[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ACCESS TO PUBLIC LANDS: THE EFFECTS OF FOREST SERVICE ROAD CLOSURES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
THE INTERIOR, ENERGY, AND ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 26, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-89
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://oversight.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
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Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland,
Darrell E. Issa, California Ranking Minority Member
Jim Jordan, Ohio Carolyn B. Maloney, New York
Mark Sanford, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Justin Amash, Michigan Columbia
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri
Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Jim Cooper, Tennessee
Thomas Massie, Kentucky Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Mark Meadows, North Carolina Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Ron DeSantis, Florida Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Dennis A. Ross, Florida Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Mark Walker, North Carolina Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Rod Blum, Iowa Jamie Raskin, Maryland
Jody B. Hice, Georgia Jimmy Gomez, Maryland
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Peter Welch, Vermont
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania
Will Hurd, Texas Mark DeSaulnier, California
Gary J. Palmer, Alabama Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
James Comer, Kentucky John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Paul Mitchell, Michigan
Greg Gianforte, Montana
Sheria Clarke, Staff Director
William McKenna, General Counsel
Becca Brown, Counsel
Kiley Bidelman, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
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Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy and Environment
Greg Gianforte, Montana Chairman
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona, Vice Chair Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin
Dennis Ross, Florida Islands, Ranking Minority
Gary J. Palmer, Alabama Member
James Comer, Kentucky Jamie Raskin, Maryland
Michael Cloud, Texas Jimmy Gomez, California
(Vacancy)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 26, 2018.................................... 1
WITNESSES
Mr. Bill Harvey, Commission Chair, Baker County, Oregon
Oral Statement............................................... 4
Written Statement............................................ 7
Ms. Amy Granat, Managing Director, California Off-Road Vehicle
Association
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Mr. Jim Furnish, Consulting Forester, Former Deputy Chief for
National Forest Systems, U.S. Forest Service
Oral Statement............................................... 25
Written Statement............................................ 27
The Honorable Kerry White, Representative, Montana House of
Representatives
Oral Statement............................................... 30
Written Statement............................................ 32
ACCESS TO PUBLIC LANDS: THE EFFECTS OF FOREST SERVICE ROAD CLOSURES
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Tuesday, June 26, 2018
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy and
Environment
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in
Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Greg Gianforte
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Gianforte, Gosar, Palmer, and
Plaskett.
Mr. Gianforte. The Subcommittee for Interior, Energy, and
Environment will come to order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time. Oh, and I see our last witness has arrived.
Welcome.
So I'll begin with my opening statement. Welcome and thank
you for all for joining us this afternoon. The subcommittee on
Interior, Energy, and Environment is meeting today to discuss
the importance of access to our public lands managed by the
Forest Service.
The Forest Service manages about 200 million acres of land,
more than 370,000 miles of roads and more than 158,000 miles of
recreational trails across the United States, land that should
be open and accessible for use and enjoyment of all Americans.
Unfortunately, the Forest Service seems to be moving away
from its original multiple-use mission. Although Congress has
directed the Forest Service to manage land for grazing,
recreation, and wildlife habitat, among other things, the
Forest Service has locked up our public lands instead.
My home State of Montana is a perfect example. According to
a report by the Montana State Legislature's Environmental
Quality Council, the Forest Service has closed more than 21,000
miles of roads in Montana since the mid-1990s. That's nearly
one-third of all the Forest Service roads in the State. Kerry
White, the Montana State Representative who introduced the
resolution to commission the report, is here today to discuss
this important topic.
Access to public lands is not a problem just in Montana. We
know the Forest Service is closing and decommissioning roads in
other States as well. That's why we will also hear from
witnesses from California and Oregon who can share the
challenges of access to Forest Service land in their
communities. Keeping Forest Service land open to the public is
important for a number of reasons. First, we need to preserve
access for hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, and other outdoor
recreation, the benefits of which speak for themselves.
When the Forest Service blocks off roads and places
excessive restrictions on public lands, it prevents people from
participating in America's outdoor heritage. Outdoor recreation
is also big business. Each year, people spend $887 billion on
outdoor recreation, and the industry creates 7.6 million
American jobs. Some of these jobs are with small business that
depend on visitors to our public lands, such as guides,
outfitters, ski areas, off-road vehicles and snowmobile
dealers, even restaurants and gas stations.
Additionally, access to forestlands can help prevent the
spread of wildfires. If firefighters cannot quickly reach fires
on the ground, more acres burn and more firefighting resources
become necessary. Despite the measurable benefits of access to
public lands, the Forest Service is under pressure to close and
decommission thousands of miles of Forest Service-managed
trails and roads. Burdensome regulations, inconsistent
policies, lack of proper maintenance, and the constant threat
of litigation all contribute to the trend towards road
closures.
The witnesses here today can discuss the importance of
access to the Forest Service land, why the agency has trended
toward road closures in recent years, and what we can do to
restore public access to our public lands.
The Forest Service certainly has room for improvement.
However, this administration has made it clear that it's
absolutely imperative for Federal agencies to work with States
and local communities instead of dictating land management
decisions from Washington. That's why I hope to see strong
accountable leadership at the Forest Service soon.
Finally, I want to say thank you to all the witnesses, some
of whom traveled across the country to be here, and I look
forward to hearing your testimony.
I now recognize my friend, the ranking member, for her
comments.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much. And good afternoon to
everyone.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today.
And welcome to the committee. This is going to be wonderful
working together.
We can all agree that our national forests, administered by
the U.S. Forest Service, are among our Nation's treasures and
that they should be enjoyed by all. That is why it has been a
longstanding policy for decades by both Republican and
Democratic administrations to regulate the use of off-highway
vehicles on Forest Service lands and roads. This policy
stretches back to President Nixon, who, in 1972, issued an
executive order defining off-highway vehicles and directing
agencies to manage their use on public lands so as to protect
the resources of those lands, promote safety, and minimize
conflicts among the various users of those lands.
Still, the use of off-highway vehicles on Forest Service
land soared since the 1970s, so much so that Dale Bosworth,
President George W. Bush's Chief of U.S. Forest Service, listed
unmanaged outdoor recreation as one of the four major threats
to the health of the Nation's forests.
Mr. Bosworth specifically mentioned off-highway vehicle
users as part of the threat. He said, quote: ``Ninety-nine
percent of the users are careful to protect the land. But with
all of those millions of users, even a tiny percentage of
problem use becomes relatively huge. Each year, the national
forests and grasslands get hundreds of miles of unauthorized
roads and trails due to repeated cross-country use. We're
seeing more erosion, water degradation, and habitat
destruction. We're seeing more conflicts between users. We have
got to improve our management so we get responsible
recreational use based on sound outdoor ethics.''
Mr. Bosworth made it clear that to enable our national
forests to accommodate a variety of uses, we cannot forget that
there are costs to certain types of uses, not just benefits.
And I'm hopeful that, in this hearing, we'll hear other issues
on how we can work together to ensure that those different
users and the different constituencies are managed properly.
To address the problem of environmental degradation created
by some off-highway vehicle users, the Bush era Forest Service
issued the Travel Management Rule. The rule is designed to
guide Forest Service managers' decisions by looking to those
goals contained in President Nixon's executive order: sustained
resource values, provide economic benefits to rural
communities, promote safety, and minimize conflict among
various users. The rule also explicitly requires public
involvement and has a responsive process that is aimed at long-
term solutions for the transportation system through a given
forest.
While I do not have a national forest in my district, the
U.S. Virgin Islands, we do have lands managed by the National
Park Service, a tremendous amount of lands and percentages,
particularly on the island of St. John. I'm familiar with the
issue of public access to our natural resources. I hear far too
often and frequently from our constituents who are involved in
disputes with the National Park Service concerning what they
believe is deliberately blocked roadways and land easement
disputes, which are just in some instances to many of those
constituents generational.
We have seen an alarming escalation in the amount of
residents engaged in real estate boundary and property line
challenges with the National Park Service as well. It has been
my experience that public access to government-owned lands are
best resolved through public engagement and finding a balance
between environmental and the communities in which those
environments resides' interests. I hope that today's hearing
will provide this opportunity.
Finally, as I close, let me say that I'm hopeful that the
committee will convene to examine how the Forest Service is
handling sexual harassment allegations within the agencies as
well.
In December 2016, the committee held a hearing to examine
sexual harassment in the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
including the Forest Service. During that hearing, the
committee heard from whistleblowers, who described not only how
they had suffered prolonged harassment, but how they had also
suffered retaliation when they reported the harassment. When
the Forest Service had established a new process to handle
sexual harassment allegations, it was clear that significant
challenges remain and that many women are still scared to come
forward. A recent PBS NewsHour investigation of the Forest
Service, which was entitled ``They Reported Sexual Harassment.
Then the Retaliation Began,'' featured disturbing interviews
with several Forest Service veterans who reported not only
assaults but also harassment. So I'd love for us to get an
update on the committee's hearing from December 16. Thank you
so much.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you for that.
I am now very pleased to introduce our witnesses today. Mr.
Bill Harvey is commissioner and chair of Baker County, Oregon;
Ms. Amy Granat, managing director of the California Off-Road
Vehicle Association; Mr. Jim Furnish, consulting forester and
former U.S. Forest Service Deputy Chief for the National Forest
Systems; and the Honorable Kerry White, representative in the
Montana House of Representatives.
Welcome to all of you.
Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in
before we testify. Please remain seated and just raise your
right hand, if you would. Do you solemnly swear or affirm the
testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in
the affirmative.
To allow time for discussion, we're going to ask for each
person to limit their comments to 5 minutes. Additional--your
entire written testimony will be entered into the record. As a
reminder, the clock in front of you shows your remaining time.
The light will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds and red
when your time is up. Please also remember to press the button.
You have to turn your microphone on to speak.
At this time, we'll start with Mr. Harvey, if you would,
for your 5 minutes of testimony.
WITNESS TESTIMONIES
TESTIMONY OF BILL HARVEY
Mr. Harvey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Ranking Member, committee members, thank you for today. I'm
gratefully honored to be here today to speak to this issue in
particular.
I am a county commission chairman. That means I deal with
the on-the-ground everyday issues with people, and land issues
is the one thing I work on every single day of my career. This
is a career that I've taken on because of the need from the
citizens of my county, have emphasized they needed help to
accomplish these things.
In your statements, both of you mentioned things about
Forest Service management, and I'd like to add to that
mismanagement. Also, it's not Forest Service land. They manage
it for the public. That's very important to our area
especially, and our Forest Service address it that way.
So I'd like to give you a little background on Baker
County. That's where I'm from. This is in eastern Oregon. It's
a drier climate than what the coast is. So we get about 12
inches of measurable moisture a year. That's in the form of
snow and rain.
So road issues. There is little to no erosion in our area
because the roads have been there for over 50 years. And the
only time you have erosion issues is when the Forest Service
comes in and rips them up with a Cat. They say that they have
no money for restoration or maintenance or what have you, yet
they spend a fortune in tearing roads out, good roads, roads
that have been in place and used for vehicle traffic and off-
road traffic and what have you.
I'm not sure if Mr. Bush's team ever visited eastern
Oregon, but I would have gladly taken them out, either
horseback riding, walking, hiking, or motorized travel as well.
Motorized travel is very important in Baker County because we
have 3,000 square miles in Baker County. That's bigger than the
States of Rhode Island and Delaware.
We have 2 million acres of land in Baker County. Half of
it, 51.5 percent, is managed by the Federal Government, both by
BLM and the Forest Service. Some of the things that we have
left in the remaining 48 percent of our land is approximately
950,000 acres plus, is for roads, rivers, towns, and private
property.
The citizens of Baker County rely on both public and
private land for natural resources, recreation, and the ability
to continue our way of life, especially for agriculture,
livestock grazing, mining, and timber harvests. Therefore, all
of the decisions affecting public lands could potentially
affect Baker County's economy, customs, culture, and enjoyment
of the land.
When I moved to Baker County in 1972, the county had six
timber mills, but we have none now. The forest keeps growing.
The reason they did that was more of a philosophy change, not
any sound science. No management principles or anything, just a
change in philosophy.
Well, our forests haven't changed. They're continuing to
grow. They're continuing to die. They're continuing to be
overcrowded. As an example, the Baker City watershed, 10,000
acres. In historical measures, in 1900, there actually was
pictures of it. There was 50 trees per acre. Today, we
currently have 1,000 trees per acre.
This watershed serves a town of 10,000 people. It is in
drastic threat every single year. On average, we have four
fires in the watershed a year. Miraculously, we throw
everything we have at it instantly to take care of that issue,
but we're not going to be able to keep it up.
When I took office in 2015, we had historical fires the
level that we have never had in any of our county whatsoever or
since yet, and I emphasize yet. We had four major forest fires
going on at the same time. We had 500 to 600 personnel from the
Forest Service and BLM and everybody else there in Baker City
trying to manage this fire--emphasize manage fire. We no longer
fight fires; we manage them. Unfortunately, we manage them so
that it's a big business. We bring a lot of people in clear
across the country because they're first on the list to come
and fight fires. I have fought very hard to allow our local
firefighters to fight these fires immediately so that there's
no threat to what the town is.
I'd like to talk about coordination. Coordination is a
principle and a way that we could actually make things happen.
It is the law; Congress installed it. And I'd like to use that.
If you want to have some of the things that work, that would be
a great start to begin with. But the threat to our county
economy is also severe when you limit the access that we have
to our forests, and we do need those forests to help do that.
Thank you very much.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Harvey follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you, Mr. Harvey.
And we'll recognize Ms. Granat for her comments for 5
minutes.
TESTIMONY OF AMY GRANAT
Ms. Granat. Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for giving
me the opportunity to testify. We work in partnership,
California Off-Road Vehicle Association, with Sierra Access
Coalition, both organizations working to protect forest access
for a range of public uses. In 2004, former Chief Bosworth
defined four major threats to our forests, including invasive
species, wildfire, and loss of open space.
However, the fourth thread, off-road recreation, directly
targeted motorized-dependent activities and, by doing so,
declared it an unacceptable use of forested land. The Travel
Management Rule, or TMR, caused thousands of miles of road and
trail closures through massive NEPA analyses that harm
businesses, communities, disabled individuals, and every form
of overland and over-snow travel. The public lost significant
access to areas they loved.
Although former Chief Bosworth also stated in 2004 that
other forms of recreation can cause damage, horseback riding,
bike riding, even hiking or camping, none of those uses have
ever been subject to closure, curtailment, or regulatory
action. The TMR requires people to limit travels to routes on a
map called a Motor Vehicle Use Map. It is a poor map with no
landmarks, but somehow people are supposed to follow only those
routes shown. It's printed on a flimsy sheet of newsprint. The
agency states that the MVUM, or Motorized Vehicle Use Map, is
not intended to be a navigational tool, but it is the legally
binding enforcement tool. Without knowing where they are,
people can face fines of $5,000 and/or 6 months' imprisonment
if found on the wrong road.
Environmental organizations played a key role in the TMR
decisionmaking process. The Wilderness Society wrote a travel
management wish list to the agency, stating: We intend to
provide as much data as we can to the region.
Biologists from the Wilderness Society also provided
transportation-related data for the travel management planning
process. They provide the data. Then they get their way.
To support closure decisions, the Forest Service used
unverified and incomplete information and National Visitor User
Monitoring, or NVUM, surveys to downplay the importance of
motorized access. For the Inyo National Forest, for example,
the NVUM indicated almost zero percent OHV activity, but
information submitted on grant applications to the State of
California showed 22 percent OHV primary activity visits. Both
sets of data cannot be true at the same time. Information
submitted to the Statewas subject to review and audit;
therefore, it represents the true numbers.
The Forest Service failed to coordinate with local
governments, although regulations state agencies shall
cooperate to the fullest extent possible to better integrate
environmental impact statements into State and local planning
processes. This strongly implies a working relationship with
local governments and coordination/compliance with local
planning. This issue is a high priority and deserves
clarification and consequences in law. Coordination or
compliance lacks teeth, requiring agencies to work in a
meaningful manner with local governments.
The Travel Management Rule has also been devastating to
fire suppression efforts. Previously, fires were accessible to
initial attack. With roads closed, fires burn out of control
and make it difficult to get a dozer to cut a road near a fire.
Catastrophic wildfire has increased exponentially on Forest
Service land in California.
Environmental groups may claim that road closures are
beneficial to watershed, but sedimentation from a road can be
mitigated and pales in comparison to sedimentation from a
watershed devastated by wildfire.
Travel management decisions have had a disproportionate
impact on disabled visitors. The analysis for the Eldorado
National Forest stated: Restrictions on public wheeled motor
vehicle use will impact persons with disabilities to a greater
extent, particularly for those routes which provide access to
recreation opportunities, such as dispersed camping, stream
site access, et cetera.
But the agency dismissed all disabled concerns.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 says that no person can be
denied participation in a Federal program or facility solely
because of their disability. National Forests are owned by the
American people and funded by American citizens. The Forest
Service is actively denying participation to disabled Americans
and granting greater access to able-bodied Americans, making
the disabled second-class citizens.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Granat follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you, Ms. Granat.
And now we'll recognize Mr. Furnish for your 5 minutes of
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF JIM FURNISH
Mr. Furnish. Thank you, Chairman Gianforte and Ranking
Member Plaskett. I am Jim Furnish, former USDA Forest Service
Deputy Chief for National Forest Systems. I retired in 2002,
following a 35-year career in the agency.
This career included jobs as a district ranger, also a
forest supervisor. I managed national forests and their complex
issues at both the policy level and the practical field level.
I'm well acquainted with these issues, and I bring a wealth of
experience.
As a Bighorn National Forest ranger from 1977 to 1984, I
took aggressive steps to reduce four-wheel drives and trails.
As Siuslaw National Forest supervisor from 1991 to 1999, I
completed a travel plan for the Oregon Dunes National
Recreation Area, a globally significant off-highway vehicle
area.
Now, today, I hope to speak to four main issues: One is the
emergence of off-highway vehicles as a potent force in
reshaping land management considerations; second, the
consequence of inadequate funding of road and trail maintenance
and access; third, the adequacy of agency coordination with
affected interests and parties; and, fourth, the ideological
battle over perceived public rights to recreate on public
lands.
I'd like to take you back when I first started working for
the Forest Service in the mid-sixties. OHVs were virtually
unheard of. I watched this machine and the users and the
recreation activity blossom over the course of my career to
become one of the most dominant effects on our land management
issues and the public we serve.
I left the agency just before the travel management
regulation that's been referenced, but this was an effort to
address for the first time, really, in a comprehensive way the
issue of off-highway vehicles and to strike a balance between
appropriate use and access of the land and these machines with
other necessary restrictions associated with the negative
consequences.
Historians will argue whether the Forest Service has done a
good job because this effort continues, but the travel
management regulation, in my view, as an extension of Nixon's
earlier executive order back in the seventies, is part of the
same tapestry that the Forest Service is using to try to get
their arms around this vexing issue.
It's been very much complicated by the funding. The Forest
Service, for as long as I've been in the agency and since, has
struggled with lack of road maintenance dollars as well as
travel maintenance dollars. And this issue has been exacerbated
in the recent decades relative to fire funding. And I would
like to say that Congress has stepped up to try and deal with
that fire funding issue. And so that is--that has helped, but
nevertheless, the Forest Service continues to be chronically
short of road maintenance and trail maintenance dollars.
I would also say you can never get enough thoughtful
cooperation, which brings me to coordination with groups and
individuals interested in OHV issues and, more broadly, access
to public lands. The Forest Service, as required by law and
policy, has, since its very inception in the late 1800s, sought
to coordinate with interested parties in reaching decisions.
Seeking out and considering the views of all sides of an issue
are the essence of public service.
The agency uses public notices, holds public meetings, and
has created numerous resource advisory committees, all in a
spirit of coordination. All these are commonly used in dealing
with OHV and access issues. I routinely accepted requests to
meet with OHV advocates and groups, and these meetings often
involved field trips to look at issues firsthand, which leads
me to say there is a difference between listening,
understanding, and agreeing.
I think some parties do not feel listened to--coordinated
with--when they are not agreed with. Put another way,
coordination is deemed ineffective or nonexistent if decisions
and outcomes are seen as unsatisfactory. I do not believe
coordination necessitates agreement, especially when
considering multiple viewpoints on contentious issues.
And by far, the thorniest issue is an ideological one. For
example, what does ``public land'' mean? What rights does it
confer on citizens? What reasonable authority is vested in
agency officials discharging their responsibility to manage
OHVs and access in the public interest? And I would say, in
reference to your comment that national forests are locked up,
I would say they are open for business. Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Furnish follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you, Mr. Furnish.
At this time, I'd like to recognize Representative White
for your 5 minutes of testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE KERRY WHITE
Mr. White. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee.
A little background on myself. My family has been in the
Gallatin Valley for 150 years. My great-grandfather came there
when he was 13 years old. And I've seen quite a change in the
Forest Service over those years. Our family is a leaseholder
with a cabin in the Storm Castle drainage. We currently pay
over $3,000 a year in lease, but we only have access to the
cabin half of the year because of the travel management plan
that was passed by the Forest Service in 2004.
When they came out with that plan, myself and 11 other
folks started Citizens for Balanced Use, to try to understand
why the Forest Service was closing about 50 percent of the
roads and trails in that forest to motorized use. There was
closures proposed for bicycles and mechanized use, and there
was also proposed closures to horse.
They came out with a draft environmental impact statement
over 1,500 pages. And after that, they came out with a final
environmental impact statement over 1,500 pages, and asked the
public to consume and digest this document and provide
substantive comments to the Forest Service. The general public
is not the Forest Service with professionals to comprehend a
document of that size. After that, the document was approved.
The Record of Decision was signed. CBU sued that in Federal
court in Missoula. We ultimately lost. We appealed that to
Federal Court of the Ninth Circuit in California, and we
ultimately lost. And that's our last opportunity. The Supreme
Court is not going to take a case on Travel Management Rule and
locking people out of the forest.
I'd like you to take a look at the written testimony that I
submitted. There's a photo there of the DEIS and the FEIS with
a ruler showing the massive amount of document that's prepared
by the Forest Service that the public is asked to look at.
There's also a couple of pages of road closures. This is how
the Forest Service closes the roads. They call them rip, slash,
and seed, where they tear live trees out of the ground, stack
them across the road. It blocks access for, not only motorized
and mechanized use, but also hiking, horseback, cross-country
skiing.
There has been--and I would agree with Mr. Furnish--a
significant increase in OHV use, but I would also refer to the
recreation specialist's report from the Gallatin that shows
national trends indicate that aging populations may desire more
accessible opportunities. Our population is aging. We need
those recreational access.
There is also a photo illustration of four major cities in
Montana last summer where air quality was hazardous. And
there's also a report from the USDA 2013 Wildland Firefighter
Smoke Exposure and the toxins that is in this smoke. There is
also a chart from Montana Department of Environmental Quality,
the State in which I'm from, that shows the effects from
wildfire smoke. And in the top four categories of that chart,
it will show you it causes premature mortality. In other words,
these fires are killing people because of the toxins that are
released in the air.
There's also a picture that I've attached there of the
erosion that happens, the sedimentation that goes into our
streams. It shows the condition of our forests out there. Some
of our forests out there are over 80 percent dead. And the
Forest Service is not cutting the timber or not managing it
actively. They're actually proposing to do more prescribed
burns, which if you look at that report from the Firefighter
Smoke, those toxins are released whether they are wildfire or
prescribed burns.
I just would ask this committee to bring attention to what
we're faced in Montana. Almost 22,000 miles of roads closed.
And I would just ask you to think a minute. The emotional
impact that these closures have on a father or a grandfather
that cannot take their kids or their grandkids to those places
that they shared with their father or their grandfather before
them, as there's a closed gate or obliterated road.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[Prepared statement of Mr. White follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you, Mr. White.
And thank you for the panel for your testimony.
We'll now move to the period where the committee gets to
ask questions, and I'll start, if I could.
Back to you, Representative White. Could you please explain
to the committee what prompted the need to study road closures
in Montana? You initiated that in the State legislature, and it
was completed by Department of Environmental quality, but help
us with the--why did you do that?
Mr. White. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee.
I first was elected to the legislature in 2013. I carried a
bill that allowed the growth policy to be the legal document to
coordinate because we were seeing road closures. 2004, as I
mentioned, CBU was started. And through that organization, when
I became a legislator, phone call after phone call. And U.S.
legislators understand when there's an issue out there that's
of importance, you get phone calls. And that's really what
prompted it, from one end of the State to the other, from other
States.
And so I brought a study, HJ 13. I just wanted to see how
much access we had lost that Forest Service and BLM--that study
covers both of them--how much access we had lost in the last 20
years. So what prompted it was a public outcry that we're
losing access.
Mr. Gianforte. And, again, just for the record, the study
showed that one-third of all the roads in Montana had been
closed by the Forest Service and BLM. Is that correct?
Mr. White. Yes.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. Again, for Mr. White, does the Forest
Service have reliable data on road closures, and would you
suggest that other States do some more studies?
Mr. White. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I would
suggest that other States initiate a study like this. When we
did this under the Environmental Quality Council, of which I
was a member of and I chaired that subcommittee that was
working on it, we worked on it with a liaison with the BLM and
a liaison with the Forest Service that helped go through that
study. But it was a long and tedious process because each one
of those forests had to try to go back and find that
information. And, in fact, the BLM is very lacking on their
records and their inventory of roads and trails.
The Forest Service was able to garner that information from
all those, I think it might be 13 different forests within the
State of Montana. And then our staff with the Environmental
Quality Council put together that report. I have a link to that
report that I submitted. If you go to that link, it's an
interactive link. There's lots of things you can do through
that link as those links inside of the study are active links
to be able to do that.
I would suggest that other States do that, first of all,
because it would produce an accurate inventory of what is out
there on the ground and then look back at what we've lost for
access.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. Ms. Granat, could you describe the
consequences of losing access to public land?
Ms. Granat. The consequences are very broad, Mr. Chair.
Every aspect of community life is affected. And for California,
we have 19 forests. There isn't any other State that has as
many forests as we do. So we have rural communities up and down
the spine of the Sierra Nevada up until northern California
that are not, by far, not wealthy communities. You take a
little bit of recreation/tourism away from them and they start
suffering. There's high poverty rates. There are higher jobless
rates. There's a lack of services.
One of the biggest problems is the lack of timber harvests
because timber harvest, out of that, 25 percent used to go to
schools and to road maintenance dollars of the proceeds of the
harvest, of the timber sale. After now, there is no timber
sales--there are no timber sales. There was a measure to secure
rural school funding which tried to make up some of it, but
where before there were a few million dollars that went to
local economies, now it's much, much lower. So, really, older
people are suffering and schoolchildren are suffering.
Mr. Gianforte. Could you explain a little more about the
economic impact on the local communities from lack of access?
Ms. Granat. It's a very interesting thing because we
actually studied the difference between motorized and
nonmotorized recreations. The majority of nonmotorized
recreations don't spend time in the local communities. They go
out and go to their trailheads. They come back. Most of their
equipment is purchased where they live in local stores.
Motorized enthusiasts spend a lot of time. They go to hotel
rooms. They go to restaurants. They do like to eat well, I
would say. And they spend time in the local communities, and
they go back off into those communities. Hunters, for example,
will spend easily $1,300 to $2,000 a weekend.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Granat.
At this time, I'd like to--well, I'd ask the same question
of Mr. Harvey. What are the consequences of losing access to
public lands?
Mr. Harvey. Well, first off, we had a vibrant timber
industry at one time. And they said, well, because of that,
we'll open up the opportunities for having travel in the forest
so that you can have a recreational economy. We did that. We
expanded our efforts. We promoted, and we've done all that.
That's one of the--part of the recreation that we have now is
the biggest economy in Baker County, next to agriculture. But
without the access, we have none. We're trying to expand it
right now, use of off-road vehicles and also bike riding,
mountain bike riding now. But if these same accesses are closed
to one, they're going to be closed to both.
And if you put everybody in the same area and diminish the
amount of roads, then you create a dust hazard for everybody.
And you're also putting multiuses on the same road. So you'll
have off-road vehicles. You have four-wheel truck driving.
You'll have potential log trucks on private land sales, and
you'll have people who are horseback riding and what have you.
This is a danger that we can't survive with.
But if you close off the roads as they're trying to do
right now, which is about 4,000 more miles of roads in Baker
County, we don't have as much as Montana, but that's the
lifeblood that we have. I live out there. I have for 45 years.
I utilize that. I do off-road vehicle travel. I do horseback
riding. Many ranchers take supplies out for their cattle on
four-wheel drives and off-road vehicles, so they can get to the
down areas that they need to get salt to their cattle.
This whole area is a truly multiuse activity, and that's
what benefits Baker County. Without our access, people can't do
the thinning projects, and we can't do logging. So this does
affect the economy.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Harvey.
At this time, I'd like to recognize the ranking member, Ms.
Plaskett, for her questions.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much. And this is really very
interesting, the testimony and your questioning, Mr. Chair. I'm
appreciative of the information that's been shared here.
Mr. Furnish, thank you so much for giving us your insights
and experiences at this hearing today. And you state in your
testimony that, by law and policy, the Forest Service has
always sought to coordinate with interested parties; and that,
in such coordination, the Forest Service uses public notice,
public meetings, numerous advisory committees to make
decisions. Is that correct?
Mr. Furnish. Correct.
Ms. Plaskett. Can you give us an example of what that
public notice would entail, how the public be would notified,
and how that information would be disseminated?
Mr. Furnish. Well, oftentimes these are legal notices in
local newspapers as well as articles that show up in local
newspapers. They put fliers and posters around local
communities, libraries. If there are radio shows, they will
often go on the radio, advertise upcoming meetings.
And I would just say that, in my experience, the popularity
of these open meetings to discuss contentious issues on
national forests would provide the best testimony that people
hear about this. They are not in the dark.
Ms. Plaskett. Well, I know in my own community, you get a
certain group of people that are very interested in this, and
they're usually there to voice their concerns.
Mr. Furnish. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. When you talk about numerous advisory
committees, what do you mean by that?
Mr. Furnish. Well, there was a provision a number of years
ago for--I think the term is resource advisory committees or
RACs. This would be one example of a federally constituted
committee. And they have open meetings with selected
representatives from all different constituencies.
There are also ad hoc committees that deal on an issue-
oriented basis, that type of thing. So there are any number of
groups and organizations that the Forest Service works with,
both formally and informally.
Ms. Plaskett. So one of the things that I think is key, and
we've heard it a number of times in different testimony, is
this idea about coordination.
Mr. Furnish. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. And the coordination that's required under
the law, and how does that actually take place on the ground.
You talked from your own experience, being as a Forest Service
manager, of having to coordinate different viewpoints. Can you
explain to us what those different viewpoints were and how do
you weigh that? How does that occur, in your practical
experience?
Mr. Furnish. Well, it's difficult.
Ms. Plaskett. It's still giving you pause even after all
these years?
Mr. Furnish. I mean, it is difficult just because it's
something of an art as well as a science. But, I mean, let me
take you to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. This was
a fantastic dune system on the Oregon coast. It's one of the
world's best off-highway vehicle riding areas and enormously
popular, and it's a huge economic driver for the local
communities.
We had formal meetings. We did an EIS. We did all of that
kind of stuff. And some of these meetings were attended by
hundreds of people. But we also did field trips. And I had an
associate there, Arnold Ryland, who worked with Oregon Off-
Highway Vehicle Association, I'm sure much like the woman here
from California.
And Arnold and I met repeatedly in office as well as out in
the field so that he could share his views, I could share my
views. And I also met with conservation groups, who, frankly,
didn't like off-highway vehicles and wanted to know what I was
going to do to restrict them.
I would just say that we came up with in the long run what
I think was a fairly balanced plan that gave all parties some
of what they wanted and also denied all parties some of what
they wanted.
Ms. Plaskett. So, for example, in the discussion that we've
had, what--for instance, would you characterize the views of
hunters and fishermen at the same time off-highway vehicle
users? Do those--are there times when those viewpoints
converge? Are they usually oppositional to one another? How do
you manage that?
Mr. Furnish. Well, you know, it's interesting. The hunting
and fishing community I think illustrates within itself a
conflict and a contrast, because I happen to know some dear
friends who are resolute about never using an off-highway
vehicle in the pursuit of hunting. I also know fishermen who
are determined to hike in.
I also know those who would like to be able to drive an OHV
up to their bagged game, throw it in back and drive back to
camp. I know fishermen who would like to be able to drive right
up to a platform that's provided for people with disabilities.
All these things I would argue are necessary, but it's
impossible to provide them everywhere all the time for all
people.
Ms. Plaskett. So the Travel Management Rule requires that
the Forest Service involve the public. So let me move on to
that. I wanted to ask you about the funding. You talked about
funding issues that you have.
Mr. Furnish. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Mr. Furnish. Well, bear in mind I left the Forest Service
in 2002, so I'm not as conversant as I was when I was the
Deputy Chief. But I would just say, throughout my career, I
would say this has been an area of chronic underfunding of both
road maintenance as well as trail maintenance.
And I would argue it's a simple business proposition. If
you don't have the necessary funding to take care of your
business, you need to whittle it down. And so this was largely
driven by the creation of many of these roads and trails
through two things. The first was timber activity, which we saw
many of the national forests logged from the fifties throughout
the nineties that created thousands and thousands of miles of
road; also, unrestrained off-highway vehicles that created
numerous, hundreds of thousands of miles of trails that were
not engineered.
These two features I would argue, logging roads as well as
off-highway vehicle-created trails, came to real loggerheads
with the lack of funding and necessitated this travel
management regulation and the necessary comprehensive planning
to try to right-size the trail and road system.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
And thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you. At this time, the chair
recognizes Mr. Gosar for his questions.
Mr. Gosar. So, Mr. Furnish, isn't a lot of the underfunding
fire borrowing, because you've seen its advent since you've
been in the Forest Service, these huge catastrophic fires? And
so we strip all the rest of the funding for the Forest Service
because we got to pay for these humongous catastrophic fires.
Isn't that true? The answer is yes. I don't want you to get any
crossways. I'm from Arizona, and I'm originally from Wyoming.
So it's been brought to my attention that a Forest Service
gate was placed across Forest Road 219, Horseshoe Bend Road,
blocking access to considerable public land acres behind the
gate, as right here, with no appropriate level of analysis or
document rationale to do so.
Further, it's my understanding this gate is locked and
recreation staff who manage the float trips on your forest are
one of the few who have a key. Now, this is a serious matter if
access is impacted for State and local government
administrations in addition to the fact that it prohibits
public use of public land and legal obligations of permitted
grazing allotment management. Just to let you know, what this
basically says is it says wilderness, and it's not even close
to wilderness.
Mr. Furnish. Well, I can't see the pictures.
Mr. Gosar. I'm explaining it to you. You'll have to trust
me on this one, okay?
Mr. Furnish. I'll try.
Mr. Gosar. So, additionally to this gate, for some time,
there was a sign that read national forest wilderness,
misleading the public that directly behind the gate is a
wilderness. This picture shows that that wilderness area isn't
there. This is and has never been designated a wilderness area
and on quite the contrary. There are many acres of multiple use
lands directly beyond this gate before the true wilderness
begins. So this is not your just average gate, okay? This is
severely constructed.
Mr. Furnish. I assume that's a road, not a trail.
Mr. Gosar. It's a road, yeah, and here it is. You can see
where the road comes down the bottom right-hand corner to,
yeah, your right-hand corner, and you can see private and then
way over here is the wilderness. Here is the gate, gives you a
little bit more application here. So, I mean, you know, once
again, we constantly have these problems.
Now, is it common practice for the Forest Service to put up
gates blocking access and signs designating wilderness in
nonwilderness areas?
Mr. Furnish. I would hope no.
Mr. Gosar. I just showed you one.
Mr. Furnish. Well, you asked me if it's common practice. We
have 200 million----
Mr. Gosar. There are a whole bunch of them in Arizona. I
mean, I can tell you right now, Mr. Furnish. I mean, you came
as an expert here. And so we had--my first term we had the
Wallowa fire up in northeastern Arizona.
Mr. Furnish. I'm familiar with it.
Mr. Gosar. Okay? And what ended up happening is, is they
actually closed the roads. They locked them up. And I went to
the chief, and I said: Listen, you got a problem coming because
what you're doing is you're locking people out of their
livelihood. And what's going to happen, we're going to have a
gunfight; someone's going to get killed; and it's your problem.
I instantly had the sheriffs who had all the keys.
So we got a problem here. This isn't exactly what you have
stated, is that we've had these catastrophic wildfires, and the
reason we have those catastrophic fires is because you've
mismanaged the forest. And what ends up happening is, before
that time, we didn't have these kind of catastrophic fires in
Arizona, because they were limited 8,000 acres or less because
we had access to those, because we had fundamental access to
the livelihood called the forest. You either manage it or it
manages you.
So, Mr. White, the comment was made about recreation and
trout fishermen and stuff. When you have these catastrophic
fires, does it help trout?
Mr. White. No, sir.
Mr. Gosar. It actually kills them off, doesn't it?
Mr. White. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gosar. Because what ends up happening, these forest
fires are so intensely hot that they actually sterilize the
soil.
Mr. White. Yes, sir. I actually had pictures I was going to
provide the committee on Elk that were burned up, domestic
livestock, horses, cows, fish baked in the streams, squirrels.
Everything in the forest is completely incinerated, but I just
didn't give that to the committee.
Mr. Gosar. I want you to bring those pictures.
Mr. White. I will.
Mr. Gianforte. Now, Mr. Furnish, I'm going to ask you
another question. What's worse? What is easier mitigated, a
road or sterilized soil from a catastrophic fire?
Mr. Furnish. What is easier----
Mr. Gosar. What's easier mitigated ecologically, a road or
a catastrophically incinerated soil?
Mr. Furnish. That depends on many things. It depends on how
many acres of such sterilized soil you're talking about.
Mr. Gosar. I tell you what, sterilized soil is by far----
Mr. Furnish. Are you talking about a 50-mile road or a 1-
mile road, 2,000 acres of sterilized soils, 100 acres?
Mr. Gosar. It takes 50 years just to get microbes in
sterilized soil, 50 years.
Mr. Harvey, is it easier to mitigate that road or that
sterilized soil?
Mr. Harvey. The roads are far more----
Mr. Gosar. That's what I thought. That's what I thought.
Mr. Chairman, once again, when we have these discussions
about locking up the access to the public, it would be nice to
have specialists that actually can talk about this that are
currently involved in the Forest Service so they can be held
accountable.
I yield back.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you.
At this time, the chair would recognize Mr. Palmer for his
questions.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gianforte. And if I could, just 1 second. I think that,
with the number of committee members here, we'll probably do
another round if people want to stay.
Mr. Palmer. Okay.
Mr. Gianforte. And I talked to the ranking member about
that.
So go ahead, Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Reclaiming my time, we have had some discussion just now
about forest management. There was also the issue of managing
forests, particularly old-growth forests, relative to spotted
owl, and the Forest Service and the various Federal agencies
came up with this idea that it had to be all old growth. It
turns out that wasn't the case. I mean, once they figured out
that the spotted owl preferred cover and taller trees and not
the extensive canopy cover of the smaller trees, they realized
the biggest threat was the barred owl. I mean, they literally,
Mr. Chairman, were making a decision to hire people to go out
and kill barred owls.
So we've been all over the roadmap, if not the forest floor
roadmap, on how to manage forests. And a lot of what has been
discussed is wrong in regard to--I'm a forest owner, by the
way, private landowner. And I understand that the buildup of
fuel on the forest floor is extremely dangerous. It is
dangerous for your investment. It is dangerous to neighboring
landowners. And it has certainly been catastrophically
dangerous in a number of our Western States, with uncontrolled
forest fires. And it's largely because of poor forest
management and lack of access. And it creates a greater danger
for those fighting fires, because once you get into an area
that doesn't have access, you really do isolate firefighters
and put them in grave danger at times.
So my point is, Mr. Furnish, you testified in a hearing
almost a year ago, a year and 2 weeks ago tomorrow, or today,
actually, on resilient forests and a bill that I thought was a
very sensible approach to managing our Federal forests. It
allowed for management of the forests, much like I try to
manage the forestland that I'm a part-owner in.
But you had this position that it endangered the forest, to
go in and remove trees that don't have a benefit for wildlife,
particularly--there are some that do--but that somehow you
concluded that it would disturb the forest. And what we've seen
are hundreds of millions of acres that have been lost.
I don't understand that. You go look at some of the State-
managed forests, not all of them but some of them, and it's a
decided advantage. And, again, looking at the privately managed
forests.
So I just wonder what your thinking is in regard to
limiting access. Now, you know, I understand not wanting to
have four-wheelers racing all over forestland. I get that. You
can manage that. I managed it on my property. But why would we
not want to get in and make sure that we have healthy forest?
Because what we're seeing right now is not working.
Mr. Harvey?
Mr. Harvey. No, sir, it's not. And I'd like to touch base
on coordination, because that's a key aspect of it.
Mr. Palmer. Uh-huh.
Mr. Harvey. It's not working on the ground. When I talked
to the Forest Service supervisor in my area and the district
ranger, I asked, do you even know what I'm talking about, and
they said, no, we've never heard of it. So maybe in Washington,
D.C. they talked about it, but they did not transfer that down
to the ground level that I have to deal with on a daily basis.
We, as four-wheelers, horseback riders, or what have you,
we're in the forest. When we see a danger, we call it in
immediately. We diminish the threat to our forest. We manage
our forests on private lands and State lands far greater than
the Forest Service even remotely comes close to. So, yeah,
proper management can happen, it does happen, but not at that
level.
And they also say, we don't have enough money. The problem
with not having enough money, it's growing right in front of
you. It's called trees.
Mr. Palmer. That's exactly right.
The only forester in Congress is Congressman Bruce
Westerman, who's a dear friend of mine, and we have forest
management as a common interest. And the thing about properly
managing forest is that you get the fuel off the forest floor,
you are able to manage it to protect it from severe drought
situations by thinning, and you also protect it from insect
infestation. We've got this issue in Alabama with the pine
beetles where you literally have to go in and remove the
infected trees and the trees in the adjacent area. That's how
you preserve the forest.
And, Representative White, you mentioned--I don't know
where you got the number, but you said 80 percent of the trees
are dead. I've flown over some forests, and I, looking down in
the summertime at the canopy, can see the dead trees and know
that that is going to eventually spread to other areas if you
don't get in and cut those out.
If I may allow the witness to comment, and I yield back.
Mr. White. Thank you, Representative.
We had a massive outbreak of beetle kill in Montana. We
tried to get in and maybe harvest some of those trees.
Litigation pretty much stopped that, from environmental groups
that actually don't want any kind of active forest management.
They support burning it. Now those trees, after that amount of
time, they're just falling over.
The fuel load on the floor of the forest is unreal in some
of those areas. And the wildlife--this study, HJ13 study, will
show a movement of wildlife from public lands to private
property, an increase in wildlife, because of the habitat
degradation on those public lands. There is no habitat for
those animals. So we're seeing an influx of animals on private
land, which then causes an economic hardship on those private
landowners. So it's kind of a catch-22.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay.
So I think we'll--they've called votes for, like. 20
minutes. We probably have enough time for another round of
questions here.
And if I could start with you, Mr. White, I wanted to go
back to your example about this lease you have. Is that on
forestland?
Mr. White. Yes, sir. My grandfather got that in 1934.
Mr. Gianforte. So it's been in the family a while.
Mr. White. My grandfather and grandmother built a cabin,
hand-peeled the logs.
Mr. Gianforte. And you used to have year-round access to
that cabin?
Mr. White. Yes, we did.
Mr. Gianforte. And when did the access get restricted?
Mr. White. 2008, when the tribal plan was signed, they put
a gate at the bridge. And when I say we used to have year-round
access, that was by vehicle travel. Now we can access it in the
wintertime if there's enough snow cover on the road for
snowmobiles. But where they put the gate, there's about 2 or 3
miles that melts out real early, so there's a month or 2 that
we cannot access it at all.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. When this travel plan was changed,
were your lease arrangements reduced to compensate you for not
having access to the property?
Mr. White. No, sir.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay.
And we heard about all this public notice. You talked about
the 1,500-page document that you had to review. Were there
public meetings related to this travel plan?
Mr. White. Yes, there were, Mr. Chairman.
And, you know, I think years ago in a public hearing the
Forest Service would sit up there and answer questions from the
public in a public setting. Now what you have is little
stations and little tables where you go around, and there will
be a hydrologist, and there will be a silviculturist, and there
will be a recreation manager. And so, you know, they kind of
tend to separate the people, and the people don't really have
the opportunity to ask those questions.
Mr. Gianforte. Do you feel, through that--you went through
that process.
Mr. White. Yes.
Mr. Gianforte. Do you feel that your concerns were
incorporated into the travel management plan?
Mr. White. No, sir.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay.
We've heard a lot of discussion today about off-highway
vehicles. But isn't it the case that many of these road
closures are not about off-highway vehicles, they're about
pickup trucks just transporting people on developed roads?
Mr. White. Mr. Chairman, the pictures that I showed of
those road closures, rip, slash, and seed, they are completely
obliterating that road or trail. It's gone for everyone. No
more maintenance on that trail, because that trail never
existed.
And I provided copies of maps from 1934 to the Forest
Service and all the trails that were on that. And you look at a
current Forest Service map, and you will see, once they
obliterate that trail, they remove it from the map. It was like
it was never there.
So when they say that these were user-created routes and
stuff, I challenge them to look at the old maps of the Forest
Service and actually look at what was on the ground.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. Thank you for that.
Mr. Harvey, we've heard about families being unable to
access drainages where they've hunted generations ago and all
of a sudden the decision by the Forest Service completely cuts
the family off from access. We've heard about leases.
I'm interested in your comments about how, in your area,
road closures impact the public's ability to get access to the
land.
Mr. Harvey. Many of the people in Baker County have lived
there for all their lives, their families for many years, like
Mr. Kerry's. The problem is, now that Forest Service wants to
close the roads--and these are good roads. These are engineered
roads, as the gentleman pointed out. The problem is we don't
need engineered roads for off-wheel vehicles. And the roads
that we ride in personally are old logging trails. We're not
doing any damage to them.
But the thing is we pleasure-ride; we don't race. And we
police ourselves. We pick up trash if there is any.We go after
people who are disobeying the laws and things like that.
But the coordination process could work on what roads
should be or could be closed if necessary. The coordination is
actually government-to-government. I don't need them to put out
a public notice that they're having a public meeting, take
everybody's input, and treat the counties as the public. That's
what they do. That's not the law of coordination. Coordination
is actual sitting down, designing the plans from the beginning,
not coming in at the end and commenting like anybody else.
If we had the opportunity to sit down and help design these
plans, we could alleviate 15 years of the planning process,
because we would be a partner with them. And we would go to the
public and say, this is what your input to us and ours to them
has brought forth. And that's what coordination truly is.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you.
Ms. Granat, if you could comment on how these road closures
have impacted your use of public lands.
Ms. Granat. As a disabled person, a mother, and a
grandmother, I got involved in this for a very personal reason.
We went to go on a trail--and I am that fabled off-roader that
takes my Jeep through the woods. I haven't raced in a really
long time, but I do like a good challenge. So, you know, when I
go home, I'm just an average Jeeper.
But we went to go on a trail and didn't realize until we
saw it that there was a gate across the road, and the road had
been closed in the year interim. And I told my friends, my
kids, you know, go ahead, go see the road, go see what
happened, but I couldn't walk any further, and so I had to stay
by the road while they went inside. And I sat by my Jeep very
sad.
Getting areas closed off to you, knowing that you will
never, ever see them again--every additional wilderness, every
additional wilderness study area, every additional nonmotorized
back-country, there are so many designations, and they limit
access to people.
And it's so many people now that are--you know, I'm a baby
boomer. We're getting older. And the areas that people have had
access to for years, as Representative White was saying--I work
with hunters all the time who say: But I can't get back there.
I can't take--you know, how can I hunt if I can't take a game
card into a wilderness?
Wheelchairs are illegal in wilderness. They're not allowed.
So that's the extent to where we have gotten in keeping people
out.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. Thank you.
At this time, Ms. Plaskett, do you have additional
question?
Ms. Plaskett. Yes. Thank you very much.
We've talked quite a bit about the travel management rule.
And one of the things that we've discussed is the road system
and the part called the ``Road System Management:
Identification of Unneeded Roads.'' ``Forest officials should
give priority to decommissioning those unneeded roads that pose
the greatest risk to public safety or environmental
degradation.''
Mr. Furnish, during your time at the Forest Service, what
were some of the reasons you encountered as to why a road maybe
needed to be closed?
Mr. Furnish. Well, one of the main reasons has to do with
unmaintained roads and sedimentation that affects water
quality. That's one of the big ones.
Sometimes it's a single-purpose road, like for timber
management. And so if you're logging an area and then you don't
intend to go back there for 20 or 30 years--that was intended
to log, and so, when the logging is over, close the road, wait
30 years. When you come back, you can open it up again.
Ms. Plaskett. And are times given--is something put in that
says that this road will reopen in 20 years? Or is it that then
you just have to----
Mr. Furnish. Typically not, because I think that's too far
to foresee with any kind of precision.
Ms. Plaskett. So then how does a logger then be able to
have that road reopened for them to be able to use it?
Mr. Furnish. Well, generally, the road prism, the structure
of the road, is still there, and you can just come in with a
blade, a piece of equipment, and just reshape it and it's ready
for use.
Ms. Plaskett. But if it's closed off for those purposes,
would they have to----
Mr. Furnish. Well, there's a difference between whether a
road has actually been decommissioned versus just closed.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay.
Mr. Furnish. If a road has simply been closed, it can
simply be reopened again by reopening a gate. But if it's been
decommissioned, then it's really not intended to, for instance,
log that area again.
Ms. Plaskett. How do you balance that against the reasons
that people are given and, you know, some of the really
compelling testimony that's here today with others to keep a
road open?
Mr. Furnish. Well, I would first make the point that
closures do not necessarily reduce use. I would say they tend
to concentrate use. If you have fewer roads for people to
operate on, it will tend to concentrate use. But it doesn't
necessarily follow that if you close 20 percent of the roads in
an area that 20 percent of the users will disappear.
Ms. Plaskett. Right.
Mr. Furnish. That is not a corollary.
Ms. Plaskett. So, when that happens, that puts more stress
on those roads that are being used, right?
Mr. Furnish. Well, but if you have limited maintenance
dollars, you want to try and apply them on the best roads you
have to try and serve the using public.
And I think what's been left out of much of the discussion
we've had today is the people who don't use motorized vehicles
who are hikers, mountain bikers, that kind of thing. And the
footprint of an off-highway vehicle is much larger than that of
a pedestrian. They can cover so much more ground, and the
associated noise and that type of thing. They just have a much
bigger impact on----
Ms. Plaskett. The off-highway vehicles.
Mr. Furnish. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Ms. Plaskett. And when you talk about those off-highway
vehicles and the impact that they have, road damage, et cetera,
there is a variety of problems that can occur. Based on your
experience, what type of problems are created when Forest
Service roads, either those in the official system or those
that are unauthorized, cannot be adequately maintained?
Mr. Furnish. Can you rephrase that?
Ms. Plaskett. I'm sorry. So what problems that can be
created on these roads by the off-highway vehicles, the roads
that are unauthorized or even those that are authorized, if you
don't have the funding or the support to maintain them?
Mr. Furnish. Well, I mean, one of the biggest problems has
to do, again, I would say, with sediment and clean water. You
also have wildlife habitat issues. There are a lot of
endangered species and that kind of thing that don't relate
well to motorized vehicle activity.
And so trying to balance all of these things, as well as,
like, with hunters and fishers, who would prefer to practice
that form of recreation without the use of off-highway
vehicles, and trying to balance that with those who do, having
areas to hunt and fish where you don't have off-highway vehicle
trails open would be a valid consideration.
Ms. Plaskett. Sure.
And you stated for your own example, as a Bighorn National
Forest ranger, taking aggressive steps. Why was that needed in
that instance?
Mr. Furnish. Well, one was that we just had so many four-
wheel-drive roads, and they were virtually unmaintained.
I will say that I've been a frequent visitor to the Bighorn
in the years since, as recently as 1 year ago, and I would like
to offer testimony, with my own eyes, that it is true that most
of the off-highway vehicle users and other users of the
national forest are wonderful, law-abiding citizens.
And it was a thrill to see that system in use there on the
Bighorn, where they had gone through a travel planning process,
had decided which roads and trails would be opened, which ones
would be closed, and to see people out recreating openly on an
accessible national forest, with some restrictions, and having
a great time. And I was one of them.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you.
And the chair recognizes Mr. Gosar for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gosar. So, Mr. Harvey and Ms. Granat, are you familiar
with the Arizona Peace Trail?
Mr. Harvey. I'm sorry, I'm not.
Ms. Granat. I am a bit.
Mr. Gosar. Okay. So this was kind of a very well-
orchestrated plan, road plan, with the BLM over on the west
side of Arizona. And what they did is they worked in
coordination, Mr. Harvey, with the BLM to designate what roads
they wanted to keep on and help manage themselves. Pretty
successful. Very successful.
So you come back to that coordination, Mr. Harvey. It's not
about just opening wanton. You made the comment that, you know,
we police ourselves and we turn people in that are not abiding.
Is that true?
Mr. Harvey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gosar. Ms. Granat?
Ms. Granat. Absolutely. I'm a tread trainer for Tread
Lightly, and that's one of the principles that Tread Lightly
teaches.
We have in almost every forest in California volunteer off-
road groups that go around and patrol. Particularly successful:
San Bernardino National Forest, Rubicon Trail. These are all
patrolled by volunteers all weekend. And if they need
assistance, they ask the local sheriffs for help.
But we're adamant that we need proper, responsible behavior
on a trail.
Mr. Gosar. So, Mr. White, most of this management plan
really wasn't dictated by common citizens. It was done by sue
and settle, wasn't it?
Mr. White. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. So let me get this straight. So what we did is
we sued on behalf of a group--and they were named earlier on. I
openly talk about Center for Biological Diversity. You know,
because Mr. Furnish actually said it's more of--it's as much of
an art as it is about science. I don't know about that.
But what ends up happening is these groups come in and they
sue. And then what ends up happening, there's a decision with
the Justice Department. And, to be honest with you, we're not
entitled to see, or we haven't been able to see those
forecasts.
But a lot of what's happened, particularly in Arizona, is
that--that shut down all our timber sales, by the way. You
know, it was the three different lawsuits in 1979 and then in
'81 and then in '82 and '84, and it just kept growing. And so
that's why we have this problem.
So you brought up the individual. Well, how does that
impact the lease, like, say, a grazing lease?
Mr. White. Representative, anytime you close access, it
affects anybody that has anything up there, whether it's
grazing lease, whether it's a timber sale for active
management, whether it's a cabin lease, whether it's a mining
claim, patented mining claim. CBU got calls all the time, ``We
can't access our mining claim anymore.''
Mr. Gosar. Right.
Mr. White. And that's a very popular activity, whether it's
a gold panning association, which is a supporter of ours in the
State, or a person that actually owns a mining claim.
And I will say, on the litigation side, two groups in the
State of Montana, basically two individuals, Alliance for the
Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems, are responsible for 70
percent of the litigation shutting down our timber industry. We
used to have 31 mills. I think we're down to seven or nine or
something like that within our State. And these were good-
paying jobs.
And being in legislature, those good-paying jobs being
gone, we have reduced income tax collection, which reduces
revenue to our State budget, which reduces the services that we
can provide for the citizens of Montana. And I'm sure Mr.
Harvey can tell you the problems in a county commission trying
to provide services to those people in the county.
Mr. Gosar. So, Mr. Harvey, going back to you, with the loss
of Secure Rural Schools, have you seen a huge impact after
that?
Mr. Harvey. We will. We just received it this year. We have
1 more year. But the problem is our road department, which
takes care of snow removal in winter, which keeps access to
everything, was reduced by half. We went from 34 employees to
17 because of the loss of revenue from timber industry.
And, also, yet some of the sales that we do have, they tear
up the roads, but we get no revenue from it anymore. We have no
mill. That goes to Idaho or it goes to another county in
Oregon.
But this aspect I have to look at from a county's
perspective. Yes, the revenue diminishes, but the cost of
services go up. And we either provide it as best we can or we
cut services.
Mr. Gosar. Well, and I want to get back to one more point,
is management of the forest. A dynamic forest is a little new
growth, a little medium growth, a little bit of old growth,
because they all have special functions within the dynamics.
And so it's not about if; it's how you have to continue to
utilize and work the forest. And that's been our problem, is
that we haven't been, and we're reaping the disasters that are
occurring.
And part of this application is the roadless rule, is
closing off--I'll give you an example here. This is a nightmare
for people back home. I mean, I'll give you one more example,
if I can have a little indulgence.
Mr. Gianforte. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. We have a place called Fossil Creek. Do you know
about it, Mr. Furnish?
Mr. Furnish. I've heard of it.
Mr. Gosar. Yeah. So what ends up happening is, it's one of
these wonderful areas that there's water in Arizona, for God's
sakes, water. And everybody is attracted to that. But what ends
up happening is that we have these things called monsoons. Do
you know that they refused to put a road in there--there
actually is a road in there. They want to destroy the road. And
so what ends up happening, for emergency services to get there,
it takes over 8 hours and a helicopter ride.
This is absurd. This is absolutely absurd. To be able to
look at a natural wonder, take care of that, and be able to
have safety and access. It's just mind-boggling.
I yield back.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you.
And we'll recognize Mr. Palmer for the final round of
questions.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank the witnesses.
I want to get back to the discussion that we were engaged
in in my first round of questions. And one of things that I
think you mentioned, Mr. Harvey, was the ability to pay for our
forest management by utilizing--it may have been Representative
White who said this, but one of you mentioned this--by sensible
forest management. That is, thinning, select cutting. That's
how you pay for the forest management.
One of the--I was thinking about this as we were sitting
here. We talked about the excessive amount of fuel on the
forest floor. Anyone who's ever been to a bonfire or gone
camping, it's a fairly simple notion that if you want the fire
warmer, you put more wood on the fire, right?
Mr. Harvey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. Representative White, have you ever had to do
that to warm up?
Mr. White. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. Well, the more wood on the floor makes a hotter
fire. And even mature trees can be killed because the fire
burns too hot. That's a fundamental principle of forest fires.
And you also want to be able to use fire as a management tool.
Mr. Harvey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. That's good for wildlife, all sorts of
wildlife. A lot of people think burning the woods is bad for
wildlife, but it's good. And it's good forest management. But
if there's too much fuel on the floor, you can't do that, can
you?
Mr. Harvey. No, sir. Much of our forests are impassable
because of that same reason.
Mr. Palmer. Well, and that goes back to what I said earlier
about the dangers that creates for firefighters. Because a fire
that burns with that intense level of heat is not only
potentially deadly for the trees, it is potentially deadly for
the forest firefighters that are in there.
I also want to point out that there's this false narrative
that when you do select cutting or when you open up Federal
forestlands for logging, it creates this false narrative that
it's clearcutting. And that's not the case, is it?
Mr. Harvey. No, sir, not in eastern Oregon especially. Like
I mentioned, the limited moisture for a year, of 12 inches, we
don't use--we only do selective cutting. We cannot do
clearcutting. We don't want to do clearcutting.
Mr. Palmer. Well, when you have limited moisture or
particularly intense droughts, when you thin, it increases--is
it correct to say it increases the survivability of the
remaining forest?
Mr. Harvey. Yes, sir, it does. That's the design of
management of forest, which they do not do anymore.
Mr. Palmer. Right.
Mr. White. It will also raise the water table, too, in the
ground.
Mr. Harvey. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. That's exactly right, because you don't have as
much competition for the water.
One of the other things that I want to point out, Mr.
Chairman, is that there are 1.1 million acres of forestland
that we have lost to forest fire and to disease that now needs
to be replanted. I don't know if any of that's in Oregon or
Montana or California.
Mr. Harvey. All the time.
Mr. Palmer. All the time. And that there's 58 million acres
that are on the ``high'' or ``very high'' risk right now.
Mr. Harvey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. So my question is, to the panel: Does it make
sense to continue the practices that we employ now to manage
our Federal forests when we've already lost millions of acres,
some that will take--it'll take years, maybe decades, to
recover? When there are 58 million acres that are at risk or
very high risk, does it make sense to continue to limit access
to these forests or to continue the management practices that
allow unbelievable amounts of fuel to collect on the forest
floor?
Mr. Harvey. Sir, I believe that's the definition of
``insanity,'' doing the same thing over and over and not
getting any different results.
Mr. Palmer. I will not disagree with that for the record.
Any other comments, Mr. Harvey?
Mr. Harvey. Yes, sir. We're fighting for the potential of
actually managing. When you lock it up, that's neglect, and
that's destruction by neglect. We can't continue to do that. I
lost 130,000 acres in the fires that I described earlier. I
can't afford to do that every year. I've only got a 15-year
supply at that rate. That's the rest of my county.
Mr. Palmer. And there are ranchers and homeowners and other
people who've suffered losses as a result of fires that burned
out of control.
Ms. Granat, in regard to access for vehicles, I limit what
you can drive on my forest, as we limit what can be driven on
U.S. highways.
And I don't understand why we can't have laws, Mr.
Chairman, that allow people to operate vehicles on roads and
maintain those roads, again, pay for it with the management of
the forest, that have the same kind of traffic control in the
forest that we do. You know, you've got to catch people who
abuse the law, but the same thing is true on our highways.
So I just think we need a commonsense approach to this. You
know, make the forest accessible to the people, all kinds of
people, even people with impaired abilities, but also manage
the forest in a way that makes sense and pay for it with the
resources that we have.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding the
hearing, I thank the witnesses, and I yield back.
Mr. Gianforte. Okay. Thank you.
And I want to thank the witnesses as well. This is a very
important discussion to make sure the public has access to the
public's land and we can get back to start managing our forests
again.
Again, I thank each of you for being here.
The hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks for any
member to submit a written opening statement or questions for
the record.
Mr. Gianforte. And if there's no further business, without
objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:23 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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