on promoting community tourism has been one of the most
popular aspects of byway designation with rural communities.
America's Great Outdoors Initiative--President Obama announced in
April of this year his America's Great Outdoor Initiative to help craft
a conservation agenda for the 21st Century. Administration officials
are traveling across the country this summer to hear ideas, issues,
problems, and solutions directly from local communities. This agenda is
grounded in finding the most successful initiatives from across the
country to spur conservation of our public and private land resources
while simultaneously promoting economic opportunities. In fulfilling
America's Great Outdoor Initiative, Secretary Vilsack and the USDA are
finding that outdoor recreation provides opportunities for Americans to
participate in stewardship activities.
Recently, Secretary Vilsack highlighted how outdoor recreation on
National Forests and Grasslands alone directly provides 225,000 jobs
and contributes over 14.5 billion to the economy. The outdoor economy
is particularly important to rural America.
Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR)--The President's fiscal year
2011 budget emphasizes a new line item called Integrated Resource
Restoration. The new line item has tremendous potential to create and
maintain jobs through projects that are developed in collaboration with
partners and communities. Recent studies show that for every one
million invested in forest restoration and timber work on public lands,
nearly 20 jobs are created. \1\ This is one of the highest returns on
the dollar of any federal investment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Max Nielsen-Pincus & Cassandra Mosely, Economic and Employment
Impacts of Forest and Watershed Restoration in Oregon, in Institute for
a Sustainable Environment, Ecosystem Workforce Program, Working Paper
Number 24. (Spring, 2010: University of Oregon Press).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four-Forest Restoration Initiative, Arizona--National forest
managers in northern Arizona have been working for years to reduce the
threat of high-intensity, potentially-destructive wildfires to
neighboring communities through a variety of means. The 4-Forest
Restoration Initiative (4FRI), involving the Apache-Sitgraves,
Coconino, Kaibab, and Tonto National Forests, will provide economic
opportunities to local communities through the utilization of small-
diameter forest products, and is aimed at collaboratively designing a
multi-decade restoration program. The project will use a variety of
tools, including mechanical thinning and prescribed fire, to achieve
landscape-scale forest restoration. Because of the landscape-scale of
this restoration (approximately 2.4 million acres of ponderosa pine
forest), the 4FRI is expected to lead to as many as 50,000 acres per
year being treated over a 20-year period. This will reduce treatment
costs and provide restoration-based work opportunities that will create
long-term, quality jobs. This initiative will restore watershed health,
improve wildlife habitat, conserve biodiversity, protect old-growth,
restore forest structure and function, reduce the risk of
uncharacteristic wildland fire, and reintroduce natural fire into the
ecosystem.
Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition--The Northeast Washington
Forestry Coalition (NEWFC) is a collaborative group formed in 2002. The
``coalition'' is composed of representatives from environmental groups,
the timber industry, forestry consultants, academics, and a wide range
of other interests. The coalition has worked collaboratively with
Colville National Forest staff on project level planning that has
resulted in 22 projects being implemented without appeal or litigation
on the Colville National Forest. This is an important accomplishment
that helps maintain jobs.
The NEWFC objectives include: demonstrating the full potential of
restoration forestry to enhance forest health, public safety and
community economic vitality; designing and implementing forest
restoration and fuels reduction which demonstrate innovative approaches
to forestry; and demonstrating how a diverse coalition of stakeholders
can work together to successfully promote restoration forestry and
community protection from wildfire.
The NEWFC has engaged the local community and the larger ``natural
resource'' community by bringing groups together based on common
interests of forest health. The keys to the success of this process
have been in the early engagement of groups and in extensive site-
specific field visits.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
ARRA's greatest impact is still ahead of us. The summer 2010 will
be the most active season yet. The Forest Service was appropriated
$1.15 billion for wildland fire management and capital improvement and
maintenance projects in FY2009. With nearly all the money obligated,
Americans are being put back to work. For Wildland Fire Management, an
estimated 5,900 direct jobs were created, and for Capital Improvement
and Maintenance, estimated direct jobs equals 6,500. For Wildland Fire
Management, 298 projects have been completed for $500 million, and
capital improvement and maintenance projects totaled $650 million for
407 projects. Examples of the program benefits include the creation of
jobs in economically distressed areas, fuels reduction work, and the
completion of numerous facility improvement, maintenance and renovation
projects.
Woody Biomass Utilization Partnership (ARRA)--The Forest Service
has been instrumental in promoting wood utilization in southwest Idaho.
Much of this work is being accomplished through the Woody Biomass
Utilization Partnership (WBUP), a successful public-private partnership
funded by the Idaho Department of Commerce; Adams, Boise, Gem and
Valley Counties; the Forest Service and other federal grants, and
private industry. The mission of the WBUP is to work with the private
sector to promote woody biomass supply, to identify and develop
markets, to develop mechanisms and acquire equipment to get supply to
those markets and to promote product and organizational development
that will aid in the development of woody biomass businesses and
markets.
The Partnership successfully competed for ARRA grants totaling
$9.75 million to private businesses, including $4 million to Emerald
Forest Products to complete construction of a sawmill and shavings
plant that will create approximately 50 full time jobs. Of the grants,
$2.75 million went to the Garden Valley school system in Boise County
for conversion of the school's heating system to a woody biomass fueled
plant. $2.5 million went to Evergreen Forest Products in Adams County
for installation of a dry kiln at a local saw mill, resulting in the
retention of at least 40 jobs in the County. Finally, $500,000 went to
Treasure Valley Forest Products in Elmore County to expand its pellet
mill, adding 15 new jobs at the mill.
LESSONS LEARNED AND FUTURE NEEDS
The diversity of collaborative efforts is growing. Clearly, one-
size-fits-all approach is not always effective; communities and
opportunities differ, and many of the strongest projects are conceived,
principally financed, and led by partners in the private sector, the
non-profit community, and local government. We have had great successes
and believe that Regional efforts compound efficiency and energies. For
example, in situations where interested individuals are engaged in the
shared stewardship of their public lands, the Forest Service has a
marked decline in both the incidence and costs associated with formal
dispute, appeals, and lawsuits (as noted in the FY 2009 Environmental
Conflict Resolution Report to OMB-CEQ, February 2010). Collaboration
and partnerships take time, but often deliver long-term benefits and
healthier communities.
USDA is working to improve both internal and external
communications, enhance transparency and accountability, strengthen
collaboration, and increase the ability of programs to reach flexibly
across traditional Mission Area boundaries.
CONCLUSION
Our future success depends on working together--as communities
sharing mutual interests, and as partners. The reality of federal
budget constraints will create efficiencies, and collaboration will
become more important than ever to find, create and leverage
partnerships and private sector investments. Our successful
collaborative efforts demonstrate that job creation, employment
maintenance, and direct and indirect economic benefits are gained
through these partnership efforts. In addition, community stability and
cohesiveness, and important resource and infrastructure enhancement can
be accomplished through partnership. We should make every effort to
continue to support and expand these collaborative partnership efforts.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these programs with the
Subcommittee. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
______
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Mr. Jensen. And Mr. Victor
Vasquez, Deputy Under Secretary, Rural Development, U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
STATEMENT OF VICTOR VASQUEZ, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY, RURAL
DEVELOPMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Vasquez. Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, I
want to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to discuss
USDA Rural Development's commitment to creating jobs and
assisting in creating vibrant growing communities in rural
America. I am very pleased to be here with Deputy Under
Secretary Jay Jensen representing the Forest Service, our
sister agency.
A healthy American economy depends on a prosperous rural
America. Rural America supplies much of our nation's food,
water, and safeguards our environmental heritage. Its role in
establishing our nation's energy independence is growing every
day, and our values are rooted in rural America. USDA Rural
Development is committed to the future of rural communities;
so, too, is the Forest Service. At Rural Development, we
understand clearly that we cannot succeed if we work alone.
We administer over programs that provide electric,
telecommunications, broadband service, water and waste water,
affordable housing, essential community services, and business
development assistance to rural communities, residents, and
businesses. Everything we do, without exception, is in support
of our local partners. Last year, and Mr. Jensen alluded to
this, we provided over $31 billion in loans, grants, and loan
guarantees, every penny of which represents an investment by us
in the success of others. Our success is not measured by
anything we achieve ourselves. It is measured by the success of
our partners. From that perspective, let me say simply that
collaboration is a core value at Rural Development.
Sustainable development also rests on a hard look at
economic assets and opportunities. Federal grants and loans can
jump start projects, but that alone cannot sustain communities
over the long haul. One of our planning objectives is to
encourage coherent regions with a commonality of interests to
develop a first-rate, analytical perspective on the region's
comparative economic advantages, and a realistic picture of
economic drivers that can work for the region as a whole.
From this perspective, we recognize that rural communities
working in isolation are far less effective than multi-
community, multi-county collaborations that can pull resources,
rationalize infrastructure investment, and efficiently deliver
services. One of our goals is therefore to encourage and
incentivize communities to participate in such cooperative
efforts. And to support that effort, we are currently engaged
in building a significantly upgraded community and economic
development capacity within rural development itself. We have
traditionally been very effective in supporting individual
projects. Going forward, we want to ensure that each of the
projects we fund is clearly placed within the context of a
coherent community, a regional strategic plan, in order to
maximize the return.
There are a number of compelling examples of such regional
collaborations. One was mentioned earlier, and provided in our
written testimony, the Southeast Alaska Transition Framework,
where we are collaborating with the Forest Service to assist
communities in developing a more diversified economic base.
In the dry forest zone in eastern Oregon and California, we
have entered into a cooperative agreement with a nonprofit
organization called Sustainable Northwest. This partnership is
developing a regional model to increase the viability of
sustainable forestry in rural communities. Sustainable
Northwest will be conducting workshops and facilitating
coordination among partners and stakeholders. They will be
helping to generate increased private sector investment and
sustainable, renewable energy generated from biomass.
Two thousand miles to the east, we are collaborating again
with the Forest Service through the Appalachia Regional
Commission and a host of additional Federal agencies on the
Appalachia Regional Development Initiative, which seeks to
provide Federal support for regional economic development
efforts across Appalachia, including those focused on
sustainable natural resource development, recreation and
tourism, and green job creation.
On a national scale, we are working with four regional
rural development centers to develop a new initiative called
Stronger Economies Together, or SET. This program will provide
training and technical assistance to local communities and
counties that are working together in a multi-county planning
effort.
The opportunities are there. The rural residents I have
spoken with often say that at this point in time, there is more
potential for economic growth in rural America than at any time
in the past. Rural broadband, rural energy, renewable energy,
the quality of life advances in transportation infrastructure,
tourism and recreation, the agricultural and natural resources
base, local and regional food system networks, emerging
ecosystem markets--all of these are viable foundations for
economic growth and creating jobs.
Our job is to make it happen. USDA is working at President
Obama's direction to build a new rural economy, a more
sustainable economy, with green jobs that can't be exported, an
economy that better values conservation and the environment, an
economy that offers a future for rural residents and their
family. We are committed to the future of rural communities,
and I know that we all in this room are as well. And I want to
thank you for the honor of being here today. Thank you.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Vasquez can be found
on page 5.]
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much. And we are going to need to
take a quick recess to go vote. We have one vote, and we will
be right back. So I thank you very much for your patience. With
that, one vote, and we will be right back. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Grijalva [presiding]. Thank you very much. Let us
reconvene the Subcommittee meeting, and let me thank my good
friend from New Mexico, Mr. Lujan, for assuming the
responsibilities of starting the hearing. Thank you very much.
We were interrupted by myself and the Ranking Member, Mr.
Bishop, were busy with marking up oil spills and children's
nutrition, and my apologies for not being here on time when the
hearing began.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Grijalva follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Raul Grijalva, Chairman,
Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
The Subcommittee will now come to order. Thank you.
There are some old misconceptions about federal lands in the west
and the agencies which manage them. Some assert that our public lands
are job killers, and that federal land managers want to seize private
land, halt industries and harm rural economies. These accusations are
wrong, and they undermine western communities by framing their
struggles as a choice between economic development and conservation.
That is a false choice which ignores the many communities that are
successfully doing both.
The witnesses we have before us today have a different perspective
- one that isn't so black and white, and one that stands in sharp
contrast to this rhetoric. And given that these folks actually live in
the west, we would be well served to listen.
Their response to the challenges in their western towns is not to
pick a fight and lay blame, but rather to promote solutions. Their
approach is not to tear things down, but rather to build consensus--and
even collaborate with old adversaries. And their goal is to apply the
principle that the long-term health of the public land and the well
being of our rural communities are linked.
We will hear today from public land managers and county
commissioners, ranchers and environmentalists, small business owners
and educators. And they will tell us about the ways that they are
working together to chart a new path to prosperity. . .using our public
lands.
I know this has not been an easy road at times--especially in the
wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But for
those communities that were dependent on just one commodity for their
development, this evolution is critical.
We look forward to hearing your stories today - but we also need to
learn from them. So, I also invite the witnesses to share with us the
challenges and obstacles you have faced in implementing your projects.
I want to hear your frustrations, but, more importantly, I want your
input on how we can better support your efforts.
Whether during a round up, battling a wildfire, or confronting a
flood, rural communities are well-suited to team-work - and they have
always persevered. Today as they forge novel partnerships--to create
sustainable jobs, revive communities, and restore our unique western
landscape--they are writing a new, and promising, chapter in the rich
history of the American west.
I want to thank all the witnesses for traveling so far today, in
what I know is a busy time of year, to join us here in this humidity! I
understand that Mrs. Troy, who is on our third panel, left a Salmon
River rafting trip early to come testify. Now, that IS sacrifice! So,
thank you.
I look forward to hearing from you all today. And I now turn to the
Ranking Member, Mr. Bishop, for any opening comments he may have.
______
Mr. Grijalva Deputy Assistant Secretary Sobeck, Fish and
Wildlife and Parks, U.S. Department of the Interior, thank you.
The time is yours.
STATEMENT OF EILEEN SOBECK, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR FISH
AND WILDLIFE AND PARKS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
ACCOMPANIED BY MICHAEL J. POOLE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF
LAND MANAGEMENT, AND JOSEPH LAURANCE
Ms. Sobeck. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members
of the Subcommittee. I am pleased to have received the
opportunity to testify today on the important role that lands
managed by the Department of the Interior play in economic
growth and the creation and support of private sector jobs. I
am joined here today by Mike Poole, Deputy Director of the
Bureau of Land Management, and Dan Wenk, Deputy Director of the
National Park Service. I would like to submit our written
testimony for the record, and summarize our testimony in our
statement here today.
The Department of the Interior is the steward of vast
amounts of our nation's natural resources and cultural
heritage. Resources managed by the Department, including by the
Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish
and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation, are
economic engines for the communities that surround them
throughout the country.
In our role as steward, the Department has played and
continues to play a vital role in renewing our economy and
creating and supporting jobs that cannot be exported. We are
creating jobs for thousands of young people, protecting our
most treasured places, and inspiring the next generation to be
good stewards of our lands and waters. Our national parks,
national wildlife refuges, and public lands are supporting
recreation and tourism jobs in gateway communities across the
country. And the Department is moving to harness wind, solar,
and geothermal power from public lands, putting Americans to
work while supplying clean, affordable energy for our future.
We are leading by example and demonstrating how the wise
stewardship of our landscapes is critical to our economic well-
being.
This is particularly true in rural areas. In a first of its
kind economic report issued by the Secretary in February, it
was estimated that in those states that are more than 50
percent rural, visitors to Interior sites support 200,000 jobs
and $15.3 billion in economic activity. Communities surrounding
the largest units of the national park system had on average
almost four times faster population growth, almost three times
faster job growth, and two times growth in real income than the
Nation overall.
The report also noted that conservation activities can
generate large numbers of jobs relative to other investments of
government funding. For example, every $1 million invested in
ecosystem restoration projects was estimated to support up to
30 mostly private sector jobs. Every $1 million invested in
recreation projects was estimated to support up to 22 mostly
private sector jobs.
The Department could not accomplish its mission without the
collaboration and cooperation of a wide range of stakeholders.
My written testimony highlights several ongoing Administration
initiatives that are supporting the creation of rural jobs,
including the Administration's Great Outdoors Initiative, the
Youth and the Great Outdoors Initiative, our commitment to
build a clean energy economy, and the creation of the Landscape
Conservation Cooperative. And my written testimony shares
several specific examples of successful collaborative
conservation projects.
The America Great Outdoors Initiative, I would like to say
just a few words about that. It has started a much needed
dialogue about conservation in our nation. As part of this
initiative, our Department, along with several others, is
hosting listening sessions around the country to hear from
ranchers, farmers, forest landowners, sportsmen and -women,
state and local government leaders, tribal leaders, public
lands experts, conservationists, recreationists, youth leaders,
business representatives, heritage preservationists, and others
to learn about some of the smart, creative ways that
communities are conserving outdoor spaces and helping Americans
go out and enjoy them.
Today, as we speak, Administration officials are assembled
in Asheville, North Carolina to gather such public input. I
myself attended a session in Grand Island, Nebraska on Monday,
and I can assure you that we were listening there. Listening
sessions will continue throughout the summer as part of our
commitment to reach out to communities for good ideas about
conservation. We are going into this process with open minds,
and we are eager to learn about the efforts that ordinary
Americans are making to conserve our land, water and wildlife.
Our goal is to develop a conservation agenda for the 21st
century that will incorporate and promote every positive aspect
of conservation, including the creation of conservation-related
job.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement, and I look
forward to hearing the rest of the testimony and answering your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sobeck follows:]
Statement of Eileen Sobeck, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and
Wildlife and Parks, U.S. Department of the Interior
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify on the important role that the lands managed by
the Department of the Interior play in economic growth and the creation
of private sector jobs tied to the landscape.
The Department of the Interior is the steward of our nation's
natural resources and cultural heritage. Resources managed by the
Department, including by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the
National Park Service (NPS), the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and
the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), are economic engines for communities
around the country.
In our role as steward, the Department has played, and continues to
play, a vital role in renewing our economy and creating jobs that
cannot be exported. We are creating jobs for thousands of young people,
protecting our most treasured places and inspiring the next generation
to be good stewards of our lands and waters. Our national parks,
refuges and public lands are supporting recreation and tourism jobs in
gateway communities across the country. And, the Department is moving
to harness wind, solar and geothermal power from public lands, putting
Americans to work while supplying clean, affordable energy for our
future. We are leading by example, demonstrating how the wise
stewardship of our landscapes is critical to our economic well-being.
Of course, the Department could not accomplish its mission without
the collaboration and cooperation of a wide range of stakeholders. We
take pride in the relationships we have built with gateway communities
throughout the country. We have embraced partnerships and active
engagement to find common ground, and to conserve and make use of our
natural resources. Community-based partnerships are essential to
accomplishing land management goals and can help create new economic
opportunities for local businesses. Each year, the Department supports
hundreds of partner organizations who participate in a wide variety of
projects and efforts at the community, landscape, and national levels.
Economic Impact
In February of this year, Secretary Salazar released to the public
and shared with Members of Congress a first-of-its-kind departmental
report estimating that Interior programs and activities support more
than 1.4 million private sector American jobs and more than $370
billion in economic activity across the country. The report, entitled
``Economic Impact of the Department of the Interior's Programs and
Activities,'' indicates that the Department creates and supports
private sector jobs and economic growth in all 50 states. Furthermore,
the report underscores the importance of investing in conservation and
energy development, and the role these fields can play in getting our
economy moving again.
The Economic Impact Report found that rural states especially
benefit from Interior's programs and activities. In states that are
more than 50 percent rural, it was estimated that visitors to Interior
sites support 200,000 jobs and $15.3 billion in economic activity. For
example, many of our national parks are located in remote, rural areas.
Economic effects of parks on remote, gateway communities can be
significant. One study found that communities surrounding the largest
units of the National Park System had, on average, almost four times
faster population growth, almost three times faster job growth, and two
times faster growth in real income than the nation overall. (Power,
T.M. ``The Economic Foundations of Public Parks.'' The George Wright
Forum, 2002)
The Economic Impact Report also noted that conservation activities
can generate large numbers of jobs relative to other investments of
government funding. For example, every $1 million taxpayers invest in
ecosystem restoration projects was estimated to create up to 30 mostly
private-sector jobs. Every $1 million invested in recreation projects
was estimated to support up to 22 mostly private-sector jobs. While
federally funded ecosystem restoration and recreation activities can
support substantial numbers of jobs, the actual number of jobs
supported by an individual project will vary based on that project's
particular circumstances.
In testifying before you today, I would like to highlight several
ongoing Administration initiatives that are supporting the creation of
rural jobs. I would particularly like to discuss the Administration's
Great Outdoors Initiative, the Youth in the Great Outdoors Initiative,
our commitment to building a clean energy economy, and the creation of
the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. I will also share with you
several examples of successful collaborative conservation projects.
The America's Great Outdoors Initiative
On April 14, 2010, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential
Memorandum establishing the America's Great Outdoors Initiative to
promote and support innovative community-level efforts to conserve
outdoor spaces and to reconnect Americans to the outdoors. President
Obama inaugurated the America's Great Outdoors Initiative at a White
House Conference held at the Department in April. The conference
brought together leaders from communities across the country that are
working to protect their outdoor spaces and focused on developing and
supporting innovative ideas for improving conservation and recreation
at the local level.
The America's Great Outdoors Initiative has started a much-needed
dialogue about conservation in our Nation. As part of this initiative,
the Department is hosting listening sessions around the country to hear
from ranchers, farmers and forest landowners, sportsmen and women,
state and local government leaders, tribal leaders, public-lands
experts, conservationists, recreationists, youth leaders, business
representatives, heritage preservationists, and others to learn about
some of the smart, creative ways communities are conserving outdoor
spaces and helping Americans to go out and enjoy them.
Sessions have already been hosted in Montana, Maryland, South
Carolina, Washington, California, and Nebraska. Today, as we speak,
Administration officials are assembled in Asheville, North Carolina, to
gather public input. Listening sessions will continue throughout the
summer, as part of the Administration's commitment to reaching out to
communities for good ideas about conservation. We are going into this
process with open minds, eager to learn about the efforts that ordinary
Americans are making to conserve our land, water and wildlife. Our goal
is to develop a conservation agenda for the 21st Century - an agenda
that will incorporate and promote every positive aspect of
conservation, including the creation of conservation-related jobs.
Youth in the Great Outdoors Initiative
The Secretary's Youth in the Great Outdoors Initiative is forging
connections between a new generation of Americans and the outdoors,
introducing youth to the career opportunities associated with our
tremendous landscapes, and very often carrying out maintenance projects
in our parks, forests, refuges, and other public land units. As part of
this initiative, young adults gain valuable experience, while meeting
important Departmental needs. By joining conservation corps or filling
temporary positions, young people help maintain and enhance trails,
restore native plants while removing invasive species, and provide the
public with educational information about the public lands.
At the FWS Great Lakes/Big Rivers Region, for example, youth work
directly with fisheries resource professionals performing the daily
duties and special projects necessary for FWS to accomplish its mission
of protecting and enhancing aquatic species and their habitats,
including caring for fish, building trails, maintaining grounds and
facilities, and learning about daily activities at a fish hatchery.
This year, the Department will employ at least 12,000 youth--a 50
percent increase over the 8,000 employed in 2009. The Department also
indirectly employs youth through other organizations, leveraging
funding and human resources to impact more youth by providing them with
meaningful employment opportunities. Similarly, the Department partners
with numerous organizations throughout the country, including YMCA and
Boys and Girls Clubs, to engage youth through education and recreation
programs related to our public lands..
The importance of the Youth in the Great Outdoors Initiative is
reflected in the FY 2011 budget proposal, which includes large
increases not only in employment of teens and young adults ages 16-25
but also in education and recreation programs that engage youth of all
ages.
Renewables
As part of securing America's energy future, we must move our
nation towards a clean energy economy. At the Department, this means
changing the way we do business by opening our doors to responsible
renewable energy development on our public lands. We are facilitating
environmentally-appropriate renewable energy projects involving solar,
wind and waves, geothermal, biofuels and hydropower. These resources,
developed in the right ways and the right places, will help curb our
dependence on foreign oil, reduce our use of fossil fuels and promote
new industries here in America. The development of these renewable
energy sources will also create jobs in local communities.
The Milford Wind Corridor, in Milford, Utah is an example of one of
these renewable energy projects. Secretary Salazar recently announced
that construction will begin soon on Phase 2 of the Milford Wind
Corridor, which the BLM approved earlier this year. When completed,
Phase 2 will consist of 68 turbines with the capacity to produce 102
megawatts of electricity. Construction is scheduled to begin this month
and be completed by the end of the year. The first phase of the Milford
Wind Corridor consists of 97 wind turbines that have been generating
commercial power since November 2009, producing 204 megawatts of
electricity sold to the Southern California Public Power Authority.
That's enough energy to power 44,000 homes. To date First Wind has
invested more than $500 million in the Phase 1 project, which has
created more than 250 development and construction jobs and resulted in
more than $85 million in economic benefit to Utah.
The Arizona Restoration Design Energy Project is another innovative
example of the Department's work to facilitate appropriately-sited
renewable energy development. The BLM's Arizona State Office has
engaged local communities in this unique, forward-looking partnership
to identify Arizona sites that have already been disturbed (such as
abandoned mines, landfills, and brownfields) and that could support
renewable energy development. Nominations have come from the BLM, other
Federal agencies, tribal, state, county and local governments.
Privately owned lands were nominated as well. The BLM, along with the
many Federal and state agencies that have joined as cooperating
agencies, has taken the information and begun work on a programmatic
environmental impact statement that will analyze the direct, indirect,
and cumulative effects of developing such lands. This innovative
project is intended to identify potential development sites for which
there are fewer competing uses and values, while providing conservation
benefits by taking development pressure off lands with higher resource
values. The many construction, maintenance, and operation jobs that
result from renewable energy development on such sites would provide
additional tangible benefits to local communities as well as the
regional economy.
And just last week, the Department entered into an agreement with
the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a 25-square mile Solar
Demonstration Zone on federal lands in Nevada to demonstrate cutting-
edge solar energy technologies. This Solar Demonstration Zone will be
located in the southwest corner of the Nevada Test Site, a former
nuclear site, on lands owned by the BLM and administered by DOE. Before
selecting the site for the Solar Demonstration Zone, the federal
government consulted with relevant stakeholders, including state,
tribal, and local governments, as well as local utilities. DOE and the
Department will continue collaborating to effectively implement the
project, which will serve as proving grounds for new solar
technologies, providing a critical link between DOE's advanced
technology development and full-scale commercialization efforts.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives Initiative
The Landscape Conservation Cooperatives initiative is based on
ecosystem-based multi-stakeholder, multi-jurisdictional partnerships
across the country. It is focused on addressing existing and emerging
natural resources management challenges including climate change, and
promotes geographically-based, landscape scale conservation planning.
The Department has begun, with its partners, to put in place Landscape
Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs). These cooperatives will facilitate
regional conservation planning along with the Department's regional
Climate Science Centers (CSCs). The CSCs and the LCCs will conduct and
communicate research and monitoring to improve the understanding and
forecasting of which elements of Department-managed land, water,
marine, fish, wildlife, and cultural heritage resources are most
vulnerable to climate change impacts and other environmental stressors,
and how to make them more resilient. The CSCs will provide basic
climate change science associated with broad regions of the country,
and LCCs will focus more on applied science at the landscape level.
Both CSCs and LCCs will be involved in integrating and disseminating
data and helping resource managers develop adaptation strategies.
LCCs will enable resource management agencies and organizations to
collaborate in an integrated fashion within and across land ownerships.
LCCs will provide scientific and technical support to inform
conservation using adaptive management principles and will engage in
biological planning, conservation design, inventory and monitoring
program design, and other types of conservation-based scientific
research planning and coordination. LCCs will play an important role in
helping partners establish common goals and priorities, so they can be
more efficient and effective in targeting the right science in the
right places.
In creating the LCCs, the Department has undertaken an
unprecedented level of outreach to partners at federal, state, tribal,
local, and private levels, through workshops, web seminars, and other
venues.
Progress achieved to date illustrates not only the commitment,
enthusiasm and dedication with which the Department has pursued this
task, but also the success the Department has achieved in attracting
partners to participate in LCCs.
The USGS, FWS, NPS, BOR, BLM and BIA are fully participating in
this effort and have committed funding and staff support beginning in
2011 to the CSCs in order to encourage collaborative sharing of
research results and data and to provide a direct link with the on-the
ground work taking place in the LCCs. These partners and others will
leverage resources available for climate change science.
Collaborative Projects
Finally, I would like to share with you some examples of the other
types of collaborative projects that are being carried out by
Department bureaus. These examples include projects that were
recognized this year by the Secretary for excellence in conservation
partnerships. This year, 24 projects representing the work of more than
600 groups and individuals nationwide were recognized with the
Department's Partners in Conservation Awards.
The Wyoming Front Aspen Stewardship Project
The Wyoming Front Aspen Stewardship Project seeks to restore and
maintain aspen stands that provide important large game habitat. This
project began in September 2006 through an Assistance Agreement between
the BLM's Pinedale Field Office and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation,
and encompasses 9,000 acres of BLM lands. The project involves
harvesting marketable products (sawlogs, Christmas trees, fuelwood, and
biomass) during the summer months, while leaving a fuel bed on over 80
percent of the unit. During the following spring, prescribed fire is
used to reduce the fuel loads and enhance aspen regeneration. Since
2007, three timber sales have taken place to reduce conifer
encroachment into aspen stands. Totaling over 500 acres and $15,970 in
receipts, these forest health projects have generated over one million
board feet of timber products, 1,200 tons of biomass material, and
2,000 Christmas trees. Work within the project area has been conducted
on a total of 2,146 acres, totaling $511,182. Combined, these projects
have employed 80 people. For FY 2007 and 2008 the BLM contributed
$317,000 for project implementation, with the Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation contributing $40,000, Wyoming Game & Fish contributing
$105,500, and the Wyoming Wildlife Natural Resource Trust providing
$100,000.
New Mexico Candidate Conservation Agreements
The BLM's Pecos District and New Mexico State Office, working with
their counterparts in the FWS, have engaged stakeholders in the New
Mexico ranching and oil and gas industries to launch a conservation
agreement program created specifically for lease holders on public
lands. In this innovative program, landowners, energy companies and
ranchers join the agencies in protecting and restoring habitat for two
candidates for Federal listing in southeast New Mexico, the lesser
prairie chicken and sand dune lizard. The agencies work with the Center
of Excellence for Hazardous Materials Management to administer
voluntary Candidate Conservation Agreements for oil and gas lease
holders on Federal lands and Candidate Conservation Agreements with
Assurances for state and private landowners to benefit the species. In
return, in the event that one or both species are listed under the
Endangered Species Act, companies and individuals operating on private
lands receive assurances that their operations can continue, and
operators on Federal lands receive a much greater degree of certainty
that their operations would likewise continue. Over a dozen ranchers
and two energy companies are taking actions under the program to reduce
or eliminate threats to the species on all land ownership types. These
efforts have produced conservation benefits, provided operational and
job security in the ranching and oil and gas industries, and created
new jobs in habitat restoration. The BLM estimates that 20-30 jobs will
be created in the reclamation of abandoned oil field sites (dirt
moving, site remediation, etc.) and restoration of habitat for the
species by a variety of vegetative treatments (e.g., aerial spraying
and mechanical treatments).
Anchorage Youth Employment in Parks Program
The Anchorage Youth Employment in Parks Program engages youth in
career opportunities and outdoor experiences to protect and restore
fish and wildlife and their habitats. This robust collaboration among
the FWS, the Anchorage Park Foundation, the Municipality of Anchorage,
Alaska Youth for Environmental Action, and over 100 public and private
organizations is reaching out to youth in populations underrepresented
in natural resource management jobs to foster the next generation of
public land stewards through natural resources training, habitat
restoration, and protection projects and outdoor activities. Every year
over three dozen youth from Anchorage area schools are employed as
crewmembers to build new trails, repair fishing platforms, improve
public access to fishing and recreational areas, rehabilitate stream
banks, replant riparian landscapes, clean up creeks, maintain rain
gardens, and implement riparian forest health protection projects to
help reduce habitat loss from destructive and invasive spruce bark
beetles. These projects further the mission of the Department, support
the goal to connect youth to nature, and help the FWS meet its trust
responsibilities for migratory birds, pacific salmon, and other inter-
jurisdictional fish. In recognition of its achievements in
collaborative conservation, this program received a Partners in
Conservation Award from the Department this year.
Circle of Flight Program
In 2009, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Circle of Flight Program,
provided support to 21 tribes and two tribal organizations that
collaborated with other government and private entities in Minnesota,
Michigan, and Wisconsin to protect, restore, and/or enhance 20,000
acres of wetlands; restore and/or re-seed 1,500 acres of wild rice;
establish, plant, and maintain 700 acres of upland waterfowl nesting
cover and prairie grasslands; construct and install 200 waterfowl
nesting structures; and conduct valuable waterfowl habitat research.
The Program's many projects encouraged Native American youth to get
involved in a number of activities, including wild rice planting,
harvesting seeds, monitoring, and data collecting. In this way, these
young people experience traditional ties to the land and natural
resources while gaining appreciation for their treasured natural
environment. These projects not only help Native Americans exercise
traditional and cultural uses of the natural environment, but also give
all citizens greater opportunity to enjoy our natural resources and
natural heritage. In recognition of its achievements in collaborative
conservation, this program received a Partners in Conservation Award
from the Department this year..
Modoc County, California Partnership
Through its partnership with the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service,
Modoc County, CA, is developing and implementing the Sage Steppe
Ecosystem Restoration Strategy to restore the health of public land in
a 6.5 million acre planning area for the benefit of the residents of
Modoc County and the people of the United States. The partnership is
working to improve the condition of the public land while providing for
rural economic development and domestic energy production on thousands
of acres within the 6.5 million-acre, multi-jurisdictional planning
area. In recognition of its achievements in collaborative conservation,
this partnership received a Partners in Conservation Award from the
Department this year..
Conclusion
Our national parks, refuges and public lands continue to be
economically important to rural communities throughout the West. In
these areas, land use activities, such as grazing, mining and forestry,
remain key sources of rural jobs and income. At the same time, uses
such as outdoor recreation and conservation have gained, and continue
to gain, in economic importance to rural communities.
The collaborative spirit is at the heart of the initiatives
supported by the Administration. Our ability to successfully achieve
our mission depends upon our ability to work collaboratively with
gateway communities and other stakeholders, and partnerships are a key
component in this success. Through our partnerships, the Department is
working to resolve conflicts over land management, put good
conservation practices in place on the ground, contribute to economic
opportunities in our Nation and our communities, and create jobs for
the American people.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Madame Secretary. Let me
now ask Mr. Joseph Laurance, Douglas County Commissioner,
Roseburg, Oregon. Welcome, and, Mr. Commissioner, the time is
yours.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. LAURANCE, DOUGLAS COUNTY COMMISSIONER,
ROSEBURG, OREGON
Mr. Laurance. And good morning, and thank you, Chairman
Grijalva, Ranking Member Bishop, and members of the
Subcommittee. I am Joe Laurance, County Commissioner for
Douglas County, Oregon. My county is a little larger than the
State of Connecticut, has the largest and oldest stands of
Douglas fir timber in the world. When I left home Monday, five
forest fires were burning on the million-acre Umpqua National
Forest. I need your help to save my forest, and your forest as
well. The NACo Resolution you find in today's written testimony
can do that if you care as deeply as I do for this nation's
forests.
Twenty years and 20 days ago, the Northern Spotted Owl was
listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act.
It was then thought that loss of old growth habitat through
logging was the culprit causing a declining population. In
response, Federal timber harvests were vastly curtailed. The
Umpqua National Forest in my county saw an annual harvest of
397 million board feet in 1988 reduced to 4 million board feet
in 2002. In the years since, a policy of benevolent neglect of
Federal lands has seen Spotted Owl numbers continue to decline
through habitat destruction caused by increasingly numerous and
intense forest fires, and through predation by the Barred Owl,
which favors this new unmanaged forest habitat. Federal policy,
which has been multiple use of the forest with an emphasis on
industrial harvest, sought a new strategy, which has yet to be
formulated in all of these intervening years. The resolution
presented to you provides that needed new strategy, not only
for Oregon, but for all of our nation's Federal forests, from
Appalachia to Alaska. Federal forest managers would now have a
clearly defined desired forest condition that must be obtained
within a specified time. If this becomes the intent of
Congress, the Forest Service with BLM would join with private
industry to restore forest health and rural economies without
drawing on the national treasury.
The plan I describe would restore your forest and mine to
the natural historic condition created by American Indians
through 7,000 years of applied ingenuity. That forest was one
of the most productive and diverse ecosystems ever known. It
was created by fire, yet protected from fire. A 250,000-acre
study nearing completion on the Umpqua Forest will show
precisely what the natural historic condition was immediately
prior to European-American habitation. The study area would
seem to be an excellent candidate as a pilot project to provide
specific information related to healthy forest restoration, as
envisioned by the resolution I have described.
The resolution anticipates that significant volumes of
biomass will be generated through forest restoration efforts.
Three weeks ago, I witnessed a demonstration of biomass
utilization in the midst of 10,000 acres of insect-infested
pine on the Umpqua National Forest. BioChar Products of
Halfway, Oregon, converted a bone dry ton of biomass into 120
gallons of bio-oil--while producing 400 pounds of Bio-char,
which is a rich growth medium.
By means of this technology, my county could produce 120
million gallons of bio-oil and 400 million pounds of Bio-char
every year for at least 20 years, and probably in perpetuity
from the slash and fuels reduction material we now burn.
I wish to thank in particular Committee Member Stephanie
Herseth Sandlin and Peter DeFazio for their efforts to permit
biomass and fuels reduction efforts on Federal forest lands. I
would ask you to support definitions for renewable biomass,
such as found in the Baucus-Tester discussion draft and the
2008 Farm Bill.
Forest restoration is a complex and controversial topic
that should be further discussed. I would be delighted to
participate in other hearings regarding that subject. Much of
the efforts described here have had their genesis in Title II
and III projects funded through the Secure Rural Schools Act,
which also provides vitally needed support for 4,000 school
districts and 700 counties nationwide. I ask for your continued
support of Secure Rural Schools legislation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the Committee, for permitting
me the honor of appearing before the House Subcommittee for
National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Laurance follows:]
Statement of Joseph Laurance, Douglas County Commissioner,
Douglas County, Oregon
Federal fiscal savings realized from this effort could contribute
to offsets required for ``Secure Rural Schools'' funding, so vital to
the educational and service needs of over 700 counties and 4000 school
districts nationwide.
At a meeting of Oregon county commissioners last summer, I
complained to my colleagues that while endless debate continued in
congress about how federal forests should be managed, fires were
ravaging federal timberlands in my county and throughout the western
United States. The worldwide financial crisis that was draining the
national treasury made re-authorization of ``Secure Rural Schools''
funding seem doubtful, threatening many of Oregon's 36 counties with
social and economic ruin. Bad news just kept coming with the word that
unemployment in Douglas County had reached 16.4% and if unreported
joblessness was considered, was probably greater than the 19%
experienced here during the height of the ``Great Depression''. Talks
were ongoing in Copenhagen about greenhouse gas emissions while the
three fires in my county burned toward an eventual total of 20,000
acres, equal to the greenhouse gasses emitted by one million cars in a
year's time. My fellow commissioners suggested that I craft a solution
to the problems you of this body are all too familiar with. The
resultant resolution has been carefully considered by commissioners
from across the western United States who helped in its preparation. It
has been unanimously adopted by the Association of Oregon Counties,
Western Interstate Region of Counties, and the National Association of
Counties (NACo) Public Lands Committee and is expected to be adopted by
NACo at its annual national conference next week.
Twenty years and twenty days ago the Northern Spotted Owl was
listed as threatened under the federal ``Endangered Species Act''. It
was then thought that loss of old growth habitat through logging was
the culprit causing a declining population. In response, federal timber
harvests were vastly curtailed. The Umpqua National Forest in my county
saw an annual harvest of 397 million board feet in 1988 reduced to 4
million board feet in 2002. In the years since a policy of ``benevolent
neglect'' of federal lands has seen Spotted Owl numbers continue to
decline through habitat destruction caused by increasingly numerous and
intense forest fires and through predation by the Barred Owl which
favors this new ``unmanaged'' forest habitat. Federal policy, which had
been multiple use of the forest with an emphasis on industrial harvest,
sought a new strategy which has yet to be formulated in all these
intervening years.
The resolution presented you provides that needed new strategy, not
only for Oregon but for all of our nation's federal forests from
Appalachia to Alaska. Federal forest managers would now have a clearly
defined desired forest condition that must be obtained within a
specified time. If this becomes the ``Intent of Congress'', the Forest
Service and BLM would join with private industry to restore forest
health and rural economies without drawing on the national treasury.
The various Fire Regime Condition Classes described within the
resolution indicate the extent of departure from the natural, historic
conditions prior to fire exclusion or suppression. Typically, this
departure occurred as native peoples were progressively displaced by
European Americans during the westward expansion. Fire Regime Condition
Class (FRCC) 1 is similar to the forest which European explorers first
found here. That forest had been modified by fire for more than 6
thousand years to provide the native inhabitants with what were then
life's necessities. These included abundant wild game from the most
productive and diverse wildlife habitat ever known on this continent.
Similarly, the regular burning of competing vegetation permitted
propagation of nut bearing trees and other food producing plants.
Additionally, the historic ``Healthy Forest'' promoted pristine rivers,
streams, and lakes that provided an abundant harvest of fish and
waterfowl. Within FRCC 1 the risk of losing key ecosystem components to
fire is low, while vegetation species composition, structure, and
pattern are intact and functioning within the natural historic range.
FRCC 2 is a moderate departure from natural, historic conditions
described above, with a moderate risk of losing key ecosystem
components. Fire frequency, intensity, and size are increased with
moderate increases in density, encroachment of shade tolerant tree
species, or moderate loss of shade intolerant tree species.
FRCC 3 is the highest possible risk of catastrophic fire with
dramatic changes to fire size, intensity, severity, and landscape
patterns. High increases in density are typically associated with high
mortality as a result of disease or insect infestation. These areas
typically need high levels of restoration through hand or mechanical
treatments. For purposes of this discussion, the full range of
treatments available for active landscape scale management would be
employed including fuels reduction, thinning of selected stands, and
harvest where needed. These treatments must be successfully implemented
before prescriptive fire can be used to maintain optimum forest
conditions.
Of a total national forest system of 191 million acres, information
provided by the Forest Service and derived from the `LANDFIRE Project''
list an FRCC 3 total of 40,677,000 acres nationwide. FRCC 2 is said to
be 72,553,000 acres; FRCC 1 is listed at 83,230,000 acres. Other
information regarding Fire Classes is drawn from a 2007 report of the
Inspector General of the USDA which lists FRCC 3 at 73,000,000 acres
while other sources suggest FRCC 2 at 55,000,000 acres and FRCC 1 at
63,000,000 acres.
The total acreage of fuels reduction on the national forest by
means of mechanical treatment to for 2008 (the last available figures)
totaled 1.2 million acres. Treatment required based on the figures
above for the defined time period would amount to between 2 million and
3.65 million acres for reduction of FRCC 3 to FRCC 1 during the first
20 year period and between 2.75 and 3.63 million acres for a reduction
from FRCC 2 to FRCC1 during the second 20 years.
More specific information regarding the work required and the costs
associated will be forthcoming this August from a Title III study of
250,000 acres of Forest Service lands in my county which will identify,
with scientific precision, the characteristics of that
``anthropogenic'' forest in the year 1800, immediately prior to the
European American presence. These characteristics will closely
approximate the natural, historic conditions described in FRCC 1 in a
forest where all three classes now exist.
The study referred to is titled Upper Pre-Contact Reference
Condition Study and is revealing a mosaic forest, heavily populated by
people, who actively managed and maintained their travel ways, their
camp sites, and their hunting and gathering grounds. These areas tended
to be more open with fewer and larger trees together with a wide
diversity of species. The forest we are finding on those sites today
are more dense with the majority of the trees less than 150 years old
and far fewer of the oaks and pines, although we find a profusion of
relics of their existence.
The study area would seem to be an excellent candidate as a pilot
project to provide specific information related to healthy forest
restoration as envisioned by the resolution described earlier.
One example of a locally grown effort at forest restoration while
creating rural jobs is Communities for Healthy Forests, Inc. CHF is a
non profit organized in 2004 after devastating fires in Oregon
galvanized Douglas County, Oregon community leaders into action. While
attorneys, judges and elected officials deliberated upon what course of
action to take on the millions of acres burned forest, the health of
our rural communities and the health of the forests surrounding them
were ignored. The decision to debate environmental policy in the face
of an emergency becomes a decision to limit any restorative action.
Economic opportunities of removing dead material to fund replanting and
other restoration activities are lost as are the multitude of jobs
these activities could support. The fire-killed material left on site
becomes fuel for the next fire, and carbon to be emitted into the
atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse gas emissions.
In contrast, actively restoring these insect and fire damaged
forests can put local people to work. Putting people to work to restore
overgrown forests can reduce the fire hazard; sustain healthy growing
forest conditions resistant to catastrophic fire and insect attack. As
scientists like Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen and many others tell us, these
were the conditions our forests contained for thousands of years due to
the influence of Native Americans, conditions and people which were
sustained for thousands of years.
This active management is widely supported as shown by polls
conducted by Communities for Healthy Forests as well as The Oregon
Forest Resources Institute. The vast majority of Oregonians agree that
we must act if we are to sustain our beautiful forests, our rural
economy and the communities which are capable of sustaining them.
Similar projects have been undertaken by The Douglas Forest
Protective Association who has provided job skills training for 2000
youth since 1971. Among their number is our current County Sheriff.
Tasks being completed by area youth include fire training and fuels
reduction projects. These youth will also be in the fire line in a few
days time.
The Oregon Youth Conservation Corp has provided similar
opportunities for an average of 400 youth per year for the past decade.
Our local Phoenix School has done the same for 200 area youth this most
recent school year with 250 expected to participate next year.
The resolution anticipates that significant volumes of biomass will
be generated through forest restoration efforts. Three weeks ago I
witnessed a demonstration of Biomass utilization in the midst of 10,000
acres of an insect infested pine forest. BioChar Products of Halfway,
Oregon converted a bone dry ton of biomass into 120 gallons of Bio-oil
while producing 400 lbs. of Bio-char, a rich growth medium. By means of
this technology, my county could produce 120 million gallons of Bio-oil
and 400 million pounds of Bio-char every year for at least 20 years and
probably in perpetuity.
I wish to thank in particular Committee members Stephanie Herseth
Sandlin and Peter DeFazio for their efforts to permit biomass and fuels
reduction efforts on federal forest lands.
Forest Restoration is a complex and controversial topic that should
be further discussed. I would be delighted to participate in other
oversight hearings regarding that subject.
Much of the efforts described here have had their genesis in Title
II and III projects funded through the Secure Rural Schools Act, which
also provides vitally needed support for 4000 school districts and 700
counties nationwide.
Thank you for permitting me the honor of appearing before the House
Subcommittee for National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.
______
A NACo Resolution to Promote Healthy Forest Ecosystems and Reduce the
Release of Green House Gases through Active Management of the Nation's
Forests.
Issue:
Each year catastrophic wildfires throughout the nation contribute
to global warming, jeopardize the national treasury, threaten fish and
wildlife habitat, degrade both water and air quality, and cause
devastation to forest dependent communities through loss of life,
property, jobs, and the nation's timber resource. Federal Forests
should be actively managed to reduce the threat of wildfire and the
release of greenhouse gases. Restoration and conservation of our
National Forest will insure a sustainable economic and environmental
legacy for future generations.
Proposed Policy:
NACo urges Congress to enact legislation to direct and enable
federal forest management agencies to reduce Fire Regime Condition
Class 3 (FRCC 3) to the standard of FRCC 1 in all federal forests by
the year 2030, and to reduce FRCC 2 to the standard of FRCC 1 in all
federal forests by the year 2050, through the means of active landscape
scale management, fuels reduction, and immediate post-fire restoration.
Background:
Some 73 million acres or 38% of the nation's federal forests are at
``a high risk of ecologically destructive wild land fire'' according to
a 2007 report of the Inspector General of the USDA. An average of 7
million acres of forest has burned each year for the past 10 years in
the US, primarily on federal lands. An estimated 47.5 Million Metric
Tons of greenhouse gasses were released last year in the US through
forest fire. An Executive Order of Oct.5, 2009 directs federal agencies
to ``consider and account for. . .emissions of greenhouse gases
resulting from Federal land management practices''. With this
resolution, NACo joins the White House in an effort to reduce
greenhouse gasses caused by forest fires on federal lands.
Fiscal Urban/Rural Impact:
The cost to taxpayers to fight these fires exceeds $1 Billion each
year. The value of the timber thus consumed costs taxpayers $10.5
Billion every year. If Congress enacts this legislation, then directs
federal land management agencies to implement the resultant policy,
thousands of communities throughout the nation would experience
significant social and economic recovery with the creation and return
of forest based employment as well as the many other benefits of multi-
use forest management. Urban areas would benefit from reduced taxation
which now serves to support neighboring distressed rural communities.
The nation would benefit from reduced greenhouse gas emissions,
increased carbon sequestration and storage, improved fish and wildlife
habitat, enhanced air and water quality, greater quantities of biomass
based energy and forest products derived from federal lands serving to
increase the national treasury, and an ultimate reduction in the cost
of federal land management, half of which is devoted to fire
suppression each year.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Commissioner. Let me begin with
Deputy Secretary Vasquez first of all. Mr. Vasquez, let me
welcome you to the Subcommittee. I think this is the first time
Rural Development has been before the Subcommittee, so welcome.
And if you could just give the Committee a little background on
how Rural Development and the Forest Service came to start this
new partnership under this Administration.
Mr. Vasquez. The beginning of this really came out of some
internal policy discussions. The Secretary had given us a major
charge to begin to look at regional innovation across rural
America, and charged all the mission areas to begin to have
discussions about how we collaborate to implement that. So we
had some initial discussions with the Forest Service about some
of the issues that they were facing in Alaska, and we took a
trip to southeast Alaska and had two major regional meetings,
and met with various nonprofit organizations and advocate
organizations and operators, and had pretty much a half day or
longer session getting the information and input.
The realization of that meeting was that there was truly
some positive and I think constructive information that was
gleaned from that, and in a sense that innovation could come
from the region, from the population and the organizations from
the bottom up. We went back to Washington, had a sense of the
things that came up in that group, and decided to go out and do
focus groups in the 32 communities surrounding the Tongass
Forest. From that, we gained even more information and
realization that there are communities thinking about woody
biomass. They are thinking about alternative energy. They are
thinking about aquaculture. All kinds of things came out of
these focus groups; specific projects that came out, a lot of
what I would consider low-hanging fruit and projects that we
felt that we could respond to.
But what came out of this that resonated was that there was
a need to begin to look at a more comprehensive regional and
economic approach to the response of not just the Tongass, but
economic activity within the region because we found that there
was a diversified economy that we needed to pay more attention
to and look at how we could strategically invest, and look at
how we use the natural resource base as a means to advance the
region in a more diverse way. So from that, we have kept
meeting, and currently now we are meeting with not just the
Forest Service, but I meet biweekly with all of the Deputy
Under Secretaries from across the entire missionaries of the
entire Department to begin to look at how we work with each
other across all mission areas.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much. Mr. Jensen, I am also
interested in the expanded use of the stewardship contracting.
We have been told repeatedly, though, however, that there are
major barriers, such as the cancellation ceiling. What options
are you considering to deal with this problem, either
administratively or legislatively.
Mr. Jensen. Thank you for bringing this up. Obviously, you
heard it is a key part of our testimony here today. Stewardship
contracting is core to getting the jobs and getting the work
done that we need to do in the Forest Service. I think the
county commissioner at the end of the table here very clearly
painted a picture about what is at stake--that our lands are
not in the best of condition in a lot of places. Stewardship
contracting, as you are highlighting here, is the key to
solving that.
We are running into some problems, and we are finding ways
to address some of these administratively, looking at new ways
to restructure some contracts. But there is also a challenge
with this cancellation ceiling you just noted, which basically
requires money to be put on the front end of contracts to
ensure and guarantee that those that are investing in any of
the resources that are part of this long-term contract, if we
need to break that, there is money to pay them for those
investments.
That tends to be a little bit of a hurdle for us in terms
of trying to come up with the type of money needed to guarantee
that contract. So we are looking at various options. We haven't
been able to firm up on an exact solution, but there are
different ways to perhaps look at different ways to commit that
money on the front side, or perhaps when the actual change in
the contract occurs, and we would be happy to work closer with
you to figure out what that might look like.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. My time is up. Mr. Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the
panel, both panels who will be here. The fact that you all were
sitting for so long, I apologize. It is part of the horrible
time-management plan we have in Congress, and one of the
systemic changes that need to take place.
In like manner to the second panel, because I was expecting
you to be done by now. I won't be here either. So I apologize
for leaving you. It is not that I am offended by any of you,
yet. It is just that I am--I apologize. It is the way we manage
things around here. And I also apologize for missing the first
two presentations. I did want to hear those because I have not
had the opportunity of reading the supplied written testimony.
I will get to that.
I do have a couple of questions for you, although based on
what we have heard in the past--Mr. Jensen, let me start with
you, and I will try and go through this as quickly as we can.
From the very few internal documents that have been turned over
by the Department of the Interior related to the so-called
brainstorming sessions you had on coming up with land
management plans that included new national monuments, your
name has appeared on several of those e-mails and agenda items.
Can you tell us what specific proposals regarding the Forest
Service were in the treasured landscape documents?
Mr. Jensen. The Forest Service is not involved in any
conversations around designating land monuments on Federal
lands. There had been early discussions around America's Great
Outdoors, and I don't know if the different terminologies are
getting mixed up in between, but the Department of Agriculture
is not involved in any of that.
Mr. Bishop. But you were part of those brainstorming
sessions, or not?
Mr. Jensen. No, I was not.
Mr. Bishop. OK. If indeed some of the Forest Land was
carved out to those monuments, is there any way that you could
ensure that existing multiple use would not be implemented or
impacted by it? Because obviously the documents we have seen so
far, the term multiple use has never been used.
Mr. Jensen. It is hard to guess what might be in something
that is not something that is real right now. So I can tell you
that the Forest Service very much believes in the multiple use
mandate and mission, and we would be looking toward that in any
sort of decisions that move forward.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you. You need to go back and make sure
where your name shows up. It would be helpful to you.
Mr. Jensen. OK.
Mr. Bishop. If I could ask Ms. Sobeck--I hope I didn't
mispronounce that--from Fish and Wildlife Services. Your agency
is directly involved in reintroducing wolves in many areas of
the West, including New Mexico. Ranchers are complaining about
the impact of the wolf pack on their herds. Kids in Catron
County are being stalked as they are now going to school, and
there is a growing sense that Fish and Wildlife Service is
disregarding public safety and welfare by that management
practice.
Has the Fish and Wildlife Service studied the economic
impact of your wolf management program in New Mexico or
anywhere else?
Ms. Sobeck. I do not know the answer to that, but I would
be happy to get to you, especially with respect to the New
Mexico plan. I do know that we are very concerned about wolves
and public safety, and the Endangered Species Act does have
provisions to make sure that human life is protected.
Mr. Bishop. If you would get back to me on the specifics of
that, I would be very grateful.
Ms. Sobeck. Yes. We would be happy to do that.
Mr. Bishop. We will put it on the list of documents we are
waiting to see. Just philosophically, should the management
activities be changed if you find a detrimental impact on the
local economy?
Ms. Sobeck. The determination about whether or not to list
a species is--the criteria are set out in the statute, and the
economics of the impact on local communities is not one of the
criteria for listing, but it is one of the criteria for--
economic impact is one of the criteria for designation of
critical habitat, if any.
Mr. Bishop. So is that it ought to be and is not, or it
should be, or it is?
Ms. Sobeck. I think economics should be a factor at
appropriate points within the framework of the Endangered
Species Act and its regulations.
Mr. Bishop. Mr. Laurence, I have only got 40 seconds to ask
the commissioner. I apologize for that. You gave a good
recommendation as to what has happened to the Spotted Owl in
reality. Economically, what has happened to Douglas County
since that was listed as an endangered species?
Mr. Laurance. We went from one of the more comfortable
governments in the State of Oregon--the timber economy, which
has been the economy of my county, is a 10-percent remnant, and
that largely because private lands have stepped into the gap.
In the documentation that I brought with me, you will see that
we are cutting 1 percent. In the year 1988, we cut 397 million
board feet off of the Umpqua National Forest. By 2002, that had
dropped to 4 million, again 1 percent. It has come up a little
bit, but again, we are a 10 percent remnant, and we have all of
the associated social pain that you can imagine.
Mr. Bishop. I appreciate that. Thank you. Maybe you can
share that document with Fish and Wildlife. It would help you
in implementing the local economy into your deliberations at
some time.
Mr. Laurance. Thank you.
Mr. Bishop. Mr. Chairman, again I apologize, and to the
second panel. I am not trying to be rude by leaving, but Mr.
Grijalva is happy I am. But to the second panel, I am not
trying to be rude by leaving, but I am, and I do apologize to
you.
Mr. Grijalva. See you later. Mr. Lujan.
Mr. Lujan. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. A couple of
questions, Mr. Chairman. First I will start with Deputy Under
Secretary of Rural Development, Mr. Vasquez. As you know,
communities in New Mexico take a great deal of pride in the
uniqueness of our culture and our traditions. Many of our
farmers and ranchers depend on our distinctive irrigation
systems known as acequias to the land grants that were granted
over 500 years ago. And I want to emphasize that, over 500
years ago.
Can you go into additional details regarding your
Department's efforts to reach out to unique regional systems to
better support them? And they should be included in
consultation when they are in areas that may be impacted.
Mr. Vasquez. I can tell you from the rural development
perspective and what I mentioned in our testimony, is that
first and foremost, we take the perspective of local residents
and local, I guess, strategies and innovation, of the utmost
importance. So, yes, we would welcome the opportunity to
consult with groups on how to respond to the uniqueness of what
is used in agriculture in those areas.
It may be that we would end up partnering with other
mission areas, but we can start with rural development to look
at what it is that needs to be responded to and how we could go
about framing it.
Mr. Lujan. I appreciate that very much, Mr. Under
Secretary, as we look to grants that may be able to be
accessed, but also accessed when there is designation,
especially with some of our forest lands. That is something I
am very interested in. Deputy Under Secretary, Mr. Jensen,
thank you for appearing before the Subcommittee again as well.
As you know, many rural communities have limited access to the
Internet. I am particularly interested in what you are doing to
help increase that collaboration and what we can do to see
continued access, especially in rural communities, from
economic purposes.
Mr. Jensen. And you said to the Internet? I might defer to
my counterpart here, Secretary Vasquez, as Rural Development
has some pretty fascinating things going on around broadband.
Mr. Vasquez. We are looking. We are going through round two
of reviewing proposals for broadband expansion, and to date, it
has been pretty much covered in most of the states. But if
there are areas that we need to pay particular attention to
through our Rural Utility Service, we would be more than happy
to meet with those communities to look at how we can provide
technical assistance to move in that direction.
Mr. Lujan. I appreciate that very much. And then also
looking at Rural Utility Service to see how we can strengthen
it, as opposed to programs that may be proposed for reductions.
These are important programs to rural America, who wouldn't
have power--we wouldn't have telecommunications if it weren't
for it, and so we need to strengthen those programs.
Deputy Assistant Secretary Sobeck, what are you doing to
protect hunting and fishing activities across the country,
especially in New Mexico? How can we work closer with our state
officials to plan, maintain, and protect access to hunting and
fishing?
Ms. Sobeck. Congressman Lujan, we consider the hunting and
fishing community to be essential partners to the Fish and
Wildlife Service on our refuge lands, and with respect to the
migratory bird resources that we manage. So we have multiple
partnerships with the hunting and fishing community. We
consider them essential partners and work with them on a
regular basis, inventing many, many of our programs. And we
look to them for ideas and inspiration about how to increase
access to hunting and fishing opportunities, both on Federal
lands and private lands. We know that protection of vital
habitat has been attributable in large part to the support of
the hunting and fishing community, and we need to make sure--I
heard this this week in Nebraska--that there is a new
generation of hunters that value their access to the land and
their relationship to resources. And I think that those
opportunities and the conservation and recreational goals of
our agency are very closely aligned.
So I don't have any specific examples with respect to New
Mexico, but I know that we have had some America Great Outdoors
listening sessions. They are planned to be held in your state,
and we will be looking for any suggestions. We are truly
listening to the local groups and want to hear their ideas
about how to accomplish the goals that you described.
And so I think that we have very closely aligned interests
in that area.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And as we
look to continue this discussion, again the city of Santa Fe
will be celebrating its 400th anniversary this year, land
grants that date back 500 years, traditional access and uses,
whether it was gathering wood or woods with Pinon or some of
our small producers that have used the land for grazing as
well, hunting and fishing, proud traditions back home that I
know that, Mr. Chairman, we will be able to make sure we are
addressing and looking to improve the economic activity around
the country. Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva. If I may, Mr. Lujan, the 500-year anniversary
of Santa Fe----
Mr. Lujan. Four hundred.
Mr. Grijalva. Four hundred? In comparison to Plymouth Rock,
more or less.
Mr. Lujan. Mr. Chairman, they are celebrating the 400th
anniversary in the city, and I am not sure where we are with
Plymouth Rock, but I can guarantee you it is not 400.
Mr. Grijalva. Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. I honor the City of Santa Fe, but I think it
actually is 400 past Plymouth Rock. I think that was 1492, but
maybe I am wrong. So anyway, to the subject at hand. First, to
the Department of Agriculture; either one of you can answer
this. You know, I was involved with a coalition, and we had
some quite lengthy discussion and struggle with Chairman Waxman
to include in the so-called cap and trade bill, which I did not
support, language for biomass utilization on Federal lands, and
making it eligible for the same tax credits that you can get
off private lands. And as I understand, the Administration
supported that initiative.
But now, we have the Environmental Protection Agency
proposing to reclassify the utilization of biomass in defiance
of all their past positions in terms of the carbon cycle, and
to in fact essentially potentially classify it the same as
fossil fuels, coal. And I am just wondering, since you both
talk about woody biomass utilization and some examples and how
productive this could be--and certainly Commissioner Laurance
makes a great case and brought a pilot project to the Umpqua
National Forest there--are you concerned, have you engaged
with, are you tracking the EPA? Does the left hand of the
Administration know what the right hand is doing here?
Mr. Jensen. The left hand the right hand are firmly shaking
and trying to figure out how to get that handshake to get on
the same page. The Department of Agriculture--this issue you
raise is absolutely essential that we figure out how to create
the kinds of good, positive, sustainable incentives to use, in
this case, woody biomass, if we are dealing with the Forest
Service. So this question, I think, in particular around how
you define renewable biomass is a really key one. There is a
public lands component to it. There is a private lands
component to it. It revolves a lot around the sustainability of
that resource.
The Secretary has testified that the 2008 Farm Bill
definition is an appropriate and comprehensive place to look at
how to approach that issue.
Mr. DeFazio. As I understand from some discussion with some
of the environmental groups, they have two concerns. One is
scale, and the other is--there are some delusional
environmentalists who believe that after we do all of the fuel
reduction, which most people would agree is necessary so we
don't torch up our green forests with fuel conditions that
never should have existed, that have been poorly managed--some
think that, well, after you finish that, you will then install
capacity, and you will go back, and you will cut down the big
old trees. I said, so we are going to cut down a $20,000
Douglas fir or $30,000 old growth ponderosa, and turn it into
$200 worth of wood chips. I am not certain how to deal with
that. But I think in terms of the scaling and the
sustainability, you could deal with it through stewardship
contracts and prescriptions over the land base. And the other
thing I would observe is that you don't have the budget to do
the fuel reduction.
I mean, GAO says we are losing ground. Actually, we are
becoming more and more fire prone every year because of
accumulating dried fuels and woody biomass that shouldn't be
there, and it is going to burn catastrophically in most places.
So this, I think--and I don't know if you have any studies on
this, but I believe that if you entered into larger scale
contracts, say to feed a project of appropriate scale, to
reduce woody biomass, you probably would get a cheaper bid
price on that work. I would assume you could stretch your
dollars further. Don't you think that is so, if there were some
product to come out of there, as opposed to piling it up into
slash piles and burning it next winter?
Mr. Jensen. There are economies of scale, and that is very
much one of the key beliefs and thoughts that we have got in
trying to get more work done, create those economies of scale
so we can get more done with fewer dollars.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. Well, I am glad to see we are on the same
page there, and I would do anything I can to help you with
that. I organized a letter of about 60 Members of Congress
expressing concern with this potential reclassification or new
classification to the EPA administrator, and we expect to be
meeting with her to discuss that.
The other issue you raised, which is also critical, is you
talk about the Secure Rural Schools and the fact that it has
provided beneficial projects across the West. And I guess what
I would like to know is I am sending a letter just now to the
President signed by--I am trying to remember how many, how many
people in our letter; 58, another 60 Members of Congress--
regarding the long-term prospects for Secure Rural Schools and
the projects you discussed here, the resource advisory
committees and those projects. And I am wondering--I discussed
this with the President earlier this year. He referred letters
both to the Secretary of Agriculture, since that is Forest
Service, and the Secretary of the Interior, and said that they
should follow up with me on my concerns about some longer-term
plan. And I haven't heard anything yet.
Mr. Jensen. I am glad you are beginning the discussion
because reauthorization of that bill is up in 2012, and it has
been a very important tool and lifeblood for these rural
communities and counties that are surrounded a lot of times by
public lands. So we have seen tremendous success. The types of
projects that come out of that bill have led toward some of the
best work that is out there that is not appealed, that is not
litigated. And so we are looking forward to engaging that
conversation. We are very glad that you are bringing it up, and
look forward to continuing that.
Mr. DeFazio. I would change the tense, not bringing. I have
been persistently--I brought up with the President as a
candidate, then brought it up--but, most recently, personally
brought it up with him a few months ago. And I would hope to
get some response to the referred letter by the President. As
he said, he would ask both secretaries to engage on that issue.
I want to, Mr. Chairman, if I could, just apologize to the
next panel because I have a lunch with the Majority Leader at
noon to discuss manufacturing jobs. Rural jobs are very
important. Manufacturing jobs are important, too. I am a bit
conflicted, and there is a member of the next panel who I think
has much to tell us about that, and I will try and get back.
But I just want to apologize in advance.
Mr. Grijalva. Let me follow up with a couple of questions.
And if I can invite Dan Wenk up for a question, and also Mr.
Poole from BLM up for a question, I would appreciate that.
Thank you very much. Mr. Wenk, we have heard assertions
constantly that national parks negatively impact rural
communities, yet we also hear how important parks are to
businesses and economic activity, particularly in gateway
communities. Can you give us some hard numbers on what effect a
Grand Canyon, a Zion, a Yellowstone have to the surrounding
areas? And if you would, please, if you don't mind, identify
yourself for the record.
Mr. Wenk. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I can. I am Dan Wenk, the
Deputy Director of the National Park Service. The Deputy
Assistant Secretary Sobeck talked about the national impact in
terms of dollars and jobs of the national parks across the
country. But if I could add to that, if I just took one area of
the country, which would be the inter-mountain region, visitors
spent more than $2.5 billion in the gateway communities
surrounding the parks. There are 91 parks across eight states
in the inter-mountain region. More than $2.5 billion, which
supported more than 51,000 local jobs and contributed
approximately $1.6 billion in added value. That is the net
value added to the region's economy in the preferred measure of
how an industry or an activity contributes to the economy.
Specific examples to your question. Visitor spending in
National Park Service payroll in the Grand Canyon supported
more than 11,500 jobs and contributed approximately $307
million in value added. Rocky Mountain National Park supported
almost 5,000 local jobs and contributed over $140 million.
Yellowstone supported almost 7,200 jobs, and contributed
approximately $305 million in value added. Glacier supported
more than 2,200 jobs and contributed approximately $75 million
in added value.
Just a couple more facts of note. In the State of Arizona,
visitor spending accounted in payroll accounted for $680
million and about 18,000 jobs. In Utah, $500 million and 12,500
jobs.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. And now, Mr. Poole, we have also
heard--and thank you, and if you could identify yourself for
the record as well. But we have heard a lot recently about the
loss of energy jobs in Utah specifically. But according to your
testimony, the Milford wind corridor project has created 250
jobs in the area and brought more than $85 million in economic
benefit. So it looks like you are working with the private
sector to create jobs. And can you talk about this and other
opportunities that you can tell the Committee about?
Mr. Poole. Yes, I can, Mr. Chairman. That is the Milford
Project in Utah. It is divided in two phases. BLM authorized
phase one in 2009. At that time, we authorized approximately
100 wind turbines, producing about 200 megawatts. We are in the
process of authorizing phase two for an additional 70 wind
turbines and an additional 100 megawatts. Those figures are
correct. Our estimates is it has resulted in about 250 jobs,
about $85 million in revenue to the State of Utah. And the
overall investment being made by the company is about $500
million.
Currently, we have what we call fast track projects, 34
projects bureau-wide. This includes many aspects of our
renewable portfolio. That is solar, that is wind, that is
geothermal. That is also either upgrade or to new transmission,
all of which will be producing jobs and additional revenue, for
the most part in proximity to rural communities throughout the
West.
Mr. Grijalva. One quick question for the commissioner. I
was particularly interested, and these partnerships are, I
think, important, and particularly in our part of the country.
But I was interested in how your project has worked out the
partnerships with the local tribes. I think that is not only
interesting, but very important.
Mr. Laurance. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Shortly after
I took office in 2007, I was talking to Senator Wyden, and we
talked about these issues--about how there is dissension--and
he said if I could bring together a local collaborative group
to discuss these issues and seek solutions, it made his job as
legislator an easier job. In recognizing that, I looked at
about 100 influential members of my community on all sides,
environmental advocates, timber industry, government, Federal
land managers, and vetted through that 100-name list, and came
up with about 35 names who spoke with authority for those
organizations they represented, but were careful listeners as
well. And the result of those conversations over the course of
three years has developed the resolution that you see before
you.
It is interesting that among the people who first talked to
me, for instance, about pre-European conditions that we talk
about, the first with me is Javier Goirigolzarri, a forestry
consultant. Speaking with me about this very thing was Paul
Beck, a timber manager for a local timber company; as well as
Ken Carlon, a professor at our local college, and also the
president of probably the most influential environmental
organization in my county; as well as Steven Rondo, resource
manager of the Umpqua--the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Indian
Tribe.
And it is interesting that in conversations, it was always
directed toward the tribe. And we wanted their buy-in. And they
helped shape a vision that harkens back 150-200 years in their
oral tradition. And it is interesting that this has become
vitally important to them. We are identifying heritage sites,
many of which remain sacred and only known, as we discover
them, to that tribe in this study.
And interesting aside is that my son, who is working for
the Forest Service, who has had a lifelong interest in native
plants, has a variety of every plant used by the local Indian
tribe in prehistory growing somewhere on my place--some of them
look like weeds, but he promises me they are not. So that
collaboration is very rich, and I think beneficial to my entire
community.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Mr. Jensen, Ms. Sobeck, I have
other questions that I will submit in writing to you. And I
appreciate your response to the Committee. Mr. Jensen, I won't
ask you about meetings or anything like that. If you do have an
independent thought on your own, please keep it to yourself.
Anyway, thank you very much, and I invite the next panel up.
Mr. Jensen. Thank you.
[Pause]
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much. Let me welcome the panel
and turn to my colleagues that have joined us today for
introductions of individuals on the panel. Let me begin with
Mr. Lujan, sir.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Today, Mr.
Chairman, I am proud to introduce two panelists, one on the
second panel, which we have before us today, and one that will
be speaking on the third panel. Mr. Lee, thank you for
appearing before the Subcommittee today. This is an important
topic to many folks back home in New Mexico, and especially to
the Committee. I worked closely with the Cattle Growers'
Association in the past, and I am familiar with the important
concerns, and many opinions shared by our stockmen.
I believe like you that in the creation of Federal land,
local communities' concerns should be kept in mind. I was proud
that while developing language for my Rio Grande del Norte
National Conservation Area Establishment Act, I met and spoke
with members of the Cattle Growers' Association and the New
Mexico stockmen to ensure their concerns were listened to so
that access for traditional uses was protected.
Preservation of land must take into consideration our way
of life. Everyone can work together, but that means ideas have
to be shared, and respectful discussion must play a big part.
To that end, I believe that we agree in protecting the land,
while approaches may differ on the best methods of preserving
our culture, traditional uses, and access, I believe that it is
important for the Subcommittee to hear the unique concerns of
our community in New Mexico, and how we can work together as we
protect traditional uses for our farmers, ranchers, acequias,
and land grants, and manage our public lands.
Once again, thank you for joining me today, Mr. Lee. And,
Mr. Chairman, if I may, with the introduction of our second
guests that we will have on the next panel, I have the pleasure
of introducing a constituent from Taos, New Mexico, Ms. Rachael
Mondragon, the founder of Urban Interface Solutions. Ms.
Mondragon has worked closely with state and Federal lands for
much of the past decade, in both the Carson National Forest and
the Cimarron State Forestry Office. Ms. Mondragon has dedicated
herself to protecting our rural communities through wildfire
suppression field work, and front office respectively.
Her skill in the Carson National Forest suppression crew
enabled her to continue wildfire prevention and continue with
her fire department as a crew boss. Building upon her knowledge
of forest and work experiences, Ms. Mondragon developed Urban
Interface Solutions, a diverse company that tackles such
projects as landscape scaling and hazardous fuels reduction
planning and implementation efforts. These experiences have
equipped Ms. Mondragon with a unique perspective or protecting
our wildlife while creating business and industry locally.
Through her hard work, dedication, independent business
spirit, and endurance, Urban Interface Solutions is a
successful company that was granted $450,000 to work
cooperatively with the Taos Pines Ranch through the
collaborative forest restoration program. Her work with Federal
agencies and grants through these are additional evidence of
the benefits of joint work between private industry and
Federally protected land, and how they can work together for
the betterment of our communities.
Thank you for joining us today, Ms. Mondragon and Mr. Lee.
I look forward to the testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, sir. Now also let me ask unanimous
consent for Mr. Minnick to join us at the dais, if he so
chooses after his introduction. If there is no objection, so
ordered; and also extend to him the opportunity to introduce
one of your constituents, sir.
Mr. Minnick. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am here
to acknowledge an Idahoan who is going to testify in your next
panel, Kristin Troy of Salmon, Idaho. She is the Executive
Director of the Lemhi Regional Land Trust, and you will be
hearing from her shortly, and also to introduce Joyce
Dearstyne. Joyce is on this panel, second from my left. She is
the Executive Director of Framing Our Community. This is a
small business incubator and value-added job skills and
training organization that is unique because of its location.
Joyce started this organization and runs it in Elk City, Idaho,
which has to be one of the most remote cities--it is a town of
a little over 1,000 people--in the lower 48. The city is
perched very near rim of the main Salmon River overlooking the
second deepest canyon in North America.
There is some dispute, Mr. Chairman, over whether the
deepest is in your state or my state, but this is second in any
event. And it is surrounded by the largest wilderness area on
three sides, the largest wilderness area in the lower 48. It is
a center of productive forest land that is managed by the
Forest Service on a multiple uses basis. Elk City was a typical
mill town, had a single employer, and the mill closed in 2005.
The city was very fortunate to have Joyce there and Framing Our
Community, her organization, which stepped in, and has kept
that town on the map.
It has done it by her ingenuity using a very limited amount
of Federal dollars, by becoming a small business incubator that
has drawn in a number of forest-based conversion options. They
produce specialty lumber. They produce wood fiber for a
cogeneration operation that Joyce is in the process of
starting, and a whole bevy of training organizations that
promote healthy forestry.
She has started training programs which deal with watershed
restoration, which is a key to stewardship sales in this very
rugged back country area; natural disaster response; and even a
program called Artists in the Woods. And it is truly
remarkable. She has turned this community, instead of drying up
and blowing away, into one of the most vibrant back country
communities in my state. She has also reached outside her
community and is an active participator in the Clearwater
Collaborative, which is a group that Senator Crapo of my state
has put together to come up with a--bring interest groups
together and come up with a cooperative land management plan
that hopes to present you a forest management plan, including
some new wilderness in Idaho, likely next session, and she is a
member of a group that is involving Idaho and Washington, the
North Idaho and Eastern Washington Jobs Workforce Development
Group that is a partnership that brings in and promotes
economic development throughout this rural region. She
epitomizes what we need to do as a Federal Government in
stimulating the kinds of economic development that will keep
our rural and forested areas alive in this country.
It is a pleasure for me to welcome Joyce Dearstyne.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Congressman. And let me again
welcome the panel. Let me begin with Cassandra Moseley,
Director, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University
of Oregon. Doctor. welcome. I look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF CASSANDRA MOSELEY, PH.D., DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR
A SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
Dr. Moseley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Committee. Thank you for letting me be here today. I want to
talk about the ways we can create jobs through the restoration
and maintenance of our public lands.
As the Chairman said, I direct the Institute for
Sustainable Environment at the University of Oregon. And today,
I want to offer some job creation principles, some promising
strategies, and a few key recommendations. I am going to leave
the specifics to the panelists with muddy boots.
National forests and other public lands are critical to
securing clean air, water, biodiversity, and carbon, and yet
our public lands face a significant need to recover ecosystem
function, reduce fire hazard, prepare for and adapt to climate
change. These needs create an economic opportunity for public
lands communities. Investments in forest and watershed
restoration create jobs, jobs at a rate similar to
infrastructure projects such as buildings and roads. In a
recent study, we found that in Oregon, forest and watershed
restoration creates between 15 and 24 jobs per $1 million
invested. Forest restoration can also generate woody biomass
that can be used for wood products and energy, and this can add
additional business and employment opportunities.
The central challenge is to translate this economic
opportunity into economic reality for public land communities
over the long term. During the recession, Federal policy has
been appropriately focused on stimulating the economy by
creating immediate jobs. However, in many public lands
communities, they have longer term underlying economic
weaknesses that will not be resolved when the national economy
recovers. Moving forward, a focus on job quantity rather than
job quality can create economies that fail to support families
and their communities, and leave out western rural communities
altogether because their population densities make it difficult
for them to find enough local workers to take advantage of
these sorts of strategies.
So what does it take to transform the need for forest and
watershed restoration into rural wealth, businesses, and jobs?
We need agreement about how these lands are managed, agency
capacity to act on these agreements, and businesses and a
trained workforce to do the work. Over the past 15 years,
communities and their agency partners have developed a number
of key strategies to create these conditions. One of the key
strategies is collaboration.
Since the mid-1990s, diverse collaboratives of agency and
community partners have worked to resolve conflict over Federal
land management. By starting small and using demonstrations and
field tours monitoring, collaborative groups have built trust
to move toward landscape-scale restoration.
Second, alongside collaboratives, many western communities
have created community-based organizations that have emerged to
facilitate these groups, work with agencies to plan and
implement projects, and undertake business and workforce
development.
Third, turning to the land management agencies, stewardship
contracting has become a key tool for undertaking public lands
restoration and creating a diversity of local benefits. For
example, on the Fremont National Forest, a 10-year stewardship
contract is being used to implement broad agreement about
forest restoration and keep the local sawmill opening, saving
milling and logging jobs.
A fourth strategy has been integrated value-added
manufacturing and biomass utilization. In these efforts,
community groups co-develop and co-locate small diameter wood
processing facilities, electrical, and heat generation, and
these projects are energy efficient, scaled appropriately to
local conditions, and structured to allow communities to
capture as much benefit as possible.
And finally, we are seeing the emergence of regional
economic development strategies and networks. Although
community-based approaches to development promised to maximize
local benefit in places dominated by public lands, larger scale
politics and markets greatly affect the ability of community-
based efforts to succeed. And increasingly, local organizations
are working across communities to develop markets, capital, and
facilities.
So how can Congress and the Federal Government accelerate
conservation-oriented economic development? Let me offer a few
suggestions. First, I would recommend the reauthorization of
stewardship contracting. Second, I think we need a grant
program to allow the national forests and community partners to
foster community business and agency capacity to integrate
public lands restoration and rural community development. And
finally, the Forest Service needs budget structures that allow
them to effectively and efficiently conduct integrated
restoration on national forest lands.
So thank you again for holding this important hearing. The
ecological health of public lands and the economic prosperity
of nearby communities are inextricably linked. While there is
still a lot of work to be done, Federal agencies and their
community partners have been developing strategies to improve
the health of both the communities and the lands. I look
forward to any questions you have. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Moseley follows:]
Statement of Cassandra Moseley, Ph.D., Ecosystem Workforce Program,
Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today about the
ways we can create and retain jobs through the restoration and
maintenance of public lands. I want to discuss how well-crafted federal
land management, contracting, and economic development policies can
support high quality jobs, foster robust small enterprises, and create
wealth in rural public lands communities.
I direct the Ecosystem Workforce Program in the Institute for a
Sustainable Environment at the University of Oregon. Founded in 1994,
the Ecosystem Workforce Program seeks to build ecological health,
economic vitality, and democratic governance in rural forest
communities in the American West. We address these interconnected
issues with applied research and policy education related to rural
communities and federal forest management. I am a founding participant
of the Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition, a group that is focused
on finding policy solutions that link the long-term health of the land
and well-being of rural communities. Over the past nine years, I have
undertaken a number of studies about the rural community benefits of
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contracting, the
working conditions of federal contract forest workers, and the use of
stewardship contracting.
Today, I am going to discuss:
1. Historical precedents for the Forest Service role in
creating local economic benefit
2. Opportunities to create jobs in public land communities
today
3. Strategies for creating conservation-oriented economic
development
4. Place-based and regional strategies and examples of what is
working
5. Challenges limiting public land communities' participation
in and benefit from the conservation of public lands
6. Recommended policy changes
1. Caring for the Land, Serving the People: Historical precedents for
the Forest Service role in creating local economic benefit for
public land communities
When beginning a conversation about how public lands can play a
role in creating prosperity in rural communities, one can easily ask
whether this should be a focus or obligation of these agencies. It is
worth briefly considering the founding of the Forest Service. At the
turn of the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and other
Progressives advocated for forest reserves and later the Forest Service
as agencies that would conserve timber, water, and rangelands
immediately and into the future. As part of this vision, they saw local
economic well-being as a fundamental part of national forest
management. The first regulations of the National Forest Reserves (the
1905 Use Book) laid out ``protecting local residents from unfair
competition in the use of forest and range'' as a central purpose of
the reserves. Since then, Congress has repeatedly created programs to
focus the Forest Service's attention on the creation of local economic
benefit from sustainable management of the national forests. In the
past 60 years, we have seen the Sustained Yield Forest Management Act
of 1944, which authorized the Forest Service to create units where
sustained yield timber harvest was to benefit the local community;
special salvage timber sale and small business timber sale programs;
and obligations under the National Forest Management Act to analyze the
economic impact of management. More recently, appropriations associated
with the National Fire Plan, Secure Rural Schools, and stewardship
contracting all focus the attention of national forests on creating
local community economic benefit while managing lands for the long term
good of the Nation. For a century of its history, the Forest Service
has had to simultaneously address national interests and local
benefits; and balance current needs and long-term well being.
2. Forest and watershed restoration and biomass utilization:
Opportunities to create jobs in public land communities today
Now more than ever, we understand the key roles that national
forests and other public lands play in securing clean air, water,
biodiversity, and carbon now and into the future. Federal lands also
provide places for recreation, retreat, renewal--critical roles in a
nation that struggles to unplug and unwind; and even more significant
for today's youth, who are facing an epidemic of obesity.
Despite their importance, our national forests and other public
lands face a significant and growing need for management to recover
ecosystem function, reduce fire hazard, and prepare for and adapt to
climate change. These lands and forests need hazardous fuels reduction,
improved wildlife and fish habitat, road decommissioning and
maintenance, and updated recreation facilities. Although funds from the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) have helped to reduce the
backlog, much still needs to be done. The need to actively restore our
national forests and grasslands is great, as is the need to create
economic opportunity for the businesses and workers in communities who
live adjacent to public lands.
Investments in forest and watershed restoration create jobs and
economic impacts similar to investments in infrastructure projects such
as building roads and bridges. In a recent economic impacts study, we
found that forest and watershed restoration activities create between
15.7 and 23.8 jobs per $1 million invested in Oregon. The economic
multipliers are in the range of 1.4 and 2.4. \1\ Employment numbers
tend to be higher for labor intensive activities such as hand thinning,
tree planting, and site preparation and lower for equipment-intensive
jobs such as construction of instream habitat and mechanical thinning,
selective logging and the like. However, the equipment-intensive jobs
usually created more total economic impact. The majority of the
companies we interviewed were quite small--nearly two-thirds had annual
revenues less than $1 million. \2\
Forest restoration activities such as hazardous fuels reduction and
thinning have the potential to generate small diameter trees and other
woody biomass that can be used to create wood products and energy.
These products are wide ranging and include posts, poles, furniture,
animal bedding, landscaping projects, paper, and engineered wood
products and energy including heat and electricity. Developing
utilization businesses located near the national forests can reduce
treatment costs for the federal government and other landowners, as
well as create local business and employment opportunities. \3\
3. Restoration and biomass utilization: Strategies for creating
conservation-oriented economic development
As ARRA winds down over the coming year, the central challenge will
be to translate the economic opportunity of forest and watershed
restoration and the utilization of byproducts into economic reality for
rural communities over the long term. During the recession, federal
policy has been focused on stimulating the economy by creating
immediate jobs. In many ways, this is an appropriate strategy for
encouraging recovery and avoiding deflation. However, many public lands
communities have longer-term, underlying economic weaknesses that will
not be resolved when the national economy recovers. Beyond short-term
stimulus, many rural public lands communities need to develop
economically. There are several key dimensions of successful
conservation-oriented economic development:
Wealth creation and retention: The development of
local businesses that provide restoration and stewardship
services or energy products need to be scaled to meet local
market demand and be part of an integrated economy that
includes value-added manufacturing and local ownership to
ensure that the money generated circulates through the local
economy.
Diversity and adaptability: In small rural economies,
the businesses that can provide a diversity of services and
evolve as needs change will be best able to withstand changes
in economic or environmental conditions. In natural resource-
based economies, seasons, natural disturbance, and commodity
markets are constant sources of change. In the face of climate
change and the need for renewable energy development, creating
integrated, diverse strategies will allow rural communities to
withstand change and perhaps even prosper because of it.
Robust small businesses: Local ownership and hybrid
ownership models that create not only jobs but also local
business opportunities can help create local wealth along with
jobs.
High quality jobs: Focusing on high quality jobs is
critical to overall community well being. Job creation efforts
that focus on securing a large number of jobs do not always
consider whether those jobs will enable workers to support
their families. Equally problematic, rural communities often do
not have the population available to take advantage of large-
number-low-quality-job strategies, so the jobs and the economic
benefits will go to outsiders. Strategies that focus on
creating high quality, longer duration jobs will better help
rural businesses strengthen their efforts to create more
sustained positive economic impacts.
4. Place-based and regional strategies and examples of what is working
What does it take to transform the need for forest and watershed
restoration into rural wealth, diverse and flexible enterprises, and
jobs? Across the West, communities and their agency partners have been
working together to foster economic development around forest and
watershed restoration and biomass utilization. Over time, a set of
strategies are emerging that foster success. These include:
Collaboration
Community-based organizations
Best value and stewardship contracting and contractor
development
Promotion of quality jobs
Integrated value-added manufacturing and biomass
utilization
Regional strategies and networks
Collaboration
Since the mid-1990s, collaboratives that include front line staff
from federal agencies, local government officials, local citizens,
environmentalists, and industry representatives have emerged in the
West to resolve conflict over federal land management, find common
ground, and develop and implement projects. By starting small, using
demonstrations and field tours, and monitoring project implementation,
many collaborative groups have built sufficient trust to move toward
landscape-scale restoration. Now, established collaborations are taking
on increasingly large and complex projects. Initially, collaboration
can be slow to develop. Strengthening and expanding collaboration is an
iterative process, where each project builds on the last. But the
benefits of collaboration include innovative solutions to complex
problems, reduced tensions, and more financial and technical resources
to implement a project. These collaborative approaches are critical to
the effective and efficient management of our public lands and to
restoring social harmony in the communities that have born the brunt of
conflict over national forest management. Collaboration has proved
itself to be an essential strategy to developing and implementing
durable solutions.
Community-based organizations
Alongside collaborative processes, in many western communities,
community-based organizations have emerged to help facilitate
collaborative groups, assist the agencies with project planning and
implementation, and support business and workforce development for both
restoration and value added manufacturing and biomass utilization.
Organizations such as such as Wallowa Resources (Enterprise, OR), Lake
County Resources Initiative (Lakeview, OR) and the Watershed Research
and Training Center (Hayfork, CA) develop partnerships with local
entrepreneurs, agencies, and community leaders to strengthen small
local business development and to increase the flow of benefits from
forest management to local communities and workers. In addition,
regional organizations such as Sustainable Northwest are playing a
pivotal role in networking these organizations, providing technical and
facilitation assistance, and helping entrepreneurs access urban
markets. Place-based, regional, and even some national organizations
have become essential in achieving conservation and rural development
objectives. These are the entities that create neutral forums of
diverse stakeholders for the agencies, provide technical assistance to
support local community and business efforts, and foster innovation and
hope that federal agencies cannot create on their own.
Best value and stewardship contracting and contractor development
Direct Federal employment, procurement contracts, timber sales,
stewardship contracts, and cooperative agreements are the central ways
that the Forest Service generates economic activity through land
management. Examining ARRA awards in the West based on recipient
location (rather than project location) suggests that the U.S.
Departments of Agriculture and the Interior have been the lead funders
in many of the hardest hit-rural counties in the West. This is despite
the relatively small amount of ARRA funding obligated to land
management agencies, suggesting that funds from these agencies can and
do reach businesses in the rural West. \4\
The ways contracts and agreements are structured impacts whether
local contractors can readily compete for them. Best value contracting,
in particular, can reward contractors who perform high quality work,
have well-trained workers, or use low impact equipment. In addition,
for much of the last decade the Forest Service has had the authority to
consider local benefit when awarding stewardship and many service
contracts. These authorities can help increase awards to local
contractors. \5\
In addition, cooperative agreements between land management
agencies and community-based organizations, especially in communities
with limited contracting capacity, can help increase local benefit. For
example, in Hayfork, California, where there are virtually no
contractors left, the Watershed Research and Training Center and the
Shasta Trinity National Forest have entered into cooperative agreements
for restoration projects that employ and train local workers. This
approach serves to create local jobs now while building local workforce
capacity for the longer term.
In addition to best value contracting and cooperative agreements,
stewardship contracting has become a very effective tool for
undertaking public lands restoration and creating a diversity of local
benefits. For example, in Northern California, the BLM and Forest
Service have entered into ten-year stewardship agreements with the
Trinity Resource Conservation District to collaboratively mange the
Weaverville Community Forest. These agreements have turned a conflict
into a broadly-supported strategy to reduce fire hazards, while
improving recreational opportunities, protecting cultural resources,
and sending logs to the local sawmill. On the Fremont National Forest,
a 10-year stewardship contract is being used to implement broad
agreement about forest restoration and keep the local sawmill open,
saving dozens of milling and logging jobs. In Central Oregon,
stewardship contracting has enabled contractors to acquire new
equipment and identify new markets for biomass utilization. In
Southwest Oregon, the Rogue Siskiyou National Forest has used
stewardship agreements to quickly implement ARRA projects and create
more than 35 jobs conducting hazardous fuels reduction. Over the last
several years, Forest Service Region 6 has invested in training their
staff, members of collaborative groups, and contractors in
understanding how to use tools like stewardship contracts. These
initial steps and leadership from the Regional Office have positioned
national forests in Region 6 to take advantage of stewardship
contracting authorities.
Promotion of quality jobs
Poor job quality has been a long-standing problem for labor-
intensive workers such as those that work on thinning and tree planting
projects. Often Hispanic migrants, these workers are subject to
frequent verbal abuse and safety and labor violations. Changing these
conditions requires shifting the dynamics in the labor and contracting
markets. In recent years, the Forest Service and Department of Labor
have come together to collaborate to increase enforcement of labor,
safety, and contracting regulations. More recently, Region 6 of the
Forest Service has begun to collaborate with state and Federal agencies
and worker organizations to pursue more consistent enforcement and
create a cultural change within the agency that supports staff in
recognizing and acting on labor and safety violations as they would
timber theft or abandoned camp fires. Although there is still a long
way to go before labor-intensive forest workers will experience
consistent changes in their working conditions, these recent steps are
promising.
Integrated value-added manufacturing and biomass utilization
A number of biomass development strategies are emerging, which
integrate value-added manufacturing, and electrical and heat
generation. These approaches create projects that are energy efficient,
scaled appropriately to local forest conditions, and structured to
allow public land communities to capture as much benefit as possible.
In Wallowa County, for example, a number of business, nonprofit, and
county partners are developing an Integrated Biomass Energy Campus.
Already, it has created 14 new jobs utilizing woody biomass that
otherwise would have been left in the woods after thinning to be piled
and burned. With planned additions to the campus, including a new
combined heat and power plant that will provide electrical and thermal
energy to the co-located companies, total employment will rise to 26-30
jobs (nearly 1% of non-farm workforce in the county) and annual biomass
purchase will increase to 50,000 tons - value of about $1.2 to $1.5
million annually. This project will support additional jobs in the
woods and help sustain the economics of private working forestlands.
This new local market will help support about 7,000 acres of forest
restoration/fuel reduction annually. This model reduces transportation
costs, creates partnerships, and has the potential to provide sustained
community economic development.
Regional strategies and networks
Although community-based approaches to economic development promise
to maximize local benefit, in communities dominated by public lands,
the reality is that politics and markets operating regionally and
nationally greatly affect the ability of community-based efforts to
succeed. Increasingly, community-based organizations are realizing that
they need to work across communities and regionally to affect economic
development locally.
For example, the Ecosystem Workforce Program, Sustainable
Northwest, Wallowa Resources, and the Watershed Research and Training
Center are collaborating on a regional economic development project
focused on sustainable forest stewardship in a dry forest zone covering
15 counties of eastern and southern Oregon and northern California. By
strengthening community-based organizations and regional networks, the
project will develop a model to increase the viability of sustainable
forest stewardship in which rural communities participate and prosper.
Our strategy involves: (1) creating multiple value streams supporting
sustainable forest stewardship; (2) developing integrated biomass
utilization and renewable energy; (3) building community and business
capacity to achieve forest and economic resilience; (4) creating the
policy conditions to support sustainable forest stewardship on public
and private lands; and (5) documenting and communicating lessons in the
zone, regionally, and nationally. \6\ Grants from the U.S. Endowment
for Forestry and Communities, the USDA Rural Development, and several
other sources are funding this project.
5. Challenges limiting public land communities' participation in and
benefit from the conservation of public lands
This model of integrated land management and economic development--
collaborative land management planning and implementation, robust
community-based organizations and networks, healthy adaptable
contracting and wood/biomass processing businesses--is showing promise
across the West. But, this model faces considerable policy challenges.
For example:
Collaborative agreement about how and where to
conduct forest and watershed restoration exceeds the financial
and organizational capacity to plan and implement projects
within the land management agencies, private sector, and
nonprofit organizations involved in this work.
Local entrepreneurs seeking to develop businesses
that use biomass for wood products and energy production face a
number of barriers including lack of access to capital,
concerns about biomass supply, viable local ownership models,
and need for risk sharing. \7\
High-speed Internet connections have become a de
facto requirement of contracting with the federal government.
However, many rural businesses in the West that wish to work
with the government are hampered by lack of broadband.
Although the Forest Service's Washington Office and
Region 6 Office have provided direction and training for front
line personnel to collaborate, and we are seeing increased
front line commitment to collaboration, there remain
institutional structures--particularly systems of budget
formulation and allocation and performance measures--that can
create strong disincentives to collaborate. \8\
Federal land management agencies and economic
development agencies do not work together consistently. Through
the Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative, the Pacific
Northwest developed successful models of sophisticated
collaboration among state and federal economic development and
natural resource agencies. Unfortunately, these networks have
weakened over time due to sustained downsizing and
reorganization and a lack of focus.
Quality jobs continue to be allusive for many workers
performing labor-intensive forest work, and the markets for
manual thinning are highly competitive.
6. Recommendations
A. Reauthorize stewardship contracting to allow for continued
use of one of the most effective tools available to the Forest
Service and BLM for undertaking forest restoration, encouraging
business innovation, and creating local benefit.
B. Support community-based organizations and collaboration in
public lands communities by creating a grant program
administered by the national forest system to allow national
forests and community partners to foster community, business,
and land management agency capacity to collaboratively work to
integrate climate change adaptation, public lands restoration,
and rural community development.
C. Develop Forest Service budget structures that meet today's
challenges by allowing for integrated management of national
forest system lands. The President's proposed Integrated
Restoration and Resource line item moves in the right
direction.
D. Develop strategies for performance evaluation that reflect
the complexity of federal land management and the
interconnected goals of ecological health and community well
being. Over the past several years, the Forest Service has
revamped their performance evaluation system, particularly
associated with fire and fuels management. Their performance
measures are more sophisticated and their data collection
systems are more fully developed. Yet, this target-driven
system of performance measurement fails to capture the
complexity of the problems facing the agency and fails to
credit the agency when they develop and implement innovative
solutions to those problems. Moreover, the system, while better
at measuring biophysical outputs and outcomes, still lacks
measure of socioeconomic outcomes. The recent tracking system
created to monitor ARRA jobs and economic impact outcomes could
be part of a strategy to incorporate socioeconomic measures
into the current accountability system.
E. Focus on job quality as a central component of green
economic development. We need to focus attention on equal
access to worker protection across all types and classes of
workers in order to create quality jobs for workers and a level
playing field for businesses contractors. This will require
sustained attention on the part of Congress, the Federal
government, and worker organizations.
Endnotes:
\1\ Max Nielsen-Pincus and Cassandra Moseley, Economic and Employment
Impacts of Forest and Watershed Restoration in Oregon, EWP
working paper # 24, Ecosystem Workforce Program, University of
Oregon. Available at, http://ewp.uoregon.edu/downloads/
WP24.pdf
\2\ Autumn Ellison, Fraser Macdonald, Max Nielsen-Pincus, and Cassandra
Moseley, The Business of Restoration: A Profile of Restoration
Contractors in Oregon, EWP working paper # 23, Ecosystem
Workforce Program, University of Oregon. Available at, http://
ewp.uoregon.edu/downloads/WP23.pdf
\3\ Becker, Dennis, and Joel Viers. ``Matching the Utilization of
Forest Fuel Reduction by-Product to Community Development
Opportunities.'' In People, Fire, Forests, edited by Terry
Daniels, Matthew Carroll, Cassandra Moseley and Carol Reich.
Corvallis, OR: OSU Press, 2007.
\4\ Max Nielsen-Pincus, Josef Gordon, and Cassandra Moseley, Monitoring
the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act in the 11 Western
States, EWP briefing paper #24, Ecosystem Workforce Program,
University of Oregon, 2010. Available at, http://
ewp.uoregon.edu/downloads/BP_24.pdf
\5\ Cassandra Moseley and Nancy Toth. ``Fire Hazard Reduction and
Economic Opportunity: How Are the Benefits of the National Fire
Plan Distributed?'' Society and Natural Resources 17, no. 8
(2004): 701-16.
\6\ Emily Jane Davis, Cassandra Moseley, and Max Nielsen-Pincus, eds.
State of the Dry Forest Zone and Its Communities. Ecosystem
Workforce Program, University of Oregon, 2010. Available at,
http://ewp.uoregon.edu/downloads/DryForestZoneAssmt.pdf
\7\ Dennis Becker, Sarah McCaffrey, Dalia Abbas, Kathleen E. Halvorsen,
Pamela Jakes, Cassandra Moseley, ``Conventional Wisdoms of
Woody Biomass Utilization on Federal Public Lands,'' Journal of
Forestry, forthcoming.
\8\ For additional ideas how about to foster front line collaboration,
see Cassandra Moseley, Strategies for Supporting Front Line
Collaboration: Lessons from Stewardship Contracting. IBM Center
for the Business of Government, forthcoming.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Doctor. Ms. Joyce
Dearstyne, Executive Director, Framing Our Community, Elk City,
Idaho. Welcome. I look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JOYCE DEARSTYNE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FRAMING OUR
COMMUNITY, INC., ELK CITY, IDAHO
Ms. Dearstyne. Good morning, Chairman Grijalva and
Committee members. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity
to share our efforts in building community sustainability
through restoration-based programs that grow value-added
businesses. My name is Joyce Dearstyne, and I am the Executive
Director of Framing Our Community, a nonprofit organization
located in the Clearwater Mountains of north central Idaho.
My county is larger than the State of Connecticut. It is 83
percent Federally managed lands, and it depends on the natural
resources that surround us for its economic base. Our strength
lies in job creation in the woods and in the community. This is
accomplished through an integrated program of work and
delivered through our Jobs in the Woods and Small Business
Incubator programs.
The Jobs in the Woods program creates educational
opportunities and full-time jobs in the field of forest and
watershed restoration and hazardous fuels reduction. Agency
professionals teach unemployed workers and college and high
school students employable skills, enabling workers to provide
cost-effective services like boundary marking, timber cruising,
fitting, pruning, piling of woody biomass, and collection of
water samples for land management agencies. In the process, we
restore health to our national forest, create wildlife habitat,
and reduce wildfire danger.
As an example, our Sweeney Hill fuels reduction project
reduces the risk of wildland fire danger to life, property, and
the natural resources adjacent to our community. By removing
insect- and disease-affected trees, we jumpstart the economy
and employ and train local contractors and Youth Corps as they
assist the agencies in meeting their land management goals.
Stewardship contracts allow for these treatments, while
partnership and assistance agreements allow for the agency
staff to train willing workers.
The logs and slash that result from this project were sent
to our small business incubator for the production of wholesale
and retail products, and provide logs to the remaining lumber
mill in our county, while low-grade materials are used to heat
the incubator facility in our new dry kiln. Our business
incubator provides necessary infrastructure for the startup and
growth of businesses that utilize small diameter standing dead
and other timber in the manufacture of quality products,
creating local jobs and diversifying our economic base.
Providing this infrastructure is also critical to reducing
high fuel loads and removing woody biomass from our national
forest at affordable rates. To increase the success, the
program builds capacity through business development and
management courses, access to micro loan programs, and
marketing of products.
My region has been embroiled in conflict and gridlock, to
the point of a zero cut and loss of industry capacity. That
just doesn't work. We believe that solution-oriented
collaboration is the way to reduce the conflict and the
litigation that has adversely impacted the health and vitality
of our forest and our communities. As a member of the
Clearwater Basin Collaborative, I have seen lines of
communication open among diverse stakeholders, from local
community, environmental, and recreational organizations to
county, agency, and tribal governments. Identification of
common ground, mutual respect, and concern for the forest we
all love has joined us in an effort to improve forest health
and our rural economy.
I would like to highlight two promising initiatives. The
first is the Great American Outdoors Initiative, which will
help us prepare the next generation of Forest Service, BLM, and
National Park employees by engaging and training rural youth
during summer employment. Our Youth Corps works in the forest
on fuels reduction, as well as assist disabled and senior
citizens to create defensible space around their homes,
maintains recreational trails, and improves aquatic and
wildlife habitat.
The Forest Landscape Restoration Act is broadly supported
by a wide array of interests that in the past rarely agreed on
forest issues. It allows for landscape-scale treatments,
provides consistent supply of raw materials necessary for
private investment, and facilitates collaborative restoration.
We are excited about the CFLR projects, and think that they
will be a great tool to use in collaboratively restoring health
to our forests and communities.
I would like to leave you with a few thoughts. The way we
manage our Federal lands directly affects the well-being of our
rural communities, and when our forests are healthy, our
communities are stronger. For us, there is a direct correlation
between these degraded forests and poverty in our rural
communities.
We know this will take time, and its success depends on
communities, land management agencies, environmentalists,
industry, and others working together to find solutions and
build these integrated programs. It will take Congress to
provide the direction and authorities to conduct business in
this new way, and to appropriate funds for agency budgets and
allow those agencies to utilize existing programs like those in
Titles II and III of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act.
Framing Our Community and the organizations that you will
hear today on the panel are ready to conduct restoration-based
business, and are excited to be working on this with you today.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Dearstyne follows:]
Statement of Joyce Dearstyne, Executive Director,
Framing Our Community, Inc.
Dear Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am Joyce Dearstyne, Executive Director of Framing Our Community,
a grass-roots community-based organization with eleven years of
experience in regional collaboration, working in federal partnerships
and creating jobs in my community. I appreciate the opportunity to
testify on the potential of building rural prosperity in partnership
with federal land management agencies and to share our hands-on
experiences and perspectives regarding community involvement in
restoration of our National Forests and on private lands. Framing Our
Community (FOC), a nonprofit organization founded in 1999, is located
in one of the largest counties--in size--in the lower forty eight
states; 83% of our forest and rangeland is owned and managed by the
Federal government. My town, Elk City, is surrounded by 12,000 acres
managed by the Bureau of Land Management and 2.2 million acres of Nez
Perce National Forest. Our community is, understandably, closely
connected to these public lands and relies upon these resources not
only for clean water, air and recreation, but also for jobs and is
essential to our economic stability.
Framing Our Community -who we are and what we do:
Eleven years ago, the residents of Elk City formed Framing Our
Community (FOC) to identify the community's desired path away from
being ``suppliers'' for a commodity-based economy to entrepreneurs
creating products with a higher margin of profit and offering
ecological services that diversify our economic base. Focusing on
value-added product development and increasing access to wholesale and
retail markets will eliminate the boom and bust cycles of the past.
Our vision is to sustain a ``Healthy Forest and Healthy
Community.'' Our mission is to provide integrated programs that create
jobs, improve forest and watershed conditions and increase educational
opportunities. We are dedicated to working collaboratively to find
solutions and end conflict over the natural resources that affect the
prosperity of our community and others who share our challenges.
Our strengths are in job creation in the woods and in the
community, improving forest and water conditions, as well as wildfire
fuel reduction. We have succeeded by training 160 displaced workers and
employing 158 workers in forest restoration and related skills so they
can find work on federal land management projects. We employ these
workers as part of FOC's field crew or contract their services to
collect water samples and monitor the streams and rivers; conduct
plant, wildlife and archeological surveys; thin overcrowded forest
stands to remove diseased and insect infested trees and reduce fuel
loads; and revegetate degraded sites with native seed plants. We have
also partnered with landowners to perform work on private lands,
further expanding the market for these services. We have reduced the
risk for business start-ups through our business incubator program by
providing manufacturing space, business development and management
courses and marketing assistance. We have sought out technical
assistance and partnerships to ensure our projects incorporate advanced
engineering and can engage in the global market place. We have done all
of this collaboratively working in tandem with land management
agencies, regional nonprofits, environmentalists, recreationists and
county government.
Over the past decade we have invested more than $3,000,000 in
ecosystem improvements, community infrastructure, and economic
development in North Central Idaho. National Fire Plan, Economic Action
program, state and private foundation funds have built business
infrastructure at our Small Business Incubator/Business Park and
capacity through consultants and agency expert staff who teach forest
restoration and ecosystem management services. We foster the production
and marketing of products that result from these activities, and
provide business and natural resource education for community youth and
adults. We have created a variety of jobs in our community, including
hiring organizational staff, employing a field crew, sub-contracting to
local contractors, and assisting with the creation of small businesses,
who in turn hire local people. Our 2009 projects included forest
stewardship, water quality monitoring, conducting ecological and
archeological botany surveys and inventories, value-added wood
production and sales by artisans through FOC's E-commerce website
(www.framingourcommunity.org). In 2009, we created 84 seasonal and
year-around jobs.
Five successful highlights from our projects and activities:
1. Natural Resource Education and FOC's Youth Corps
FOC's natural resource education program focuses on the health and
vitality of the surrounding rivers and streams with water monitoring
and testing, replanting along waterways which are spawning and rearing
streams for salmon, steelhead, and bull trout. Displaced timber workers
collect water samples for the Nez Perce National Forest under a five
year agreement, while our youth engagement component focuses on college
and high school students learning how to collect native seeds and
cuttings, returning them to watersheds the following year. These plants
are propagated by local nurseries and replanted to reduce sediment,
pathogens and stream temperatures, improving aquatic and terrestrial
habitat. Funding sources are scant, but our 2010 youth Corps has a
workforce of ten. Corps members also assist disabled and older
community members create defensible space around their homes. They
educate landowners by distributing FOC's 2009 national award winning
video ``Are We Safe from Fire? Protecting Idaho's Communities.'' This
video shows land and home owners how to protect families and property
from wildfires.
2. The Elk City Business Incubator
We needed to build the infrastructure to train workers and
contractors with the skills and knowledge that will make them
competitive for work on public lands and we recognized the new role
that we as a community-based organization had in facilitating the
development of a newly focused private sector. In public lands
communities, the private sector is reticent to invest in equipment
needed to harvest and process material not traditionally used in the
wood products sector due to an inconsistent program of work on federal
lands. Community organizations, like ours, have stepped up to share the
risk, enter into public-private partnerships to prove out new
technologies and share the responsibility of working with a Federal
agency. The Business Incubator was developed through a community-driven
process and resulted in the establishment of an integrated wood
utilization facility. We have focused on adding as much value to the
raw material as possible to ensure we can capture the highest market
value and in turn offer a better package to the Forest Service,
enabling them to restore more acres within the confines of their
budget. We have also created an integrated woody biomass utilization
facility where value-added manufacturing is co-located with a small-
scale energy facility. For example, using wood to create thermal energy
- either in heat only or combined heat and power/biofuels applications
- has more market value per unit energy than using it to generate
electricity only. Creating this higher biomass value allows federal
agencies and contractors to harvest and transport the material cost
effectively and can reduce treatment costs per acre.
Additionally our business incubator provides the infrastructure for
the startup and growth of businesses that manufacture quality products
from small diameter and dead trees and other natural resources from the
forest. Tenant businesses utilize small diameter and standing dead
timber in the manufacture of quality products, creating significant
economic benefits through job creation. Providing infrastructure for
the manufacturing of value-added products and full utilization of woody
biomass is critical to removing high fuel loads from our forests at an
affordable rate. We are able to provide the infrastructure, offer low
cost tenant fees, assist entrepreneurs with connections to brokers and
markets, accessing micro-loan programs, assistance to attend trade
shows, the ability to conduct e-commerce and print professional grade
marketing portfolios. This past Spring we began offering entrepreneurs
an 18 session business start-up course. The course is providing
training and education to start a business, conduct market research,
handle daily operations and human resources, access funding sources and
understand finance options, and create a business and marketing plan.
Our first class will graduate in November 2010; our second session
starting this winter is already half full.
These endeavors improve the quality of life through economic
development and the creation of year-around employment. Federal funding
for this infrastructure has come from several programs within the USDA
Forest Service including the National Fire Plan, Economic Action
Programs, Woody Biomass Utilization, and State and Private Forestry
Cooperative Partnership Program. A grant from USDA Rural Development
enabled us to acquire a dry kiln to support the needs of our business
tenants, preparing their products for interstate and international
markets. But the bulk of the funds come from private foundation grants.
The very successful Economic Action Program has not been funded in the
past few years and no replacement program has emerged. Requests for
manufacturing space from five new and growing businesses require a
tripling of incubator space to accommodate production needs. This
growth would increase local employment by approximately 15 percent.
Since the closing of our timber mill in 2005, the incubator has helped
our community reverse its out-migration and has seen the start of a
restoration-based and value-added products economy, but without the
continuation of a federal program similar to the Economic Action
Program, success stories like this are likely to be rare.
3. Training in natural resource stewardship
FOC's ``Jobs in the Woods'' program creates educational
opportunities and full-time jobs in the fields of hazardous fuels
reduction and forest and watershed restoration. Natural resource
professionals, unemployed timber workers and college and high school
students learn how to apply treatments that restore health to our
national forest and create defensible space on private lands. Where
possible, this is accomplished with the use of low impact equipment
that creates the least amount of soil and vegetative disturbance and at
a low cost per acre treated. FOC has used turn of the century skills,
like dry stone masonry, to repair wilderness trails and improve
wildlife and anadromous fish habitat.
4. Agreements and Stewardship contracts with the BLM and FS.
FOC and the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have
entered into several stewardship contracts to reduce the risk of
wildland fire to life, property and natural resources in Elk City and
the surrounding area. By removing insect and disease affected trees and
addressing existing challenges through the creation or saving of jobs
we are jumpstarting the economy. The 54 acre Sweeney Hill project
created four logging, eight restoration, four trucking and ten youth
corps jobs.
FOC has entered into several ``Partnership and Assistance
Agreements,'' based on the Manpower Act, through which agency experts
have trained and hired local workers to conduct boundary marking,
timber cruising, thinning, pruning, hand piling and replanting of
native species. Since 2003, FOC has provided the BLM with trained and
qualified people for field data collection for the biological,
botanical and cultural resources programs. These are primarily recent
college graduates who are building their resumes and gaining work
experience.
As an example, the South Fork Clearwater River Monitoring Project
monitors water quality and aquatic habitat conditions along the
mainstem of the South Fork Clearwater River. This monitoring plan
addresses the sediment-related issues in the mainstem South Fork
Clearwater River, regardless of the source of direction. Specific water
column parameters sampled are suspended sediment, turbidity and bedload
sediment, cobble embeddedness, particle size distribution, and pool
depth. The fieldwork is conducted by two nonprofit organizations and
lab work is conducted by the Elk City Water Laboratory; oversight and
training has been done by federal and state agency personnel. Existing
agreement authorities were used. This five-year project trained and
employed 12 - 15 workers annually, monitoring of two additional rivers
has created 9 months of employment.
5. Local and regional collaborative efforts
Collaboration is a great tool for resolving natural resource
management conflict. It can break the gridlock, controversy, and
litigation that adversely impact the health and vitality of our
national forests and communities. It brings diverse stakeholders
together (community, environmental, recreation, county and tribal
governments) to solve a common problem or achieve a common objective.
As a member of the Clearwater Basin Collaborative, I have witnessed the
opening of lines of communication and growth of respect, identification
of common ground and concern for the forests we all love. We have
already seen the benefit of collaboration when an appeal was withdraw
on a project reviewed and visited by CBC members. Conflict and
litigation are down, moving treatments forward and using agency dollars
for management rather than legal fees. The Collaborative Forest
Landscape Restoration Act is an excellent example of collaborative
processes and funding of landscape scale projects designed by federal
land management agencies and collaborative groups.
Challenges we still need to overcome:
Despite our successes, North Central Idaho continues to face
significant economic challenges; unemployment remains at 12.8%, county
budgets are declining, and our county poverty rates are 18.9% with
community rates at 23%. In a landscape predominately owned and managed
by the federal government, we will need increased and sustained
investment to retain and create new infrastructure that fits the
restoration and stewardship work needed on our public lands. We need
technical assistance and support to catalyze entrepreneurs and create
conditions that will offer our young people a reason to return to the
community and be part of our future. Key challenges include:
Reduced agency staff and budget capacity impacts
small and micro businesses across Idaho. For example, the
combination of reduced and inconsistent funding (delays in
budget approval) and the shifting direction of federal agencies
have made it very difficult for the private sector to prepare
to serve the restoration economy.
Lack of infrastructure for manufacturing that makes
use of traditionally low-value species feasible and
economically viable makes it hard for businesses to get
started.
Being located in a high poverty, remote location that
is distant from transportation corridors makes accessing urban
markets challenging.
Having both inconsistent offerings of restoration
work and unpredictable supplies of wood sources from the
surrounding public lands (from restoration projects or
traditional timber projects) creates an environment where it is
difficult to update, reestablish or create new businesses.
Having a relatively small population density, it is
difficult to recruit and retain a skilled workforce when there
is no consistent program of work on federal lands.
Given the uncertainty in federal land management and
the surrounding large federal ownership patterns it is very
difficult to raise private capital to support retooling of
existing businesses or entice new businesses to establish in
communities like ours.
Federal contracting is inconsistent in providing a
level playing field for rural businesses to compete for
restoration contracts. Large contracts are written in the name
of efficiency, but limit the ability of small and micro-
businesses to successfully compete. A greater emphasis on
quality of the work, rather than lowest bid is needed. Best
value contracting can help federal agencies ensure excellent
value for the federal government and American taxpayers.
Recommendations:
I would like now to offer some recommendations on what can be done
to overcome the challenges noted above, support the momentum of the
successes we have had and promote opportunities through the U.S.D.A
Forest Service and Rural Development, Department of Interior, and
Congress to encourage job creation in the forest communities.
1. Support the next generation of rural conservation
leadership by supporting the President's Great American
Outdoors initiative. This could help to create the next
generation of Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and
National Park Service employees by engaging and training rural
youth during summer employment.
2. Fully support and use existing programs to reach their
potential. Federal agencies should work together to invest and
provide grants, loans, and technical support to public land
community training programs; increasing access to capital for
low-impact or innovative equipment that can improve forest
management; and building appropriately scaled manufacturing and
energy facilities that can serve local markets and feed into
regional, national, and even global markets, if appropriate.
Existing programs such as the Forest Service Economic Action
Program, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, Titles II and III,
and the Community Wood Energy Program (CWEP), should be fully
funded and utilized.
3. Level the playing field for rural businesses through
improved federal contracting. The agencies need to ensure that
work offered on public lands is awarded on a best value basis,
including criteria for local economic benefit. Awareness,
clarity, simplification and training on the full suite of
available existing contracting and new authorities should be
provided to the field. For example, Partnership and Assistance
Agreements are great tools for the agency to work with
nonprofits, providing for cost effective services, training and
local jobs.
4. Support Investment in Conservation-based Businesses.
Successful conservation-based businesses will require
investment-- both on the land management and manufacturing
sides--in new equipment, training and recruitment of new
employees, and partnerships with communities and agencies. We
also need to determine how the Small Business Administration
targets forest-based businesses and whether they offer their
services at the local level. The HUB Zone program seems to be
one SBA program that is proving itself useful in helping local
contractors win contracts.
5. Invest in Research and Technology Development. Creating a
restoration economy necessitates that the public and private
sectors develop new techniques and approaches to treat the land
and handle restoration by-products. The Department of Energy
needs to work with rural communities and help federal land
management agencies with scalable energy solutions. For
example, DOE's National Renewable Energy Lab needs to develop
small-scale pollution control devices for wood-fired systems.
The USDA Forest Service's Forest Products Lab in Madison,
Wisconsin has been an excellent resource and has worked with
rural communities and businesses. To ensure the success of the
Forest Products Lab, it is essential that Congress provide
adequate support and direction to enable its employees to work
with more communities and small businesses to:
Test and develop value-added products
Create and understand light touch management
techniques and equipment
Understand the impacts of restoration
forestry.
6. Foster and provide incentives for development of
appropriately scaled energy facilities. By investing in the
building of small distributed power and synthetic fuel
facilities we can encourage long-term sustainability, in which
demand is less likely to exceed supply and will provide for
long-term employment and stability. Specifically, Congress
should:
Improve and extend production tax credits for
new generation based on a minimum efficiency threshold
to encourage the best use of wood for energy
Account for thermal energy in renewable
energy legislation such as qualifying the thermal
energy output of a small combined heat and power (CHP)
facility to fill a portion of any Renewable Electricity
Standards.
7. Continue and Increase Support for the Forest Landscape
Restoration Act. The Forest Landscape Restoration Act (FLRA) of
2009 facilitates collaborative restoration of priority forest
landscapes using the best-available science. The FLRA is
broadly supported by a wide array of interests that in the past
rarely agreed on forest issues. The forming of collaborative
processes like the Clearwater Basin Collaborative have opened
lines of communication and identified common ground among
industry, environmental and community organizations. Across the
nation, community stakeholders are anxious to begin the
important work that will restore forest landscapes, help to
revive local economies, and reduce wildfire suppression costs
and risks. FLRA will help reduce the risk of fire and costs
associated with fire management and it will stimulate local
economies through the creation of jobs. We hope that CFLRA
projects will be fully appropriated in the future ($40 million
vs. $10 million in 2010) and more widely applied.
8. Reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools legislation: Look at
reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act with an eye
towards economic development in those communities in or
adjacent to National Forests. Title III Resource Advisory
Council dollars could be used to transition the economic base
of natural resource dependent communities. Currently these
funds are used solely on the national forests to augment Forest
Service budgets for wildlife studies, NEPA and other
Environmental Impact Studies.
Conclusions
Thank you for the opportunity to share our experiences in building
sustainability through a restoration-based program that fosters the
growth of value-added businesses. While many of the issues I have
raised relate to appropriations, I believe it is important that the
Resources Committee advocate for these important programs in addition
to providing the Forest Service with direction and authority to conduct
its business. The main messages we would like to leave with you are:
The way in which we care for the land directly
affects the well-being of rural communities.
When our forests are healthy, our communities are
stronger. For us, there is a direct correlation between
degraded land and poverty in rural communities.
We need to restructure the way we take care of the
land to create a healthy interdependence.
This will take time and its success depends on communities, land
management agencies, environmentalists, industry, and others working
together to find solutions to building integrated programs and funding
sources.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Mr. Wes Curtis, Vice President for Government
Relations and Regional Services, Southern Utah University,
Cedar City, Utah. Welcome, sir. I look forward to your
comments.
STATEMENT OF WES CURTIS, VICE PRESIDENT FOR GOVERNMENT
RELATIONS AND REGIONAL SERVICES, SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY,
CEDAR CITY, UTAH
Mr. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Wes Curtis.
I am Vice President for Government Relations and Regional
Services at Southern Utah University, and formerly a point
person for two Utah Governors on rural affairs and public lands
issues. And I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you about
Southern Utah University's outdoor initiatives and partnerships
as they relate to the public lands, job training, and the land
management agencies in southern Utah.
Having been actively involved in Utah public lands issues
for over two decades, I have learned that public lands are
viewed by many in rural Utah as both a blessing and a curse. I
have also come to recognize that regardless of how one feels
about the Federal lands and their management, their existence
and the agencies that manage them are a reality that we live
with. And within that reality, in addition to the challenges,
there are also many opportunities to be cultivated and
developed. At SUU, we are trying to make the most of these
opportunities.
Without our service region, we count three national parks,
five national monuments, a national recreation area, numerous
state parks, and millions of acres of BLM and Forest Service
lands. Eighty to ninety percent of lands that surround us are
public lands, and these lands influence our lifestyles,
culture, and economy in many ways, both positive and negative,
in ways subtle and overt.
Southern Utah University's location in the midst of these
world class landscapes is one of the primary things that sets
us apart from other institutions of higher learning, and we
feel compelled to make the most of this unique setting, both
for the enhancement of student experience and for the benefit
of our regional community and economy.
At SUU, we are actively engaged in what we call our outdoor
initiatives. These initiatives are directed at outdoor
education, career training, and recreation opportunities for
our students, working together in mutually beneficial
partnerships with Federal and state agencies, providing
assistance to local government in addressing public land
issues, developing career path opportunities for students
within Federal and state agencies, and within tourism and
recreation industries.
We are also viewed in our region as a resource through the
Federal land management agencies, providing them with research
projects, artistic and scientific resources, and as a provider
of numerous student interns to meet their staffing needs. We
are currently working to bring all of these initiatives
together under the umbrella of a Southern Utah University
Outdoor Center, and have an appropriation request through
Congressman Jim Matheson and Senator Robert Bennett to help us
launch this center.
And with the focus of this Subcommittee on jobs related to
the public lands, I want to talk about some of our career path
training opportunities. These include, number one, a bachelor's
degree in hotel, resort, and hospitality management, and also a
bachelor's degree in outdoor recreation and parks and tourism.
The hotel, resort, and hospitality management degree gives
students skills in the hospitality management industry, and
they take jobs with hotels, resorts, food service operations,
convention centers, and even in transportation.
The outdoor recreation degree has three distinct areas of
emphasis, which allows students to specialize their focus
depending on whether they want to pursue careers in public
lands management, outdoor education, or tourism. In only its
fourth year of existence, this program has already placed
students in full-time jobs within the National Park Service,
the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, with
private sector companies, and with state parks in two different
states. And it is interesting to note that almost every one of
these job placements through the outdoor recreation degree
program has been the result of a student participating in an
internship with the hiring agency.
Southern Utah University has emerged as a national model in
the placement of student interns with Federal and state land
management agencies. This is done through our inter-
governmental internship cooperative, whose mission includes the
development of public lands leaders for tomorrow. With grant
funds through the National Park Service, including a shared
National Park staff position, and in partnering with the Forest
Service and BLM, we have placed dozens of students in paid
internship positions, including such things as accounting,
public affairs, visitor services, interpretation, forest
management, and fuels reduction.
In fact, as we speak, over 90 students are benefitting from
these full-time internship opportunities, including a National
Park Service Service Corps crew. And as a spinoff of this, we
now host a public lands employment day, a career fair that
spotlights the numerous land management agencies, and helps
students learn about the application process and how to apply
for employment.
With that overview, I would direct your attention to my
testimony, which highlights many of our other outdoor
initiative projects and partnerships. And from that, I hope you
will see that the scope of SUU's outdoor programs and
initiatives is very much more than just jobs training. It is a
reflection of the impact that the public lands have on our
lives in this region of the West.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Curtis follows:]
Statement of Wes Curtis, Vice President for Government Relations and
Regional Services, Southern Utah University
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of the Sub-committee, my
name is Wes Curtis. I am the Vice President for Government Relations
and Regional Services at Southern Utah University, and formerly a point
person for two Utah Governors on rural affairs and public lands issues.
I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you about Southern Utah
University's outdoor initiatives and partnerships as they relate to the
public lands, career training, and the land management agencies in
southern Utah.
Having been actively involved with Utah public lands issues for
over two decades, I have learned that the public lands are viewed by
many in Utah as both a blessing and a curse. The controversies and
contentions surrounding the management of these lands are almost as
expansive as the lands themselves. I have also come to recognize that
regardless of how one feels about the federal lands and their
management, their existence, and the agencies that manage them, are a
reality that we live with, and within that reality, in addition to the
challenges, there are also many opportunities to be cultivated and
developed. At SUU we are trying to make the most of these
opportunities.
Within the sphere of the Southern Utah University service area, we
count three national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef), five
national monuments (Cedar Breaks, Pipe Springs, Grand Staircase-
Escalante, Grand Canyon Parshonts, Vermillion Cliffs), a National
Recreation Area (Glen Canyon), numerous state parks, as well as
millions of acres of BLM and Forest Service lands. Eighty to ninety
percent of the lands that surround us are public lands, and these lands
influence our lifestyles, culture, and economy in many ways--in
positive ways and negative ways, in subtle ways and overt ways.
Southern Utah University's location in the midst of these world-
class landscapes and natural resources is one of the primary things
that sets SUU apart from other institutions of higher learning, and we
feel compelled to make the most of this unique setting, both for the
enhancement of the student experience and for the benefit of the
regional community and economy.
At Southern Utah University, we are actively engaged in what we
call our Outdoor Initiatives. These initiatives are directed at
providing outdoor education, career training, and recreation
opportunities for our students; working together in mutually beneficial
partnerships with federal and state agencies; providing assistance to
local government in addressing public lands issues and opportunities;
and developing career path opportunities for students within federal
and state agencies and within the tourism and recreation industries.
Within our region we are recognized and serve as a resource to the
land management agencies, providing them with research projects,
artistic and scientific resources, a liaison to local communities, and
a provider of numerous student interns to meet their staffing needs. We
are also about to launch a Demonstration Forest Project on SUU's 2,200
acre mountain ranch property, to serve as a living laboratory and model
for best practices in such things as forest health, fuels reduction,
and range management.
We are currently working to bring all of these various initiatives
together under the umbrella of a Southern Utah University Outdoor
Center, and have an appropriation request through Congressman Jim
Matheson and Senator Robert Bennett to help launch this Center.
With that overview, I would like to highlight some of our numerous
outdoor initiative projects and partnerships. Hopefully, you will see
that the scope of SUU's outdoor programs and initiatives is very much
more than just job training. It is a reflection of the impact that the
public lands have on our lives in this region of the West:
First and foremost, Southern Utah University is a student-focused
institution of higher education. With an enrollment of 7,500 students,
we have a distinct niche within the Utah System of Higher Education.
SUU is dedicated to giving students a private school type experience--
with personalized instruction, small classes, highly qualified faculty,
and experience based learning--within the public institution structure
of Utah's higher education system.
Constantly cognizant of the grandeur of its setting, SUU has
developed numerous academic and regional service programs that connect
the university community to the surrounding lands and the economic,
cultural, artistic and scientific opportunities they provide.
Bachelors Degrees
SUU offers two bachelor's degrees that have very direct connections
to the tourism and outdoor recreation sectors of the state's economy.
These are 1) a Bachelor Degree in Hotel, Resort, and Hospitality
Management, and 2) a Bachelor's Degree in Outdoor Recreation in Parks
and Tourism.
The Hotel, Resort and Hospitality Management degree gives students
the skills and training for successful careers in hospitality
management in such areas as lodging, retail, restaurants and
recreational activities. These students take jobs with hotels, resorts,
food service operations, convention centers and even transportation.
These students have also been involved in developing customer
service strategies for large destination resorts, such as Ruby's Inn at
Bryce Canyon National Park, and conducting extensive visitor profile
research for the Utah Office of Travel and Tourism.
The Outdoor Recreation degree has three distinct areas of emphasis
which allow students to specialize their educational focus, depending
on whether they want to pursue career opportunities in public lands
management, outdoor education, or tourism.
In only its fourth year of existence, this program has already
placed students in full-time jobs within the National Park Service, the
Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, with private sector
companies, and with state parks in two states.
Internships--The Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative
Almost every one of the job placements through the Outdoor
Recreation degree program as been the direct result of the student
participating in an internship with the hiring agency. Southern Utah
University has emerged as a national leader and model in the placement
of student interns with federal and state land management agencies.
This is done through the Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative
(IIC), whose mission includes the development of the public lands
leaders of tomorrow by providing students interested in agency careers
with internships and other service and learning opportunities.
With grant funds through the National Park Service--including a
shared NPS/SUU staff position--and through working partnerships with
the BLM, U.S. Forest Service, and Utah Department of Natural Resources,
the Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative has placed dozens of
students in paid internship positions within the partnering agencies.
These internships include on-the-job experiences in such things as
accounting, public affairs, visitor services, interpretation, forest
management and fuels reduction projects. Many of these are specific
career path placements. This summer, over 90 students are benefitting
from these full-time internship opportunities--including an NPS Service
Corp crew.
IIC's Public Lands Employment Day
In cooperation with SUU's state and federal land management agency
partners, IIC now hosts an annual ``Public Lands Employment Day''
career fair at SUU. While career fairs are the norm on college
campuses, our Public Lands Employment Day spotlights the numerous land
management agencies across our region and provides SUU students with
the opportunity to learn about and begin the application process for
agency employment, particularly in advance of the summer hiring season.
Workshops on how to apply for federal jobs, along with other student
training sessions provided by agency staff, are also part of this
highly successful career fair.
Experiential Learning and Outdoor Engagement
Over the past year there has been much interest and excitement
generated at Southern Utah University through the development of a new
Academic Roadmap, under the direction of Provost Brad Cook. Central to
this strategic academic direction is the soon-to-be-added experiential
learning requirement for graduation. This will require that students
participate in specific real-world learning opportunities as part of
their SUU experience, and complete a capstone project through one of
five Centers for Student Engagement.
In recognition of the importance of the public lands in this
region, one of these five centers will be the Center for Outdoor
Engagement. (Other Centers include Leadership, Civic Engagement,
International Studies, and Creativity and Innovation.)
In addition to the broadened student experience opportunities that
will be created through the Outdoor Engagement Center, SUU is also
working with Bryce Canyon National Park to create a Semester in the
Parks, giving students the rare opportunity to live and learn in a
national park, with the park as their classroom. In fact, we already
jokingly refer to Bryce Canyon National Park as our ``eastern campus.''
Alliance for Education Agreements with the National Parks
The genesis of many of the projects and partnerships of the SUU
Outdoor Initiative can be found in the formal Alliance for Education
agreements executed between SUU and Bryce Canyon National Park and with
the Zion Group, consisting of Zion National Park, Cedar Breaks National
Monument, and Pipe Springs National Monument.
These respective agreements establish a formal cooperative and
mutually beneficial working relationship between SUU and the region's
national parks and monuments. These partnerships provide a world-class
education and research venue for SUU students and faculty. In return,
the signatory National Parks and monuments get access to the resources
and expertise of the University.
As an example of how this agreement furthers the missions of all
the entities involved, SUU staff participated on the 2009 Zion
Centennial Planning Committee, and SUU faculty, staff, and students
planned and participated in numerous activities as part of the 2009
Zion Centennial Celebration.
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (GSENM) Memorandum of
Understanding
Patterned after the University's successful Alliance for Education
agreements with Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, the objectives of
this Memorandum Of Understanding between SUU and Grand Staircase-
Escalante NM are to establish a general framework of cooperation upon
which mutually beneficial science, research, and education programs;
service projects; training seminars; internships; and curriculum
development opportunities and other activities may be planned and
accomplished in such a ways as to complement the missions of the BLM,
GSENM, and SUU, and in the best interest of the public. Since its
signature in 2009, numerous activities have occurred at the Monument
that benefit students, faculty, staff, monument employees and
surrounding communities and their residents.
It is our contention that these unique agreements--the Alliances
for Education and the GSENM MOU--positively enhance the University's
relationship with our agency partners while formalize our commitment to
providing service to the parks and monuments as well as the surrounding
communities. In return, SUU students gain an undeniable competitive
advantage in their post-education, professional endeavors.
The SUU Mountain Ranch and Demonstration Forest
Southern Utah University is fortunate to own 2,200 acres of
mountain forest lands in Cedar Canyon, 12 miles east of the main
campus, and near Cedar Breaks National Monument and the Ashdown Gorge
Wilderness Area.
A resource management plan for the property has been developed over
the past two years focusing on wise management of the property's
forest, recreation, range, and grazing resources as well as its
research and educational potential.
Through SUU's planning leadership, we have reached out to adjacent
landowners--including the U.S. Forest Service--to complete a Community
Wildfire Protection Plan. As a result of this wildfire protection
planning effort, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds are being
used this summer to implement the objectives of this plan using SUU
student labor.
One of the outcomes of this planning process is a partnership
between Southern Utah University and the Utah Division of Forestry,
Fire, and State Lands to create a one-of-a-kind ``demonstration
forest.'' Utilizing the expertise of the State of Utah, along with
participation from other universities, sections of this property will
be managed as living models of forest health and range management best
practices. Forest Service and private property owners alike will be
able to view and understand state-of-the-art management techniques, and
monitor them over time.
Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)
SUU joins 25 non-federal partners along with seven federal natural
resource management agencies to form the Colorado Plateau Cooperative
Ecosystem Studies Unit (CPCESU).
The CPCESU creates opportunities for research, education and
technical assistance to support stewardship of natural and cultural
resources by federal agencies on the Colorado Plateau. The CPCESU
ensures that the expertise of academic and non-governmental partners is
made available to assist federal resource managers in accomplishing
their agency missions. SUU students, faculty and staff from across
campus have benefitted from this positive relationship, and SUU is
recognized as one of the most active CESU members with nearly 20
contracts and agreements in place with agency partners in just the past
four years. These agreements take advantage of SUU faculty and staff,
and provide students with real-world experiences, to meet the research,
work and service needs of the land management agencies.
Intergovernmental Coordination--The Southwest Utah Planning Authorities
Council
With the belief that communication and coordination between various
levels of government can lead to improved cooperation and better
solutions to issues facing southern Utah, Southern Utah University
hosts and chairs bi-monthly field trips and meetings during which
federal and state agency directors meet with local government officials
from throughout the region under the auspices of the Southwest Utah
Planning Authorities Council (SUPAC).
SUPAC was established in 1994 by then-Governor Michael O. Leavitt
to serve as a non-binding forum for discussion of issues, grievances,
misunderstandings, and disputes among the participants, and to serve as
a clearinghouse for the exchange of information relative to the
planning processes and activities of the participants.
Over the years, this forum has proved to be very beneficial in
improving intergovernmental relationships and establishing comfortable
lines of communication between public land managers and state and local
government leaders.
County Resource Management Planning
Southern Utah University is working with three counties within the
region to develop County Resource Management Plans for the public lands
within these counties. This is a nationally significant effort to
collaboratively and pro-actively address planning and management issues
from the local level, utilizing a planning model developed by SUU
personnel.
This planning model mirrors in many ways the BLM's Resource
Management Planning process, but it is driven by local government and
by local perspectives on the impacts and management of public lands
resources. It is important to note that these county planning processes
are not done in a vacuum, but are done in collaboration with the land
management agencies.
The Utah Prairie Dog Recovery Implementation Program
The Utah Prairie Dog--protected as a threatened species under the
Endangered Species Act since 1973--has long been a vexing issue for
land owners and developers in parts of Southern Utah. Southern Utah
University is playing a leading role in bringing together over 20
federal, state, and local partners as part of the Utah Prairie Dog
Recovery Implementation Program (UPDRIP). The UPDRIP partners have two
primary goals: The first is to recover the Utah prairie dog so that it
no longer requires protection under the Endangered Species Act; the
second is to allow landowners to develop lands historically inhabited
by the prairie dog.
SUU houses and provides administrative support to the Director of
UPDRIP within the College of Science. This proximity to the science
faculty provides the director with convenient access to academic and
scientific expertise to assist in developing and implementing a
recovery plan for the prairie dogs.
Zion National Park Artist in Residence
The re-emerging Zion National Park Artist in Residence initiative
is a new and exciting partnership between SUU's College of Performing
and Visual Arts' Arts Administration Program, Braithwaite Fine Arts
Gallery, graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts Program, and Zion
National Park. Through the program development and arts expertise of
these SUU entities, Zion has been able to re-establish this defunct
program and artists from around the world have applied to be selected
as an artist in residence. The new and improved Zion NP Artist in
Residence Program hosted its first artist in early 2010 at the Park's
recently restored Grotto House.
Partners in the Parks
Southern Utah University manages the Partners in the Parks program
for the National Collegiate Honors Council. This program is currently
recognized by the National Park Service as a 2016 NPS Centennial
Initiative Project. This program gives honors students from across the
nation the opportunity to have week-long academic and learning
experiences within the National Parks.
The Utah Rural Summit
For the past 23 years, Southern Utah University has hosted the
annual Utah Rural Summit. This Summit began as a forum for discussing
public lands issues, and has since evolved to include economic and
community development components as well. At the core of each Summit
gathering is a public lands track, in which local and state leaders
from across the state have the opportunity to engage in discussion with
key leaders and experts on public lands matters from throughout the
West.
Zion National Park/Danxiashan World Geopark Sister Park
SUU's Office of Government Relations and Regional Services has been
an active partner with Zion National Park in the development of a
``sister park'' relationship with Danxiashan World Geopark in Guangdong
Province, P.R. China. Higher education is a key component of this
relationship, which includes Sun Yat-sen University and SUU. Visits to
both parks and universities occurred in late 2009 and early 2010 by
delegations from each country.
Youth Science and Outdoor Education Director at SUU
This position at SUU was created in early 2010. Along with
oversight of the Cedar Mountain Science Camp program and the
University's new Voyager Science Lab, positive success is also being
achieved by working with local school districts and public lands agency
partners to develop new programs such as the U.S. Forest Service's More
Kids in the Woods program, National Park Service's First Bloom program,
and numerous other agency-desired partnership projects. In fact,
assisting local public lands offices develop these agency-funded
programs is a priority for this position. Local agency offices
typically do not have the capacity to develop and/or manage these
programs that can greatly benefit the community.
Zion National Park/Danxiashan World Geopark Sister Park
SUU's Office of Government Relations and Regional Services has been
an active partner with Zion National Park in the development of a
``sister park'' relationship with Danxiashan World Geopark in Guangdong
Province, P.R. China. Higher education is a key component of this
relationship, which includes Sun Yat-sen University and SUU. Visits to
both parks and universities occurred in late 2009 and early 2010 by
delegations from each country.
SUU Outdoors
Founded in Spring 2003, SUU Outdoors is home to the publicly
accessible Outdoor Center, which offers a wide variety of year-round
trips, equipment rentals and training, and other outdoor resources and
expertise. The Outdoor Center also manages the on-campus low ropes
challenge course and the popular new indoor climbing wall. Other
special events are scheduled throughout the school year such as gear
swaps and the annual Warren Miller ski film. SUU Outdoors maintains
many formal partnerships and affiliations including local organizations
such as the Color Country Cycle Club, Cedar Mountain Nordic Ski Club,
and the Southern Utah Climbers Coalition.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident that Southern Utah University plays a
vital role as a partner and resource in public lands matters, bringing
personnel, knowledge, talent and leadership to the table. SUU is fully
engaged with the federal land management agencies, and with state and
local government, in maximizing the opportunities for students,
faculty, communities, and the regional economy that flow from our
proximity to the vast and beautiful national parks and public lands
that surround us.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, sir. Mr. Bebo Lee, New Mexico
Federal Lands Council, New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association,
Alamogordo, New Mexico. Welcome, sir. I look forward to your
comments.
STATEMENT OF BEBO LEE, NEW MEXICO FEDERAL LANDS COUNCIL, NEW
MEXICO CATTLE GROWERS' ASSOCIATION, ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO
Mr. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Bebo Lee. I live in southeastern New
Mexico, and I am here before you today representing myself, the
New Mexico Federal Lands Council, and the New Mexico Cattle
Growers' Association. I thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you on some concerns that have been raised by
the people that live on Otero Mesa and by the Otero County
Commission itself about the possibility of a national monument
designation on Otero Mesa.
The lack of involvement of the local government and
residents in the whole process has the potential of eliminating
jobs rather than creating them. Grazing of livestock has
occurred on Otero Mesa for over 100 years. The longevity of
these businesses show the economical viability of the
management practices. There are numerous families that have
been grazing continuously on Otero Mesa at least 30 years prior
to New Mexico becoming a state in 1912. They are proponents of
multiple use, not limited use.
When word first came out about the possible designation of
the national monument, the agricultural community again had
concerns about their livelihood and their investments. We all
wondered what happened to an open and transparent government. A
number of these individuals have been there through the
creation of the National Forest condemnation of lands by the
Holloman Air Force Base, the eviction of ranchers and
condemnation of lands at White Sands Missile Range, the
establishment and the eviction of ranchers of MacGregor Range,
the elimination of all private holdings, and the establishment
of the White Sands National Monument, which they were never
compensated for, and the continued expansion of Fort Bliss
Military Range. And they believe they were on the receiving end
again possibly.
As was experienced in past actions, there has been no
official notice of a possible monument designation given or an
explanation why a designation is possibly needed. It has been
rumored it is to stop further oil and gas drilling, which
probably makes sense because the environmental communities have
cornered the ranching industry since a producing well was
completed on Otero Mesa. But they have not gained any inroads,
probably because of the natural trust.
Several groups have proposed to make Otero Mesa a natural
conservation area or wilderness, and have published
considerable literature about Otero Mesa and the need to
protect it. Most of these do not tell the whole story. Otero
Mesa has been portrayed as 1.2 million acres of Federal domain.
As you can see by a map provided, which is under Attachment A--
I believe it is up over here on the left of me--there is New
Mexico State Trust land and private property intermingled with
Federal land. It would be difficult to get 1.2 million acres,
even including all the state trust land and private property.
You may also notice there are a number of allottees who
live on Otero Mesa and the surrounding areas, which are not
geographically considered Otero Mesa. Was the New Mexico State
Land Office or the private landowners notified about the
possible designation? Shouldn't they be, as it will directly
affect them if the state trust lands are traded out because of
a monument designation? In the past, the New Mexico state land
traded out their lands that were located within what is now
MacGregor Range and Holloman Air Force Base. If the land is not
swapped out, it would be landlocked and unable to generate
income from wind or solar activities, leading of hunting
rights, and the proposed wind and water projects, Attachment B,
could be affected.
In turn, the improvements agriculture had made on state
lands by the lessees would be under increased scrutiny from the
BLM, Bureau of Land Management, subject to new rules and
regulations and possible abandonment because they may not fit
into the monument's position. For that reason, the local
residents should know upfront about this and be involved in the
whole process. The thought is, if a monument is designated,
that eventually the special rules, permits, or not meeting the
goals of the mission, livestock would be removed permanently,
as is the case in some national monuments. If a monument is
created, it would not allow for an economic way to maintain,
repair, or make new improvements, and then cattle would be
sold, which would incur a loss of jobs and a tax base for Otero
County.
In a county with a limited tax base already because of
Holloman Air Force Base, MacGregor Range, White Sands Missile
Range, and the Mescalero Indian Reservation, what would the
Federal Government do to compensate Otero County's tax base
with? Tourism? A study from the range improvement task force at
the New Mexico State University suggests that tourism would not
generate that much income, which is under Attachment C. The
study shows agriculture returns two dollars for every one
dollar that is spent in the local community.
These are some of the items that were discussed before the
Otero County Commission passed ordinance 10-05, Attachment D,
so that possibly the administrative and Federal agencies would
coordinate with the county before any process starts and
throughout an entire process if a designation is made. One of
the questions that has arisen is why the Administration trying
to protect Otero Mesa from or for. When the environmental
groups first came to Otero Mesa, they started promoting to
protect the area. They said it was as pristine as the savannahs
of Africa. At the time, Otero Mesa was in the fourth year of an
eight-year drought. If they truly believed this, would it not
mean that the ranchers and the BLM had been good stewards of
the land for over 100 years?
As I prepared to come before you today, I inquired about
the total number of power lines and meters that would fall
under the designation--yes, sir. Oh, I am sorry. Yes, sir. That
is all I have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lee follows:]
Statement of Don L. (Bebo) Lee, Alamogordo, New Mexico
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
My name is Bebo Lee and I live in southeastern New Mexico. I am
here before you today representing myself, the New Mexico Public Lands
Council and the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify before you on some concerns that have arisen
by the people that live on Otero Mesa and the Otero County Commission
itself about the possible National Monument on Otero Mesa, the lack of
involvement of the local government and residents in the whole process
as well as the potential for eliminating jobs rather than creating
them.
Grazing of livestock has occurred on Otero Mesa for over 100 years.
The longevity of these businesses shows the economical viability of
their management practices. There are numerous families that have been
grazing continuously on Otero Mesa at least 30 years prior to New
Mexico becoming a state (1912). They are proponents of multiuse of the
BLM lands, not limited use.
When word first came out about the possibility of a National
Monument designation the agricultural community again had concerns
(immediately) about their livelihood and investments. We all wonder
what happened to having an open and transparent government. A number of
these individuals, having been through the creation of the national
forest, condemnation of the lands for Holloman Air Force Base, the
eviction of ranchers and condemnation of lands on White Sands Missile
Range, the establishment and eviction of ranchers of McGregor Range,
the elimination of ranchers and establishment of San Andres National
Wildlife Refuge, the elimination of all private holdings and the
establishment of White Sands National Monument (which they were never
compensated for), and the continued expansion of Ft. Bliss Military
Range, know that (feel) they will be (are) on the receiving end again.
As was experienced in those past actions, there has been no
official notice of a possible monument designation (has been) given or
explanation why a designation is possibly needed. It has been rumored
it is to stop further oil and gas drilling, which probably makes sense
because the environmental groups have courted the ranch community to
oppose oil and gas development since a producing well had been
completed on Otero Mesa. But they have not gained any inroads because
of the natural mistrust. Several groups have proposed to make Otero
Mesa a national conservation area or wilderness and have published
considerable literature about Otero Mesa and the need to protect it.
Most of this does not tell the whole story.
Otero Mesa has been portrayed as a huge block of federal land
consisting of 1.2 million acres. As you can see by the map provided
(attachment A) Otero Mesa is intermingled with federal land, New Mexico
State Trust land and of private property. It would be difficult to get
1.2 million acres even including all the state trust lands and private
property. You may also notice the number of allottees who live on Otero
Mesa and the surrounding areas which are not geographically considered
Otero Mesa.
Was the New Mexico State Land Office or private land owners
notified about the possible designations? Shouldn't they be as, it will
directly affect them if the state trust lands were traded out because
of a monument designation? In the past, the NM State Land Office traded
out their lands that were located in what is now McGregor Range and
Holloman Air Force Base. If the land is not swapped out it would be
land locked and unable to generate income from wind or solar
activities, leasing of hunting rights and the proposed wind and water
project (Attachment B) could be affected. In turn the improvements
agriculture has made on state lands by the lessee's would be under
increased scrutiny from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), subject to
new rules and regulations and possible abandonment, because they may
not fit into the monument's mission. For that reason the local
residents should know up front about this and be involved in the whole
process. The thought is if a monument is designated that eventually,
through special rules, permits, or not meetings the goals of the
missions, livestock would be removed permanently as is the case in some
of the Monument Designations.
If a monument is created and the rules would not allow for an
economical way to maintain, repair or new improvements then the cattle
would be sold, which would incur a loss of jobs and in the tax base for
Otero County.
In a county with a limited tax base already because of Holloman Air
Force Base, McGregor Impact Range, White Sands Missile Range and
Mescalero Indian reservation what would the federal government do to
compensate Otero Counties tax base with, tourist dollars? A study from
Range Improvement Task Force at NM State University, suggests that
tourism will not generate that much income. (Attachment C)
The study shows agriculture returns $2.00 for every $1.00 that is
spent in the local community.
These are some of the items that were discussed before the Otero
County Commission passed Ordinance #10-05 (Attachment D) so that
possibly the administration and federal agencies would co-ordinate with
the county before any process starts and throughout the entire process
of a monument designation.
One of the questions that have arisen is what is the Administration
trying to protect Otero Mesa from or for. When the environmental groups
first came to Otero Mesa and started promoting to protect the area they
said it was like the pristine savannas of Africa. At the time Otero
Mesa was in the fourth year of an eight year drought. If they truly
believed this, would it not mean that the ranchers and the BLM have
been good stewards of the land for over 100 years?
As I prepared to come before you today I inquired about the total
number of power line miles and meters that would fall into and around
the designated area. To my surprise I was told that the Department of
Homeland Security would not release the number of miles and number of
meters that would need to be serviced if the Monument was designated.
How can you plan for routine maintenance, repair and expansion of the
lines if you do not have a current data at the starting pointing? On
this point, Dell Telephone Company has several hundred miles of fiber
optic lines that will need to be serviced. People in rural communities
rely on good communication on a daily basis for several different
reasons one of which is emergency services. If a line is not working it
literally could mean the difference in life and death.
There are gas lines running through the area as well as the
potential for wind generation. What will a monument designation do to
these projects?
There is a lot of misinformation regarding Otero Mesa. I would
encourage Congress, the Administration and agencies to personally look
at the areas and coordinate with the local government and residents
before making a judgment.
Why is this designation being brought forward? To protect grass
land, stop oil & gas development, protect wildlife and limit grazing or
for the wild lands project? (attachment E).
Thank you again, for the opportunity to address the committee. I
will stand for questions.
Attachments:
A. Otero County Map
B. Wind & Water Prospectus
C. Range Improvement Task Force Report
D. Otero County Ordinance
E. Wildlife Corridors Map
[NOTE: Attachments have been retained in the Committee's official
files.]
______
Mr. Grijalva. Mr. Lee, your full testimony is part of the
record, and members of the Committee will have access to that
full record. I want to thank you for your comments.
Mr. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grijalva. Let me begin with some questions. Dr.
Moseley, what can the land management agencies--because that is
part of the partnership--do with their community partners to
create the long-term jobs, not the project by project jobs, but
the long-term jobs.
Dr. Moseley. That is a very important question. I think it
is one of the critical questions we need to be asking
ourselves. One of the realities of working outdoors is that the
work is seasonal. Different kinds of activities can be done in
different times of year. And so in that context, we really need
to be thinking about how you string work together. And one of
the things about contracting businesses or restoration
businesses is that they are contracting firms. And typically,
like many contracting firms, they have many projects, and part
of their task is to string those projects together into a
program of work. They keep their business open and their
workers working.
So part of the task is in the hands of the contracting
businesses themselves. But there is a lot that the Federal land
management agencies can do as well. The way they structure
their contracts has a lot to do with how this can function. One
thing we learned from the study that we did of the forest and
watershed restoration businesses in Oregon was that for these
watershed businesses, working in the streams actually extended
their work season, that in the height of the summer they often
were not doing restoration work. They were doing construction
work, but that the forest and watershed work added to a work
season a seasonal work in other industries. So that is actually
a very good sign of adding restoration.
In the case of the Forest Service and the BLM, one of the
key things in rural communities is to think about how you
structure contracts so that they are what we talk about as long
and skinny rather than short and fat. You can have 20 guys work
for a month, or you can have five guys work for four months, if
I am doing the math right. And in a rural community, that
longer, skinnier contract is really much more valuable because
getting 20 people to show up for one month means that the next
month those 20 people are going to be working in a different
community. So that is a key piece.
I think the other key piece with stewardship contracting,
the integration of the work on the ground and the removal
allows you to put together into a single contract a large
number of different activities. And as long as those activities
are related to each other, you can have contracts where people
can work over longer periods of the season, and you can add the
removal, and then that has downstream job effects.
And then I would say, third, for the communities
themselves, a key task is doing worker and contractor training
so that those contractors and workers can't just do--aren't
able to just do one thing. They can't just thin, but they can
also do the timber cruising and the surveys, and, and, and, so
that you have a workforce both like on the business side and
the workers who can do a variety of tasks. You can match that
up with contracts where there are a variety of activities, and
you keep them sized for the community, and you have a pretty
good formula. Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva. Yes. The question for me--because one of the
points was that you mentioned at the beginning. They are not
long-term, they are seasonal. And I think one of things we are
probing with this hearing is how you----
Dr. Moseley. Right.
Mr. Grijalva.--extend the life of the job and the project.
Ms. Dearstyne, you state that reductions in staffing and
Federal agencies are impeding your ability to grow jobs in the
private sector in your area. Can you explain that?
Ms. Dearstyne. Yes. It has been critical for us to have
agency staff that is accessible and knowledgeable, and that has
become more and more rare. Frequently, in our communities, we
will find that a contracting or an agreements staffer is either
100 miles away or has very little experience. And it is hard to
put agreements together with people who aren't sure what their
authorities allow them to do. And it makes them nervous and
risk-adverse.
We also find, because we do so much training on the ground,
that when we started this in 2003, that we had easy and ready
access to fish biologists, hydrologists, and fire management
officers. And that again is becoming more and more rare for us.
We are having to put training off for months and, in one case,
reschedule it for the following year--just because of the
availability of staff.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. We hear so much that you need to
reduce, you need to cut back. And when you lose an investment,
I think there is a corresponding loss on the private sector as
well, and I appreciate your answer.
Mr. Curtis, in the testimony--and before I do that, I just
wanted to say that Leigh von der Esch--did I say it right? Yes,
thank you--of the Utah Office of Tourism will not be testifying
today. She had to cancel at the last minute. Her written
testimony is very compelling. I want to enter it into the
record if there is no objection. And obviously, there won't be
any, so it is in the record.
[The statement of Leigh von der Esch submitted for the
record follows:]
Statement submitted for the record by Leigh von der Esch,
Managing Director, Utah Office of Tourism
Good morning, I am Leigh von der Esch, Managing Director of the
Utah Office of Tourism in the Governor's Office of Economic
Development. It is my pleasure to speak to you regarding ``Gateways to
Prosperity: Managing Federal Lands to Create Rural Jobs.'' I am happy
to be here to speak to you about two economic development efforts that
are important to Utah on and around federal lands, tourism promotion
and film production, both important economic development activities
that create jobs and prosperity in our state.
Utah is known worldwide for its scenic beauty. We have an abundance
of riches with our natural beauty showcased within 5 National Parks, 7
National Monuments, 2 National Recreation Areas, 6 National Forests and
additional beauty found on thousands of acres of Bureau of Land
Management land in addition to 43 State Parks and other state sovereign
and state trust lands. Our summer advertising commercials reflect the
myriad of activities that one can enjoy in Utah and on our public
lands, from hiking and biking, fishing and kayaking, camping and
wildlife viewing, and many other outdoor opportunities. It is truly a
summer wonderland for the outdoor recreationist.
With over 19 million people visiting the state in 2009, tourism
spending in the state accounted for $6.2 billion dollars to our
economy. Traveler spending in 2009 is estimated to have generated $625
million in state and local tax revenues, and tax relief per household
of the yearly amount of $703. In addition to having ``The Greatest Snow
on Earth'' in the winter, with over 4 million skier days, our summer
visitors account for approximately 80 percent of our visitation.
Tourism is big business.
And Utah's scenic beauty is not just a destination for the
traveler, seeking outdoor recreation or reflection; it is also a
destination for the filmmaker.
Utah's locations have been the backdrop for the motion picture
industry, originating even before director John Ford shot the iconic
mittens of Monument Valley which has resulted in global recognition for
that area of our state. Movies from ``Stagecoach'' and the
``Searchers'', and other John Wayne westerns, to ``Geronimo'', ``Thelma
and Louise'', ``City Slickers II'' and ``John Carter of Mars'', have
all relied on our scenery to move the narrative. ``John Carter of
Mars'', is the largest movie ever shot on location in Utah and recently
finished shooting by Disney/Pixar. The motion picture industry has
brought over 800 movies to our state, and accounted for thousands of
jobs and millions of dollars to our economy. But it hasn't always been
easy shooting on location, and many films and commercials were lost to
other jurisdictions due to slow and confusing processes and
regulations.
Both tourism visitation and motion picture production provide
``Gateways to Prosperity'' and require mutual cooperation in working on
and respect for our natural resources, in order to be successful
economic development efforts as well as sustainable. Mutual agreement
to generate any segment of our local and state economies requires
communication and cooperation, as we have seen in so many communities
throughout the west, no one single industry can be relied on to sustain
an economy indefinitely. Prior to becoming the Managing Director of the
Office of Tourism, I served for 20 years as the state film
commissioner. Since so many of the movies shot in Utah are location
specific, written to capitalize on the uniqueness and beauty of our
landscapes, our office interfaced with public land agencies on a
regular basis. Many times our interface was frustrating, when filming
schedules collided with permit processing times. In the 1990's the
perception, if not the reality was that you could not film on Utah's
public lands, or if you tried, it would be costly and complicated.
Because of the regulatory perception, our motion picture production
in the Moab and Monument Valley area decreased significantly in the
90's. Other states in the West were finding significant and similar
frustrations and we all watched as movies that could easily be shot in
the United States go to other countries for their productions, where
permits to film were more manageable and predictable.
As Director of the State Film Commission and President of the
Association of Film Commissioners International, I and others reached
out to the public lands agencies to forge partnerships that allowed us
to create forums to discuss the needs of the motion picture industry
while in preparation for and during the shooting of films, television
productions and commercial productions. As a result of those efforts,
several of us participated in training sessions for film permitting,
location monitoring and possible mitigation efforts that would assist
the land agencies in their efforts to manage their respective natural
resources, while assisting the motion picture industry.
The dialogue that was created between the motion picture industry
and federal land managers, allowed the motion picture industry to
recognize the multiple demands placed on our public land managers in
the efforts they were making with underfunded capital projects and
manpower shortages. It also created an understanding of industry needs
by land managers. As a result of talking and understanding, I saw many
instances where motion picture companies went beyond mitigation for
their activities on public lands and left instead repaired roads and
facilities in areas where they shot and other contributions to the
local communities.
We need to continue to have dialogue about filming on public lands
and forums to discuss mutual needs to assist filming on location.
Filmmaking is a resource sustaining activity. Filming on location, like
tourism, is big business. ``John Carter of Mars'', which I initially
mentioned, resulted in $20,000,000 dollars spent in our state over the
course of 4 months of preproduction and production and created jobs in
rural communities in some of the least populated areas of the state.
And for the gateway communities located near national recreation areas,
national parks and BLM land, where the majority of the film's scenes
were shot, those millions of dollars were left in lodging, grocery
stores and lumber yards and hundreds of other purchases, in addition to
being paid to hundreds of extras and crew hired locally.
Movies shot on location are also the biggest promotional billboard
a state could hope for in showcasing our unique and breathtaking public
lands. But we can't have that promotion or resource sustaining job
creation unless we work together and regulate our public lands with a
process that provides for clarity, consistency and a more expeditious
process. We can work together and create a process of permitting and
assistance on public lands, which can provide the appropriate
stewardship of our natural resources.
As I mentioned earlier, tourism is big business in Utah and our
visitation numbers are increasing. Our scenery in our National Parks
and public lands is recognized throughout the world. Delicate Arch, in
Arches National Park, is on our state license plates. Our state slogan,
our brand, is ``Utah Life Elevated''. We believe our brand experience
can be found any day of the year on our federal and state lands, and
those public lands are showcased in our commercials, our travel
publications and our calendars.
In Utah, we don't just provide the scenery for the experience; we
also are providing the equipment. The Outdoor Recreation industry is a
major economic industry cluster in the Governor's Office of Economic
Development and we are growing outdoor recreation businesses and seeing
them relocate to Utah in metropolitan and rural communities. They love
to test, as well as enjoy their newest outdoor recreation equipment in
our state.
Each January and August, Salt Lake City, Utah hosts the Outdoor
Recreation Industry for their winter and summer equipment convention.
In addition to bringing the latest outdoor equipment to Utah, the
Outdoor Industry Association also brings those leaders in the outdoor
industry who are working locally and nationally to encourage the next
stewards of our public lands, as well as encourage healthy lifestyles
of the young and the old through outdoor activities. Our own summer
advertising kickoff included a ``get out, get active, get healthy''
message.
There is no doubt that our natural resources on federal lands are a
gateway to prosperity. Parks and federal lands attract visitors that
energize local economies, support jobs and economic growth. Quality of
life is always an attribute cited for relocation of business.
We have to continue to invest in our infrastructure and continue to
talk to all interested stakeholders of federal land use to continue
prosperity.
The economy of the West has been evolving and tourism and motion
picture making has played and can continue to play a part, along with
other economic development efforts for economic prosperity. We can
build on relationships between federal lands and local communities. We
can work with environmental groups and businesses. Future prosperity
requires all interests to reach out and work together. It all begins
with communication, there are hundreds of successes we can share and
thousands more we can create together.
Thank you.
______
Mr. Grijalva. And also for the record, and correcting Mr.
DeFazio, Plymouth Rock will be celebrating its 390th birthday,
and not its 400th. But anyway. Thank you.
One of the points that she did make in her testimony, the
state director, was that parks and Federal lands attract
visitors, energize local communities, support jobs and economic
growth. From your perspective, does the proximity to national
parks and forests affect the economy of Cedar City? And to
follow up, you have worked extensively on rural affairs for
Governors of Utah, as you mentioned. How do national parks and
forests help or hinder preserving the historic and rural
culture that one finds in places like Cedar City? Those two
questions.
Mr. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Answering your second
question first, regarding preserving the history and culture of
the area, that is an interesting question because the public
lands and how they affect our culture, our lifestyles, and way
of thinking is something that is really ingrained within us in
this part of the state. It is part of our lifestyle. It is part
of our way of thinking. And that is why people are so
passionate for how these lands are managed, and of course,
availing ourselves of these vast tracts of public lands for
various purposes is something that is very much a part of our
nature.
But at the same time, many of our historic uses and the
jobs associated with these lands are disappearing. The
lifestyles associated with grazing, with logging, some of those
kinds of things that are very much a part of our culture are no
longer so much a part of that, and the new outdoor recreation
economy is indeed new, and the technologies involved there,
with ATFs and whatnot, with rock climbing type things, these
are a very recent phenomenon, and it will be interesting to see
how this becomes incorporated into our culture and our
approaches to things.
In terms of the jobs themselves and how these lands affect
that, of course, we know intuitively that these lands have a
lot to do with what happens there, but it is hard to measure
just how much these things factor into decisions by those who
locate there with second homes or retire there, or bring
businesses there. We do know that the tourism industry jobs are
very much a part of our economy and very much appreciated.
However, they are very much low-skill, low-paying, seasonal
type jobs. In fact, our neighboring county, Garfield County,
which relies more on tourism than any other county, the average
monthly wage there is only 64 percent of the state's average
wage.
So these jobs really--we seek for higher paying jobs than
we find in the tourism industry. And in fact, we get more bang
for our buck in terms of dollars spent per tourist visitor day
from locally sponsored attractions like our Utah Shakespearean
Festival in Cedar City than we do from visitors who come to the
public lands.
So I hope that answers your question, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grijalva. Mr. Lee, I don't have a question. Just thank
you. And you remind me, when I had a much more pleasant job,
and I was a supervisor in Pima County in southern Arizona, we
put together something called a Sonoran Conservation Plan, in
response to having to deal with an endangered species listing.
And one of the components of that was ranches, because we felt
that it was better in the long term to cooperate and set up
partnerships with the stewardship that would be occurring on
those ranches, and have occurred for generations, than getting
into a protracted battle over the conservation plan.
The alternative was that ranches, as they decline in their
profitability, begin to sell off their land for development.
And that development then begins to encroach on the
conservation strategy. It has worked very well, and I think
particularly in the West, ranching and farming have to be
integrated in the long-term conservation strategies. So I
appreciate the work that your colleagues did in southern
Arizona in helping us get that plan done, and I thank you for
your testimony. And we will invite the next panel up.
[Pause]
Mr. Grijalva. Welcome. Thank you for your patience, and we
are looking forward to it. Rachael Mondragon, owner, Urban
Interface Solutions, Taos, New Mexico. As part of the
introduction--you were already introduced by our colleague, Mr.
Lujan--my wife is from Penasco, up there north, and while she
enjoys living in Arizona, she still considers us second class
to northern New Mexico. So welcome, and we look forward to your
testimony.
STATMENTS OF RACHAEL MONDRAGON, OWNER,
URBAN INTERFACE SOLUTIONS, TAOS, NEW MEXICO
Ms. Mondragon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
thank you all for the opportunity to speak to you regarding
something that I have had the good fortune to personally
experience and be part of, the positive relationship between
rural economics and forest health restoration.
I decided to start my own business in 2005. I knew that
like every person out there who embarks on that journey, I was
taking a huge leap of faith. The reason I pressed on was
because I was convinced that not only could I make it in this
industry, but that if I worked hard enough, I could build my
business to a point that I could have several people working
with me and be able to bid on larger projects.
I wanted to take my business to the next level. When I
started out, friends and family helped me, and I envisioned the
day when I would be able to hire a crew and purchase the
equipment that I needed to take on larger projects. That day
came. I hired a crew. I began to purchase the equipment. My
business was growing. And as much as I would like to tell you
that hard work alone made all of this possible, I can't. I had
help. The project that really opened the doors for me in my
business were projects that I was able to implement on public
lands. The contracts and programs that I was able to take
advantage of provided me with the opportunities that I would
never have had otherwise. These were the projects that
introduced me to the power of partnership and collaboration.
I met the people who would later become resources for
future projects, and it was then that I understood that there
are many organizations, groups, and individuals out there that
are working together toward common goals, and they seem to want
to help each other. They call and e-mail each other. They meet
at project sites, and they support each other. You don't find
that very often in the private sector, but when the Forest
Service or the BLM provide an opportunity for these resources
to work together, it seems to happen, and it seems to benefit
everybody, including the Forest Service and BLM.
A Forest Service CFRP grant awarded to the village of
Questa allowed them to hire me as a contractor in 2005. Thirty
other workers were also hired for that project. In a village of
1,800 people, creating that many jobs for that many people is
significant. To date, I still look on that project and consider
it to be my big break. Grants through the Forest Service that
provide funding for contractors like me to work on public lands
made it possible to purchase equipment that would otherwise
have taken years to acquire.
The same equipment now makes me more competitive as a small
business. I recently applied for and was awarded my own CFRP
grant on the Carson National Forest. I now have the opportunity
to create jobs for people in northern New Mexico for the next
three years. And given the amount of work in the Urban
Interface just in Taos County alone, I plan to keep this crew
working for many years to come. This is sustainability, and
that is what every business strives for. As a contractor, it is
incredibly rewarding to be able to do that, not because it
speaks to the success of my business or allows me to make more
money with a bigger crew, but because I am creating jobs in my
community.
The work we are doing is rewarding. We are lowering the
risk of wildfire next to a beautiful community. We are
improving wildlife habitat. We are restoring health to a dense,
overgrown forest. All of these are great accomplishments. But
at a time when our economy is struggling to recover, and
unemployment remains a concern nationally, it means the world
to me that I am in a position to be part of the solution. Not
only am I working, but so are several others who otherwise may
not be. I am helping people to provide for their families.
In closing, I would like to say that I have been very
fortunate to have been involved in some of these projects on
public lands. As a contractor, they have opened doors for me
that once were closed. There are other business owners out
there like myself who are not looking for easy money or
handouts. They are looking for the opportunity to be part of
something that will help them build capacity and provide for
the future success of their businesses. Our public lands hold
the key to many of those opportunities. By fostering strong
relationships with land managers and reinforcing the value of
these partnerships through successful, responsible project
accomplishments, we all stand to gain something for generations
to come.
Again, I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mondragon follows:]
Statement of Rachael R. Mondragon, Urban Interface Solutions,
Taos, New Mexico
My name is Rachael Mondragon, and I am the owner of a small company
in Taos, New Mexico called Urban Interface Solutions. I will be
testifying on July 15, 2010 before the House Natural Resources
Committee, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands on,
``Locally Grown: Creating Rural Jobs with America's Public Lands.''
Background:
With the exception of living in Wichita, Kansas for the first six
months of my life, I am a life long resident of Taos. I attended public
schools in Taos, and I graduated from Taos High School in 1997.
In 2000, the country experienced catastrophic wildfires in many of
the western states. At the time, I was working as a financial
consultant for a national investment firm. It was then that I began to
develop an interest in wildland fire.
In 2001, I left my job at the investment firm, and began taking
courses that were offered locally by the Forest Service, BLM, BIA, and
State Forestry. Once I completed the required courses to become a
Wildland Firefighter, I signed up with the Carson National Forest's
SWFF Program (Southwest Forest Firefighter). I went out as a crewmember
on several crews, and had the opportunity to fight fire in several
states, and in various fuel types. I developed a strong working
knowledge of fire suppression tactics, fire behavior, tactical
suppression operations, and a solid understanding of the Incident
Command System used by the various interagency resources and Incident
Command Teams. Later that same year, I took the S-212 Wildland Fire
Chainsaw training, and became certified to operate a chainsaw on the
fireline. That winter I attended the S-217 Helicopter Crewmember
training so that I may begin working towards that qualification the
following fire season.
In 2002, I took the S-131 Advanced Firefighter Training. I also
took the S-260 Interagency Incident Business Management class, and
decisively charted a course to make this a career.
I applied for a position with the Red River Fire Department, and
was hired as a sawyer on their thinning crew. I obtained my ``B
faller'' certification, and worked daily with a highly skilled, and
well trained thinning crew on various hazardous fuels reduction
projects. While working on this crew, I maintained my wildfire
qualifications, and responded to wildland fires with the crew.
By my second year on the thinning crew, the Fire Chief promoted me
to Crew Boss for demonstrating initiative, and leadership skills. I was
then responsible for the program of work, scheduling, organization,
mobilization and all logistical considerations for the entire crew on a
daily basis.
At this point, I was also working closely with the Asst. Fire Chief
to perform more of the administrative tasks associated with the
projects that we were implementing. I began to understand the grant
process, and many of the fiduciary responsibilities associated with the
administration of these grants. This was a pivotal point in my career.
It was during my second year with the Red River Fire Department
that I also began to look at the areas that we were treating more as
ecosystems and landscapes, as opposed to ``properties that we were
thinning.'' My background as a firefighter had allowed me to witness
first hand the devastating effects that can and will occur when fire
meets an unhealthy, overgrown, dense forest. We weren't just thinning
trees, we were improving forest health. By doing so, our work also
restored watersheds, improved wildlife habitat, reduced diseases in
stands, and reduced the risk of catastrophic wildfire. The benefits of
the work we were doing were countless.
In 2002, I sustained an injury while on a training exercise with
the Red River Fire Department. I was unable to work for some time after
the accident. It was during the time that I was recovering from my
injury that I began the business plan for ``Urban Interface
Solutions.''
In 2005, I began my business, and it is the countless, positive,
rewarding experiences to date, that I will be basing my testimony to
this committee on.
Socio-economic Benefits:
When small businesses, or fledgling contractors can collaborate or
enter into any type of partnership with any of the various land
management agencies, everybody wins! Jobs are created, local economies
thrive, and sustainability is made possible for contractors or small
businesses.
This is quantifiable, and my business is a textbook example of how
these partnerships can benefit an entire region in ways that may not be
apparent to those unfamiliar with the various programs and grants
responsible for these successes.
In 2003, the Village of Questa, in Northern New Mexico applied for
and received a CFRP (Collaborative Forest Restoration Program) grant.
I, along with several other local contractors, was hired as a
subcontractor to perform the thinning work. Not only were over 30 jobs
created locally, but also large quantities of firewood were processed
and distributed to elderly people in the community through the local
``Ancianos'' Program. Local businesses benefited as a result of the
contract crews working daily in the community. When the project was
complete, 150 acres had been thinned to prescription specifications,
marking the beginning of the implementation of the Questa/Lama Wildland
Urban Interface (WUI) project, a 5,000 acre project planned by the
Questa Ranger District of the Carson National Forest, adjacent to the
area that in 1996 was ravaged by the ``Hondo Fire'', forcing the
evacuation of three communities, and destroying several homes. The
accomplishment of these critical acres cost the Forest Service little
more than some technical and administrative support (maps, layout, site
visits, etc.).
For those unfamiliar with the CFRP Program, it was established in
2001, and is unique to the State of New Mexico. It provides cost-share
grants to stakeholders for forest restoration projects on public land
designed through a collaborative process.
``Within its legislative authority, the Act provides Federal
appropriations of up to $5 million annually towards cost share grants
to stakeholders for experimental forest restoration projects designed
through a collaborative process. These projects may be entirely on, or
any combination of, Federal, Tribal, State, County or municipal forest
lands and must include a diverse and balanced group of stakeholders in
their design and implementation. Each project must also address
specific restoration objectives, including: wildfire threat reduction;
reestablishment of historic fire regimes; reforestation; preservation
of old and large trees; and increased utilization of small diameter
trees. Projects must also include a multiparty assessment and efforts
to create local forest-related employment or training opportunities.''
This program helps small businesses. Not just by giving them a
project to work on for a while to earn money, but also by helping them
purchase equipment, provide crucial trainings for employees, increase
and enhance their workforce, and develop the necessary experience to
become and remain competitive in their respective industry.
Sustainability, in the truest sense of the word.
This program helps rural communities. The emphasis this program
places on core value objectives ensures benefits to the surrounding
community. It requires applicants to include an education component,
and a youth component. Schools and Boy Scout Troops become involved in
these projects. Small diameter forest product utilization is required
and monitored. Socio-economic monitoring reports are required
periodically throughout the project, quantifying the number of jobs
created, and revenue being generated by the project.
The socio-economic benefits of this program are undeniable. Coupled
with the biological benefits of restoration, CFRP has been a success.
That success is leading to expansion and adaptation. I have recently
learned of a new program of the Forest Service that seems to be modeled
on the CFRP. This national program, the Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration Program (CFLRP), has many of the same components that the
CFRP has. Like the CFRP, the CFLRP requires the organizations that want
to do restoration on federal land to collaborate with others in their
community, to the extent that preference is given to projects that span
ownerships. Like CFRP, CFLRP projects are evaluated by a panel; the
first CFLRP panel will meet next week in Washington. The biggest
differences are the CFLRP targets large landscapes--greater than 40,000
acres--with a strong emphasis on Forest Service land, and not just in
New Mexico but anywhere in the US. The similarities are so great that
people in New Mexico that are familiar with the CFLRP call it ``CFRP on
steroids.'' I trust it will be as successful as the CFRP.
Forest Health Benefits:
Each year Federal land managers spend a considerable amount of time
and money to plan projects that once approved, they may not have the
time, money, or resources to implement. This is a reality of declining
budgets, reductions in workforce, or possibility shifting priorities.
Allowing contractors to work with our land managers through
programs like the CFRP program, enables the work to get done sooner
than it would have otherwise. Project oversight is still provided by
the agency, so quality work is assured. As with any other contract, the
scope of work is clearly outlined, and the contract is administered by
agency personnel.
There are multiple benefits associated with this method of
implementing these projects. The most notable is the fact that land
managers are able to move forward with implementation of their projects
before NEPA gets stale, and collectively we move towards improving
forest health one project at a time.
On July 6, 2010, I met with Kendall Clark (Forest Supervisor,
Carson National Forest) to discuss the CFRP projects that have been
implemented on her forest, as well as her thoughts on the connection
between rural economics, and the principal land management agencies in
those areas. She felt that the CFRP Program created ``capacity'' that
would otherwise not exist for implementing these projects in the
region. She also felt strongly about agencies creating opportunities
through collaboration with rural resources that would both meet the
needs of the agency, and provide contract and job opportunities in
these communities.
Partnerships and Collaboration:
Any program, project or process that allows multiple parties to
combine resources and ideas, has a greater chance of success than any
one entity working independently to accomplish the same goal.
My personal experience as a business owner is that the measure of
success comes not with high profits, but with the quality of work that
is produced. High quality work is easier to accomplish when you have
the proper mix of skill sets involved. Often times that means
collaboration and partnerships with others who share a common goal.
Fortunately for businesses like mine, there are many local groups
and organizations who share the same desire to see quality work being
performed on the ground, by people who care about the land. I feel that
the resources available to me locally have played a significant role in
the success of my business. In turn, I feel that they are able to
consult with me and request assistance when they need it. The result is
a strong, mutually beneficial working relationship, and the benefactor
of this cohesiveness is the project or client.
The following are groups or organizations who I have had the
pleasure of working with in various capacities on local projects. These
are the people who contribute to the tremendous success of local
projects, and actively seek out partnership opportunities to better
serve the people of the Southwest Region:
New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute (NMFWRI):
``The New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute
(NMFWRI), which is located at New Mexico Highlands University, is a
statewide effort that engages government agencies, academic and
research institutions, land managers, and the interested public in the
areas of forest and watershed management.
The New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute is one of
three Institutes formed by the Federal Southwest Forest Health and
Wildfire Prevention Act of 2004. Their partner institutions are the
ecological Restoration Institute, located at Northern Arizona
University, and the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, located at
Colorado State University.''
Kent Reid and his staff have been instrumental in promoting
training and supporting businesses like mine on several projects over
the past few years. They have sent trainers and instructors out to
project sites, and have supported my efforts both directly, and
indirectly. Having resources like these available to businesses like
mine can make the difference between success and failure for a
business. It is a perfect example of why collaboration and partnerships
are such an important part of land management.
Rocky Mountain Youth Corps:
``Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (RMYC) was created in 1995 to
revitalize community, preserve and restore the environment, prepare
young people for responsible and productive lives, and build civic
spirit through service. Modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps
of the 1930's, RMYC provides creative approaches to problems stemming
from poverty, youth substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and violence. RMYC
works with youth from various backgrounds, providing a strategy for
young adults to better their communities and their own lives. With this
in mind, they not only work to restore trails, watersheds, and fire
safety corridors, they also use these activities as the means to
positive youth development. RMYC has hired more than 1,900 Taos youth,
between the ages of 16-25, providing them with employment readiness
programs, violence and substance abuse prevention education, GED
attainment, and continuing educational scholarships. These youth have
completed over 200,000 hours of meaningful community service that have
benefited hundreds of school children, low-income families, elderly
citizens, local government and non-profit agencies, and users of public
land in Taos. RMYC members become heroes and heroines in the community,
transforming negative images of youth into success stories about youth
making a difference. By providing a safe, structured environment for
learning that promotes citizenship, RMYC builds stronger communities in
northern New Mexico.''
Local Culture:
In rural communities such as those found in Northern New Mexico,
you will not find big, industrial or commercial operations working on
forestry projects. With all due respect to the big operations found in
the Northwest, and in other parts of the country, many areas in the
Southwest don't lend themselves well to the heavy equipment and
industrial machinery used in areas where commercial timber is harvested
by the millions of board feet.
The successful projects that I have been involved in were smaller,
more manageable projects. The work was done by groups like the Rocky
Mountain Youth Corps, Boy Scout Troops working with volunteers, and
small contractors like myself. The end result was a completed project
with attention to detail, and aesthetics. Having a sense of ownership
in the area, the same local contractors who performed the work take
great pride in the finished product.
Many of the local contractors have families that date back several
generations in these rural areas. To them, it isn't just about cutting
trees, and making money. It epitomizes the term ``caring for the
land''. These are families that belong or once belonged to land grants,
ranchers and farmers who were raised here, and families who have
hunted, fished and camped on these public lands for generations. When I
met with Kendall Clark on July 6, she commented on the value of sharing
the stewardship of our public lands with those who have a personal
connection to the land.
Room for Improvement:
As with any program, there is always room for improvement. The
concept is great, but it is not without its flaws.
As I have spoken to my peers in preparation for this hearing, two
topics seem to surface repeatedly.
The first is the evaluation and selection process. Granted, if it
was easy to get through this process, everybody would be submitting
applications. I understand that it has to be a stringent process, but
it does seem that it has become more of a technical review with subject
matter experts dissecting specific language in the proposal, rather
than an objective evaluation of a proposal that may have merit with a
few changes.
I realize that every applicant thinks that their project should be
funded, and that it is a great project. My comments are directed more
towards applicants who have a great idea for a project, but that may
not be able to afford a grant writer, or be able to articulate their
idea in a manner that allows them to be competitive in the selection
process.
There is a growing perception that the CFRP Program is developing
into a ``battle of the grant writers''. Maybe there is a way to level
the playing field for those who are more comfortable behind a chainsaw
than a computer.
The second issue that surfaced repeatedly was the administration or
oversight provided by the agency to the contractor. Several contractors
mentioned that there is no formal opportunity to provide feedback
relative to how they feel they were treated as contractors. In true
collaboration there should never be a ``take it or leave it''
relationship. Most contractors are acting in good faith, and deserve
the opportunity to not only provide feedback, but to have that feedback
heard, and acted upon in the interest of improving the program. Agency
officials should be responsive to contractors, and accept feedback
positively and productively as it was intended. It could potentially
lead to changes that create efficiencies in how the projects are
implemented.
The last item was shared with me by Kendall Clark, who felt that
two phases of funding in the grant process may allow for some monies to
be used for the planning of the proposed project, with a second phase
to be used for implementation. I would offer that a third phase could
be planned for follow up or ``maintenance'' treatment several years
later. This would ensure that the effectiveness of the initial
treatment could be restored in the future.
I respectfully ask that consideration be given to my testimony, as
it is intended to provide the members of this committee with possibly a
different prospective than they may have previously had.
There are many like me who take great pride in the work that they
do, and consider it an honor to be a part of any effort that moves us
closer to healthier forests, and helps our land managers reduce the
risk of catastrophic wildfire. Partnerships, collaboration and programs
like the CFRP and CFRLP are instrumental in making that possible.
Thank you.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Ms. Kristin Troy, Executive
Director, Lemhi Regional Land Trust, Salmon, Idaho. Welcome,
and thank you.
STATEMENT OF KRISTIN TROY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
LEMHI REGIONAL LAND TRUST, SALMON, IDAHO
Ms. Troy. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. Thank you for this invitation and the opportunity
to share with you how the management of Federal land in my
community is potentially retaining several generations of jobs,
and is creating jobs in the process as well.
My name is Kristin Troy, and I am the Executive Director of
Lemhi Regional Land Trust, which was started by ranchers, and
is based in Salmon, Idaho. Salmon is also one of the most
rugged--or excuse me, remote communities in the lower 48, and
it is also one of the most rugged. We are flanked to the west
by the Frank Church Wilderness, and to the east by the
Continental Divide. Our county has about 4 million acres; 92
percent of those acres are publicly owned. And the cattle
outnumber us by about seven to one.
Given that ratio of public-to-private land, our ranchers
depend heavily on public lands for grazing. And ranching
currently is one of our few natural resource industries to
survive. And we know about challenges and survival in my county
because as I grew up there, I watched as our timber mills
closed down, as did our mines. And what I now know is that once
that infrastructure and skilled labor is gone, starting over
gets complicated and expensive. It is not unlike the decline of
a species. Once you become threatened and endangered, you
become complicated and expensive.
There is opportunity in all of this, though, and my
organization embraces the idea that conservation and economic
needs can in fact be compatible. And this is what I do. I work
at the intersection of working lands and endangered species,
and together with willing landowners and Federal partners, we
are finding ways to keep our working lands working, while at
the same time conserving land and water for the endangered
Chinook salmon and Steelhead trout that make a 1,600 mile
round-trip journey from Salmon, Idaho to the Pacific Ocean, and
back again.
One of the groups we are working with is the Upper Salmon
Basin Watershed Project that was started as a collaborative by
ranchers in the early '90s. This group helps to prioritize
projects that benefit fish, and they carefully consider both
the ecological and social aspects of the project. One of the
sources of fish funding for these projects is Bonneville Power
Administration. And what works in that particular program is
that we have a state point agency that helps to manage those
funds. It is the Office of Species Conservation. And as the
Governor's representative, they are really motivated to help
craft projects that have community support and recognize the
good return on investment by allowing for project
implementation and administration costs. That is incredibly
important in my world, and it is all too rare.
We are working on a large-scale land conservation project
right now that has over $2.5 million designated to it, and
$25,000 has been designated for hours of staff time necessary
to make the project work on the ground. And that money allowed
me to hire my first time local part-time employee. We have also
utilized the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program, and that
was used to conserve a multi-family, multi-generation parcel of
a ranch right at the base of the Continental Divide, by the
way--really beautiful--and it gave that family an option to
keep the ranch viable instead of subdividing.
While that is a really well-intentioned program, and we are
really happy to use it, it does have a very steep cash match,
or a steep match, I should say. It is a 50 percent cost share
program; 25 percent of that needs to be cold, hard cash. And
there is no mechanism in there for implementation or on-the-
ground staff time. And while the land trust focus has been
primarily on conserving private lands, a forestry collaborative
in my community is working to achieve the same balance on
public lands. They are trying to get past nearly two decades of
gridlock on the Salmon-Challis National Forest, and they are
focusing heavily now on forest health and local economic
benefit. In fact, their first 13-acre Hughes Creek project has
pumped $215,000 into our community, with 90 percent of that
going directly to Lemhi County workers.
So I guess this story is meant to portray a few things.
First of all, collaborative efforts and community-based
organizations have a pretty unique ability to set politics
aside and to focus on our landscapes, and to get our good work
done. And like it or not, through this process, we really get
to know one another, and we learn to trust one another, and
that is what is working.
But please hear me when I say that community-based
organizations are not seeking to become another arm of the
Federal Government. We are valuable because we are small,
nimble, efficient, and we are tied to the land. I hope that
Federal agencies can recognize us as valuable partners to get
the work done in a really meaningful way. So thank you for this
invitation and opportunity. I hope this has been helpful, and I
am happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Troy follows:]
Statement of Kristin Troy, Executive Director, Lemhi Regional Land
Trust
Good Morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for this opportunity to share with you how the management
of federal and private lands is retaining and creating jobs in my
community.
My name is Kristin Troy and I serve as the executive director of
the Lemhi Regional Land Trust, a non-profit organization that was
founded by ranchers and is based in Salmon, Idaho. Salmon is one of the
most remote communities in the lower 48, and it is also one of the most
rugged. We are flanked to the West by the Frank Church River of No
Return Wilderness and to the East by the Continental Divide.
Context:
Around 92 percent of Lemhi County is in public hands and managed by
United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The
remaining 8 percent of private lands are, as one would expect, situated
in the valley bottoms along the Salmon and Lemhi Rivers. Given the
small amount of private land we have in our valley, ranchers depend
heavily on access to these public lands for grazing.
Ranching is one of the few natural resource based industries in our
community that has survived. But that survival is tenuous at best for a
variety of reasons - aging landowners, the rising cost of doing
business, and pressure to subdivide.
I grew up in Salmon and in my lifetime, I watched as the mainstay
timber and mining industries dried up and blew away. The lost jobs
meant lost tax revenue, lost families, a drop in school enrollment, and
an increase in despair. As with many other rural communities across the
West, we are committed to finding solutions that will maintain working
landscapes, blurring the line between public and private lands in light
of overall conservation objectives. We know from the loss of our timber
industry that once the infrastructure and skilled labor is gone
starting over is complicated and expensive. In a way, the decline of a
rural economic sector is not so different from the decline of a
species. By the time you are threatened and endangered, you are
complicated and expensive.
The opportunity:
Rural communities are the front line stewards of our public lands.
My organization embraces the idea that meeting our conservation and
economic needs can be compatible. This is what I do - I work at the
intersection of working ranch lands and endangered species and together
with willing landowners and federal partners, we are looking for and
finding ways to keep our working lands working while at the same time
achieve conservation goals. The community is behind our efforts to
conserve our working lands and our rural lifestyle for social and
economic reasons, but the outcomes have impressive ecological
implications as well.
Although most of our county is public land, adjacent private lands
harbor some of the richest wildlife habitat, including some of the most
important habitat in the West for Chinook salmon and steelhead trout.
These fish have traveled to the ocean and back - a round trip of about
1,600 miles - for thousands of years. Salmon were the staple for the
Lemhi-Shoshoni tribe who inhabited the valley when Lewis and Clark came
through the area, and salmon fishing continued to be part of the
traditional way of life for ranching families who were early settlers.
Today, dozens of landowners in this valley are voluntarily working with
federal and state agencies and community-based organizations like Lemhi
Regional Land Trust to make sure that when the wild salmon and
steelhead return, they recognize home.
Three project examples:
In this context, I'd like to share some of my community's
experiences with federal programs intended to motivate private
landowners to conserve land for the benefit of threatened and
endangered species, and the multitude of other wildlife that rely on
intact pieces of land to thrive.
Upper Salmon Basin Watershed Project
Lemhi Regional Land Trust is one of the organizations participating
in a collaborative group called the Upper Salmon Basin Watershed
Project. The group works together to prioritize projects meant to
enhance this critical fishery. Members include fish biologists,
ranchers, conservationists, agencies, and tourism industry
representatives, just to name a few. The group's recommendations put a
powerful stamp of approval on proposals and let potential funders know
that both ecological and social aspects of the plan have been carefully
and thoughtfully considered.
One of these funders is the Bonneville Power Administration.
Bonneville Power mitigates the impacts of the massive hydroelectric
dams on the Columbia River system, allocating revenue to fund the
Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund, established by Congress in 2000 to
protect, restore, and conserve Pacific salmon and steelhead populations
and their habitats. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) manages the program that provides competitive funding to states
and tribes of the Pacific Coast region, including Idaho. We have
successfully used some of this funding to help conserve private working
lands adjacent to the Lemhi River. I would like to make a few comments
about what worked with this federal program:
When the funding is awarded to the eligible states,
there is a state contact and in Idaho's case, this is the
Office of Species Conservation. As the Governor's
representative on these issues, the Office of Species
Conservation is highly motivated to make sure projects have
community support. Federal agencies with far away offices and
staff might not share this same sensitivity.
The Office of Species Conservation also manages other
sources of federal funding, such as the Snake River Basin
Adjudication Habitat Trust Fund, which allow funds to be used
for project administration and implementation costs. This is
incredibly important, and all too rare. We are currently
working on a project to conserve land and water on two separate
ranches located on valuable tributaries to the Lemhi River.
Between three different funding sources, all public money, over
$2.5 million dollars has been designated for this project and
$25,000 for the hours of staff time necessary to make such a
project work on the ground. Additional funds for long-term
monitoring were allowed to make sure project benefits continue
to be realized over time. In this example, the $2.5 million
would not have gotten to the ground (or to the river) without
the allowance of $25,000 in implementation funding.
Saving Carmen Creek Ranch
Another project involved the Natural Resources Conservation Service
Farm and Ranchland Protection Program. In partnership with the Nature
Conservancy, we used this program to purchase a conservation easement
on a 300-acre parcel that is part of a multi-family, multi-generational
ranch along Carmen Creek, an important fish-bearing tributary to the
Salmon River just 5 miles from town. As one of the most scenic
properties in the valley, the land was getting serious and focused
attention from real estate developers. The three brothers who are the
principals of Carmen Land and Livestock knew they valued the land for
its productivity, its scenic qualities, and its undeniable importance
to fish, birds, and other wildlife. The Farm and Ranchland Protection
Program gave the brothers another option to keep their ranch viable
other than subdividing.
The Farm and Ranchland Protection Program was vital in the
preservation of not only the 300 acres along Carmen Creek, but also for
the intact working ranch that will now endure for generations to come.
However, Lemhi Regional Land Trust will only approach this funding
source again with caution, because the significant costs for
implementing the project cannot be recovered through the program itself
(and the cash match requirement puts this well-intentioned program
beyond the reach of many of the most vulnerable farmers and ranchers).
This is one of the many federal programs targeted at communities like
ours that lacks funding for implementation. This project, and so many
others like it, could not have been accomplished without a community-
based organization. \1\
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\1\ Community-based Organizations: Strategic Assets for Western
Conservation. April 2010. Sustainable Northwest. http://
www.sustainablenorthwest.org/resources/rvcc-issue-papers/2010-issue-
papers/Community-based%20Orgs%20Final.pdf
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Lemhi County Forest Restoration Group
While Lemhi Regional Land Trust's focus is mostly on conserving
private lands in the valley, a partner organization is working to
achieve this same balance on our public lands. Salmon Valley
Stewardship and the Lemhi County Forest Restoration Group are working
to get past nearly two decades of gridlock on the Salmon-Challis
National Forest, a forest that lately has retained more outside
attorney jobs than community forest practitioner jobs.
The Lemhi County Forest Restoration Group is successfully building
social agreement around the dual concepts of forest health improvement
and local economic benefit. The group is carefully tracking jobs and
revenue created by their first 13,000-acre Hughes Creek project. Last I
knew, even before the first commercial stick of wood has been cut, the
project has put $200,000 into the local community, with more than 90
percent going to Lemhi County workers. Because the Lemhi County Forest
Restoration Group has placed importance on local economic benefit, they
carefully monitor the project to ensure this benefit is realized.
Surprisingly, few federal agencies--although endowed with millions of
dollars--can report the same.
The diverse group is working hard to bring additional dollars to
forest restoration work. The collaborative's coordination activities
and support staff is completely funded by private philanthropies. The
group's members have been successful in raising money and using
volunteers to help implement their projects, but these funds and
volunteer hours are not guaranteed, and therefore keep the successful
efforts of these organizations in an ever tenuous financial state.
Although leveraging funding and human resources seems to be the best
hope for the Forest Service's future, the agency is willing but
woefully unequipped to manage grants and agreements with community-
based organizations. The Salmon-Challis National Forest shares one
grants and agreement employee with two other national forests and her
desk is 160 miles away. Because they are understaffed, agreements can
easily take four months or longer to put into place, creating
frustration and sometimes jeopardizing the funding the partner group
brings to the table.
The solutions:
Public and private partnerships, as well as groups of diverse
stakeholders working together to solve economic and environmental
challenges, is the only way we can move forward with innovative
solutions that will create pathways to prosperity and address our
nation's conservation challenges.
Federal programs and the land management agencies need to better
organize their business operations to be effective partners to rural
community-based organizations, to fully utilize the federal programs
that are currently in place, and to be truly effective and sustainable
over time. For example, the time and resources it took to see our Farm
and Ranchlands Protection proposal for the Carmen Creek easement from
start to finish, as well as meet the monitoring requirements, far
exceeded the amount of the grant or my organizations ability to raise
funds from other sources; the program does not make good business
sense. Federal programs need to recognize that getting money to the
ground takes time, energy, and a degree of trust. Community-based
organizations are often in the best position to offer these resources
and in many cases can amplify the effect through public outreach,
volunteer support, or leveraged funding. Some programs require a 50
percent match with half of that needing to be cold, hard cash.
Flexibility that recognizes the value of in-kind match would remove
significant barriers to these funding sources.
Collaborative efforts and community-based organizations have a
unique ability to put politics aside and focus on these incredible
landscapes. As we work together to find solutions, we get to know and
trust one another. Going out on the range with a rancher or walking in
the woods with a forester, you get a chance to hear the wisdom that
comes from working and living on the land. Involving relevant members
of the community in these important discussions as equals adds an
element of respect that is too often missing outside the collaborative
process.
In Lemhi County and all over the West, we are motivated to create a
balance between our environment and our livelihoods. When we figure out
how to keep enough water in the streams for fish but still allow the
rancher enough to irrigate his hay while providing an option other than
subdividing, we know we have succeeded in achieving this balance. We
have retained not just a few jobs, but potentially several generations
of jobs, and the vibrancy of our small towns.
Community-based organizations are not seeking to become yet another
arm of the federal government. We are valuable because we are small,
nimble, efficient, and tied to the land. My hope is that federal
agencies can be enabled to recognize the importance of partners who are
willing and able to get federal dollars on the ground in the most
meaningful way possible.
Recommendations:
1. Make grant programs, such as the Farm and Ranchland
Protection program, more effective by making them more
flexible.
2. Match requirements for federal grants should take into
consideration the economic context of the grantee--public land
communities are high in poverty and unemployment, raising
private match in this context is a serious challenge.
3. Integrate funding to support long-term monitoring to be
performed by community-based organizations or other entities to
ensure the long-term objectives of projects can be successful.
4. Recognize that increasing partnerships and collaborative
efforts enhances the agencies' capacity.
5. Continue to support and fully fund the Land and Water
Conservation Fund and the Forest Landscape Restoration Act,
which hold great potential for communities such as mine.
Thank you for the invitation and opportunity to meet with you
today. It is my hope that this testimony has been helpful and I am
happy to answer any questions.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much. Melanie Parker,
Executive Director, Northwest Connections, Swan Valley,
Montana. Welcome, and I look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MELANIE PARKER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NORTHWEST
CONNECTIONS, SWAN VALLEY, MONTANA
Ms. Parker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting
me here today to share my experience from Montana's Swan
Valley. My name is Melanie Parker. I am the Executive Director
of Northwest Connections. We are a not-for-profit business that
hires and involves local people in citizen science. We engage
in restoration. We lead collaborative planning efforts. We
teach field ecology courses actually to young conservation
professionals from all over the country.
I also help my husband operate a traditional hunting and
guide service and manage our small private forest land. I am a
mom, and I am the chair of the local school board. The unifying
concept really at the end of the day that I came here to talk
about more than anything else in my written testimony is the
value to this country of conserving working landscapes. I
really believe strongly that Congress and this Administration
need to focus both their conservation efforts and their job
creation strategies on investment in working landscapes.
So what are working landscapes? They are vast areas outside
of designated parks and outside of wildernesses that still have
high biological values. They are private lands and they are
public lands. And they provide food, fiber, clean water, and
wildlife habitat. They are lands that support the lives and the
livelihoods of rural farms, rural ranches, and rural forest
communities. They are lands on which millions of Americans
rediscover the great outdoors: camping, fishing, hunting,
hiking, biking, climbing. Working landscapes are not parks, and
they are not sacrifice zones. They represent in fact the next
great challenge in conservation across the West. And that is to
say, how do we use land and take care of it?
It is also a concept, this working landscape concept, that
resonates quite deeply in rural communities. The Swan Valley,
where I live, is one such working landscape, a vast area of
checkerboard land ownership that stretches between two great
wilderness areas to the south of Glacier National Park. Our
working landscape has been threatened by two main factors, the
divestment of our corporate land base into real estate
development, and the shutdown of active management on our
public lands. We are struggling to keep the land in landscape
and the work in working.
So there are three keys to our success that I pulled from
my written testimony that I wanted to underscore right now. The
first really is to communities like ours that are facing this
divestment issue and the fragmentation in the real estate
development. I really hope that this Subcommittee does support
full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. And in
addition, I will tell you that what really helps working
landscapes in the West--and it has occurred in some places--is
to use those funds not necessarily just for straight-up
acquisition, but for easement projects. That has happened in my
state. And if you could encourage that flexibility and that
tool, I think that would even improve it.
Second, we need programs that invest in--you know, I guess
I should back up and say--you probably saw this in my written
testimony, but the way that we have utilized tools like that,
right now, we are celebrating the conservation of 310,000 acres
of former Plum Creek land in western Montana, and that is all
the remaining corporate timberlands in my valley. So that is
why I am kind of passionate about that one.
The second is the investment in programs that fund
restoration and stewardship for a long enough duration that our
business owners can make those investments, and also programs
that are rewarding the kinds of collaboration that our
communities are bringing to the table. So most notably right
now, the collaborative forest landscape restoration program.
Our community, along with communities in the Blackfoot and the
Seeley Lake area just submitted a proposal that will cover--
that will fund for 10 years, right, our partners, our Federal
partners, $4 million a year for 10 years if we are successful.
That is a big plus for our small businesses to be able to
invest. And so those kinds of programs, I think, are really
important. So I want to support full funding for CFLRP, but
mostly I want to say it could be a template for other kinds of
strategic investments.
Last, I want to underscore what others have said about the
value of our community-based organizations. In the Swan Valley,
the very first building block to economic success has come from
pulling various stakeholders together to forge common ground
because without the social agreement on what constitutes land
stewardship in our specific site, we quickly get locked up in
contentious appeals and litigation. We as citizens have formed
organizations that have built the capacity to build that social
agreement and partner with all our agencies and interest
groups, but there are no Federal programs, or very few at
least, that support community-based organizations. So we would
really encourage that.
And just before I conclude, I would like to say I was
thinking just as I was sitting back here that, actually,
legislative tools that integrate those three things all in one
place would actually really help us so that we are not chasing
different things.
OK. So in conclusion, I hope that as you have listened to
my testimony and those of my fellow panelists, you realize that
we actually represent something very important. We are new
voices. We are not the voices of industry, and we are not the
voices of environmentalism. We are the third way. We are
rapidly becoming the new way of doing business in the West. And
now we are formalizing new networks that are more regional in
nature. We are organizing. We are aggregating because we know
something deep in our hearts. We know that land and people are
inextricably linked, and that our country--and that as a
country we have to figure out how to protect resources and use
them responsible. We are in it for the long haul. We hope you
will partner with us. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Parker follows:]
Statement of Melanie Parker, Executive Director, Northwest Connections
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me
here today to share my experience from Montana's Swan Valley.
My name is Melanie Parker and I live and work in a rural, forested
valley in Western Montana. My husband has owned and operated a
traditional hunting and guide service there for 33 years. My own
background is in ecology and education. Together he and I formed
Northwest Connections, a not-for-profit business that conducts citizen
science, engages in restoration projects, leads collaborative planning
efforts, and teaches field ecology courses to young conservation
professionals from around the country.
The Swan Valley is situated between two wilderness areas about 100
miles south of Glacier National Park. The valley is home to grizzly
bears, wolves, lynx, bull trout and many other threatened and sensitive
wildlife species. This richness is in no small part due to the 4000
wetlands that are strung across the valley bottom. The culture of the
Swan Valley is tied directly to the abundant natural resources. Logging
and log home building, along with outfitting and other outdoor related
businesses characterize the economy. Historically, the community had
very close ties to the Forest Service, as the ranger station was
located in the small town of Condon, but 20 years ago that ranger
station was closed as districts were consolidated and now all of the
Forest Service personnel who administer the Swan Valley live and raise
their families in the Kalispell area 75 miles to the north.
Life in the Swan Valley has been dominated by the checkerboard land
ownership pattern. As a result of the railroad land grants of 1864,
nearly every other square mile has been owned and managed by corporate
timber interests. In the mid-1900's, roads were improved enough in the
Swan Valley to make commercial timber harvest viable. While it was the
Forest Service who was most active in the middle part of the last
century, it was Burlington Northern, later Plum Creek Timber Co., that
extracted the bulk of the timber in the 1980's and 90's. Environmental
concerns about the cumulative effects to the watershed, as well as a
swell of environmentalism nationally, all but shut down activity on
federal lands in the Swan Valley. This resulted in a landscape that we
began describing in the late 1990's as the land of ``too much and not
enough'' as nearly every acre suffered from either too much disturbance
from road building and logging, or too little disturbance from the
suppression of fire and the shutdown of active management.
If the diminished Forest Service presence and the accelerated
harvest of corporate lands were not enough, just over ten years ago we
began to face a new challenge: corporate timber lands increasingly put
on the real estate market and sold off for development. All of these
challenges have driven our community to organize, to define our own
vision of rural prosperity, and to develop strong partnerships with
governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations to realize
that vision.
The dramatic success for which the Swan Valley is gaining notoriety
at present, is our project to stem the tide of real estate development.
After a decade of hard effort, we are celebrating the conservation of
310,000 acres of Plum Creek Timber Co. land in Western Montana
including all of the remaining corporate lands in the Swan Valley. We
succeeded at building partnerships between local and national groups,
and at putting together federal, state and private funding sources to
secure these lands.
There are a lot of reasons this project has met with success, but I
would like to highlight perhaps the most important and least visible
reason. In rural communities all across the west we are speaking a new
language. It is a language that has profound new meaning, and it is not
the language of the past. We are talking more and more about the
conservation of working landscapes. The conservation of working
landscapes is something that resonates very deeply with rural
communities and that vision is what has allowed us to garner such
widespread political support for this Plum Creek lands project.
What are working landscapes? They are vast areas outside of
designated parks and wilderness areas that have high biological values.
They are private lands and public lands that provide food, fiber, clean
water, and wildlife habitat. They are lands that support the lives and
livelihoods of rural farms, rural ranches and rural forest communities.
They are lands on which millions of Americans rediscover the great
outdoors: camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, biking, climbing. Working
landscapes are not parks, and they are not sacrifice zones. They
represent, in fact, the next great challenge in conservation across the
West which is to say how do we use land and take care of it.
When our community began struggling with the challenge of corporate
timber land divestment, we did not know what the final outcome would
be, but we did know that we wanted a working landscape, one where we
could balance the use and care of the land. We had been weathering the
boom and bust cycles for decades just like so many other rural
communities across the West, the cycles that follow this country's
alternating impulses to exploit or protect the resources of our region.
Our community was not then, and is not now, interested in being the
victim of this nation's polarizing wars on natural resource management;
we are looking at every juncture for opportunities to chart our own
destiny as leaders in a movement to prove that landscapes like the Swan
Valley can provide good work, locally delivered resources and
environmental stewardship.
And so now, in 2010, the Swan Valley finds itself in transition.
The Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy have worked with
us to purchase and convey much of the former Plum Creek lands in the
Swan Valley to the U.S. Forest Service. That is a dramatic conservation
success of the first order. But our success will only be complete when
we establish a long term program of stewardship work on those public
lands.
Our collaborative efforts in the Swan Valley have broken the
gridlock on federal lands management and we have begun to see a few
good projects employ local people, but our transition is tenuous at
best right now. We have seen a steady erosion of economic vitality in
recent years. The Swan Valley has roughly half the number of businesses
it had 15 years ago, and only one third the number of children enrolled
in the local elementary school. Our ability to retain and create family
wage jobs tied to public land management has never been so critical
My testimony at this point divides into two segments. The first
addresses the tools that are important to communities like ours to
arrest the accelerating development of private lands that adjoin and
are integrally connected to public lands across the West. These tools
help communities secure the land base that support rural economic
activity. The second segment addresses tools that can help us
transition the old economies of extraction and protection into the new
economy of stewardship.
STEMMING DEVLEOPMENT PRESSURE
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is critical and I hope
this congress supports full and permanent funding for the program. When
Plum Creek put up their first ``higher and better use'' land sale in
1997 along the shores of Lindbergh Lake adjacent to the Mission
Mountain Wilderness, the Trust for Public Land helped us secure LWCF
dollars to acquire those acres and convey them to the Flathead National
Forest. It continues to be an important program to our project and to
many other landscapes and communities with which I am familiar.
Congress should give direction to federal and state agencies to
make LWCF more flexible for the purchase of conservation easements on
private lands. In many public lands dominated communities there is a
strong desire to retain valuable private landholdings, and for those
areas an easement option is essential.
In the Swan Valley, we have also made use of the Forest Legacy
program as well as Habitat Conservation Plan programs to address
development pressure and I see great value in maintaining and expanding
those programs for western communities facing large scale land
conversion issues.
Rural communities like ours are also very interested developing new
forms of land tenure. Because most of the forces that determine our
fate are external and remote--whether the land base is federal,
corporate, or state land--we are interested in programs that will help
us acquire and manage community-owned lands. In the Swan Valley we have
one such community conservation area which we are currently hoping to
expand. Two programs will help communities like ours. The first, the
Community Forest and Open Space Program provides funds to local
governments and qualifying non-profit organization to purchase
community lands. The second is the authorization of the Community
Forestry Conservation Act, which would give communities the ability to
issue bonds to purchase land and secure the bonds with future
sustainable timber harvest.
For the small private forest land owner who wants to stave off the
temptation to sell or subdivide, we need to maintain programs like the
Forest Stewardship Program within State and Private Forestry and the
Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program within NRCS. I have heard from
several land owners that they would be more likely to use those
programs if the matching requirement could be in the form of donated
value, rather than cash. The cash match is simply too expensive for
most traditional rural land owners.
Investments in these kinds of programs are very strategic, and
reduce costs to the American tax payer. I can tell you that the rural
sprawl across every other square mile that we were facing in the Swan
Valley would have meant huge increases in firefighting costs, as well
as increased demands for wildlife recovery dollars. According to one
Forest Service report if homes were built in only half of the private
lands bordering public land the annual federal firefighting costs would
range from $2.3 Billion to $4.3 Billion per year. Each of the programs
I mentioned above help conserve working landscapes, curb future costs
to the public, and secure the land base for rural economic activities.
PROMOTING A LAND STEWARDSHIP ECONOMY
In the Swan Valley, the first building block to economic success
has come from pulling diverse stakeholders together to forge common
ground. Without social agreement on what constitutes land stewardship
in our specific site, we quickly get locked up in contentious appeals
and litigation. There can be no economic stability for our community
until all of the groups interested in our landscape can work hand in
hand with state and federal agencies to chart a long term program of
work.
Federal programs that link federal investment dollars to successful
collaboration are key. This past year, communities in the Swan Valley,
in Seeley Lake and across the Blackfoot Valley have submitted a
proposal to the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
(CFLRP). If we are successful, our federal agency partners will receive
$4M/year for ten years to accomplish restoration work on public lands
across 1.5 million acres. CFLRP is very good legislation that requires
a broad coalition of interests to assess the landscape together,
identify priorities and sketch out a plan for action in order to be
successful. CFLRP should receive full funding for the next ten years. I
should also be used as a template for other programs to invest in
restoration and land stewardship across the west.
Collaboration is the foundation for economic prosperity in the
west, and yet it lacks support from federal agencies and from most
federal programs. In many communities like the Swan Valley citizens
have organized themselves into non-governmental organizations (NGO's)
that have the capacity to partner with government agencies, private
land owners and other associations and interests. Federal programs to
support NGO partners, however, are few and far between. The National
Forest Foundation has been an important support system for many
community based organizations in our region, and congress should fully
fund their appropriations, but we also need to look for other
opportunities to invest in local and regional collaborative
conservation efforts.
Another key to success relates to the capacity of federal land
managers to put the necessary staff time into collaborative
conservation efforts. Right now federal employees have very few
incentives to partner with our community organizations. Performance
measures that put a value on collaboration in rural western communities
need to be developed and strengthened.
In the Swan Valley we have faced additional challenges related to
the remoteness of our federal agency staff and by the turnover in key
leadership positions. Federal agencies should recognize the value of
keeping land management professionals in place over time. The resulting
trust and understanding that is built between agencies, NGO's and rural
residents sets the stage for successful design and implementation of
land stewardship projects.
Stewardship has become a key concept for us as it connotes both
work on and care for the land. Stewardship contracting is one of the
very best tools to come along in the past decade and it needs to be
reauthorized and its use expanded across the West. In stewardship
contracts, the government can choose the BEST contractor, not
necessarily the one who delivers the highest dollar amount back to the
government. This has really helped to incentivize our workforce to
prove its capacity to do good work, not just fast work. We whole
heartedly support the re-authorization of stewardship contracting and
we hope to see the federal agencies use it as the dominant form of
doing business.
All of this said and done, we are still faced with a situation
where the American people are asking agencies like the Forest Service
to do stewardship, but the agencies are still funded through old
categories like timber. We need a new integrated budget structure that
incentivizes holistic integrated stewardship. This year the President's
budget recommended the Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) line item.
I have talked to many on my district, my forest, and across Western
Montana who think IRR has great promise, but they have fears that their
particular special interest--timber, fire, wildlife--will lose funding.
We need to hammer out the right guidelines for such an integrated
budget structure, and that may take another year, but I do
enthusiastically support such a budget structure reform and believe it
will produce better projects that garner broader support.
CONCLUSION
In July 2010 I can report to you that we in the Swan Valley are
making progress. We have built strong local and regional
collaborations. Those diverse stakeholders have worked together to
erase the checkerboard land ownership pattern and they have made strong
progress in articulating goals for the restoration and stewardship of
the entire landscape. Now we need federal agencies that are ready,
willing and able to partner with us. And we need a firm commitment from
congress to invest in the conservation and stewardship of working lands
in our valley and all across the West.
I hope that as you listen to the testimony of all my fellow
panelists you realize that we represent something very important. We
are new voices. We are not the voices of industry and we are not the
voices of environmentalism. We are a third way and we are rapidly
becoming the new way of doing business in the West. It may not be
visible to you at this hearing, but many of us now know each other. We
didn't used to, but we started bumping into one another, telling our
stories, and realizing the parallels. Now we are formalizing new
networks. My group, Northwest Connections, is a member of the Rural
Voices for Conservation Coalition, convened by Sustainable Northwest.
But for Sustainable Northwest's support, my voice and several others
here would likely not be here today. Jim Stone's group the Blackfoot
Challenge is also helping to coordinate a regional network known as the
Partners for Conservation. We are organizing and we are aggregating,
because we know something deep in our hearts. We know that land and
people are inextricably linked and that until this country figures out
how to protect resources and use them responsibly, we are sunk.
We are in it for the long haul and we hope you will partner with
us.
Thank you.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much. And just as a note, Ms.
Parker, you need to be very careful. I started out as a school
board member, and all your plans could go awry overnight.
Ms. Mondragon, one of the things you mentioned and you talk
about generations of families living off the lands in New
Mexico, and there is a checkered history of Federal land
management and the conflict between communities, history, land
grants. And so how do national forests fit into that
preservation of the way of life that has been there for
generations and generations in New Mexico, and particularly in
some parts of the north?
Ms. Mondragon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know,
nationally, I can't really speak to how it would nationally.
But I do know that, you know, in our area, it is very important
to see and to have these lands that we can preserve. We can go
out and we can thin. We help against wildland fire. We, you
know, help preserve against some of the other diseases that the
trees are now getting. And it really connects the community
that for a long time--and still do; there are some areas that
folks have a real hard time with because they feel that it is
their land. They feel that, you know, my great grandfather
owned that, and it was stolen from me, things of that nature.
And so it really helps connect them back to the land and make
them feel like it is still theirs, and they can help preserve
it. They can help treat it so that it is healthier.
I am not sure if that answers your question. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva. In your written testimony, Ms. Troy, you
mentioned saving the Carmen Creek Ranch. And it couldn't have
been done, as you accurately pointed out, without community-
based organizations. You started to talk a little bit about
that. But what does an organization, community-based like
yours, bring to the table to help facilitate that conservation
effort? And we can use the Carmen Ranch as the example.
Ms. Troy. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That particular
program, we used the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program,
and within that program, one of the tools that we used for
conservation in my community are conservation easements. Within
Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program, we are able to use
conservation easements to protect the land on the ground that
will then keep the land in private land ownership.
What I think we were able to bring to the table is both
capacity skills and the experience necessary to get what is a
very complicated, long, perpetual document and agreement in
place to create that land protection. Our local natural
resources conservation service office is wonderful, but they
don't have the kind of skills and experience to negotiate an
agreement like that, I think, or the time really to do it. So
that is what allowed that project really, I think, to get done.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Ms. Parker, what could Federal
land management agencies do to assist new businesses and
workers in learning not just about restoration, but also the
stewardship on public lands and the long-term commitment to the
development of that relationship between the Federal land
management and those surrounding communities?
Ms. Parker. OK. Thank you for the question, Chairman.
Mr. Grijalva. You know, your point about consolidating some
of the legislative initiatives----
Ms. Parker. Yeah.
Mr. Grijalva.--is a point well taken, and thank you. But--
--
Ms. Parker. Yeah.
Mr. Grijalva. OK.
Ms. Parker. And I hope I answer the question. Before I do,
I want to acknowledge that I am actually a native of the great
State of Arizona, so I am especially pleased to make your
acquaintance. OK. Well, I guess I am going to break that into
two things. First of all, I want to acknowledge that the
learning goes two ways. It is not just Federal agencies sort
of, you know, teaching the working contractors, which I know
you know, but what we really appreciate and like is the kind of
collaborative relationship where everybody standing around a
circle, out in the winds, and we are learning from each other.
And so I think just having--the Federal Government--just having
a program of work where local contractors can access it over
time creates that long-term relationship where that cross-
learning is happening.
B, another thing Federal agencies can do that will help
that is just to keep their people in place over time to develop
those relationships with local communities. One of our big
obstacles, actually, is the bungee jumping of Federal employees
through our rural community. And so that breaks down that long-
term trust building. So the learning is important there.
And then the third thing I just want to sort of throw in
there, like Joyce, we also have quite a few youth volunteer
corps programs that are scaffolding the next generation, not
the people who are working right now, but the ones that are
just behind them, into the programs where they are doing, you
know, stream monitoring, wildlife monitoring, those kind of
things. And our Youth Corps program is not like an SCA type
program, where you are building trails. It is more a knowledge
creation program.
And so I would encourage Congress, as you are integrating
with the Administration on the America Great Outdoors
Initiative, to really look at some homespun youth corps
programs in our rural communities, as well as the big national
groups, because I think we are actually trying to promote our
local youth into the workforce to stay there over time.
Mr. Grijalva. And you answered my other question.
Ms. Parker. Oh, good.
Mr. Grijalva. Which was about youth. As a community-based
organization having to bring diverse parties together for
discussions--this is just my curiosity--do you find your role
as an organization or as an individual leading that
organization to be more of an arbiter of what is going on, or
kind of more of a leader in a direction? Just a curiosity on my
part?
Ms. Parker. Who do you want to answer?
Mr. Grijalva. Either one, all of you, in fact.
Ms. Parker. You go first.
Ms. Troy. Thanks. I think the short answer is it is
certainly not always easy. But in our particular case, it is
really important to understand that my organization was created
by ranchers. So it is starting from the ground up. And the
reason it is starting from the ground up is because there was a
need for an organization like ours. We were seeing turnover of
some of our really especially notable ranches in the community.
And I think that really alarmed folks deep down, and, you know,
really questioned whether our traditional way of life was going
to stay intact.
So for my organization, landowners come to us. We don't go
knock on doors. So that is how it starts. And then because we
are trying to with some of this endangered species funding,
when they come to us as a local group, we basically sit down,
and I tell them, OK, here is the deal. This is Federal money,
and it has strings attached. There are specific conservation
outcomes that need to happen if we are going to use this money.
And then the next question they ask me is, well, can we keep
ranching. And, you know, another complicated answer is, yes,
probably. But we need to figure out how to do that in a way
that is compatible, you know, with these conservation
objectives.
I think the next step is the really important one. I say,
how do you think we can do that? And I think that is what is
missing when we don't have a collaborative process in place.
You miss that wisdom from the people who live and work on the
ground, because, guess what, they have some of the best ideas
about how to accomplish conservation on their particular ranch.
So at that point, then it goes to this larger
collaborative, and we try to figure out if those are
compatible, those two--if the landowners' goals and the goals
of the program are in fact compatible. So it is a lengthy
process.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Anybody else?
Ms. Parker. No.
Mr. Grijalva. Well, I want to thank the panel, and in
expressing my gratitude, tell you that, you know, some of us
are very, very passionate about conservation and preservation.
And unfortunately, the discussions become an either-or
proposition. And so I welcome your testimony because in
reality, it is not. But sometimes you are forced to put up the
barracks because that is what the war has been about, either-
or. And so your testimony today, we don't all have to jump in,
that there is another way to create dialogue, painful as it is
sometimes, compromise. And particularly, I like the point that
you made about the working landscape of the West. And it is
absolutely true.
And so thank you very much. You know, sometimes our Federal
land managers and our special places and public spaces are seen
as job killers. They are seen as the enemy. And I don't believe
that is true. We can revive many of the communities that you
work with. But I think that also requires the Federal agencies,
and the two departments, Interior and Agriculture in
particular, to think outside the way they have been thinking
about this for a long, long time. And as we begin to craft a
response, not only to the Great Outdoors Initiative,
reauthorizing the public school support, and reauthorizing
other pieces of legislation, some of the input that we have had
from people that are actually on the ground today is going to
be very, very valuable. And so as we craft that legislation for
the future, your input is going to be valuable, and it is going
to be useful. So thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[NOTE: The following individuals and organizations
submitted documents for the record, which have been retained in
the Committee's official files.]
Bruell, Harry, President, Southwest
Conservation Corps
Cooper, Tom and Carol, Ranchers, Otero Mesa,
New Mexico
Damitz, Sean, Director, Utah Conservation
Corps
Stone, Jim, Rancher and Chairman, Rolling
Stone Ranch and The Blackfoot Challenge
Watson, Jay, Western Regional Director,
Student Conservation Association
The Wilderness Society