    [Senate Hearing 115-112]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 115-112

        HEARING ON FOREST MANAGEMENT TO MITIGATE WILDFIRES: LEGISLATIVE
                                   SOLUTIONS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                          ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

                                   __________

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                   COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
                                 FIRST SESSION

                        JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Chairman
    JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma            THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
    SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia  BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
    JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas               BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
    ROGER WICKER, Mississippi            SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
    DEB FISCHER, Nebraska                JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
    JERRY MORAN, Kansas                  KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York
    MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota            CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
    JONI ERNST, Iowa                     EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
    DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska                 TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
    RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama              KAMALA HARRIS, California

                  Richard M. Russell, Majority Staff Director
                   Gabrielle Batkin, Minority Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                               SEPTEMBER 27, 2017
                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming......     1
    Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware..    11
    Hatch, Hon. Orrin, U.S. Senator from the State of Utah...........   118
    Thune, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of South Dakota....   119
    Tester, Hon. Jon, U.S. Senator from the State of Montana.........   120
    Daines, Hon. Steve, U.S. Senator from the State of Montana.......   121

                                   WITNESSES

    Crowder, Jessica, Policy Advisor, Office of Governor Matthew H.
      Mead...........................................................   124
        Prepared statement...........................................   126
        Responses to additional questions from:
            Senator Barrasso.........................................   138
            Senator Carper...........................................   139
    Fite, Lawson, General Counsel, American Forest Resources Council.   141
        Prepared statement...........................................   143
        Responses to additional questions from:
            Senator Barrasso.........................................   152
            Senator Carper...........................................   154
    O'Mara, Collin, President and Chief Executive Officer, National
      Wildlife Federation............................................   156
        Prepared statement...........................................   159
        Responses to additional questions from:
            Senator Barrasso.........................................   165
            Senator Carper...........................................   166
            Senator Whitehouse.......................................   171

        HEARING ON FOREST MANAGEMENT TO MITIGATE WILDFIRES: LEGISLATIVE
                                   SOLUTIONS

                                  ----------

                         WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

                                           U.S. Senate,
                     Committee on Environment and Public Works,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in
    room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Barrasso
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Present: Senators Barrasso, Carper, Inhofe, Boozman,
    Fischer, Rounds, Ernst, Merkley, Gillibrand, Booker, Markey,
    and Harris.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING

        Senator Barrasso. Good morning. I call this hearing to
    order.
        So far, in 2017, as all of our guests of the panel know, in
    2017 fires have burned more than 8 million acres in the United
    States. We need to find solutions to address this threat to our
    communities and to wildlife.
        Today the Committee is going to hear testimony on three
    bills related to catastrophic wildfires burning across the
    West. Senator Daines has introduced Senate 605, the Litigation
    Relief for Forest Management Projects Act, which would address
    conflicting circuit court decisions and prevent costly delays
    in forest management as a result of duplicative consultation
    requirements.
        The Committee will hear testimony on Senator Hatch's bill,
    S. 1417, the Sage Grouse and Mule Deer Habitat Conservation and
    Restoration Act of 2017. S. 1417 would allow for removal of
    pinyon and juniper trees, which are invasive species that lead
    to wildfires and compromise habitat for mule deer and sage
    grouse across the West.
        We also have Senator Thune's bill, S. 1731, the Forest
    Management Improvement Act of 2017, which provides the Forest
    Service with a series of tools to address the ever-growing
    wildfire threats of forests filled with dead and dying trees.
        Each of these bills addresses a different, but important
    part of forest health and fire prevention.
        Decades of fire suppression and a rapid decline in active
    management have led to overly dense forests susceptible to
    disease and to pest outbreaks. Pests or disease leave thick
    stands of dead trees, which are poor habitat for iconic species
    such as elk, lynx, deer, and other wildlife that depend on
    vibrant forest ecosystems. The dead trees affect watersheds, as
    well, as there are no longer leaves or needles to hold snow to
    build winter snowpack.
        In addition, these dead forests are much more prone to
    catastrophic fires. These hot, fast-moving fires are
    unpredictable and cause significant damage to the ecosystem and
    surrounding communities. There are the obvious impacts from
    these fires, and we have a poster board to show Bambi running
    away from a wildfire. Wildlife that flee too slowly are burned,
    homes and habitat are lost, and smoke billows into the air.
        Smoke and ash travel for miles, spreading fear among those
    who already face respiratory challenges, as this poster shows.
    Looks like a woman and her child walking with masks over their
    faces because of the impact of the smoke from the fire. It is
    not uncommon to see people, including children and the elderly,
    wearing face masks. Coughing, sneezing, and watery eyes leads
    people to ask, is all that wildfire smoke damaging my health?
        On September 11th, a National Public Radio article
    highlighted these concerns, and I will submit a copy of the
    article for the record.
        [The referenced information follows:]

       [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Barrasso. In 2017 alone, schools in Oregon,
    Montana, and even Florida have canceled classes to keep
    children inside and away from the smoke.
        While smoke and falling ash disburse relatively quickly,
    other impacts remain for years to come. After a catastrophic
    fire is extinguished by brave wildland firefighters or by early
    snows, forest ecosystems lose their topsoil. Hot fires
    sterilize the soil and, without a strong root system to hold
    that soil back, these landscapes experience massive erosion.
    Dirt, sand, and other silt quickly accumulates in creeks and
    streams, devastating aquatic life and clogging municipal water
    systems. High sediment levels raise water temperature and can
    be also a cause of widespread fish kills.
        What is most egregious is that our Federal land managers
    could mitigate a significant portion of these risks. Fire is a
    historically important part of an ecosystem, but these large,
    unnatural, catastrophic wildfires are not. In order to address
    this threat, we need to actively manage forests with excess
    dead wood. Large stands of dead trees need to be removed in a
    timely fashion so we are not facing another 8 million acres of
    burned lands.
        We must act quickly to address the risk to human health,
    infrastructure, and valuable ecosystems. There are millions of
    acres of Federal land, forestland in dire need of thinning,
    restoration, and other attention. Last year, the Forest Service
    estimated that up to 100 million acres are at some risk of
    wildfire.
        Today we will hear about bills that address bureaucratic
    processes that prevent or delay proactive fire prevention and
    ecosystem management; bills that can save lives, property, and
    protect our forests' diverse wildlife.
        So, before we move to the sponsors and cosponsors of the
    bills for their remarks, I would turn to Ranking Member Carper
    for his remarks.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
                U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

        Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for pulling
    this all together.
        Welcome to our colleagues.
        I am delighted to be holding this hearing; it is an
    important one for all of us, whether we are from the great
    northwest or a little State on the east coast. Our Country has
    experienced, as we know, a number of significant natural
    disasters this year, increasingly destructive hurricanes,
    catastrophic wildfires, and these disasters disrupt and
    endanger people's lives, their homes, their health, their
    safety, and their livelihoods. Wildfires and hurricanes, for
    that matter, also destroy habitat and imperil our wildlife.
        I agree with the Government Accountability Office that
    climate change contributes to making these disasters more
    severe. They are becoming more common, more destructive, and
    exponentially more expensive with each passing year.
        As we know, at the start of every Congress GAO publishes
    something called their High-Risk List. They do so to call
    attention to areas within the Federal Government that pose a
    high risk due to their vulnerabilities, and also lead to
    spending a lot of money. Once again, in 2017, GAO noted that
    climate change presents a significant financial risk to the
    Federal Government, and we are seeing that across this Country,
    from the fires out West to the devastation in Puerto Rico and
    the U.S. Virgin Islands in the last week.
        As our Federal budget deficit for this year climbs passed
    $700 billion and headed higher, among other things, we need to
    ensure we help reduce the risk of future disasters and plan for
    response costs.
        When it comes to planning for severe weather events, an
    ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
        Today I look forward to hearing, we look forward to hearing
    from our colleagues, and then our witnesses, how best to manage
    this serious threat posed by wildfires. We need to make sure we
    that we are taking appropriate steps to prevent wildfires from
    occurring. We must also ensure that our first responders, our
    Federal agencies, and local governments have the tools that
    they need to combat faster, longer, and more frequent
    wildfires.
        I agree with my colleagues that environmental laws should
    be nimble, not unduly impede our preparation for and our
    response to these unprecedented wildfires. However, I do not
    believe that environmental laws are to blame for their
    occurrence. Many factors contribute to the severity of
    wildfires. They include homes and other developments located
    near forestlands, along with climate change, as I have
    mentioned, and other factors as well.
        As I have said before, we need to be very careful about
    making sweeping changes to the National Environmental Policy
    Act and the Endangered Species Act, particularly when existing
    authorities, more targeted changes, and adequate funding can
    help to address our challenges.
        We must also adopt budgets that provide for proactive
    forest management and firefighting activities. Budget
    constraints may actually be preventing the Forest Service from
    using existing authorities to more efficiently respond to fires
    and mitigate their risks, and the problem is getting worse.
        In 1995, only 16 percent of the U.S. Forest Service budget
    was dedicated to fire suppression. Sixteen percent in 1995.
    Since 2015, the Forest Service has been spending more than half
    of its annual budget, over half of its annual budget fighting
    fires. According to Secretary Perdue, firefighting activities
    will likely consume two-thirds of the Forest Service budget by
    2021.
        I hope today's hearing will lead to even more thoughtful
    discussions and to a growing bipartisan consensus in the
    Congress in the days ahead on how to build greater resilience
    that will enable us to cost-effectively address the increase in
    enormously expensive natural disasters that we have been
    witnessing in our Country in recent years.
        In closing, I ask unanimous consent to enter, Mr. Chairman,
    several letters and documents from concerned stakeholders into
    the record.
        And, again, we thank all of our colleagues for joining us
    today.
        Senator Barrasso. Without objection, they will be ordered.
        Thank you very much, Senator Carper.
        [The referenced information follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Barrasso. We are fortunate to have joining us today
    Senator Hatch, Senator Thune, Senator Tester, and Senator
    Daines. I am looking forward to your comments and your
    statements. I know you have very busy schedules, with
    additional commitments, so once you have had a chance to share
    information about your bills, those of you that have sponsored
    or cosponsored, welcome you to get to the remainder of your
    schedule.
        So, Senator Hatch, we would like to start with you.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ORRIN HATCH,
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF UTAH

        Senator Hatch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Today I
    would like to speak in support of the bipartisan Sage Grouse
    and Mule Deer Habitat Conservation and Restoration Act.
        This particular legislation would streamline important
    vegetation management projects to conserve and restore the
    habitat of sage grouse and mule deer in a way that carries an
    added benefit of reducing fuel modes for catastrophic
    wildfires.
        I was eager to join Senator Heinrich in introducing this
    badly needed legislation because, across the West, especially
    in our home States of Utah and New Mexico, and elsewhere,
    wildlife populations are suffering from the dangerous
    encroachment of invasive pinyon and juniper trees. And, what is
    worse, these burgeoning forests increase the risk of wildfire,
    threatening homes, property, and human lives. Because sage
    grouse and mule deer share similar habitats, Senator Heinrich
    and I worked together to create a solution that would help
    restore sagebrush habitat and support these iconic western
    species.
        As the Fish and Wildlife Service would agree, invasion of
    pinyon and juniper trees destroy sage grouse habitat and
    provides artificial nesting sites for predators of sage grouse.
    In the face of this challenge, responsible tree removal helps
    curtail this damaging expansion and carries widespread
    ecological benefits. In fact, wildlife managers in the West
    have long worked to convert pinyon and juniper stands to
    sagebrush because doing so increases forage and soil water
    availability, which improves wildlife carrying capacity,
    reduces wildlife risks, and benefits big game populations,
    particularly mule deer.
        Although tree expansion is a natural process normally
    controlled by wildfire, fire suppression efforts over the years
    have allowed expansion to go unchecked. As a result, trees have
    spread to areas they have not historically occupied because
    wildfire, which threatens wildlife, private property, and human
    lives, is no longer a viable option for combating forest
    expansion. Effective alternatives are needed to limit the
    damage caused by invasive trees.
        Fortunately, Federal restoration projects have proven
    successful in replicating the benefits of wildfire, while
    avoiding its associated damages to natural habitat, adjacent
    property, or human neighbors. Our legislation helps build on
    these successes by removing lengthy, cumbersome environmental
    review processes for vegetation management projects that
    benefit sagebrush ecosystems.
        Though targeted tree removal would seem to be a commonsense
    priority, Senator Heinrich and I found that responsible
    management efforts by Federal agencies are frequently delayed
    by needless bureaucratic impediments. So, to help safeguard and
    reinvigorate sage grouse and mule deer habitats, we agreed to
    accelerate the approval of beneficial vegetation management
    projects by giving the Bureau of Land Management expanded tools
    to aid its sagebrush restoration efforts.
        As I mentioned earlier, this is a bipartisan effort, and a
    diverse group of stakeholders have come out in support of the
    reasonable measures contemplated in this bill. I am confident
    that passage of this legislation will bolster ecological health
    and promote sustainable populations of wildlife species that
    depend on sagebrush habitat.
        Our bill will also reduce the risk of costly catastrophic
    wildfire. In accomplishing this goal, I believe we can benefit
    communities throughout the West that rely on sportsmen and
    natural resource development as economic drivers, while still
    sending a clear message that we are serious about sound
    environmental stewardship.
        Mr. Chairman and other members of the Committee, it is
    critical that we get this legislation signed into law, and I
    appreciate the opportunity today to speak to the merits of this
    bill. I want to thank the Chairman and the members of the
    Committee, with whom I am eager to work in moving this bill
    forward, and I just appreciate this opportunity to make these
    points.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Senator Hatch.
        Senator Thune, welcome to the Committee.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE,
              U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA

        Senator Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Barrasso,
    Ranking Member Carper, and members of the Committee, I
    appreciate the invitation and opportunity to speak today on
    behalf of a bill that I introduced in August, which is Senate
    Bill 1731, the Forest Management Improvement Act of 2017.
        Mr. Chairman, we have all heard the saying that Nero
    fiddled while Rome burned. Well, this happened in A.D. 64,
    when, for 6 days and seven nights, the citizens of ancient Rome
    watched helplessly as their city burned.
        Fast forward to 2017 and we have a familiar scene. Since
    January 1 of this year, through today, Americans have watched
    49,000 fires burn more than 8.4 million acres of forestland.
    According to the U.S. Forest Service, since 2000, wildfires
    have burned an average of 6.9 million acres every single year.
        But, Chairman, after nearly a quarter century of hands-off
    management, fire suppression costs have grown, as Ranking
    Member Carper pointed out, from 16 percent of the Forest
    Service annual appropriated budget in 1995, to 52 percent of
    the Forest Service annual budget in 2015. We must take
    immediate steps to improve the health of our Nation's
    forestland by being much more aggressive and proactive when it
    comes to forest management. Because forest fires are occurring
    on a large scale across the western United States, proactive
    management to protect our forests must be initiated on a large
    scale.
        Mr. Chairman, I believe my bill being discussed here today
    offers commonsense solutions that would help solve our problems
    of declining forest health. In short, my bill would one,
    increase current categorical exclusions from 3,000 to 10,000
    acres; two, allow the Forest Service to take steps to rapidly
    salvage dead and dying trees after wildfires, ice storms, or
    wind events; three, expedite the environmental review process;
    four, create a single Good Neighbor Authority policy; five,
    clarify congressional intent on stewardship contracting; and,
    finally, six, provide much greater certainty for project level
    decisions through litigation relief.
        Proper management of forests makes them resilient and
    better able to withstand fires, pests, and diseases. We must
    allow expanded use of 21st century techniques by land
    management professionals, and not cave to the direct mail
    specialists and litigators whose misguided efforts have
    resulted in disasters in our forestland.
        We have the technology and know-how to restore America's
    cherished landscapes back to healthy natural conditions, and we
    should waste no more time to use this technology to preserve
    and protect our Nation's forest landscape.
        Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I
    thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, for bringing Senate
    Bill 1731 before this Committee and inviting me to speak on
    behalf of this important legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Thune.
        Senator Tester, welcome to the Committee.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER,
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MONTANA

        Senator Tester. Well, thank you, Chairman Barrasso and
    Ranking Member Carper, and thank you to all the members on the
    Committee. It is a pleasure to be here today to talk about this
    important legislation. And I also want to thank my colleague,
    Senator Daines, for sponsoring this important bill.
        In Montana and across this Country, we are experiencing a
    historic wildfire season. A changing climate, historic drought,
    longer summer, a crippled Forest Service resulting in a lack of
    forest management turned Montana into a tinderbox, and all it
    took was Mother Nature to light it up, and she did.
        Over 1 million acres of Montana is burned, and we are not
    out of the woods yet. A dangerous and costly wildfire season
    forced the Forest Service to burn through much of their budget
    and already start the fire borrowing process.
        In its 2015 Cottonwood decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of
    Appeals ruled that the Forest Service can be required to
    continuously update its forest plans to protect an endangered
    species, even if it has already consulted with the Fish and
    Wildlife Service, even if it has updated its forest plan, and
    even continues to consult with the agency for projects under
    this plan.
        This means that the Forest Service actively, under that
    plan, from timber harvest to watershed restoration, could be
    put under an injunction for years while the plan is updated.
    And there is no guarantee that the plan won't need to be
    updated again and again and again as new species listed or
    habitat areas are changed. All the while the forest goes
    unmanaged.
        The Cottonwood decision has already led to injunctions on
    five vegetation management projects in Montana alone. One of
    those, the Stonewall Vegetation Project, included fire
    mitigation work, and part of that burned this summer as well.
    Across Regions I, II, and IV, at least 80 projects are at risk.
        This bill is targeted as a bipartisan fix to this court
    case. We need to support the recovery of endangered species,
    there is no doubt about that, but blocking forest management
    across the board is not going to help our forests. This
    legislation that you are going to consider today, the
    Litigation Relief for Forest Management Act, will help address
    the real and pressing issues for our Forest Service.
        It will help put saws in people's hands, cut trees,
    mitigate wildfire hazards, restore habitat, strengthen timber
    economy, and maybe most importantly, maintain our forests. It
    will ensure the requirements to update forest plans make sense
    and that the Forest Service will be able to get started on
    their projects, instead of being stuck in a constant
    bureaucracy and endless litigation. It will cut through red
    tape and allow for the Forest Service to spend more time in the
    woods and less time in the courtrooms.
        This legislation will help good forest projects move
    forward. These projects are carefully designed. They take input
    from Fish and Wildlife Service, they will take input from the
    public, and, ideally, they will hold up in court.
        But for the Forest Service, to get the job done and win in
    court, they need the resources to do the analysis. If the
    Forest Service spends over half its money in fighting fires,
    that is less money for responsible forest management; it is
    less money to create recreational access, to create watershed
    protections, and the due diligence that they need in order to
    succeed in court and produce a healthy forest.
        The Forest Service is already borrowing $300 million to
    cover firefighting costs this year. This depletion means it
    won't be able to responsibly manage our forests, making it
    harder to mitigate the impacts of wildfires. Sadly, the Senate
    seems incapable of addressing climate change in a responsible
    and tangible way, and I think that is a big problem.
        We may not be able to decide on how to tackle climate
    change today, but we should be able to give the Forest Service
    the tools they need to responsibly manage our forests. The
    Litigation Relief for Forest Management Act is a good start,
    but we will need to address the funding issues within the
    Forest Service as well.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you very much, Senator
    Tester.
        Senator Daines, welcome to the Committee.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE DAINES,
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MONTANA

        Senator Daines. Thank you, Chairman Barrasso, Ranking
    Member Carper for holding today's hearing on Senate Bill 605,
    my legislation with Senator Tester to increase active forest
    management by fixing a damaging court decision that just
    creates red tape and blocks much-needed projects on the ground
    with no benefit to the species.
        We burned over 1 million acres in Montana this fire season.
    In fact, the Ranking Member, it is the size of the State of
    Delaware.
        Senator Carper. Huge.
        Senator Daines. It is big.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Daines. To put it in perspective, we lost two
    firefighters, too, and a sobering thought, lost their lives in
    Montana fighting those fires.
        Let me say up front that this legislation codifies the
    legal position taken by the Obama administration. Leaders of
    the Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior under
    the current Administration, likewise, have expressed support
    for the core elements of my legislation.
        There is a reason there are two Montanans in front of you
    today on the hearing. Montana had two of the three most
    expensive fires in the Nation. I just saw the brief from
    Secretary Perdue yesterday. Stack ranked the most expensive
    fires, the top 20. Montana, No. 1, was the Lolo Peak fire south
    of Missoula, and No. 3 was the Rice Ridge fire near City Lake.
        Furthermore, Representative Mike Simpson and Representative
    Collin Peterson have introduced bipartisan companion
    legislation in the House, so we have this from a bipartisan,
    bicameral viewpoint, as well as administrative support. It is
    also supported by dozens of organizations, several sportsmen
    and conservation groups, as well. Simply put, it has strong
    bipartisan roots and strong bipartisan support.
        Senator Bill 605 responds to the Ninth Circuit ruling in
    the U.S. Forest Service versus Cottonwood Environmental Law
    Center that the Forest Service is required to do an extra layer
    of plan level consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
    Services following the designation of critical habitat for the
    lynx species. To be clear, the Forest Service and Fish and
    Wildlife Service were already conducting robust scientific
    analysis with regard to lynx habitat at the project level, so
    these agencies were and are fully committed to the conservation
    of the species.
        The Cottonwood ruling stands in contrast with a Tenth
    Circuit ruling on a related case in 2007. Unfortunately, in
    2016, October, the Supreme Court declined the Obama
    administration's petition to resolve the conflicting circuit
    court opinions, which effectively upholds the Ninth Circuit
    ruling.
        As highlighted by President Obama's Department of Justice,
    the Cottonwood ruling has ``the potential to cripple the Forest
    Service and BLM's land management functions.''
        DOJ also highlighted that this decision substantially
    increases unnecessary paperwork requirements without any
    conservation benefit. And far from being just a case about the
    lynx, the Department of Justice noted that there are more than
    850 listed species in the geographical area of the Ninth
    Circuit, and emphasized the sheer volume of agency resources
    that would be required to adhere to the court's decision.
        We are seeing this firsthand in Montana, as the Forest
    Service is now prioritizing re-consultation with the U.S. Fish
    and Wildlife Service on the lynx first, above other work like
    grizzly bear consultation and permitting projects.
        Today there are five forest management projects in Montana
    comprising over 150 million board feet of timber that have been
    blocked through injunctions due to the Cottonwood decision.
    These projects were designed to achieve critical objectives
    such as reducing the risk of wildfires, improving habitat, and
    protecting water quality. Several of these projects were
    developed through locally driven, collaborative process that
    involved diverse stakeholders working together to improve
    forest health, and yet each one was stopped due to repeat
    fringe litigants capitalizing on the Ninth Circuit's disastrous
    Cottonwood ruling.
        And perhaps the most alarming example, and Senator Tester
    just alluded to it, was the injunction of the Stonewall
    Vegetation Project near Lincoln, Montana. This project was
    enjoined this past spring, just days before the work was
    scheduled to begin. And about 1 month later, guess what
    happened? Fires broke out on some of the very acres that would
    have been treated under this project.
        While I can't say the project would have prevented the
    fire, the mere fact that wildfires occurred in areas that could
    not be treated due to the Cottonwood shows that we need to
    urgently pass my bipartisan legislation to statutorily reverse
    this decision. Senator Bill 605 simply clarifies that Federal
    agencies do not need to do the extra layer of unnecessary
    consultation that is required by the Cottonwood decision. This
    will statutorily fix right now this conflict we have with the
    circuit courts. Removing this burden will allow Federal
    agencies to have more time to complete preventive work on the
    ground, while also creating good paying wood products jobs.
        I strongly believe this legislation, together with other
    management and wildfire funding reforms, should be passed into
    law this year. We say out in Montana either we are going to
    manage the forests or the forests are going to manage us.
        I look forward to working with this Committee toward that
    end. Thank you.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Senator Daines. We
    appreciate you bringing forth this bipartisan piece of
    legislation and are very grateful for your leadership. Thank
    you.
        We will now hear from our witnesses.
        I am pleased to first introduce Jessica Crowder, who serves
    as a Policy Advisor for Wyoming's Governor Matt Mead. From her
    work for the Governor's Office and as a former policy analyst
    for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, Jessica knows the
    value of strong coordination among States, Federal, and local
    agencies.
        Jessica holds a bachelor's and master's degrees in range
    management, during which she studied post-fire activities,
    including grazing following prescribed fire during summer
    months.
        Jessica is a key member of the Governor's Task Force on
    Forests, which concluded January 2015, and she continues to
    work closely with me and my staff to develop forestry solutions
    for Wyoming. Jessica wears many hats and offers a unique
    perspective on the way fire affects forest health.
        Jessica, I appreciate you making the trip to be with us
    today. I look forward soon to hearing your suggestions for
    improving forest health for the next generation.
        In addition to Ms. Crowder, we have Mr. Lawson Fite, who is
    a General Counsel for the American Forest Resources Council. We
    appreciate you being here today.
        And Mr. Collin O'Mara, good to see you again, President and
    CEO of the National Wildlife Federation.
        I would like to remind the witnesses that your full
    testimony will be made part of the official hearing record
    today. Please try to keep your comments to 5 minutes so that we
    may have time for questions.
        Ms. Crowder, please begin.

        STATEMENT OF JESSICA CROWDER, POLICY ADVISOR, OFFICE OF
                        GOVERNOR MATTHEW H. MEAD

        Ms. Crowder. Thank you and good morning, Mr. Chairman and
    members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
    testify on enhancing forest management to effectively mitigate
    wildfires.
        Wyoming's forested lands make up more than 11 million acres
    of our State, and over 60 percent is administered by the Forest
    Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Federal impediments
    to active management have negatively affected Wyoming's
    economy, natural resources, private property, and human health.
        The current situation on forested lands in Wyoming and
    across the Country demands immediate action. Governor Mead
    believes we can do better in managing our forests. He created a
    Task Force on Forests in 2013 to analyze and consider response
    strategies for forest management. Through this and subsequent
    work, we believe there are opportunities to reach the goal of
    sustainable forests.
        Wyoming's forests offer an illustration of the need for
    active management. Logging, mechanical treatments, managed
    livestock grazing, prescribed fire, managed wildfire, all of
    these serve to improve forest health and the multiple benefits
    derived from our forests. Despite this knowledge, we have not
    been able to fully implement active management at a landscape
    scale, and the results are concerning.
        Over the past 20 years, aerial detection surveys have
    mapped over 4.6 million cumulative acres of trees killed by
    insect and disease in Wyoming alone. Catastrophic wildfires and
    the costs to fight wildfires have increased across the West.
    Unmanaged forests impact the ecosystems and essential benefits
    they provide. Dead trees pose a hazard for humans. Downed trees
    make it difficult for people and animals to use an area. Forage
    for livestock and effective wildlife habitats are reduced. It
    is difficult to access areas for treatment for livestock
    management or for recreational pursuits such as mountain
    biking, hunting, and hiking.
        Forests impacted by insects and disease also make
    firefighting difficult. 2017 has been average year in terms of
    wildfires for Wyoming. Unfortunately, this is not true for
    several western States. For Wyoming, the fire season of 2012
    was an intense and record setting year: over 700,000 acres
    burned and over 75 residences were destroyed. The suppression
    costs totaled approximately $110 million.
        Increased occurrences of catastrophic wildfires can harm
    municipal watersheds. High intensity fires increase erosion and
    sedimentation in reservoirs that provide water for people.
    Wyoming's air quality has also been affected by smoke. The
    first 2 weeks of September were particularly smoky. The Wyoming
    Department of Environmental Quality has recorded nearly 40
    values over air quality standards for particulate matter and
    ozone since July.
        Because of these impacts of unmanaged forests and wildfires
    to Wyoming, I offer these potential solutions.
        First, I would like to address insect and disease areas.
    Congress gave the Forest Service the ability to use categorical
    exclusions under the Agricultural Act of 2014, or the Farm
    Bill, in designated insect and disease areas. Federal agencies
    are, in some instances, hesitant to utilize existing
    authorities and capitalize on opportunities to complete
    analyses in an expedited manner. In Wyoming, over 2 million
    acres have been designated. To date, this tool has not been
    used in our State.
        Congress should urge the use of categorical exclusions
    already allowed in insect and disease areas. Additionally,
    increasing the acreage allowed to be considered under a
    categorical exclusion would be beneficial. It will take
    management on a larger scale than has occurred in recent years
    to effectively decrease wildfire risks.
        Second, Wyoming has worked to increase partnerships with
    both the Forest Service and the BLM. The permanent
    authorization and expansion of Good Neighbor Authority and the
    Farm Bill is important for getting more work done on the
    ground. This work contributes to proactive management and
    decreased potential for large intense fires.
        However, the Farm Bill does not allow permanent roads to be
    reconstructed under Good Neighbor Authority, and these roads
    are often necessary. We recommend removing this provision.
        And, finally, I would like to discuss the National
    Environmental Policy Act. NEPA was enacted to fulfill a
    specific purpose. It is a procedural statute designed to
    disclose impacts and assist Federal agencies in making
    decisions. Yet, NEPA has evolved into a cumbersome and costly
    process. Analyses often contain unnecessary information in an
    effort to guard against or answer possible litigation.
        A change in the NEPA process through legislative action and
    agency action is necessary. My written testimony contains
    simple suggestions for improving NEPA. Slow and unwieldy
    analyses do not provide for progress in reacting to ever-
    changing conditions on the ground. A shift from how the law is
    currently being executed will require leadership, and I submit
    that this Committee is exceedingly qualified to undertake and
    accomplish the goal of restoring and streamlining NEPA.
        In closing, Governor Mead appreciates this Committee's
    continued leadership and interest in finding solutions to the
    crisis we are seeing on our western landscapes.
        Thank you again for this opportunity to share Wyoming's
    perspective, and I welcome any questions you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Crowder follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Ms. Crowder.
        Mr. Fite.

      STATEMENT OF LAWSON FITE, GENERAL COUNSEL, AMERICAN FOREST
                           RESOURCES COUNCIL

        Mr. Fite. Thank you. Chairman Barrasso and Ranking Member
    Carper, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity
    to address you today.
        This hearing is a timely and constructive step toward
    commonsense reforms in the way that we manage our Federal
    forests.
        The American Forest Resource Council, where I am the
    General Counsel, represents the forest products industry in
    Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and California. Our
    members' businesses, and the rural communities that they
    support, depend on a steady and predictable supply of timber.
    The forest products industry is one of the only sources of
    family wage jobs in these areas, and these jobs are the
    linchpin of many rural economies. The milling and logging
    infrastructure that our industry provides also makes forest
    restoration and thinning efforts possible.
        We in the forest products industry take pride in our
    stewardship of the lands where we work. We are invested in
    sustaining this renewable resource for future generations,
    protecting our communities, and ensuring the health of our
    forests so it will offer its benefits to the many users who
    work, fish, hunt, and recreate there.
        Right now, swaths of our Federal forests are overstocked,
    unhealthy, and at high risk of catastrophic wildfire. As you
    have heard during this hearing, this year's wildfire season in
    the West was one of the worst on record: over 8 million acres
    burned. The effects of these wildfires are not mere statistics;
    they are human suffering, burned homes, destroyed and charred
    wildlife habitat, and burned dead forests. And when forests
    burn, valuable timber resources are lost, leading to job loss
    and closure of that needed mill and logging infrastructure.
        Many of these risks were illustrated in dramatic fashion by
    the Eagle Creek fire just east of Portland. This fire took
    weeks to contain, it threatened key area water sources and
    gravely damaged treasured recreational sites such as Multnomah
    Falls and the Angel's Rest Trail. It covered the entire
    Portland area with a thick blanket of smoke.
        On September 17th, Portland had the worst air quality in
    the entire Country. Portland public schools canceled their
    first day of kindergarten this year. My daughter's preschool,
    they have gone outside every day for 30 years, and this year
    they had to stay inside for several days because of the poor
    air quality from this wildfire.
        Fortunately, there are solutions that can increase the
    resilience of our forests and our rural communities. The
    legislation before you today makes great strides toward
    streamlining forest management and reducing artificial
    constraints on land management agencies. In particular, S. 605,
    the Litigation Relief for Forest Management and Projects Act,
    which is a bipartisan bill and a bicameral bipartisan bill,
    would fix the Ninth Circuit's disastrous Cottonwood decision
    which is currently stalling a wide range of needed projects
    across 11 national forests. The bill would fix the decision by
    adopting the position taken by the Obama administration in
    front of the Ninth Circuit and in a petition to the Supreme
    Court.
        In Cottonwood, the Ninth Circuit ruled that when a new
    species is listed or new critical habitat designated, it is not
    enough to consult on that species for a project that is
    underway; it ruled that the Forest Service had to go back and
    redo its plan level consultation, even for a forest plan that
    may be 20 or more years old. In the Northwest, in particular,
    we are operating under a series of forest plans adopted in
    1994.
        This plan level consultation offers no conservation benefit
    over a project level consultation because plan level
    consultations often include a broad level of acceptable impact
    that can be spread over many projects. But when projects are
    analyzed project by project, a buffer is more likely to be
    incorporated to ensure those projects do not adversely affect
    listed species.
        Cottonwood has had a dramatic effect on the ability of
    Region I of the Forest Service to manage its lands, and that is
    only the beginning.
        In addition to S. 605, both S. 1417 and S. 1731 are worthy
    of your considerations. Currently, there are too many
    roadblocks and too much analysis paralysis going on in managing
    our Federal forests. Solutions to these problems can be
    achieved here in Washington, DC, and we urge the Committee to
    act.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Fite follows:]

       [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Fite, for your
    testimony.
        Mr. O'Mara, welcome back.

       STATEMENT OF COLLIN O'MARA, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
                 OFFICER, NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION

        Mr. O'Mara. Chairman Barrasso, Ranking Member Carper, thank
    you for the invitation to be with you all. I am so thankfully
    to you personally, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. This
    is a crisis that has not received nearly the attention
    nationally that it should; it has been drowned out in the news.
    And when you look at 8.5 million acres of wildfire this year,
    it is a big number. There are a million acres burning right
    now, which is the same size as, Senator Carper, my State of
    Delaware. Eight of the worst years in wildfire history have
    been the last 15. I mean, this is a trend that is absolutely
    terrifying. And there are solutions that have gone up to the
    two yard line in the last several congresses, but haven't quite
    gotten kind of across into the end zone.
        I want to be clear from the beginning that fire is natural.
    There are absolutely appropriate uses of fire, prescribed
    burns, very appropriate management technique. That is not what
    we are talking about today. These megafires that we are seeing
    are unlike anything we have really ever seen before, and they
    are more intense, they are more frequent.
        And the thing that is scary for me is that this year we
    actually had a decent snowpack in a lot of places. So the
    summer was just so hot after that basically all the additional
    precipitation that we had wasn't enough to increase the soil
    health, and you still had these massive fires.
        So you can't ignore the climate impacts between the
    snowpack and the warmer springs and the longer, drier summers,
    but there are things we can do about it, and right now the
    Forest Service is estimating that between 65 and 82 million
    acres of forests of the 193 million acres in our national
    forest system require restoration. We are only restoring a
    fraction of that. And for this conversation I think it is
    absolutely imperative that we both link the management
    improvements that are absolutely possible with this funding
    crisis, because we can have all the tools in the world for our
    guys on the ground, and they are doing the best they can with
    the tools they have, but if there are no resources to actually
    restore these forest stands, it will all be for naught.
        So there is a bipartisan path forward. There was a bill
    introduced just a few days ago by Senator Crapo, with Senator
    Wyden, Senator Merkley is on it as well; a huge bipartisan
    coalition of folks. But we would really encourage that this
    conversation be tied to that conversation because, at the end
    of the day, if we don't fix this fire funding crisis, a lot of
    these tools we are talking about will be insufficient.
        And we have talked about half of the Forest Service budget
    going toward fighting fires. We are going to be over 60 percent
    this year, and pushing up to two-thirds, 65 percent in the next
    few years.
        At the same time, we absolutely can improve forest
    management, and there are commonsense things we can do. We
    should be pushing innovation and collaborative tools. We should
    be focusing on restoration, on habitat restoration in
    particular. We need to make sure that forests and wildlife
    health and watershed health are adequately considered. And we
    can also improve the efficiency of the way that we look at
    these tools while maintaining public input and collaboration
    and environmental safeguards.
        And before this Committee today you have two bills that are
    great examples of reaching this balance. Senator Hatch and
    Senator Heinrich's sage brush bill is a good start. It is a
    bill that is targeted on a very specific problem, the juniper
    encroachment and looking at some of these other invasive
    species. It is targeted. It requires there be a habitat
    benefit. It addresses multiple threats, and it has incredible
    bipartisan support.
        The thing about this bill that is interesting is that you
    have support from almost all the conservation groups; you have
    support from industry groups like the American Petroleum
    Institute, the NRA. There are some conversations folks want to
    have about a couple small pieces. Some folks are concerned that
    invasives could come if you create a lot more roads and you
    could have some unintended consequences. But it is a great
    bipartisan bill that we strongly support.
        Senator Daines and Senator Tester talked about the
    Cottonwood bill. Again, huge bipartisan support; great broad
    coalition of folks. Again, there are a few small pieces that
    some groups want to talk about. I think there is a
    collaborative process we can have between now and markup to
    have that conversation, but, again, something that has big
    bipartisan support that makes a lot of sense.
        I also agree with Senator Thune that a lot of the concerns
    that he has raised are things that we need to address. I think
    his bill goes a little too far in some places, and we would
    like to work with the committee to ratchet it back a little
    bit. I think there are a couple places where we should have
    more collaboration and really empower local communities. I
    think some environmental safeguards that are kind of stepped by
    the wayside that, frankly, could be kept in place and still be
    more efficient.
        But, again, these are conversations that are timely and you
    could have a big bipartisan win at a time in this chamber where
    I think bipartisanship is fairly rare. You could have a
    massive, massive bipartisan victory in the next 2 months using
    these bills before this Committee as a basis and combining
    Senator Crapo's work on the other side.
        So, for me, at the end of the day, if we can put forward a
    package that solves the wildfire funding crisis, finally, that
    we have been talking about for 4 years, adopts landscape scale
    approaches, the Nature Conservancy has been doing good work on
    this; if we can actually reduce some of these redundant
    environmental reviews in a way that still protects the
    integrity, but actually increases efficiency; if we reward
    collaboration--there is nothing more frustrating for folks than
    to participate in a process for years, finding good commonsense
    bipartisan solutions, nonpartisan solutions and have them blown
    up by litigation later--and then expanding and improving these
    Good Neighbor and stewardship contracting provisions, we could
    have an absolute homerun and actually address a major problem
    on the landscape in a big way.
        So, on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, our 6
    million members, our 51 State affiliates, State and territorial
    affiliates, thank you for working on this issue because I think
    this is one of those opportunities that could be government at
    its best over the next couple months if we put our heads and
    actually get something big done. So thank you to Mr. Chairman
    and Mr. Carper.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. O'Mara follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much for your testimony. I
    appreciate the testimony of all of you. We will proceed to some
    questioning at this time, and I will start with Ms. Crowder.
        According to the Federal land management agencies, on
    average, humans are, either intentionally or unintentionally,
    responsible for many of the wildfires in the United States.
    Casper Star Tribune reported that the cost of fighting the most
    expensive fire in United States history was in California, and
    that exceeded $200 million. The fire was caused by an illegal
    campfire. Last year, in Wyoming, a fire believed by the
    authorities to be man-caused destroyed a residential home and
    burned more than 19 square miles near Yellowstone National
    Park. It cost the U.S. Bureau of Land Management $1.4 million
    to fight that fire in Wyoming.
        Given the high cost to the American taxpayer, are there
    measures that we should be taking in order to make our forests
    more resistant to catastrophic manmade fires, or man-caused
    fires?
        Ms. Crowder. Mr. Chairman, yes, there are steps we should
    be taking and could take fairly easily. First, continued
    support for State fire assistance programs is important. In
    Wyoming, this includes fire prevention efforts such as
    education, educating the public on the impacts that their
    actions may have on citizens and even just their visit to these
    areas. Fire-wise programs to help homeowners and communities
    reduce the risk of wildfire damage are also important. Of
    course, hazardous fuel reduction projects are very important.
    This is an opportunity to mitigate wildfire hazards and lessen
    the threat of catastrophic fires or megafires. It is an
    opportunity to reduce lighter fuels, opportunities to reduce
    surface fuels, and also put in place some thinning projects.
        And these State fire assistance programs also provide the
    State opportunity to build or maintain capacity of State,
    Federal, and even volunteer fire departments, which become
    important in initial attacks when we have these fires. And, of
    course, I believe also that proactive management on a large
    scale is necessary as well.
        Senator Barrasso. Following up on that, to Mr. Fite, some
    parties are advocating a complete hands-off approach to
    national forests. In the past, you have expressed some
    skepticism over this concept of passive forest management.
    Specifically, June of this year you were quoted in Courthouse
    News as saying this approach ``leads to conditions that are
    quite unhealthy and even dangerous.''
        So, do you feel that there is a way to have healthy
    interactions with forest ecosystems and make forests more
    resilient to disease, to pests, and to catastrophic fire?
        Mr. Fite. Yes, Mr. Chairman, absolutely. There are things
    that we can do to make our forests more resilient and to
    restore a more natural role of fire in our ecosystem, and that
    involves active management, that involves untying our land and
    management agencies' hands so they can implement active
    management on a wider basis and without devoting so much of
    their resources to planning activities. For example, the Forest
    Service figures that we have seen 40 percent of their time and
    resources are spent on paperwork and planning, and that is not
    the way we should be out there managing our forests, reducing
    the fuels so that, when a fire comes through, the impacts are
    not catastrophic like we have seen this year.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
        Ms. Crowder, you know, as a doctor, I am concerned about
    health impacts of these wildfires. Earlier this month, the
    Casper Star Tribune reported that the EPA considered the air
    quality over parts of several western States as very unhealthy
    because of the fires. It also quoted a physician with the
    American Lung Association who warned that fires spew
    particulates into the air which are linked to premature death
    and cancer, and can make asthma and chronic lung diseases
    worse.
        As a Wyoming official and a resident, can you describe what
    impacts these fires are having on the physical health of the
    people of the West?
        Ms. Crowder. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Human health is certainly a
    concern when it comes to wildfires. The air quality in Wyoming
    has been particularly bad this summer. Particulate matter, or
    those particulates that are suspended in the air, really do
    cause damage. The Wyoming Department of Health has put out
    several announcements and warnings to Wyoming citizens over the
    past several months, warning them to stay indoors and close
    their windows. You know, as a Wyoming resident, I have seen my
    own neighbors be forced inside because of air quality, and that
    is concerning in Wyoming.
        Additionally, we are concerned about visitors who visit our
    great State, and the impacts that poor air quality has on them
    and their trip, as well as our economy.
        We are also concerned with municipal watersheds and the
    impacts that fires may have on municipal watersheds, from
    sedimentation to notices from the Cheyenne Board of Public
    Utilities that our water may smell like smoke or taste like
    dirt because of a small wildfire in the area.
        So these are real health concerns in Wyoming.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
        Senator Carper.
        Senator Carper. First of all, welcome one and all,
    colleagues. It is great to see you back here, and thank you for
    all the good work that you continue to do with your life; and I
    think the same is true for our other witnesses as well.
        You had a chance to hear Mr. O'Mara's comments in his
    testimony. Do you agree, Ms. Crowder, with anything he said?
        Ms. Crowder. Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, he makes some
    very good points. Fire is a natural process and we do need to
    look at management at a large scale, and management needs to
    occur now at a large scale. There are several tools that we
    have in the toolbox, and we need to be using those immediately.
        I also believe that the testimony that Mr. O'Mara put
    forward that these megafires are of concern is absolutely true,
    and I do believe that collaboration is an important part of the
    process. We have seen some collaborative processes in Wyoming
    move forward. We have seen the Forest Service lead some of
    these collaboratives in Wyoming and put together landscape
    scale, and start to put landscape scale management activities,
    and that is important.
        However, I do think we also need to move quickly, and time
    is of the essence here. Thank you.
        Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
        Mr. Fite, do you agree with anything that Mr. O'Mara had to
    say here in his testimony?
        Mr. Fite. Yes, Senator. For example, Mr. O'Mara discussed
    the Cottonwood bill, S. 605, sponsored by Senators Daines and
    Tester, and how that is a way to ensure that we get needed
    forest management projects done particularly in the northern
    Rockies and other regions where they are being held up for
    paperwork reasons that aren't producing conservation benefits.
        On the collaboration aspect, we in the industry support
    collaborative efforts where they produce good projects. We have
    a project where I, in fact, represented a collaborative in
    court that has been held up in litigation under the Cottonwood
    decision. So that is holding up collaborative projects, and
    that is why we need that fix.
        Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
        Collin, in your testimony, I think regarding the Litigation
    Relief Act, you mentioned that other members of the
    conservation community who are concerned that this bill, this
    would be the Tester-Daines bill, are concerned that this bill
    may be broader than necessary to achieve its goals and may
    result in some unintended consequences.
        Could you just elaborate on these unintended consequences
    and how we might address these concerns in the legislation?
        Mr. O'Mara. Sure. Thanks, Senator. And I have to give
    Senator Daines and Senator Tester a lot of credit. If you
    compare this bill to the House bill, it is already much more
    concise, and I think there is some concern that if you are only
    looking at the project level, when there is new information
    that comes on, that there could be information that should be
    integrated into kind of cumulative facts across the entire
    plan. I, frankly, think with a little bit more conversation we
    can actually resolve this quickly. We support the bill as it
    is. We are very grateful to Senator Daines for the work that he
    has done. We think that is actually a very strategic approach.
    These plans are supposed to be done every 10 years. It is more
    like 25 years in practice. So we just don't want to see
    projects held up that are going to help species today waiting
    for some long, collaborative process. But I think the biggest
    thing is just making sure there is no unintended consequences
    at scale.
        Senator Carper. Our other witness, do you have any brief
    reaction to what Collin just said? Briefly.
        Ms. Crowder. Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, yes, I do
    believe that these projects do need to happen for habitat
    management and other reasons as well. As I spoke about earlier,
    the bill, the Daines-Tester bill does allow for project-
    specific consultation, and that is important. Ultimately, we
    want to see species recovery, and we don't want to harm that in
    any way or harm the opportunity for actually getting management
    done on the ground. So I do agree that is an important step
    forward.
        Senator Carper. OK, thanks.
        Mr. Fite, any comment on what Collin just said?
        Mr. Fite. Yes, thank you, Senator. I think this bill is
    very carefully drawn. It does not undo existing law as to how
    you consult when you revise or prepare a new forest plan. So
    Senators Daines and Tester worked very carefully to make this a
    narrow fix that just eliminates work that is not going to
    actually benefit our species.
        Senator Carper. All right. I have some more questions and
    hope we will have an opportunity to ask those. Thanks for those
    responses.
        Senator Barrasso. You certainly will, Senator Carper.
        Senator Inhofe.
        Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been
    sitting and listening with a lot of interest. Of course, I know
    this hearing is covering the forest fires, but we have prairie
    fires in Oklahoma. In fact, the last one we had was not really
    a record-setter, but it is something that we are facing. I can
    remember flying my own plane over it and going all the way up
    to southern Kansas and seeing the carcasses of animals up
    against fences where they were trying to get loose. So it is a
    very tragic thing.
        Ms. Crowder, in your testimony you say outreach at the
    early stages of development in the NEPA process would be key to
    reducing the time it takes to reach a decision. We have a lot
    of experience in that in this Committee during our highway
    bills and everything else, and we have learned from experience
    that we can do that. Last week I introduced a bill that
    pertains to the FERC permitting, providing for all Federal,
    State, and local regulatory agencies to come to the table early
    to coordinate their participation. It sounds to me like this is
    needed across government for all other types of projects.
        Can you further detail as to why it is important to get all
    the stakeholders at the table early, rather than later?
        Ms. Crowder. Yes, Mr. Chairman, Senator Inhofe. I have
    extensive experience working on these National Environmental
    Policy Act processes and actually putting the documents
    together, and, from my personal experience, those projects
    where the Federal agencies engage State and local governments,
    as well as others, early in the process tend to move a lot
    faster. So, for example, if a State agency has, and they often
    do, wildlife data that is important and useful for the Federal
    agency, then that State agency can bring that wildlife data
    forward, instead of waiting until the last minute to provide
    that information.
        Senator Inhofe. Which is normally the case.
        Ms. Crowder. Often the case, yes, sir. So I believe that
    bringing the entities to the table that have the data and
    expertise is of most importance.
        Senator Inhofe. And I think we successfully did this in
    some of our, in our FAST Act, the previous transportation bill
    prior to that, and we got some things done that otherwise we
    would not have gotten done. It was a joint effort, very
    bipartisan effort and very successful.
        Mr. Fite, in hearing your testimony today, there seems to
    have been more of a system for forest practices at a more local
    level. Besides the NEPA process, the Forest Service and other
    agencies are constantly blocked from responsible forest
    management through litigation from environmental groups that
    challenge every decision, even when these decisions are backed
    by science and beneficial to the overall ecosystem. There is a
    problem that needs to be solved, as these cases delay projects
    for years and create uncertainty, and then we will see
    situations like when the circuit courts split and the Supreme
    Court doesn't weigh in.
        What are your thoughts? You concentrated in your opening
    remarks more about S. 605, but on the other bill that Senator
    Thune was interested in, S. 1731, do you have any other
    thoughts on how you can solve these problems? Concentrate more
    on 1731.
        Mr. Fite. Yes, Senator. Thank you for the question.
    Litigation is a real problem, particularly when you have a
    project like you were describing, where stakeholders get
    involved, they are at the table helping develop the project,
    and then an outside group comes in at the very end and undoes
    the whole process, halts everything in litigation. And the
    arbitration provisions in 1731 I think are a good step at a
    pilot project for trying to figure out ways to streamline the
    litigation process, because right now the litigation process on
    top of the planning process can take years and years, and we
    need to fix that.
        Senator Inhofe. Well, that is good. Do you think 1736 would
    help in that respect?
        Mr. Fite. Yes, Senator.
        Senator Inhofe. The legislation we are discussing today are
    some ways to address forest management issues. Are there other
    things that Congress could do that are not addressed in this
    legislation? Anybody?
        Mr. O'Mara. Senator, thank you. I would really----
        Senator Inhofe. You are a very effective fast talker. My
    wife is always telling me to talk slower, and I am realizing
    now there is a great benefit to talking faster.
        Mr. O'Mara. Trying to squeeze 10 minutes into 5 minutes.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. O'Mara. I joke that I grew up in Syracuse, New York;
    and if you don't talk fast, your mouth actually freezes shut.
        I would encourage everyone to take a look at Senator
    Crapo's legislation on the funding side, because if we fix the
    funding side and there are sufficient resources for managers
    and we make some of these management improvements so they have
    more tools, then we actually could have a victory that would
    transform forest management in this Country; and, frankly, it
    would be one of the most significant improvements in decades.
    So putting those two together I think could be an absolute
    homerun.
        Senator Inhofe. Good. Appreciate that.
        Any other comments on that, other things that could be
    done?
        Mr. Fite. There are a number of measures that have been
    proposed on the House side in a bill sponsored by Congressman
    Westerman that can really streamline planning processes, in
    particular an action-no action analysis. So that could really
    streamline----
        Senator Inhofe. Well, that is interesting. We will get that
    and look at those provisions.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. By the way, this is just another
    reminder that we have a problem between two Committees, this
    Committee and the Commerce Committee, that always seem to meet
    at the same time, so one of these days we will get that fixed.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Inhofe.
        Senator Merkley.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you all for your presentations.
        Oregon has been burning with 20 major forest fires, and
    some of those are complexes, meaning it is called one fire, but
    it is actually maybe a dozen. At one point there were over 80
    fires burning in my State just recently.
        Mr. Fite, I was up on the Eagle Creek Trail and the Pacific
    Crest Trail while the Indian Springs was burning on Eagle
    Creek, but we then had the fireworks that set off the whole
    Pacific Gorge aflame, and phenomenal just what that did.
        Oregon has had probably more success than any State in the
    Country on stewardship projects and collaboratives, and that
    effort came from, well, we have this war, this war going on
    over our forests, with some saying, hey, they should be managed
    primarily to get forests to an old growth State where they are
    fire resistant, and don't mess with Mother Nature, and others
    saying the solution to everything is to clear-cut. So that war
    was unproductive, ends up in all these court battles, so out of
    that came the stewardship efforts and the collaborative
    efforts.
        We have hundreds of thousands of acres in Oregon of second
    growth forests that are really good for fire and they are
    really good for disease, but they are not either great for
    either timber stands or for ecosystems. So there is a potential
    here for a win-win, and that is what the stewardship projects
    and the collaboratives are all about. And essentially, in the
    end, it is some version of thinning. You have these forests
    with the trees far too close together. The boughs are very low;
    the fire easily moves from the soil level to the canopy. Every
    tree is so close it lights the next one on fire; any wind blows
    through that. Then that carries over out of the fatal forests
    onto private land.
        So I was involved in a couple pilot projects that involved
    various types of thinning, and I have been up in the woods with
    both timber companies and the environmental groups to discuss
    how do we push this forward. So I just wanted to ask each of
    you, Ms. Crowder, do you feel like there is a real space for
    thinning projects to be able to kind of provide a steady supply
    of saw logs to the mills, but also to reduce the disease and
    fire challenges that we have in these forests?
        Ms. Crowder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Merkley.
    Thinning is absolutely a useful tool for reducing fuels. It
    reduces fuels that lead to crown fires potentially; it has the
    potential to improve wildlife habitat; has positive impacts on
    tree growth, which leads to positive tree and forest health. It
    also leads to a potential decrease in insect and disease. So I
    do believe that thinning is a useful tool for reducing fuels
    and improving forest health. But thinning is only one of the
    tools in the toolbox.
        Senator Merkley. I am going to run out of time, so I won't
    ask you to go through the other tools.
        Mr. Fite, do you feel that is a useful tool?
        Mr. Fite. Yes, Senator. Thinning projects are a useful
    tool. I would say that even for thinning projects the process
    and litigation has become a significant roadblock. For example,
    projects in Oregon, a 187-acre project, for example, or a
    couple thousand acres, courts have required an environmental
    impact statement which is on the level of--that is more
    documentation than you need to build a new runway at Hillsboro
    Airport, quite literally, and that is why we need some fixes to
    management.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Fite. I will point out that
    virtually no stewardship projects ended up in court in Oregon.
    The whole point is to get people together beforehand and work
    out what is referred to as a prescription so you don't battle
    it out in court and you actually get work done in the woods.
        Mr. O'Mara.
        Mr. O'Mara. Thank you, Senator. I think you are right, I
    think some of the collaboratives in Oregon are some of the best
    examples, and I think some of the early stewardship
    contracting. I would like to see a lot more of it. I want to
    make sure that we actually enhance those programs and kind of
    build on the lessons since the Farm Bill. But, absolutely,
    thinning, prescribed burns, the things that actually work for
    some of the northwestern forests are absolutely essential to
    improve management.
        Senator Merkley. One of the challenges with thinning
    projects is they are often not commercially viable. It is just
    a lot, if you will, cheaper to take out trees in big chunks,
    big clear-cuts, and that is why we have programs to help fund
    that thinning. We had a lot in the stimulus bill. We have
    various other fuel hazardous loads and so forth programs. But
    we need to do a lot more of that.
        That is an interesting sound. Whose phone was that?
        Unidentified Speaker. Seems like it was coming from out
    there.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Merkley. Hello.
        So that is one challenge, the funding to do those thinning
    projects.
        But one of the things that happens often when we have fires
    is there are folks who say, well, you know, the best thing to
    do is just get rid of the environmental side and let's go in
    and allow clear-cuts without any sort of action and, by the
    way, let's take out the fire-resistant trees at the same time,
    which just puts off alarm bells. Why would we take out old
    growth and the fire-resistant trees in the course of trying to
    make a forest more resilient?
        And since I am out of time, I won't ask you all to answer
    that, but I did notice that is exactly what is in Senate Bill
    1731, full permission to take out the old growth and the fire-
    resistant trees; and that is just the sort of approach that
    destroys all the efforts to bring together the two communities
    to create forest health, because it is like, oh, well, here is
    an excuse to just go to old-style clear-cutting, rather than
    actual forest stewardship and making the better timber stands
    and better ecosystems.
        So I just wanted to express that concern and say that we
    really need to focus on not increasing the timber wars, but
    expanding on the foundation we have from the stewardship
    contracts and the collaboratives who are showing how we can
    stay out of the courts, make the forests more healthy, and
    produce a steady supply of saw logs for the mills. Thanks.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Merkley.
        Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Fite, in your testimony you State that wildfires this
    season have been one of the worst on record. Now, according to
    the U.S. Forest Service, fire seasons are now approximately two
    and a half months longer than in 1970. Just this month alone,
    KEVN News in Rapid City, South Dakota, has cited over 20
    wildfires in the Black Hills National Forest. We are facing, in
    my opinion, a Federal forest management crisis.
        If you could point to the most needed change to Federal
    management policy, what would that be, and why?
        Mr. Fite. Thank you, Senator. The most needed change is
    simply a focus on actively managing our landscape and making
    sure that the Forest Service and the BLM, those are the two
    agencies with the most Federal forests, that is their No. 1
    priority. Wildfires have to be fought when they come out, and
    it certainly costs a lot of money and we need to pay for it,
    but we need to be getting in there on the front end and making
    our landscapes more resilient so then, when a fire does come
    through, we don't get the destructive and catastrophic effects
    like we have seen this season and the past few seasons.
        Senator Rounds. Let me just ask a specific, because the
    suggestion is that the type of management that you would
    suggest is clear-cutting forests. Can you talk about that for a
    minute? Is that really what the desired management practice is?
        Mr. Fite. No, Senator, and I appreciate you asking the
    question. I think in one of the previous comments from the
    Committee there was a discussion of are we clear-cutting, are
    we removing fire-resistant trees. When we are going in and
    doing active management, there are different tools that
    agencies use in different circumstances, and in some cases you
    may want to create an opening or use former regeneration
    harvest. But a land management agency goes in and it uses its
    tools intelligently, knowing how the landscape is going to
    benefit. And we have seen research, particularly in California,
    that a little more intensive management can open up areas for
    prey for some of these iconic owl species; and that if you
    aren't going in and managing at all, that is, one, going to
    create this wildfire risk, but then you are not creating the
    prey base for these wildlife species that folks want to keep
    around.
        Senator Rounds. Really, what you are talking about is a
    diversity within the Forest Service itself. You want some areas
    with grass; you want some areas with shrubbery; you want some
    areas where heavy timber stands are allowed, moved in. It is
    almost like managing a garden in many ways, isn't it?
        Mr. Fite. I think that is a fair characterization, Senator.
    The Forest Service should be using all the tools at its
    disposal to make an active, healthy forest that produces all
    the multiple uses that they are designed for. And I think there
    are solutions out there with active management that can help
    give them those tools and help our communities as well.
        Senator Rounds. In your testimony you indicated that there
    seems to be a disparity in outcomes between federally and non-
    federally managed forestlands. With all due respect to our
    Federal agencies and employees, I have seen this firsthand in
    the Black Hills in my home State, and it is often obvious from
    the condition of the trees themselves where federally managed
    forestlands start and where they end. A failure to properly
    manage forestland, or a lack of management entirely, is what
    leads to some of these very dangerous conditions; fuel
    buildups, undergrowth that hasn't been addressed in some cases;
    old growth timbers that have not been thinned in some cases.
    And when you do have a pine beetle infestation or anything
    else, you end up with so much heat that you basically sterilize
    the ground; the heat gets so high.
        Can you elaborate on what exactly the Federal Government is
    doing wrong as it relates to active forest management?
        Mr. Fite. It is a combination of factors, Senator, and one
    of those factors is just the agencies' hands are tied. They
    have one hand tied behind their back by a number of these
    repetitive processes and then the litigation loop, so they are
    not able to get projects together at the scale or the pace that
    they need to get them together.
        Senator Rounds. Ms. Crowder, very quickly, you testified
    that the permanent authorization of Good Neighbor Authority in
    the 2014 Farm Bill has been an important tool for getting work
    done on the ground. Can you explain how the Good Neighbor
    Authority, collaborating with the Forest Service and the Bureau
    of Land Management, has allowed you to better manage forests?
        Ms. Crowder. Absolutely. Thank you, Senator, Mr. Chairman.
    In the Black Hills of the national forests, we have seen, with
    State forestry and working with the Federal Government, as well
    as the National Wild Turkey Foundation, a Good Neighbor
    Authority project that actually does improve active management
    on the Black Hills. We have also seen some very particular
    projects on BLM lands in southcentral Wyoming, where we have
    been able to work with other entities, including the BLM and
    the Forest Service, through Good Neighbor Authority to do mule
    deer habitat improvement and to actually get some timber moved
    off of some of those areas before it is unusable.
        Senator Rounds. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Senator Rounds.
        Senator Gillibrand.
        Senator Gillibrand. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Mr.
    Ranking Member, for holding this hearing.
        Mr. O'Mara, in your written testimony you mention that the
    U.S. Forest Service is restoring just under 5 million acres per
    year. The U.S. Forest Service also estimates that approximately
    65 million acres of Forest Service land is in need of some type
    of restoration. This seems to me to be an alarming gap between
    what needs to be done and what is actually being done to
    prevent wildfires.
        Yesterday, Secretary Perdue said, during his press
    availability, that what we need is a ``permanent funding fix''
    and that a legislative effort is not necessarily needed if a
    funding fix is provided.
        Do you agree with Secretary Perdue that the major
    impediment to forest restoration efforts is primary lack of
    funding and resources? And what level of funding should
    Congress and the Administration be providing to carry out
    forest restoration projects?
        Mr. O'Mara. Thank you, Senator. I absolutely agree with
    Secretary Perdue. During my testimony earlier, I was focused on
    that. You can have all the management tools in the world, but
    if you don't have the resources to get products on the ground,
    they are all for naught. And I think right now you are spending
    $2 billion between the Forest Service and BLM and the Interior
    agencies on fighting these catastrophic fires, and that doesn't
    include the money that the Pentagon is spending and some State
    agencies are spending on top of it. So it is a massive number.
    And there has been good work by Senator Murkowski and Senator
    Udall and others in the appropriations process to try to put a
    band aid on the problem, but there is a great bipartisan bill
    that Senator Crapo has been working on with Senator Wyden and
    Senator Feinstein and so many others that I think is a perfect
    path to actually having the funding necessary.
        My belief is that we should have a dedicated separate fund
    for fires, rather than trying to put it into the FEMA universe,
    because if there is another hurricane that hits New York or
    Delaware or somewhere else, those funds are not predictable
    enough. So there should be a separate funding source. And there
    is a model that I think has broad bipartisan support, at least
    in this body; and if we can move that quickly, it solves a lot
    of these other problems. And I would love to complement it with
    some good management improvements also to give folks more tools
    to do better projects.
        But right now this restoration deficit, if you had all the
    money in the world, you would be able to restore a lot of that
    65 to 82 million acres in the coming years, instead of this
    maybe, if we are lucky, over the next 20 or 30 years at the
    current rate of funding.
        Senator Gillibrand. Well, I would like to work with you on
    those management ideas, because if we do get a vote on that
    bill in this Committee, I could offer an amendment to add that
    to the bill.
        In your written testimony, you raised several concerns with
    S. 1731, the Forest Management Improvement Act. Among the
    concerns you raise is the reduction in transparency and public
    involvement that would be the result of the bill. What would
    the consequences of limiting the options that are looked at as
    part of an environmental review or environmental assessment for
    all forest management practices, and how would such a
    limitation affect the ability of the public to provide
    meaningful input in the process?
        Mr. O'Mara. So, I am a big fan of collaborative processes,
    where you get folks on the ground together to come up with kind
    of solutions, and the 2014 Farm Bill actually had a great model
    for a lot of these individual exclusions to have a more
    collaborative process, and what they did there is they actually
    kept the environmental safeguards in place, but they really
    focused on empowering the collaboratives. And I think in this
    case there is a commonsense moderate middle between, and I
    think there is a bipartisan agreement where I think this
    overreaches on a few fronts. I think there is a more moderate
    place. None of us want to see projects that are collaborative
    blown up by the courts and things like that, but the answer
    isn't get rid of everything in the process and kind of throw
    the baby out with the bath water. So there is a middle ground
    that we would love to work with you and the Committee on
    finding, because we can get this done very well.
        Senator Gillibrand. A major reason why we subject major
    projects and activities to an environmental review process is
    to ensure that the voices of the public and other stakeholders
    are heard before decisions are made. This allows, in many
    instances, potential conflicts and unintended consequences to
    be identified and resolved before a project moves forward,
    rather than trying to fix it after the fact.
        For any of you, could you give us an example, either now or
    for the record, of how this process has worked well to resolve
    environmental issues before a project was implemented?
        You could start, Collin.
        Mr. O'Mara. Sure. I mean, I think there are incredible
    projects in places like Oregon and places like Montana that
    have had great collaborative processes that identified
    potential impacts to make sure you had the sportsmen interests
    for elk and big game kind of matched and making sure you don't
    have an adverse impact on things like raptors and owls and
    other kind of species. So having more voices at the table at
    the local level I think is the absolute best way to do this.
    And then what I would like to see is have those processes
    bolstered so they have greater weight in the courts. I mean,
    you shouldn't have somebody that wasn't part of the process be
    able to blow they up. We see that all too often.
        And I think this is where Senator Daines' bill and Senator
    Tester's bill, of making sure we are not having to go back to
    the entire plan, but just kind of focus on a specific piece and
    getting the best science, best collaboration at that level is a
    commonsense moderate middle that can actually make sure these
    kind of projects that are good and collaborative actually
    advance.
        Senator Gillibrand. Lawson.
        Mr. Fite. Thank you, Senator. Certainly, in Idaho and
    Montana there has been a lot of progress. I was involved in a
    project recently in southern Idaho where we got on the phone
    with conservation groups and the Forest Service and worked
    something out.
        Things are a little more difficult in Oregon. We have a
    collaborative project that is under litigation by a former
    member of a collaborative and a group that has participated in
    those processes, so I think that is a frustrating experience
    for folks when they go in that process and then there is still
    litigation.
        Senator Gillibrand. Chairman, I am out of time. Could
    Jessica answer, though?
        Senator Barrasso. Ms. Crowder.
        Ms. Crowder. I will be brief. Thank you, Senator.
        The collaboratives are important. We do have collaborative
    processes beginning in Wyoming. We are a little behind Oregon
    on some of those efforts. And I would submit to you that
    involving the people locally on the ground who live and work in
    these communities is of the utmost importance. However, I would
    also caution, and what we hear often from our constituents is
    we need immediate action; and they want to be involved in the
    process, but they want the process to lead to action on the
    ground. Thank you.
        Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much.
        Senator Boozman.
        Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. I
    apologize for being late; I was at a Veterans hearing talking
    about veteran suicide, which is also very important. But, also,
    this is very important too, in a different way.
        Ms. Crowder, my State of Arkansas is very active in forest
    management on private, State, and some instances on Federal
    land. We have a thriving timber industry that provides good-
    paying jobs for thousands of Arkansans. Further, Arkansas
    creates a net sequester of carbon at an impressive 16 million
    tons a year. It appears that investing in forest management is
    not only good for our environment, but it also boosts the U.S.
    economy.
        In your testimony and in answers to questions, it appears,
    Ms. Crowder, that you feel like that the legislation that we
    are discussing, well, enhanced forest management practices
    would help with the forest fire situation. Am I correct in
    that?
        Ms. Crowder. Yes, sir.
        Senator Boozman. Do you view increased forest management as
    a way for the United States to reduce its carbon footprint?
        Ms. Crowder. Yes, sir. Trees are important; they are carbon
    holders, carbon capture, so they are of the utmost importance
    to having healthy forests, to having healthy people, to having
    a healthy environment; and active management of those trees
    only increases those opportunities.
        Senator Boozman. Would you all comment, if you would?
        Mr. Fit. Well, I will comment very quickly. I met with one
    of our members, one of our sawmill members, and he said, you
    know what I do? I sequester carbon. By putting wood into
    products like the paneling in this room, we are sequestering
    carbon and we are storing it in our forests. And if we have
    these catastrophic wildfires, then we are releasing amounts of
    carbon that could be stored in those forests and kept there
    with good active management.
        Mr. O'Mara. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for the
    question. The estimates have ranged anywhere from 50 million
    metric tons of carbon go off every year from these wildfires to
    150 million. Just by way of comparison, all the refineries
    combined across the entire Country is about 220 million metric
    tons. So it is a lot. So, if we can improve management of our
    forests in a constructive way that reduces some of these
    catastrophic fires, the emission savings are significant; and,
    frankly, I would rather have it be in the trees, in the older
    trees and the larger trees, and actually have some local jobs
    as a result, also.
        Senator Boozman. Very good. Thank you.
        Mr. Fite, as you know, forest management is generally a
    bipartisan issue. Do you believe the legislation in front of us
    today effectively promotes a healthy environment, while getting
    rid of redundant processes that put our Country at greater risk
    of catastrophic wildfires? And I think it kind of goes to the
    comment that Ms. Crowder said a few minutes ago about the need,
    when you talk to individuals on the ground, the locals, getting
    something done now. But we have redundancies and we just have a
    paralysis of action.
        Mr. Fite. Absolutely, Senator. Forestry is a bipartisan
    space, and it is really encouraging that there are so many
    bills, particularly the litigation reform bill sponsored by
    Senators Daines and Tester also has bipartisan support in the
    House, and that is so encouraging because it is so important to
    our communities and to our ecosystems. We can do a lot of
    things that are win-win, where we are increasing the health of
    our forests, but we are also increasing the stability of our
    communities. And one of the great things about forestry is it
    provides jobs in rural areas that are blue collar and middle
    class; and there aren't as many jobs in this Country like that
    as there used to be, and that is a great thing for America.
        Senator Boozman. Very good.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Boozman.
        Senator Carper.
        Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
        Collin, I will come back to you on the first question.
    Could you just take a minute and explain the relevance of the
    term categorical exclusion to this discussion? And then I am
    going to ask you some more specific questions.
        Mr. O'Mara. Sure. So the categorical exclusion is a way to
    have a project that is defined that basically avoids the need
    for the same level of environmental analysis that would be
    required under the National Environmental Protection Act, and I
    think they have been used very strategically in some places, in
    the Farm Bill. I used a couple examples of that. The
    administrative agencies also have some authority to have
    narrowly crafted ones. And it is a way to basically expedite
    the review of projects by not having the same level of
    scrutiny.
        Senator Carper. I understand that the Forest Service has
    authority, I think explicit authority, to use categorical
    exclusions up to, what is it, 3,000 acres now? And I understand
    they have used it not hundreds of times, but maybe 30, 40
    times, something like that. On average, I believe it is about
    roughly 1,000 acres at a time. And we have heard testimony
    today that they have not fully utilized this authority.
        Your testimony expresses strong concern about proposed new
    categorical exclusions up to what, I think 10,000 acres. Could
    you talk more about the unintended consequence of implementing
    such a broad exclusion, particularly before the Forest Service
    has fully implemented its existing authorities and before
    Congress has addressed the agency's funding needs?
        Mr. O'Mara. Sure. There is kind of two parts to the
    proposal. One is increasing the acreage and the second is kind
    of reducing the other kind of collaboration and the restoration
    intent that some of the other exclusions have. So what we would
    like to see is a more narrow focus on projects that actually
    have a restoration purpose, and I think we actually see that in
    the mule deer bill, the stage grouse bill that Senator Hatch
    and Senator Heinrich have been working on; and at the same time
    still encourage things like collaboration and having some level
    of protection.
        So we just don't think it is absolutely necessary, given
    that the vast majority of projects that the Forest Service is
    looking at using this particular exemption for right now are
    about 1,000 acres, as you mentioned, not even reaching the full
    3,000. So I think the deal that was the bipartisan agreement
    from the Farm Bill in 2014 was a pretty good one. I would love
    to have them have more resources and more tools to use that
    existing exemption, as opposed to going further for something
    they really don't need yet.
        Senator Carper. OK, good. Thanks. That was helpful.
        Ms. Crowder, somewhere in your testimony you mention that
    the State of Wyoming--have you always lived in the State of
    Wyoming?
        Ms. Crowder. I am sorry?
        Senator Carper. Have you always lived in the State of
    Wyoming?
        Ms. Crowder. I have been there about 13 years.
        Senator Carper. I was in Wyoming last weekend, Camden,
    Wyoming. It is a little town just south of Dover, Delaware. I
    go there a lot, and I always say to John Barrasso, our
    Chairman, and Mike Enzi, I was in Wyoming last weekend. It is a
    different one. I have been there a couple times. Lovely place.
    Lovely place. The real Wyoming, the really big one.
        But you mention in your testimony that your home State,
    your native State requested that the Forest Service uses
    authorities enacted in the Farm Bill we were talking about
    earlier, 2014 Farm Bill, but the agency has not yet done so.
    And I just want to ask you if you think this is in large part
    because the Forest Service's budget is inadequate and the
    agency has to spend more than half of its budget fighting
    fires.
        Ms. Crowder. Yes, sir. Fire borrowing is a real concern,
    and Governor Mead shares that concern and would like to see a
    fix to the fire borrowing issue. Essentially what it does is it
    takes away opportunities for us to get some active management
    done on the ground, as well as other projects, recreation
    projects, habitat enhancement projects, and others.
        In Wyoming, categorical exclusions related to insect and
    disease designation areas under the 2014 Farm Bill have not
    happened yet. That is not only because of the fire borrowing
    issue; it is because of a hesitancy to utilize the tool and
    also because there are many instances where a larger action is
    necessary. So chipping away 3,000 acres at a time on a forest
    like the Medicine Bow National Forest won't make the results
    happen as quickly and it won't be as useful as we would like to
    see.
        Senator Carper. OK, thanks.
        I have maybe one question, but for the next round?
        Senator Barrasso. Go ahead.
        Senator Carper. OK, thanks.
        This would be for all witnesses, but I am going to start
    off, if I could, Mr. Fite, with you.
        According to the Forest Service's NEPA handbook, the agency
    has, I don't know, 30, 40, maybe 35 categorical exclusions at
    its disposal. Do you believe these exclusions are being fully
    utilized? If not, why do you think they have not been fully
    utilized? And do you have specific recommendations on how they
    could be better utilized?
        Mr. Fite. Thank you, Senator. The categorical exclusions,
    many of them are being utilized, but they are for very small
    pieces of work, for 70-acre treatment or there is a categorical
    exclusion for facility maintenance. So many of these
    categorical exclusions don't really make a difference on the
    landscape.
        As far as barriers to using categorical exclusions, I will
    say I think Region I of the Forest Service has done a really
    good job using the Farm Bill authorities. They already have 15
    projects, just Montana, northern Idaho, North Dakota.
    Certainly, budget is an issue, but making sure that we can
    streamline authorities ensures that money will be spent wisely
    and it gets a good return, because the difference between a
    categorical exclusion and an EA versus an EIS can be
    significant time and significant taxpayer dollars.
        Senator Carper. All right.
        Collin.
        Mr. O'Mara. I do think that we have gotten better at this
    the last few cycles and we have seen some improvement. There is
    a really great idea that the Nation Conservancy and the
    National Wildlife Federation and Senator Cantwell and Senator
    Murkowski have been talking about, kind of like these landscape
    scale plans where you basically try to do habitat restoration
    at scale and then use it through an EA process as a way to kind
    of expedite the review, but as opposed to every individual
    small project kind of looking at scale.
        So I think what we would argue is that we could use the EA
    process much more efficiently and not need the full-blown EIS,
    kind of NEPA analysis, and that is a better solution, from our
    point of view, than having a bunch more categorical exclusions
    that may or may not be used. So I think there is a better
    mousetrap to get the same exact result on the ground in a way
    that can be much more bipartisan.
        Senator Carper. OK, good.
        And Ms. Crowder.
        Ms. Crowder. Yes. Categorical exclusions, I agree with
    these two gentlemen, do not provide the needs that we have in
    Wyoming, in Region II and Region IV of the Forest Service,
    across several of our forests that are just devastated, and
    that is my concern. I am sorry, categorical exclusions do
    provide that opportunity. So when we don't see those
    categorical exclusions used because they don't provide the bang
    for your buck that is needed in some of these areas that are
    truly devastated, that is where the concerns come in.
        We do have two projects that are very close to 3,000 acres
    that are starting to move forward under the insect and disease
    designation areas permitted in the Farm Bill of 2014; however,
    it is slow. It has been very slow. And we would like to see
    that use be improved and expanded. And I think that
    streamlining NEPA as a whole for environmental assessments and
    environmental impact statements is also necessary and a very
    good tool.
        Senator Carper. All right.
        The last thing I would ask is sometimes when we have issues
    for which there is not yet unanimity, we look to a panel like
    you. You don't see all these issues entirely the same, but
    there is a lot of consensus. Just a closing word or two, some
    counsel for us, as we try to move forward with these bills,
    just to keep in mind. Anything, any last thought that you have,
    we would appreciate it.
        You want to go first, Ms. Crowder.
        Ms. Crowder. Thank you, Senator, Mr. Chairman. I think
    that, in closing, for Wyoming and the rest of the Country, what
    is important here is immediate action, an opportunity to
    evaluate what we really want our forests to look like, how we
    really want our forests to function. Do we want them to provide
    ecosystem benefits and jobs for our economy? Do we want them to
    be a great place to recreate and for visitors to enjoy, for
    wildlife? Yes. So we need to evaluate what those goals actually
    are for our forests and what are the steps to actually get
    there.
        In Wyoming, we are concerned with management being too
    small, at two small a scale to get to the level of management
    that we would like to see, and to see the healthy forests that
    we really do want and that are very important to our citizens.
        So thank you for the opportunity.
        Senator Carper. No, we are grateful to you. Thank you.
        Mr. Fite.
        Mr. Fite. Thank you, Senator. In closing, some words to go
    on, we have a great opportunity with active management to
    create healthy forests that support our communities and support
    many of the other uses of the national forests, which are great
    multiple-use lands for timber production, recreation, and all
    sorts of other uses. What we need, though, is a comprehensive
    approach, because merely fixing a budget approach without
    giving the Forest Service and BLM more management authorities
    isn't going to get us to where we need to be with an actively
    managed healthy landscape, because if we just send money at the
    problem--and I agree the wildfire funding problem needs to be
    fixed, and we in industry support fixing that, but without some
    management reforms, we are not going to get the management
    outcomes that we need on our national forests. And we in the
    forest product industry, we stand ready to partner across the
    aisle, across the spectrum to create solutions and support
    approaches that will create good results on the ground.
        Senator Carper. All right. Thanks.
        Mr. Fite. Thank you for the opportunity.
        Senator Carper. Collin, last word?
        Mr. O'Mara. Thank you, Senator. There is an opportunity of
    a big bipartisan agreement here if we focus on the things that
    are truly bipartisan, and I think the fire funding crisis fix I
    think is bipartisan in the Senate. I think we have gotten
    really close a few times. I think the bills you have before
    you, with Senator Tester and Senator Daines, as well as Senator
    Thune and Senator Hatch, I think those are bipartisan. I think
    that with some more thought, I think there are some pieces of
    the Thune bill, in Senator Thune's bill that could be
    bipartisan. But speed is of the essence.
        We have been stranded. We have lost kind of goal line
    stands several times on this issue in the last several years,
    so I think we can't let perfect be immediately good and I think
    we have to be rational on all sides, and frankly it comes back
    to your three Cs, right? Collaboration and compromise. And we
    could get this done by the end of the year. I mean, this could
    be one of the biggest national resource bills that has gone
    through this body in years. But I think everyone is going to
    have to be legitimately compromising to get there.
        Managers absolutely need more tools and managers absolutely
    need more resources, and if we focus on outcomes like wildlife
    habitat and forest resilience and watershed health and local
    recreation and local jobs, there is a solution there; and we
    would love to work with both of you to make that happen.
        Senator Carper. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Great
    to see you. Thank you.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Carper.
        I ask unanimous consent to include a record letter, number
    of different articles on wildfires into the record.
        Senator Carper. I object.
        Senator Barrasso. Without objection.
        Senator Carper. I don't object.
        Senator Barrasso. Objection is overruled.
        [Laughter.]
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        Senator Barrasso. Mr. O'Mara, if I could, just following up
    on what you were talking about. You mentioned catastrophic
    wildfires, tens of billions of dollars in damages, local
    communities, the economies. So many of the populations depend
    on the great outdoors to sustain the economies. We have had
    these catastrophic fires. They affect hunting, fishing, hiking,
    all of the activities. Can you talk a little bit about just the
    impact on the outdoor economies that is impacted?
        Mr. O'Mara. Yes. And I think we haven't done a good job
    quantifying this, but this year, using Senator Daines' and
    Senator Tester's hometown, all the folks who tried to go to
    Glacier that couldn't visit this year, that is a massive loss
    of impact on Kalispell and Whitefish and all those communities
    up there. I was in Jackson just a few weeks ago and there was
    still haze in the air, still affecting local kids and local
    schools.
        So you are talking about tens of billions of dollars of
    impact on the ground on the physical assets. You are probably
    talking, you know, 30, 40, $50 billion of economic impact
    further upstream. So a fire funding fix that is a fraction of
    that cost, plus some management reforms that are basically just
    better policy, is a small price to pay for having this massive
    impact on the economy, rural jobs and outdoor economy jobs.
        Senator Barrasso. I want to go to Mr. Fite next, but I am
    going to let you finish it off, Ms. Crowder, and you can talk
    about that, even things like the eclipse and the impact on
    people coming to Wyoming, and whether they are going to have a
    good vision of the Great American Eclipse.
        Mr. Fite, let me just get to you in terms of wildlife and
    the specifics there to better protect species. This Committee
    has examined how to improve wildlife conservation. We have done
    that over the last several months; we have had hearings. Given
    the importance of conservation to this Committee, can you talk
    a little bit about your thoughts as to the devastating impact
    wildfires have on our Country's wildlife and how you believe
    these bills addressed will really help protecting wildlife?
        Mr. Fite. Yes, Senator, absolutely. We have seen fires in
    the West recently that have had dramatic and horrific impacts
    on key wildlife habitat. One example was a fire complex called
    Westside on the Klamath National Forest in northern California.
    It destroyed 20,000 acres of very high quality northern spotted
    owl habitat. Just destroyed it. It looked like a bomb had gone
    off, basically. And the Forest Service, in its evaluations of
    the northwest forest plan 20 years on, it noted that wildfire
    impacts to key wildlife habitat are 10 times that of timber
    harvests or really any other impact. Wildfire is really the No.
    1 threat that a lot of these sensitive, endangered, and
    threatened species are facing, particularly forest-dependent
    species and particularly old forest-dependent species. If we
    are not managing areas that are designated for timber
    production or more of the front country, if we are not managing
    that, then areas that are set aside as reserves are going to be
    vulnerable from fire.
        So we are not looking at management as a solution. It
    protects not only the active working forests, but it protects
    areas that we have set aside, such as Glacier. And the
    solutions that are in front of this Committee can really have a
    positive impact on those conservation efforts. Going back to
    the Cottonwood bill, so many of those projects have significant
    wildlife benefits like fish passage improvements and the like.
        So what the opportunity here is a great win-win of
    improving wildlife conservation and supporting our local
    economies, and also preventing more catastrophic wildfire in
    the future.
        Senator Barrasso. Ms. Crowder.
        Ms. Crowder. Senator, tourism is Wyoming's No. 3 industry.
    We have several of these reserve forests and wilderness areas
    and national parks that people enjoy visiting. We have several
    places throughout State that people love to go fish, they love
    to go hike, they love to get on the Snake River and raft. What
    we see from wildfires are concerns from our tourists, as well
    as our citizens, that they won't be able to do those things
    that they really want to do.
        We often see letters from people who have planned their
    once-in-a-lifetime trip to Yellowstone, Grand Teton National
    Park, the Bridger-Teton National Forest, and they find out that
    there are wildfires and they don't know if they should come to
    Wyoming or not; they don't know if they should cancel their
    trip. They are worried about their health; they are worried
    about their ability to do the activities that they have planned
    a lifetime for. And that is concerning. And we saw that play
    out with the Great American Eclipse. And we are not the only
    State that had these concerns.
        The potential for people to come to Wyoming to watch the
    eclipse in its totality, what an amazing experience, really;
    and people planned for years for that. And what we saw was a
    concern and a real concern that wildfires would put a lot of
    smoke in the air and really block that view, and that would
    have a major impact on our tourism industry not just for that
    day, but in the weeks surrounding it. And, luckily, that ended
    up not being the case, but there were fire bans throughout the
    State to make sure that would not be the case.
        It has also come to light in places like Jackson or Casper,
    where folks are concerned that wildfires really will ruin their
    industry, people who live and work in those places who maybe
    run a fishing business and a guide business or a rafting
    business. And those folks have concerns that they won't be able
    to continue their livelihood in these areas if wildfires
    continue to be an issue and they stop people from coming to
    these great places that we love across our Nation.
        Thank you.
        Senator Barrasso. Well, I appreciate all of you being here.
    I thought it was excellent testimony; excellent give and take.
    We had about 10 members who had the chance to be here to ask
    questions. Some members may want to submit written questions,
    as well, so I would hope that you would respond to those
    quickly because the record will stay open for 2 weeks.
        I want to thank each and every one of you for being here
    for this very important issue.
        This hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m. the committee was adjourned.]

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