[Senate Hearing 116-342]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 116-342
PENDING LEGISLATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
S. 1665
S. 1723
S. 1967
__________
OCTOBER 31, 2019
__________
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
39-868 WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE LEE, Utah MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
STEVE DAINES, Montana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
CORY GARDNER, Colorado MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
Brian Hughes, Staff Director
Kellie Donnelly, Chief Counsel
Annie Hoefler, Professional Staff Member
Sarah Venuto, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
Bryan Petit, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Alaska.... 1
Wyden, Hon. Ron, a U.S. Senator from Oregon...................... 2
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from
West Virginia.................................................. 3
Gardner, Hon. Cory, a U.S. Senator from Colorado................. 5
Barrasso, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from Wyoming................. 5
WITNESSES
French, Chris, Deputy Chief, National Forest System, USDA Forest
Service........................................................ 7
Haskett, Nikki, Acting Assistant Director for National
Conservation Lands and Community Partnerships, Bureau of Land
Management, U.S. Department of the Interior.................... 14
McGuire, Brendan, Vice President of Public Affairs, Vail Resorts. 22
Davis, Lee, Executive Director, Outdoor Recreation Economy
Initiative, Oregon State University - Portland Center.......... 26
Bannon, Aaron, Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability
Director, National Outdoor Leadership School................... 38
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
America Outdoors Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 186
America Mountain Guides Association:
Statement for the Record..................................... 187
Bannon, Aaron:
Opening Statement............................................ 38
Written Testimony............................................ 40
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 82
Barrasso, Hon. John:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Coalition for Outdoor Access:
Statement for the Record..................................... 194
Colorado Ski Country USA, et al.:
Letter for the Record........................................ 199
Davis, Lee:
Opening Statement............................................ 26
Written Testimony............................................ 29
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 78
French, Chris:
Opening Statement............................................ 7
Written Testimony............................................ 9
Response to Question from Senator Heinrich................... 62
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 66
Gardner, Hon. Cory:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Haskett, Nikki:
Opening Statement............................................ 14
Written Testimony............................................ 16
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 71
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
Opening Statement............................................ 3
McGuire, Brendan:
Opening Statement............................................ 22
Written Testimony............................................ 24
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 75
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
Outdoor Alliance and The Conservation Alliance:
Letter for the Record........................................ 201
Outdoor Recreation Roundtable:
Letter for the Record regarding S. 1665 and S. 1967.......... 206
Letter for the Record regarding S. 1723...................... 208
Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) Co-op:
Letter for the Record........................................ 210
S. 1665, the Simplifying Outdoor Access for Recreation Act....... 85
S. 1723, the Ski Area Fee Retention Act.......................... 118
S. 1967, the Recreation Not Red Tape Act......................... 127
Wyden, Hon. Ron:
Opening Statement............................................ 2
PENDING LEGISLATION
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa
Murkowski, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
The Chairman. Good morning, everyone. The Committee will
come to order.
Happy Halloween. Happy World Series. Everybody stayed up
late watching the game. Yeah.
Senator Daines. Go Nats!
The Chairman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is kind of exciting,
kind of exciting.
We are here today talking about good things, recreation,
and I am going to keep my comments brief because I know
colleagues have been very engaged in this and a couple of you
want to make some opening comments as well.
We have three pieces of legislation before us this morning
that we are considering. S. 1665, the Simplifying Outdoor
Access for Recreation Act. Senator Heinrich calls it the SOAR
Act. I like the acronym there, pretty good.
S. 1723, the Ski Area Fee Retention Act from Senator
Gardner. We all love skiing.
Senator Gardner. And they are open.
The Chairman. Already?
Senator Gardner. Already.
The Chairman. Extraordinary. Can't wait.
S. 1967, the Recreation Not Red Tape Act from Senator
Wyden.
This hearing is building off of one that we held in March
where we focused on improving access, infrastructure and
permitting to meet the increasing demand and provide high
quality recreation opportunities on our federal lands. So the
proposals that we are looking at today, I think, are a good
start in addressing those issues.
Senator Heinrich and Senator Wyden have put forward
legislation to streamline and simplify the systems in place to
process permits for our outfitters, guides and non-profits for
those who operate across the spectrum of federal lands.
Senator Gardner's bill would help facilitate the private
investment needed for infrastructure to meet the demands for
four season recreation at ski areas that operate in our
nation's forests.
All of these measures recognize the important role that
recreation is playing in our economy. According to the Bureau
of Economic Analysis in 2017, outdoor recreation accounted for
2.2 percent of current dollar GDP, or about $427 billion. This
includes not only the impact to sectors like outfitting and
guiding but all of the associated impact as well, such as
lodging, transportation, and restaurants.
In my state we certainly see a big impact from recreation.
In 2018, Alaska welcomed about 1.17 million cruise ship
visitors. I think this next year we are up to about 1.3
million. This is in a state of about 720,000 people. So we
certainly feel that impact. It is exciting, but sometimes it is
a little bit overwhelming.
At the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau, you
have hundreds of people who want to get into the facility every
day, but the facility is designed to hold a fraction of that.
The Forest Service is developing a master plan to respond to
the increased visitation, but it is a challenge.
I was with Senator Lee this past Friday. We had a
Roundtable out in Moab, and we had an opportunity to go to
Arches National Park. And to see the pressures--everybody wants
to get into the park, but how do we accommodate, how do we
facilitate?
Our outfitters and our guides are also trying to respond to
growing demand. Heli-ski and backcountry ski guides want to go
into new areas in the Chugach National Forest and on the BLM
lands near Haines, but they are being delayed by a very lengthy
and expensive environmental review process and a lack of
capacity at the agencies to process the permits. These are all
things that we hear about.
So what we are trying to do is to ensure that our federal
land managers have the resources and the flexibility needed to
respond to increasing and changing demand. Again, I appreciate
our colleagues' work on these very important bills.
I am going to turn to Senator Manchin before I introduce
our panel. I know that members, a couple of you, would like to
make introductions for some of the witnesses who are here this
morning.
Senator Manchin. Madam Chairman, if I can, I would like to
defer to my good friend, Senator Wyden, he has a finance
meeting coming up, before I give my opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Senator Manchin and Chair
Murkowski. I don't want to make this a bouquet tossing contest,
but not only do I want to thank you for your courtesy so I can
do this and see if I can get back, but I also very much
appreciate your leadership on the recreation issues, the work
we try to do up here in a bipartisan way.
I think we all understand every member here, particularly
Westerners, we understand that this recreation effort, Senator
Heinrich's bill and mine are very compatible, is clearly a
boost both for our quality of life in the West and for our
economy and a chance to bring Americans together for better
health. So I really appreciate this.
My bill with Congressman Bishop, RNR, Recreation Not Red
Tape, is basically one that, kind of, updates the policies from
yesteryear because in yesteryear recreation was not the big
economic engine that it is today. So that is what our bill is
all about. That is point one.
Point number two. We have an Oregonian, Lee Davis, here. He
knows a lot about recreation. When he headed Mazamas, he was
responsible for the outfitter and guide permit with the most
user days in the State of Oregon and he also helped create an
Oregon State Office of Outdoor Recreation. So Lee, I am going
to be running back and forth and I have had the courtesy of the
Chair and the Ranking Member, but colleagues, we are really
talking to the gold standard when you hear from my fellow
Oregonian.
Last point, and I am not interested in starting a big
controversy, but I want to make sure we talk through the Chair
and the Vice Chair about this in the days ahead. And that is,
colleagues, we all know because we read the paper about these
wildfires that are just ravaging the West and there are a host
of issues that we are going to have to tackle.
I just want to put two up on the boards. One of them is
climate change and I think there are some ways that we can work
collaboratively on that. And second is collaboration which is
what we have tried to stress on the ground. That is what the
end of fire borrowing is all about. That is what stewardship
has been all about.
If we want to have colleagues' wonderful places to
recreate, we are going to have to do something to get an update
of the policies for fighting fire or we are going to lose some
of those places.
Madam Chair and the Vice Chair, I look forward to working
with you on both fronts and to Lee, I will be back and forth.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Wyden.
Senator Manchin.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Manchin. Thank you, Chair Murkowski, for holding
the hearing, and I want to thank all of you all for being here
today.
I commend the sponsors of the bills on today's agenda for
exploring innovative ways to improve outdoor recreation and the
business that supports it. Outdoor recreation has been a
powerful economic driver in states across the country, and my
home state of West Virginia is no exception. It has been
wonderful.
I have seen firsthand the jobs that outdoor recreation
economy has brought to rural areas in West Virginia. Outdoor
recreation in my state now generates two percent of our Gross
Domestic Product and supports 22,000 jobs. Three percent of our
workforce is now employed in the outdoor recreational sector
earning over $688 million in salaries. So this is a topic that
is near and dear to my heart, as I know it is to everybody
here.
As our Committee reviews legislation related to outdoor
recreation, I believe we must ensure the ideas being discussed
will grow the economies of rural communities. All three bills
before the Committee today attempt to do that and will have
impacts, I believe, in the states not only where they are being
introduced but for all of us and especially in West Virginia,
if enacted.
Senator Gardner's bill would provide assistance to ski
areas on federal land. While we will be hearing from Mr.
McGuire about how this will impact the ski industry, I want to
mention that we have two ski areas in West Virginia that use
Forest Service land. Unfortunately, a third area located on the
Monongahela National Forest closed earlier this year and is now
for sale, but it will be back up and running. I look forward to
the discussion about ways we can be better partners with the
ski industry, the appropriate use of revenue from fees and a
fair return to the taxpayers.
We will also be discussing a bill sponsored by Senators
Heinrich and Capito that would provide assistance to those
leading backpacking trips on federal land.
Senator Wyden's bill which he just spoke about proposes to
establish a system of national recreation areas. West Virginia
was actually home to the first national recreation area
designated in the United States in 1965 which is the Spruce
Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area.
These bills all have things in common: facilitating
people's ability to enjoy our public lands while supporting
jobs and the local economies. Following this hearing, Chairman
Murkowski and I will get to work with our colleagues on a
recreation package to report out of this Committee. The heart
and soul of that package will be the same as the bills we are
discussing today to not only make it easier for people to enjoy
their public lands but also grow businesses in all rural
communities.
Coming from Alaska and West Virginia, we have firsthand
experience of the importance of recreation in our states and,
with that as a basis, we have been developing additional ideas
for inclusion in the forthcoming package. For example, one of
the areas that I have been exploring is how we might be able to
better support gateway communities. Those are the communities
that are next to the recreation destinations where visitors eat
and sleep before or after enjoying the sites that they come to
visit.
Mr. Jeffrey Lusk, from our Hatfield-McCoy Trail System
testified before our Committee earlier this year about how
difficult it was to establish businesses in gateway
communities. Mr. Lusk's trail system hosts 50,000 riders
annually but 87 percent of those riders are non-West Virginian,
meaning that they need hotels at which to stay and restaurants
at which to eat. Unfortunately, in West Virginia and I am sure
in my colleagues' home states, it continues to be very
difficult to establish the infrastructure that is needed to
accommodate increased visitation to some of these rural areas.
So I look forward to working with Chairman Murkowski and my
colleagues on this and many other ideas as we assemble a
bipartisan recreation package in the coming weeks.
With that, I want to thank the witnesses and Madam
Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Gardner, I know you had wanted to make
introductions and perhaps briefly speak about your bill.
Senator Barrasso, I know you wanted to make an introduction,
and Senator Heinrich, you have a bill up here. I have given
everybody an opportunity; we are never going to get to these
guys.
Senator Heinrich. Yes, I was going to say, I just want to
hear from our witnesses.
The Chairman. I wanted to share the same courtesies, but
let me turn to Senator Gardner and then Senator Barrasso then.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. CORY GARDNER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I will be very
quick.
I am very pleased to have before the Committee a fellow
Coloradan, Brendan McGuire, who is Vice President for Public
Affairs at Vail Resorts testifying on behalf of the National
Ski Area Association this morning.
Vail Resorts, of course, is headquartered in Colorado where
its namesake, Vail Mountain, was started in 1962 by veterans of
the famed 10th Mountain Division of World War II. Since then,
Vail Resorts has grown into a huge Colorado success story
spanning 37 ski areas across three countries and the United
States all linked together by its industry leading Epic season
pass, available online and around the country.
Correct, Brendan? Is that right?
Mr. McGuire. For sale right now.
Senator Gardner. Sorry about that commercial.
And all linked together that allows skiers and riders to
access local, regional and destination ski resorts at a great
value.
Brendan, a native Coloradan, former ski instructor, former
Senate staffer for Senator Ken Salazar and, as Chair Murkowski
can attest to, a pretty great guy to be in the mountains with.
Thank you very much for being here today. And I think you have
86 acres open at Keystone right now.
Mr. McGuire. That's right.
The Chairman. Wow. Amazing.
Great, thank you, Senator Gardner.
Senator Barrasso.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you very much, Madam
Chairman. I am pleased to help you welcome Aaron Bannon to our
Committee today as a witness. He and I share the hometown of
Casper, Wyoming, and we share a love of the precious natural
resources that Wyoming has to offer.
He has spent more than a decade with the National Outdoor
Leadership School (NOLS) where he has been extraordinary in
terms of being an advocate for issues relating to outdoor
education, efficient, responsible use of public lands and
efficient permitting, of course.
When we think about public lands in the history of this
country, whether it was John Muir, whether it was Ansel Adams,
whether it was Teddy Roosevelt--you know, John Muir carried a
stick, Ansel Adams carried a camera, Teddy Roosevelt carried a
gun. But all of them saw the land. They all arrived at the same
conclusion. We need to preserve and protect and then pass on
these resources and allow others to enjoy them.
Aaron and I have had many conversations about ways to avoid
the cumbersome permitting process that dissuades public use of
public lands. So I am glad he is here today. Look, our State of
Wyoming relies on recreation and tourism as a key component of
our state economy. Much of the recreation occurs on public
lands managed by federal agencies, so it is important that we
combine thoughtful evaluation of the impacts with an effective
and efficient permitting process that encourages public access
and exploration of these magnificent landscapes.
Aaron, I look forward to the expertise that you are going
to share with the Committee today. I also want to congratulate
you. I know that Monday you will be starting work with American
Outdoors as the Executive Director. So it is big news, and I
look forward to continuing to work with you in your new role.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Great. Thank you, Senator Barrasso. Thank
you, all.
Most of you have been introduced, but I will provide my
welcome to each of you.
We will start off the discussion here this morning with an
individual who has been before the Committee. We have certainly
had many dealings with Chris French. He is the Deputy Chief for
the National Forest System in the USDA Forest Service. Chris,
we thank you for the many, many efforts that you have made, and
I know you are spending a lot of attention and time on Alaska-
related issues as you deal with Forest Service. Thank you for
your leadership.
Nikki Haskett is with the Committee this morning. She is
the Acting Assistant Director for National Conservation Lands
and Community Partnerships over at the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). We thank you for being here this morning and
look forward to your comments.
Brendan McGuire has been introduced and welcomed. It is
always good to have somebody that can be, again, speaking with
a firsthand relationship to the industry that he represents,
and he certainly does. We welcome you to the Committee.
Mr. Lee Davis has been introduced by Senator Wyden. We are
pleased that you are with us from Oregon. Welcome to the
Committee.
And to Mr. Aaron Bannon, we appreciate what you will
provide.
We ask you to try to keep your comments to about five
minutes. Your full statements will be included as part of the
record, and then we will have an opportunity for questions
afterwards.
I am going to excuse myself for just for a couple minutes
to go introduce an amendment in another committee, and I will
be back in about five minutes.
We will lead off the Committee here with Mr. French.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS FRENCH, DEPUTY CHIEF, NATIONAL FOREST
SYSTEM, USDA FOREST SERVICE
Mr. French. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chair, Vice
Chair and members of the Committee. I really appreciate the
opportunity today to talk about our views on these three bills,
the Recreation Not Red Tape Act, the Simplifying Outdoor Access
Recreation Act and the Ski Area Fee Retention Act.
You know, when I glance back at my 30 years that I've been
with the Forest Service, I started as a Recreation Technician.
And now, as I sit here and think about my role as Deputy Chief,
I realize I've always had a passion for connecting people to
the recreational opportunities on our public lands and it's
where I take my family.
Senator, I ski in those resorts in West Virginia. I know
the one that closed and it was hard to see that happen.
Senator Manchin. It will be back----
Mr. French. That's good.
And I used many of the services provided by our outfitter
guides.
You know, when I look at this, I think that anything that
we can do to improve our ability to better serve our recreation
community and our recreation partners and enhance those
experience connecting folks to our public lands, that's a good
day.
Outdoor recreation is a significant use of our National
Forest System. The number of recreation visits to the National
Forest System rose from 143 million in 2009, nine years later
that was at 150 million. Recreation on National Forest System
lands sustains more private sector jobs than any other Forest
Service program and provides the single, largest stimulus for
many local gateway communities.
Recreation on National Forest System lands contributes more
than $11 billion to America's Gross Domestic Product and
supports more than 148,000 full- and part-time jobs, most of
which are in those gateway and rural communities. Outdoor
recreation opportunities and amenities are consistently ranked
as one of the primary reasons people move to rural towns and
can be a leading contributor to local communities.
At the Forest Service, we administer more than 30,000
recreation specialty use authorizations for activities that
generate nearly $2 billion to their holders. In particular, the
Forest Service manages 122 ski area permits and approximately
8,000 outfitter and guide permits. These permits enable private
sector professionals, educational institutions to lead a wide
range of activities on National Forest System lands whether
it's white river rafting, downhill skiing, horseback riding,
big game hunting or youth education trips in wilderness or
scenic jeep tours.
For many of these activities, they represent, this
represents the first introduction that many folks have to the
outdoors and the outfitter and guides that they employ are
often small businesses that generate jobs and income for local
communities.
We also manage nearly 159,000 miles of trails, the largest
trail network in the nation. We host over 60 percent of the
country's ski area visits, and we're proud to provide a vital
respite from the fast-paced life in the form of thousands of
campsites and day use picnic areas as well as opportunities for
boating, fishing, hunting and hiking.
USDA supports the overall goals of these bills to improve
recreational access on National Forest System lands. The
Recreation Not Red Tape Act and the SOAR Act will complement
agency efforts to streamline our processes, reduce
inefficiencies and provide a higher level of customer service
to our public and our valued partners. The Ski Area Fee
Retention Act will increase available resources available to
improve the administration of and the experience on our ski
areas.
Finally, outdoor recreation provides millions of Americans
rich opportunities to connect with their lands and their
heritage. The USDA Forest Service is honored to serve in this
vital link and enormously values this opportunity to work with
Congress to improve the lives and livelihoods of Americans
through outdoor recreation.
I, again, thank you to the Committee for the opportunity to
provide testimony, and I look forward to working together on
these important bills.
[The prepared statement of Mr. French follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Heinrich [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. French.
Ms. Haskett.
STATEMENT OF NIKKI HASKETT, ACTING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR
NATIONAL CONSERVATION LANDS AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, BUREAU
OF LAND MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Haskett. Good morning, Chairman Murkowski and Ranking
Member Manchin. I am Nikki Haskett, Acting Assistant Director
for National Conservation Lands and Community Partnerships at
the Bureau of Land Management. Thank you for inviting me here
today to testify on S. 1967, the Recreation Not Red Tape Act,
and S. 1665, the Simplifying Outdoor Access for Recreation Act,
or SOAR Act.
These bills which amend the Federal Lands Recreation
Enhancement Act aim to improve the efficiency and reduce the
cost for applying for and administering special recreation
permits. They also authorize single, joint, special recreation
permits for multi-agency trips. The Department supports the
goals of both of these bills.
Federal land management agencies oversee about 640 million
surface acres, including public lands managed by the BLM, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and
the National Park Service as well as the Forest Service. These
lands host a remarkable variety of recreational opportunities.
Secretary Bernhardt is improving recreational access to
public lands and has issued a number of orders in support of
this priority. For example, Secretarial Order 3373 promotes
improved access to public lands, and under this policy the BLM
has acquired new lands such as 13,000 acres to improve access
to the Blackfoot River in Montana and the 3,500 acres to
improve access to the Sabinoso Wilderness Area in New Mexico.
Much of the changes proposed in the bills being considered
today deal with special recreation permits and their associated
fees. Fees collected for each permit allow the Federal
Government to implement projects that benefit visitors such as
maintaining recreational sites. The BLM issues over 1,000 of
these recreation permits a year and oversees about 4,600
special recreation permits at any one time.
S. 1967 and S. 1665 align with the Secretary's priorities
to increase access and promote recreational opportunities on
public lands. We believe that these bills have the potential to
address some longstanding challenges, and we look forward to
working with the sponsors and the Committee to address a number
of technical issues in the measures.
Both bills authorize agencies to issue single, joint
recreation permits for trips that cross agency boundaries of
more than one land management agency. When a single, joint
recreation permit is proposed the bills authorize the
designation of a lead agency for the permit. The bills also
authorize agencies to delegate the respective enforcement
authorities to the lead agency.
The Department has been pursuing efforts to make recreation
permitting easier, and we support efforts to improve the
permitting process. Americans should be able to access and
enjoy their public lands with as much ease as possible. The
Department supports the goals of these provisions and would
like to continue to work with the sponsors on certain
modifications.
The bills also provide various other authorities for
agencies to improve the permitting process such as expanded use
of categorical exclusions and allowing permittees to return
unused service days. The Department strongly supports these
provisions.
Other provisions of the bills such as online and email
notifications of permit opportunities and exemptions of the
first 50 hours of work from cost recovery reflect the goals of
the Department, and we support and appreciate the opportunity
to continue working with the sponsors and the Committee on
these provisions.
Lastly, the Recreation Not Red Tape Act includes a
provision regarding retailing of recreational passes,
encouraging veterans and service members to recreate on public
lands and expanding the use of volunteers. The Department
supports these provisions.
In conclusion, we are grateful that the Committee is
considering legislation to make it easier for Americans to
enjoy their public lands. Thank you again for the opportunity
to testify today. I would be happy to answer any questions you
may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Haskett follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Heinrich. Thank you very much.
Mr. McGuire, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF BRENDAN MCGUIRE, VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS,
VAIL RESORTS
Mr. McGuire. Good morning. Thank you, Senator Gardner, for
that nice introduction. Ranking Member Manchin, members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here in support
of S. 1723, the Ski Area Fee Retention Act (SAFRA) of 2019.
On behalf of Vail Resorts, my employer, and the National
Ski Areas Association (NSAA), we'd also like to thank Senators
Bennett and Wyden, for their leadership in introducing the bill
and Committee members Barrasso, Cortez Masto, McSally and Risch
for co-sponsoring this bipartisan measure to retain ski area
permit fees locally.
NSAA has 325 members, 122 of which operate on the National
Forest System. Vail Resorts, my company that I work for, owns
and operates 37 ski areas including iconic public lands
resorts: Vail Mountain in Colorado; Stevens Pass in Washington;
Heavenly in Tahoe; and Mt. Snow in Vermont. So it goes all the
way East as well.
SAFRA would retain a percentage of ski area permit fees in
the forest in which they were generated. Those funds would be
retained so that the Forest Service has the capacity to
administer ski area permits and review ski area infrastructure
projects.
Ski areas work in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service
to deliver an outdoor recreation experience that is really
unmatched in the world. This public-private partnership dates
back to the 1940s and has a long history of providing benefits
to all Americans through health and fitness, an appreciation of
our natural environment and providing strong returns to the
U.S. Government through those fees paid for the use of the
land.
Over the past ten years, ski areas nationwide have averaged
over 55 million visits annually. Sixty percent of those visits
occur on Forest Service public lands. In total, the industry
creates $62 billion in tourist-related revenue, supports nearly
a million jobs and generates nearly $5 billion in annual retail
sales.
Public land ski areas are typically the largest employer
for the communities in which they operate. They pay for all
onsite improvements, including roads, parking lots, chairlifts,
as well as all the processes required to review and approve
such projects. The ability for our ski areas to move forward as
a business is linked to our most important partner, the U.S.
Forest Service, and their capacity to review proposals and
render decisions.
Fee retention as outlined in the bill is an important tool
to boost the agency's capacity to review ski area proposals.
This legislation would allow ski areas to invest more and
sooner in much needed infrastructure.
Retaining these ski fees is necessary because funding and
staffing for the Forest Service Rec program sits at nearly 20
percent below 2010 levels. Meanwhile, visitation has only
grown, increasing by 30 percent in that same time period. The
Forest Service's own data shows that 85 percent of visitors to
the National Forests are seeking recreation opportunities. Of
the ten most visited forests nationwide, nine of them host ski
areas and that visitation drives local economies.
Ski areas are less likely to receive timely reviews of
project proposals when forests are operating at low permit
administration capacity. Ski areas have experienced pauses
during which proposals cannot be accepted by the agency. Some
forests have seen a lack of bandwidth that allows them to only
review one project at a time.
When projects are delayed and timelines uncertain, ski
areas, like all businesses, find it harder to invest
significant resources. That means ski areas are less likely or
slower to upgrade chairlifts, to upgrade to energy efficient
snowmaking systems and to transition to four season models
capable of supporting jobs and the economy all year. This
uncertainty has, unfortunately, shelved ski area investments
that would have benefited workers, guests and communities.
Dedicating a percentage of the nearly $40 million in fees paid
by ski areas will unlock new investment opportunities.
Since 2010, ski areas operating on Forest Service lands
have experienced good revenue growth in the winter, and they
were up over 100 percent from our summer activities thanks to
the bill that this Committee and Congress passed in 2011, the
Summer Activities bill. There's tremendous interest in our
industry to harness this momentum and build the infrastructure
necessary to support future growth.
We urge your support of S. 1723, and thank you again for
the opportunity to be here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McGuire follows:]
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The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. McGuire.
Mr. Davis, welcome.
STATEMENT OF LEE DAVIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OUTDOOR RECREATION
ECONOMY INITIATIVE, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY (OSU) - PORTLAND
CENTER
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Chair Murkowski and Ranking Member
Manchin and members of the Committee. The Committee members
here today are very, very aware of the details in these bills
and the issues facing us and all the giant numbers and impacts
that recreation bring to our economy and people.
I've been waiting for this day for about seven years, so I
decided that you can read my written testimony and today I'm
just going to tell you some stories.
Seven years ago, I was called to a meeting in Portland,
Oregon, with some people that are here behind me. It was about
trying to figure out how to get more permits for groups that
were trying to get kids outside. I was called because, as
Senator Wyden mentioned, at that time I was running the largest
outfitter guide permit in the State of Oregon. And so, people
were pretty regularly calling me, small business owners and
other people were calling me and saying how do I get a permit?
How do I get a permit? Do you guys have it? And you know,
asking if we could broker permits, asking if they could, you
know, is there any way they could work with us or could the
Mazamas just buy them out so that they could do the things they
wanted to do within our permit? And I bring up that meeting
because what we ended up doing in that meeting was deciding
that we had to create a private sector training program to
teach small businesses and outfitters and guides simply how to
navigate the permit process, you know?
And so, we built those with, again, some of the people in
the room, Paul Sanford behind me helped with that. We built
those training programs. We launched those training programs.
We had to stop them within about a year because people were so
angry by the end of the training. We'd teach them all the
processes and procedures and all, and we'd have Forest Service
staff come and tell them, you know, exactly what you need to
do, step by step by step.
And then they would hear that there's been a 23-year
moratorium on permits on Mount Baker National Forest or a 20-
year moratorium on Mount Hood National Forest. And the permit
staff, you know, was not available that day to help them with
their request, you know? So we had to stop that training, and
that's kind of ridiculous.
The other thing that I think is worth mentioning about
those days is that the permit application that I would submit
every year was 76 pages long. We had to tell them exactly where
all 14,000 participants were going to be, every single year. If
we were going to vary the date of participation because of
weather or, you know, different seasonal issues or anything
like that, we had to call them and notify them. It was just
incredibly laborious.
The other thing I want to mention about that meeting was
that day I met a man, a philanthropist from Seattle, named Doug
Walker. Doug Walker was the person that explained to me that
the biggest threat facing public lands and waters in the future
is that our kids aren't building a bond of care with the
outdoors, that more than anything else if our future voters,
our future workers and constituents don't understand the value
of the place, they're not going to vote to protect it. So I
think those are some real reasons why we need to work on permit
reform.
Next, I want to talk a little bit about national recreation
areas. Most of us are aware we have great tools like the
Wilderness Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and monuments
to protect natural and cultural assets in our country. But to
my knowledge, we don't have great tools that help us protect
places where the primary value is recreation. And that's, I
think, some folks are afraid of creating a new designation
because it might be misused. But I think even on Halloween we
don't need to be afraid of that because of you guys. In other
words, each new national recreation area would have to go
through Congress, and the devil's in the details on these
things. And there's nothing in this provision that prohibits,
you know, the interchange between recreational uses and
resource extraction.
The Dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State
University, where I work, often likes to talk about trails in
Northern Europe where you can mountain bike by wineries and
farms and sawmills. And they have recreational trails that
effectively integrate resource extraction and recreation and
celebrate all the great uses that our public lands bring to our
people and our economies. And that's possible.
I think, you know, and you've heard in some, I think, in
some previous hearings on this that people have had to go
outside of the country just to operate sometimes because it was
so hard to operate in this country. There's a rafting guide in
Oregon that I know that does that. There's a mountain climbing
guide in Oregon I know that leads trips in Africa and Nepal,
because it's easier than running them in Oregon and Washington.
I, myself, spent eight years taking people to Chamonix,
France, because it was easier for me to fly 15, 20 people to
France than it was to get them to recreate in Alaska or
Washington or Oregon. I mean, my most formative experience in
the outdoors was traversing the Arrigetch Peaks in the Gates of
the Arctic National Park in the Brooks Range. I would have
loved to have taken those people there, but I just couldn't do
it.
The last thing I want to talk about is making recreation a
priority. I think in my written testimony I laid out a series
of strategies that I think that we might want to look at and
evolve into a national strategy to move the recreation economy
forward. I think that the outdoor recreation economy is the
future of natural, resource-based jobs in America. And
certainly, resource extraction jobs will be with us forever,
but I think that we need to invest in this economy the way we
invested in 20th century in natural resource-based jobs and
infrastructure.
Currently in my role at OSU I'm working on creating
pathways to new and better jobs in the outdoor recreation
economy, working on creating certificates and badges and degree
programs eventually that will address the technical labor
challenges and the, you know, leadership level challenges that
all industries face and that also face our industry.
Through my work I also know that our industry really does
back these bills. I work very closely with Jessica Wall at the
Outdoor Recreation Roundtable representing 50,000 companies in
America, and they support these bills. So this isn't just me
and education and advocates saying this stuff's important--this
is industry.
I think you all are also very aware that my work and Jess'
work is about bringing it together, the entire recreation
economy from hunt and fish to non-consumptive to, you know,
across divides and we have a real opportunity here to bring
people together in a different kind of way.
The last thing I'll say is that I think future visions of
high-quality life in America include outdoor recreation out
your doorstep. I often, sort of, joke that my kid can still
draw you a better picture of what high-quality life in the '50s
was supposed to look like than he can tell you what it's
supposed to look like 20 years from now.
But we do know places like Bend, Oregon, and Ashland and
Head River in Oregon, at least, are, sort of, icons of that. I
think that if we can reform our permit process, if we can have
dedicated accountable agency staff that are measured by outdoor
recreation as a performance metric, and if we can have tools
like National Recreation Areas to tell managers that they need
to plan and manage around recreation, that we can move the
needle on these, on this economy.
So, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Davis follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Bannon, welcome.
STATEMENT OF AARON BANNON, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AND
SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL
Mr. Bannon. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, members of
the Committee, for holding this very important hearing. We are
doing critical work here today to address the persistent
challenges that are constraining guided outdoor recreation
experiences. And we at NOLS are very grateful for your
diligence.
As Senator Barrasso mentioned, I find myself at a personal
crossroads today. This week, today, I'm representing NOLS, the
National Outdoor Leadership School, a non-profit, educational
institution which has educated nearly 300,000 students in our
55-year history which was also, Senator, incidentally, started
by a 10th Mountain Division member.
And next week, I will begin as the Executive Director of
the America Outdoors Association. America Outdoors is a trade
association representing hundreds of non-profit and for-profit
commercial outfitters across the country.
So, NOLS and America Outdoors have been working hand in
hand on this legislation for years Simplifying Outdoor Act--I'm
sorry, Simplifying Outdoor Access for Recreation Act, and it is
fitting and a positive development for both of our
organizations to have this hearing on our bill today.
The SOAR Act is about finding legislative solutions to
persistent barriers for commonsense permitting problems through
rulemaking processes. Agencies have tried to reform their own
permitting challenges to varying degrees of success. In the
best cases, permit administrators are able to navigate the
process successfully. In many cases, however, these
administrators perceive too many obstacles in the successful
processing of a permit application or modification is near
impossible.
If a capacity analysis has not been completed, for example,
administrators do not think they can make additional days
available. If a review team is not available, administrators do
not feel they have the resources to complete an environmental
analysis. If there are other competing interests on the forest,
those interests typically take priority over recreation
permitting.
Fundamentally, agencies need to adapt simplified processes
to streamline permit reviews and to empower line officers to be
more responsive to the needs of their permittees. The SOAR Act
would restore reasonable flexibility in permitting providing
more options to permitted administrators who otherwise feel
like their hands are tied.
Strained resources and a push for consistency compel the
permit administrator on the river of no return, for example, to
strengthen their permit there by two days. Traditionally, for
15 years, we ran a 12-day course through a 72-mile stretch of
river training our students--having our instructors train our
students first to canoe and kayak and then to run the river. As
permit administrators retired and new people came into their
place or, honestly, we're quickly replaced, the forest was
constrained in managing a variety of permits and asked to
confine our permit to what everybody else was doing on the
river.
That changed our ability to educate our students. We used
to have two days of clinics and then they had a half day of
clinic. So it's stressful. It's hard on the instructors and
it's hard on the students. It's certainly a rewarding
experience still, but we would welcome the flexibility that
existed there before.
Federal land and water agencies are in the business of
connecting more people with their landscapes. In practice,
however, they are raising the cost of entry. Programs for
profit and non-profit alike have no choice through the rising
costs of running their business by either paying cost recovery
fees or the layering of the three percent of gross fees and we
are constraining our business or raising our prices.
And for NOLS, the increasing cost and decreasing efficiency
is making it harder for our scholarship dollars to go as far as
they could. These scholarship dollars are targeting hundreds of
at-risk youth every year and trying to provide them that NOLS
experience. We welcome an opportunity to free those dollars up
and to make the courses more efficient so that they could, we
could run more courses for more students.
Finally, a cost recovery, I would say, where an agency
recoups its expenditures on permit analysis by billing a
requesting party is not delivering as agencies hoped that it
would. If a permit request is under consideration that would
require an environmental analysis to review, even with the
current cost recovery paradigm, the review may take years and
the cost to the outfitter will run in the tens of thousands of
dollars, even for a relatively modest request and there is no
guarantee that after paying for that analysis, the permittee
will be awarded the days. When cost recovery is applied, which
it's applied inconsistently, it is often applied haphazardly
and places an undue burden on local businesses.
So finally I would say that I understand that everybody in
this room--witnesses, agencies, staffers, audience and our
Committee alike--is here to connect more people with America's
incredible outdoor treasures. I truly appreciate our collective
effort to address those challenges and the spirit of this
hearing today. We're all in this together. Thank you for your
time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bannon follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you to each of you.
I want to start my questions with you, Mr. French, and you,
Ms. Haskett. At Forest Service, at BLM, you have not only heard
the issues that have been presented by the others, but you have
heard the stories that we have shared directly with you,
whether it is the nearly ten-year effort to help facilitate
more heli-skiing activity down near Haines--we have a Special
Recreation Management Area (SRMA) there.
We have come to you, Mr. French, with frustrations over the
length of time to get permits. For some years, much of what we
heard back from Forest Service was we just don't have available
folks to process these permits because what has happened with
the somewhat tortured history of fire borrowing that we allowed
to continue over the course of way too many years, that it
robbed accounts and you were not adequately and ably managed to
staff.
The good news for us is we have addressed that in this
budget cycle. In fact, with this appropriations bill that we
will move out here this morning, we are setting to rectify
that. But that doesn't answer all of the issues and the
frustrations with what can we do better when it comes to these
permits on these public lands and how can we facilitate it. And
thus, the need for the legislation that we are talking about
here today when we are trying to cut through some of the
regulatory red tape or the permitting issues.
Both BLM and Forest Service are mandated to manage for
multiple-use. You have to figure out how you balance recreation
with the other uses of these public lands. So to both of you.
How do you do that? How do you, basically, provide for that
prioritization or balance one against the other? And then, I
might have to add it to another question, but I want to hear
from you, specifically, as to what you think you can do within
your agency to respond to the frustrations, the very real and
legitimate frustrations, and not just say, we just need more
money. There is more to it than just the dollars. So a wide-
ranging question to the two of you.
Mr. French. Well, thank you, Senator. I really appreciate
the question.
I think the testimony that you heard today is very
accurate. That has been the space we've been in. And as you
mentioned, you know, we've heard from a number of folks about
the lack of customer service and our inability to deliver on
some of these things.
The fire funding fix is essential. It has basically stopped
the bleeding of money away from those activities. And so,
that's really helpful. And that's going to create a more stable
environment going forward.
On the first question about how do you balance? You know,
right now for our focus it is about dealing with that core
issue that is driving that fire funding issue. And that is, the
condition of our forests. That's our focus. And then the other
is around customer service. How do we improve our customer
service?
And so, actions that we're doing right now to address this,
this year building off pilots we've done the last two years. We
have created funding for additional strike teams just to focus
on special use permit operations. We, at any given time, have a
backlog of expired permits that are just unacceptable. Last
year, we cut that backlog in half, down to about 5,000 and that
was through these strike teams. We're continuing to do that
using a risk-based approach where we're looking where the
biggest problems are and bringing resources to bear there.
We've also, just this year, in our budget direction issued
new guidance developing customer service requirements about the
timeframes for us to respond on many different types of permit
issues.
The Chairman. Chris, are you doing that with input from the
user groups or are you just, are you working these, kind of,
best practices on your own? Because I think it is important
that you are acting, kind of, with consultation with those who
are on the receiving end of this. How much input do you take
from them or do you just solicit?
Mr. French. We will.
And so, in this year's budget direction what we said is
this year we will establish those standards which we've never
had before about those minimum response times. And that was
issued about three weeks ago. And so, that'll be our work in
the next months, working with groups to inform how we should do
that.
The final thing that I'd add, Senator, is we're looking at
all the processes, the regulations that are around this that
are driving some of the ways that were showing up that are not
capacity-related. And so, we're looking at our, as you're
aware, our NEPA regulations, but we're also looking at the
policies on permitting in general.
One of the things that we're working on right now is
there's over 8,000 activities in our permitting processes that
we believe through our nominal effects analysis may not even
require a permit. We're working to put that into regulation.
So it's a multi-tiered approach of adding capacity where
it's needed, reforming our policies and putting in performance
metrics.
The Chairman. Well, if I can suggest one of the things that
we have learned is that when, say, for instance--I am going to
use an example--when the Dodd-Frank regulations came out and I
would hear all of my small banks and small credit unions coming
to me and saying, Ah, we are getting killed by these
regulations. I said, spell it out to me. Tell me which ones are
really onerous and where you think that there can be a level of
fix.
So my hope is, is the agency is listening to, again, the
outfitters, the guides, the consumers in terms of these are
areas that are really onerous and burdensome and that are
keeping us from getting a little, a little permit so that I can
take eight people out ice fishing. I hope that there is that
kind of connect going back and forth.
Ms. Haskett, I want to get to you but I am over my time, so
I am going to ask you to respond to my question in the next
round and I am going to turn to Senator Manchin.
Senator Manchin. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
First of all, basically I want to commend Senator
Heinrich's bill. It opens up something bigger for me because I
come from West Virginia where we have the New River Gorge Park
System. We have some of the most fantastic rivers, as far as
rafting, with the New and the Gauley. We don't have this
problem, because the state controls it. The state controls
access. We want you to come.
If it is supposed to be for recreation, why in the heck is
the Federal Government throttling everything back? Why are we
fighting the Federal Government which sets access, thousand
days, this, that and everything else? My goodness, and we are
doing another park and preserve and we are writing into the law
to make sure that the state manages the river permits. You
know, why fix something that is not broken?
But I'm learning more and more about the federal process
and how much the Federal Government--well, I know, I have a
problem with that.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. I just told him that the West has public
lands.
[Laughter.]
Senator Manchin. The park has, the park could have control
over our river access, same thing. But we never did give it to
them and that is the difference.
I don't know how we can--the only thing I would ask is if
any of you all want to comment, maybe Mr. Bannon or any of you,
on this. On Senator Heinrich's bill, it makes all the sense in
the world, we have had, they are telling me that we have had
these permits out there for a long time. They have been
dormant, have not been used, no one is getting access or
setting there, prohibiting people from having the tourism that
we should have and the economic vitality from it.
Is this only for businesses? Or if I was a private citizen,
and if there were 1,000 days allowed and they haven't been
used, and we are going to rebid that, could some of those go
back to me? Where I could walk up and use that river too or
does it have to go through an outfitter?
Well, if you don't mind, can I ask Senator Heinrich?
Senator Heinrich. As a former outfitter guide, there isn't
really, in most places, there is not a limitation on the
general public, but anyone conducting group exercises.
Senator Manchin. Sure.
Senator Heinrich. Whether it is a university or a business,
that is where you get into this outfitter guide bucket.
Senator Manchin. Let's have----
Senator Heinrich. And that is where many of these
moratoriums really are limiting economic development, despite
the fact that there is not a resource problem. So if there is
an overuse problem, that is one thing. But in many of these
cases, in the vast majority, I would say, there was not a
resource problem.
Senator Manchin. Yes, to me it seems like if we had
language in legislation that would allow best use practices to
enhance recreation and the economy for the purpose and we wrote
the findings of what we are trying to accomplish then they
couldn't be throttling this back. They have to continue to make
sure that those permits are used. And if they are not used,
then they go back in. I mean, if I go out of business and I
still have a permit, the way I understand it, where the law is
right now, it stays dormant.
Yes, Mr. Bannon.
Mr. Bannon. Senator, if I may?
Indeed, in Montana we have a situation where one outfitter,
it was Outward Bound in Red Lodge, shuttered about 15 years
ago. They had something like 500 days on the Custer Gallatin
National Forest. Those days were never recovered or returned to
anybody. They're just gone.
And as the Custer Gallatin is considering, in its forest
planning process, permitting, they have got a clause in that
draft plan that says there's basically a moratorium for the
life of the plan on any additional permits. So we know that the
capacity is reduced, but we also see no additional use being
awarded to anyone.
Senator Manchin. Well, the only thing I can do is I can say
thank you, Senator Heinrich, and any way we can work with you
on this to make some common sense for all of you in the Western
lands. If anyone thinks that they have been throttled back, and
they can't get on the river, come to West Virginia. We will not
prohibit you at all.
[Laughter.]
Bring your own raft. Come get with a guide. Get an inner
tube. Whatever you want. We are good with that, okay?
Thank you. I yield back my time.
The Chairman. Senator Gardner.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. We are all going to bring an inner tube----
[Laughter.]
Senator Gardner. An inner tube----
The Chairman. ----to West Virginia.
Senator Heinrich. An exciting development on the Energy and
Natural Resources Committee here.
[Laughter.]
Senator Gardner. Team building activities.
The Chairman. Field hearing.
Senator Heinrich. There are going to be photographs, I am
sure.
[Laughter.]
Madam Chairman, I think these are all really good--oh,
sorry.
The Chairman. [off mic] I meant Gardner----
Senator Heinrich. My apologies.
Senator Gardner. That's okay.
Senator Heinrich. Senator Gardner.
Senator Gardner. I will be brief. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Mr. McGuire, thank you very much for your testimony today.
The ski industry obviously had a very good year last year
in Colorado. We are home to just under two dozen ski resorts in
the state. Vail's got resorts all over, as we talked about,
coming off a record winter in the Colorado River Basin, a
record amount of snowfall in the Colorado River Basin and other
areas as well, record number of visitors to our ski areas,
record number of length of the ski season. So it really was an
incredible year.
Can you, kind of, walk through what you see though, from
the business side of this?
Mr. McGuire. No, I think that's right in, I think that's
part of the momentum that I talked about in the testimony, that
I think the industry is feeling. So coming off a 2018-2019
winter that was good everywhere, right? It was not, you know,
good in one place and dry another place. Snow was up about 31
percent, and it was really equally distributed.
So it was the fourth best year in the industry in terms of
visitation, back up to 59 million skier visits. So everyone was
really excited about that, and I think that momentum is rolling
over into this year. We just had our snowiest October in a long
time in Colorado. Good, cold temperatures everywhere, so less
snowmaking going on. Some accounting in Colorado, over four
feet of snow in the month of October. So everyone's really
excited.
But I think the other thing that has the industry bullish
and driving some momentum is the advanced commitment that
guests are making via all these new season pass products. It's
a win for the consumer, and it's a win for the industry when
people advance early or advance commit.
Senator Gardner. And so with that success comes the
opportunity then to invest in aging infrastructure to make
upgrades to equipment, facilities throughout the properties and
installations to be able to develop more accommodations for the
growing number of visitors. What does that mean in terms of
constraints that the industry has faced in recent years for ski
areas on federal lands in trying to advance these capital
improvement projects that you are able to make because of the
successes that you have had last year and hope for this year as
well.
Mr. McGuire. No, that's right, the momentum, and folks want
to capture and harness that momentum. And I think, first and
foremost, none of this is intended or should be taken as
commentary on the great work of the Forest Service. They're a
tremendous partner. What we're trying to do is narrowly address
some of the constraints that our partners are facing. We can't
be a healthy industry without a healthy partner with the men
and women of the U.S. Forest Service.
But just a couple of examples. There's a Western ski area,
they currently don't have a permit administrator in their
forest. That means that there are delays for new lifts, a new
lodge. They want to bury some power lines up to the ski area.
They literally can't get started on that.
When you have this, these lower funding regimes, we're
seeing lower staffing levels, we're seeing staff turnover and
we're seeing details, but details run out and people leave. And
that really impacts the ability. We've seen a delay in project
implementation for a new lift, new snowmaking system and trails
and summer uses at a Western ski area. The pause that I
referenced in testimony, it was a nine-month pause where the
forest was just not in a position where they could accept
applications for projects.
We have competing ski areas owned by different entities in
a single forest, sort of, having to elbow each other out,
trying to get the one project slot that that forest feels like
it has capacity to do.
And then, I think one thing I don't want to miss are the
avalanche centers that the Forest Service runs. There's 13 of
them around the country. In our opinion, they're underfunded by
about half and that gets filled in by friends and private
donations, but that's a critical service that gets provided.
Senator Gardner. Thank you. I think it is important to
point out too that with the White River National Forest being
one of the--I think it is the number one visited forest in the
country. Over the last 20 years now we have seen significant
declines in Forest Service personnel that are able to work on
this. So at the same time you have significant increase in
people visiting the most heavily visited forest in the country,
personnel within that forest have declined, making it more
difficult. And as you talked about in your opening statement,
2011 legislation that passed, signed into law, allowing for
year-round recreation. That, too, has put greater pressure on
the Forest Service.
Could you talk about how this legislation will allow us to
address the year round recreation needs and permitting in the
Forest Service?
Mr. McGuire. No, that's right. So in 2011 you could call it
an unfunded mandate, right? We started applying to the Forest
Service for more summer activities and reducing the stress.
In the White River, we actually think we're down about 40
percent on overall rec funding. It's been a little more acute
in the White River. That forest and that region has done
everything possible to keep up with the ski industry, and I
think they've done a really decent job.
And when Mr. French was talking about the strike teams, you
know, they've tried to do that in Colorado and they did that
absolutely in consultation with the industry and I think we're
starting to see some of the fruits of that.
Senator Gardner. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Now, Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I wanted to start just by saying I think these are all
really important bills and very compatible, but addressing the
basic resource issue, I think, is also really important and
just getting that out there. Setting fire borrowing aside,
which the Chair and a number of people on this Committee have
done a remarkable amount of work on in recent years and we're
starting to see that this year for the first time in the
appropriations process. Recreation is still only five percent
of the Forest Service budget. And that is despite the fact that
it is the single largest economic driver across the Forest
Service today. So it generates more income than the other
programs that we typically really spend an enormous time
focusing on in this Committee. And by limiting that and not
making it more of a priority, what we are really doing is we
are limiting economic development and especially in rural
communities.
So we have to, I think, revisit our priorities and put more
emphasis on recreation and then also just recognize that we
need to fund our public lands agencies better for
infrastructure, for the folks who should be in the field to be
able to actively manage. We have to do a better job because we
have seen, in real dollars, reductions in that focus over time,
and that is a huge fundamental problem.
Mr. Bannon, we heard from Mr. Davis about challenges in
terms of moratoriums. You know, I had an experience back in the
'90s where I was trying to get a permit that the organization
that I worked for at the time, Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions,
had had for decades. I am not sure how many decades. It was one
we used every single year. I called up to check on my permit,
and the recreation person said, ``Sorry, we are not going to be
able to do your permit this year. I am busy on a land exchange.
Call me next year.'' You just can't run a business like that.
And whether you are organized as a non-profit or as a for-
profit business, either way, if you are spending more than you
can bring in and your business gets shut down for a season, you
are out of business. Have you had those kinds of experiences
too?
Mr. Bannon. Senator, those were the good old days.
[Laughter.]
The temporary permit, if you were on a year-to-year
temporary permit back then, that temporary permit has gone
away. And under the new permitting policy of the Forest
Service, which was done with the best of intent, a temporary
permit that you can get on year-to-year is limited to 200 days.
That's not even enough to run a single NOLS course on.
Senator Heinrich. Right, yes.
Mr. Bannon. And the process for acquiring any kind of new
permit and trying to transfer that to a priority use permit is
murky at best, I would say.
And to the point that the fees or that the recreation
resource has been so reduced, I think you see that a lot. I
think we've seen that in the Gila National Forest.
Senator Heinrich. Absolutely.
Mr. Bannon. And the Gila National Forest right now is going
through a proposed management plan. There's changes in that
plan to group size to length of stay limits, and we're trying
to get some securities wrapped into our own permit as we've
been renewing it. We've been operating without an existing
permit for over two years in the Gila National Forest on an
agreement, and they're certainly working with us to get it
there.
Senator Heinrich. Yes.
Mr. Bannon. But it's a pretty tenuous situation to be in.
Senator Heinrich. Speaking of murky, if I asked you to
explain how cost recovery works for recreation permits, could
you explain it to me, either you or Mr. Davis?
Mr. Bannon. Not easily, go for it.
Mr. Davis. I'd be happy to.
I tried to process a new permit back at the Mazamas maybe
eight years ago. The permit application went in. It was clear
to the Forest Service at that time that the environmental
review to process the permit would be somewhat significant.
They asked for, I believe, about a $14,000 down payment to do
before cost recovery work or any planning could start
happening.
This is six, seven years ago, to my knowledge----
Senator Heinrich. $14,000 to get in the door, basically.
Mr. Davis. Just to get in the door. To my knowledge, that
money has not been spent and has not been returned to the
Mazamas.
So, not only----
Senator Heinrich. Let me ask you this----
Mr. Davis. ----not only the permit stalled, but like, yeah,
so, yeah. I mean, cost recovery is about covering the costs of
going through the process of the permit and the paying for the
agency staff to do all the various review processes and all
that.
Senator Heinrich. Yes, which can be a giant barrier to
entry, so----
Mr. Davis. Yeah.
Senator Heinrich. ----we need to make some changes.
Thank you all.
The Chairman. Senator Daines.
Senator Daines. Thank you, Chair Murkowski, Ranking Member
Manchin.
I love talking about Montana's economy and particularly
about our outdoor recreation economy. It is absolutely a pillar
economy in Montana. In fact, it is our outdoor economy that is
estimated to bring in $7.1 billion in consumer spending. It is
about $286 million in revenues to our state and local
government. Seventy-one thousand direct jobs, that's nearly ten
percent of all the jobs in Montana. In fact, in one poll, 87
percent of Montanans said they are outdoor enthusiasts. Of
course, my question then, who are those other 13 percent there
in Montana?
Outdoor recreation though, it is not just about dollars. It
is a fundamental driver of our economy, but it is very much our
way of life. My wife and I spend a lot of time outside, despite
my staff trying to make sure I am skilled in other things
besides being in the wilderness. We got out in August in the
Beartooth Wilderness and did our normal three or four 20- to
30-mile loops, some of it off trail, and that is what we define
as a really great time in Montana.
This bipartisan SOAR Act, and I want to thank Senator
Heinrich for his leadership there, streamlines the permitting
process, making it easier for families. They want to fish one
of our great rivers. They want to backpack in the Beartooth or
The Bob. This will help to that end.
The bill is heavily supported by our outfitters, our
guides, the outdoor rec groups, including the Montana
Outfitters and Guide Association, the Montana Alpine Guides and
so many more. I will continue to fight to get this bill passed,
signed into law to help protect the outdoor recreation heritage
which we have in Montana.
Ms. Haskett, as you know, the bipartisan SOAR Act helps
streamline currently a burdensome permitting process. Can you
explain how making key reforms to this process will help
increase recreational opportunities?
Ms. Haskett. Thank you for the question.
The BLM currently issues about 1,000 permits, and we
oversee about 4,600 permits at any one time. Typically, most
recreation activities on the public lands do not currently
require a permit, but we support this bill to help improve
those permit activities. And Secretary Bernhardt has issued
several secretarial orders to help in this regard. For example,
we are working on an online system so that people, public
users, can apply to get their permit, for their special
recreation permits, online to help that process.
Senator Daines. One of the reasons that streamlining this
process is so very important is in places like Montana we have
a checkerboard pattern of land ownership. In fact, there is a
Missoula company called onX that about every outdoor
enthusiast, especially hunters, has that app on their phone
because it lets us know exactly where we are at in terms of
what, who has land ownership in terms of regarding multiple
public agencies. You could be on BLM land, you might be on
Forest Service land, you might be on a state piece, you might
be on a Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge--all in the matter of
doing a relatively short walk.
And I can tell you, the elk have no idea what federal
agency manages the land their feeding on. By the way, our
farmers and ranchers know sometimes where the elk are feeding
in the alfalfa fields. But forcing outfitters to get permits
from three agencies, two departments for a day hunt, it just
doesn't make sense.
Ms. Haskett, DOI itself has numerous agencies that all have
different permitting processes. You talked about it a bit
already. Doesn't it make sense that having a single permit
would save the department time and money and result in more
people getting more permits and spending more time outside?
Ms. Haskett. Thank you for the question.
Absolutely. We support the provisions of the bill to
delegate the authority so that we can have that multi-
jurisdictional ability to issue those permits. And I, on BLM
lands, you know, hunting we probably wouldn't require a permit.
And I completely understand the challenge of O&C lands. I used
to work in Western Oregon where the checkerboard ownership was
prevalent. And so, I completely understand the frustration that
that management, that checkerboard ownership, can create some
unique management awkwardness.
[Laughter.]
Senator Daines. Yes, I can tell you outdoor enthusiasts,
they came to spend time outside, not play checkers.
Ms. Haskett. That's right.
Senator Daines. Sometimes you wonder.
Last, I recently heard frustrations from a number of groups
in Montana about the complex and sometimes excessive amount of
forms needed for a filming permit on public land. Our Montana
small businesses can't keep up with the growing burden of
paperwork needed for something that has little to no effect on
the environment.
Mr. French, my last question. You will have to answer
quickly because I am running out of time. What can we do to
simplify film permits and make them more uniform across your
agencies?
Mr. French. I think there's a number of things that we can
do. Our staff is working on looking at our entire permitting
process, this is included with it, because basically, we feel
the process right now is too cumbersome. So, you know, we'll
get back to you on the specifics of that, Senator, but that is
a focus of ours in our overall reform.
Senator Daines. Yes, it would be helpful. It is yet another
part of helping drive economic activity in Montana, and we like
to show off our beautiful landscapes that makes for great
backdrops for films. We appreciate your help there.
Mr. French. Very much agree.
Senator Daines. Yes.
Mr. French. Thanks.
Senator Daines. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Daines, I appreciate you
bringing that up. I know that we visited and were frustrated
over this issue with the film crews and photographers, and part
of the frustration was that there were basically different
rules or regulations from one public land agency to another. So
it was different on Forest Service than it was on Parks. Again,
if all you are trying to do is take pictures of our
extraordinary public spaces, to have to jump through the level
of hoops that we did. I know that for smaller film crews we
were able to work through some of that which, that was good.
But still, it is something that we need to continue working on.
Let's go to Senator King, I believe? Was it King or,
actually, I think it is Cortez Masto, but you needed to go
first. Are we all good?
Senator King. [off mic] No, I am good.
Senator Cortez Masto. [off mic] You sure?
Senator King. [off mic] Yes.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Let's talk about beautiful Nevada outdoor recreation.
First of all, by the way, Happy Nevada Day. This is a
holiday for us in Nevada. We celebrate our statehood, very
proud of our state, but also of our outdoor recreation. This is
something that is really important to me, and I have been
talking about it. In Nevada alone it creates 87,000 direct
jobs, generates $12.6 billion in consumer spending.
Mr. Davis, I so appreciate just the pragmatic, real life
experience that you have because this is what I hear every day
in Nevada. One of the things that I am curious about, can you
talk a little bit about the people that you bring out to
explore the great outdoors? Some of the experiences you have
had from them experiencing it, maybe for the first time? Do you
have any stories? Because, to me, this is not just about those
of us who grew up with it or get to experience it, but those
who are brought out for the very first time because that is
what this is about. This is ensuring that we preserve our
pristine areas. We give access to the great outdoors for so
many different areas and opportunities for individuals who may
never get the chance and all of a sudden, boom, a light goes on
because somebody had the opportunity to bring them out there,
they had that opportunity.
I am curious, does anybody have a story with respect to
something that they have experienced?
Mr. Davis. I think all of us have those stories, especially
all of us here today.
The thing that I keep talking about is that, you know,
going outdoors has all these other benefits besides just the
economic benefits.
Senator Cortez Masto. Right.
Mr. Davis. We know that it improves mental and physical
health. We know that it, sort of, especially among kids, sparks
an interest in lifelong learning. It's these early moments that
turn on the light bulb and tell us that we need to be stewards
of the land. That they're, you know, that it's not just there,
but we have to take care of it.
Senator Cortez Masto. And it is healing.
Mr. Davis. Yeah.
Senator Cortez Masto. I think there is a part, that it is--
--
Mr. Davis. Yeah.
Senator Cortez Masto. ----there is some sort of healing
that goes with it as well, and that is one of the things I
learned when I was home and talking with some of our veterans
who are dealing with some PTSD and some issues.
Mr. Davis. Right.
Senator Cortez Masto. They are now experiencing the
outdoors, and part of that is helping them with their healing
process as well.
Mr. Davis. Right. And thank you for your bill, Accelerating
Veterans Recovery, by the way, and Senators King and Daines for
co-sponsoring that.
Yeah, I mean, there were some studies pretty recently that,
I think, we took 72 veterans out on a research study in the
outdoors and there was a 27 percent reduction in the PTSD
symptoms because of, through that study, which exceeds the
success rate for prescription drugs.
Senator Cortez Masto. Yes. And so----
Mr. Davis. So----
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
I only have so much time, and the reason I want us to
explore all this is because I think it is important that we
make access available to everyone and we streamline the
permitting process. I mean, that is the reason why we are here
for these bills. I think there is, conceptually, a reason why I
support that streamlining process and we all do.
Here is my concern, I think, from hearing from our federal
agencies. It is great that you are in the process of trying to
do the streamlining now, but how long has this process been
taking place? Seven years?
My concern is every time there is a new administration,
there may be changes and whether there is that cooperation and
streamlining unless we codify it somehow in law. And that is
why I support this. What we are trying to do with this
legislation is to make sure that long-term there is this
coordination. But I appreciate the agencies for moving forward
on this.
Let me ask, while I have an opportunity here, Mr. French,
because I think Mr. McGuire brought this up, the concern with
the avalanche services. I think, Mr. McGuire, you said there
are 13 of them throughout the Forest Service but they are
underfunded by half.
Mr. French, I am curious, what are your thoughts on that
and how Senate bill 1723, the Ski Area Fee Retention Act, will
help address that issue?
Mr. French. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
We agree. I mean, if you look at the overall capacity of
the agency to deliver non-fire work, it's dropped by almost 40
percent in the last 15 years. You're seeing acute symptoms of
that in cases like this. This bill will directly help provide
capacity into managing those ski area permits and that provides
additional capacity that we might use toward those areas to
help in other areas such as the avalanche centers. So it's a
direct help.
Senator Cortez Masto. And when you talk about the work that
you are doing in avalanche safety, do you also talk about and
will this help you with education as well? Is that a key piece
of what you do when you are addressing the avalanche services?
Mr. French. Well, the key focus of our avalanche services
is about prevention and then safety in preventing avalanches
from occurring. So education is a key part of that, yes.
Senator Cortez Masto. And this bill will help funding that?
Mr. French. Yes.
Senator Cortez Masto. Okay, thank you.
I notice my time is up.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator King.
Senator King. First, Madam Chair, I want to observe that we
mispronounced the word recreation. It really is re-creation,
and that is the essence of what we are talking about here is
the re-creation of people's hearts and souls when they enter
the outdoors. I just think it is important that word is, you
know, it is rec-reation. That is not what it is. It is re-
creation.
Anyway, first, Mr. Bannon, you mentioned 300,000 people
have done NOLS trips. My son was one of them, some 30 years
ago. It was an extraordinary experience. Madam Chair, it was on
Prince William Sound in Alaska, and it was a really signal
experience in this young man's life. So I want to thank you for
what NOLS does for 300,000+ people around the country.
Mr. Bannon. Thank you, Senator.
Senator King. More substantively, there is a theme here
that bothers me. We had a hearing a couple weeks ago. Senator
Cassidy has a bill to increase staffing at FERC to process
certain permits. Here we are talking about bills to increase
staffing and be able to respond more promptly and efficiently
to permits. The bottom line is the Federal Government can't
work if there is nobody to answer the phone. And we are going
through a period where bureaucrat is a dirty word and where we
have hiring freezes and freezes of salary, no raises, and yet
here we are talking about delays in permitting because
somebody, I think you said, was doing something else, had a
land transfer, and couldn't do the permits.
I just think we need to realize this is part--I suspect you
could have this same hearing in practically any committee at
the Department of Agriculture, Inland Fish or Fish and
Wildlife, anywhere in the Federal Government, the IRS, that
processes complaints and permitting applications from our
citizens.
I just think it is important to point out, Madam Chair,
that you can't have it both ways. You can't bully reg
bureaucrats and then complain that permits aren't being granted
in a timely fashion. I just think that is an important point,
and I am seeing a pattern develop here.
Finally, a specific question. Mr. McGuire, I am curious
about this bill and Senator Gardner isn't here. In Section, I
think it is (5)(A)(iii), it talks about what the money can be
used for and most of the discussion has been for administrative
cost, reducing permitting time, staffing up the agencies. No
problem there.
But then it talks about other things it can be used for and
it says interpretation activities, visitor information, visitor
services and signage to enhance the ski area visitor
experience. Could you buy a new chairlift with this money?
Mr. McGuire. No.
Senator King. Could you build a road through your ski area
or to your ski area?
Mr. McGuire. A ski company could submit an application to
the Forest Service----
Senator King. But Senator Gardner----
Mr. McGuire. ----but no, the Forest Service would not----
Senator King. ----was talking about and you were talking
about increasing your infrastructure of your ski area. What
does that mean? I am just, I am a little concerned that we are
talking about federal money being given to a profit-making
organization. There is no matching requirement or anything.
What could it be used for? What does that mean, visitor
services?
Mr. McGuire. So I think first and foremost I do want to
note, none of these dollars will be used to pay for or buy
infrastructure for a private company. It's purely through the--
--
Senator King. But that is what you just--but earlier you've
used the word infrastructure about five times today, so did
Senator Gardner.
Mr. McGuire. I mean, when I say infrastructure, I mean the
permitting and processes, the NEPA process, that a company must
go through, a permittee must go through in order to be able to
make that investment.
Senator King. So this money would go to pay the cost of the
ski area in preparing their application, is that what you are
saying?
Mr. McGuire. No, currently ski areas pay for all the
environmental work that goes through, through cost recovery. I
don't anticipate this going.
When the Forest Service contracts that work out to a third
party, they must necessarily accept the work of that third
party back into the Federal Government. That takes the Forest
Services' own biologist, their own----
Senator King. Well, I just want to go on record as being
concerned about this term, the visitor services. I don't know
what that means because I have gathered through this discussion
today that we are talking about things that enhance the visitor
experience. In fact, that is what it says. And then it also
says, oddly enough, it forbids using this money for fire
suppression or for land acquisition to fill out an area in the
area. I just find this whole provision a little disturbing.
Madam Chair, I just want to, when we get to markup, I would
like some more information because there is--it says
interpretation activity, visitor information, visitor services
and signage. That is a pretty, visitor service is a pretty
broad term. I want to know what that means because I don't
think we should be funding a new chairlift or if we are going
to fund that kind of thing, there at least should be some kind
of matching requirement and other limitations.
Mr. McGuire, do you want to respond?
Mr. McGuire. Certainly not the intent of this legislation
to subsidize any actual infrastructure. When we say visitor
services, we mean things such as signage that lets visitors
know they're on their national forest.
Senator King. That is fine.
Mr. McGuire. When we say visitor services, we mean having
law enforcement available, Forest Service Law Enforcement
available to visit. This means having the ability for rangers
to be out on the forest, on the ski area.
Senator King. If that is what we are talking, I don't think
we have any problem.
Mr. McGuire. Yeah.
Senator King. I'm just worried about the vagueness of the
language. And I am worried, I don't quite understand why the
money couldn't be used for forest fire suppression on that
unit. It seems to me that would be something we would want to
do, wouldn't it?
Mr. McGuire. I think the concern would be that the fire
suppression needs are so great that it could quickly take
everything.
Senator King. I see. Okay.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator King. I appreciate you
raising that. I know that was a question that Senator Manchin
had, so what we might want to do is just look very----
Senator King. Let the record show I had that question
before Manchin planned it.
The Chairman. There you go.
[Laughter.]
We are going to give you total credit here.
But I do think that this is an important part of what we
are doing as we are learning more about these issues, looking
at the legislation that has been proposed. I think we all know
that even contained within these three bills there are going to
be some things, some ideas that are going to be prompted from
this, more that we might want to add.
And as Senator Manchin mentioned in his opening comments,
what we are seeking to do is take all these good ideas, not
unlike what we did with our energy storage initiative where we
had five separate bills that we, kind of, worked together to
really put together a package. I think, the goal here is to
really build a robust recreation, re-creation, package coming
out of the Committee. So I appreciate the directed focus on
some of this language. I think we want to make sure that,
again, it all works.
I wanted to give you, Ms. Haskett, an opportunity to
respond to the same question that I had asked Mr. French about
how you balance the recreation uses on BLM lands, how you
determine that and then I will have some other questions for
the rest of you.
Go ahead, Ms. Haskett.
Ms. Haskett. Thank you for the question.
The BLM balances those resources typically through a land
use plan. And so, and also Secretary Bernhardt has issued many
secretarial orders around making recreational access and
streamlining permits and NEPA through several secretarial
orders. And so, we are following those and implementing those
and, like I said, balancing those through our land use planning
process.
The Chairman. I think we recognize that the processes are a
little bit different between agencies and that there is a
difference in terms of ease of operation, what is determined to
be user friendly, consumer friendly. So again, these are things
that we want to explore a little bit further.
Mr. French, I want to bring up an issue that you and I have
shared when we have been out actually in the Tongass last year
with the Secretary. I raised it with the Secretary at the time
because it is something that I continue to hear as I am home in
the state and specifically, in the Tongass, although, the
Chugach as well.
This comes up when you have volunteers, people who really
love their outdoors. This is our forest. This is where we play
and where we recreate. They have seen degradation of, whether
it is public trails or whether it is the Forest Service cabins,
and all they want to do is help. They want to be the volunteers
that are going to make sure that the little cabin is kept
better after they leave for their nice weekend than when they
go there. And the level of frustration that I have heard from
individuals that have said, all we wanted to try to do was
help. In order to be certified as a volunteer to be able to go
out, we have to demonstrate that we have, you know, we are
certified in how to run a chainsaw, that we have full-on Red
Cross training. These are men and women that know more about
the Tongass National Forest than most any of us would on any
given day, and they just feel like they have been
disenfranchised and discouraged from trying to be good
partners. This is something that I know the Secretary cares a
lot about because this not only is good partnering, but it
gives us that ownership in our own forest.
And so, if you can speak to what you are doing within
Forest Service to look to these areas that are prohibiting or
restricting volunteers from coming together to be helpful and
what we can do here in Congress to help facilitate volunteer
efforts.
I participated in a Park Service, just, volunteer day out
at Rock, it wasn't Rock Creek Park. It was Great Falls area in
August or September with--August, with my interns. It was a
great day for us. But it was one day, and we were very strictly
supervised. But we were supervised by fabulous, fabulous folks
from the parks. Our public lands need all of us chipping in,
but it seems like our own government is the one that says,
hmmmm, for liability reasons, it is just not safe that you go
there.
Help me out with this.
Mr. French. Okay, thank you for the feedback. And I, we
never want to show up in that way. We have a responsibility to
protect folks, and I think that may be a space for some
dialogue where we could talk about that liability side of
things. On the other hand of this, we had 4.4 million hours of
volunteer assistance last year. It's huge. It's critically
important to us. And if there are ways that we're showing up
that are disenfranchising folks, the way that we're managing
that right now is primarily through education of our employees,
of going in and talking about problem-solving and finding
solutions to fix that because that's not the case in all
places.
When we see systemic issues, these are the places where we
start to have conversations about are there regional policies,
local policies or national policies that need to be either
aligned because that's part of our problem. We're sometimes
showing up differently in different places or we need to create
some alignment across the agency. I'm always open to hearing
more of that feedback, especially if we know of places where
that's occurring and we'll address it.
The Chairman. Well, and I know that some of the community
members had, kind of, come together as an advisory, an ad hoc
advisory. I think that there needs to be more of that and
really working together with our Forest Service partners. I
think we see some examples where it is working better than
others.
But I have some very, very specific stories about what we
have seen with Forest Service cabins that are perfectly good,
perfectly usable but they are pretty remote. Well, Alaska in
the Tongass is pretty remote. There are no roads to anything
anyway, so people have to fly in and the pushback that we are
getting is well, there is not a lot of use in that particular
cabin because it is remote. Okay, that is fair. We have to make
decisions in terms of how we are prioritizing the cost. But if
there are those who can then help Forest Service in some basic
maintenance, instead of Forest Service saying, no, the answer
here is we are going to take the cabin down because it is
expensive to go check on every year and not that many people
are using it. But if there are those who can help, why are we
taking down these great assets? That is something that I would
like to explore with you and your team a little bit more. I
know it just can't be related to Alaska. We have some great
facilities.
Let's go back to you, Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you and I think we are getting at a
lot of really good issues that deserve our attention.
Ms. Haskett, I don't want to pick a bone with you, but I
want to return to the exchange you had with Senator Daines
because I think there was a little bit of a misunderstanding.
It is very true that you said that the BLM doesn't require
permits for hunting. But I guarantee you, having spent some
time in and around this business, that to guide a hunt, you do
require permits. And that is where, for a day hunt, which he
was describing, it still requires that special use permit.
One of the things we talked about quite a bit here and that
I have worked a little bit with the Chair on is the filming
issue. Congress, somewhere around a decade ago, a little more
than that at the tail end of the Bush administration, tasked
Department of the Interior and the Forest Service, all three
agencies at DOI, as well as the Forest Service with coming up
with unified filming structure. And in 2013 there was a draft,
or not a draft but a proposed rule. My understanding is that
was accepted by the three DOI agencies, meaning BLM, Park
Service, Fish and Wildlife but the Forest Service did not
accept it and today, we still have a mismatch between DOI and
the Forest Service on those.
Mr. French, do you know what the thinking there was and why
we still have two different standards for filming?
Mr. French. I don't.
Senator Heinrich. Okay.
Mr. French. But I'll follow up with you, Senator.
Senator Heinrich. That would be wonderful.
Mr. French. You bet.
Senator Heinrich. We want to look at that and see if one
makes more sense than the other, if there is a way to unify
them across agencies, just like cross agency permits make a lot
of sense when you have BLM and Forest Service butting up
against each other.
I know in New Mexico, oftentimes, when some of these shows
film, they are trying to operate in areas that have multiple
public land agencies. And so, having one unified agency and
maybe even a unified, once again, permit structure where you
designate a lead agency and they can do it once rather than
jumping through both agencies might make a great deal of sense.
Mr. French. Sure, that makes sense.
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Senator Heinrich. I know you also mentioned, Mr. French,
the categorical exclusions that the Forest Service is working
on with respect to recreational activities. When do you expect
final action on some of those?
Mr. French. We would, we're expecting to release our final
rule sometime late spring, early summer.
Senator Heinrich. Great.
Mr. French. In fact, we were working on that before we came
here, and it will directly address many of the pieces that you
heard in Mr. McGuire and others' testimony this morning.
Senator Heinrich. Great. I will look forward to seeing
that.
Thank you all very much.
The Chairman. Senator King.
Well, the other part of our job is now commencing. We have
a series of three votes that began about ten minutes ago, so we
will have to wrap up here.
But I want to thank each of you for your contribution to
the discussion here today. I think this is one of those areas
when we look to those things that the Energy Committee can help
advance, that builds a level of support, builds a level of
consensus. We have Republican bills and Democrat bills that we
have considered here today. We have matters that people care
about because they care about our public lands. They care about
the ability to get outside and recreate or re-create.
I like that, Senator King. I am going to remember it.
But it really is such an important part, not only of our
economy but what we are blessed to have as Americans. I think
we recognize that we have visitors that come from around the
world to see our national treasures, to walk through our parks
and to float our rivers, or to take an inner tube in Senator
Manchin's state.
We have extraordinary lands, and how we make them available
is important. But I am also very, very cognizant that the
experience is something that we want to ensure is a good one,
and sometimes that requires a level of regulation that some of
us would rather not have to put up with, but it is part of what
we do.
We also have to recognize that our public lands are not
just entirely recreation lands, that they are multiple-use
lands. Again, how we balance that is an important part of the
discussion as well. So as we prioritize, that is one aspect of
it, but again, making sure that there is access and access in a
way that treats the lands respectfully and allows for that good
visitor experience.
It was interesting when I was in Arches National Park with
Senator Lee, you know, extraordinary, extraordinary spaces. It
was my first visit there, and it just, kind of, takes your
breath away. We were there in the shoulder season and there
wasn't a lot of traffic on the road, but just listening to the
local folks there and the Park Service Superintendent talk
about the increased visitation and how they accommodate that,
how they ensure that they have a good visitor experience and a
safe visitor experience when you have, basically, one way in
and one way out and everybody wanting to see many of these same
treasures all at once.
How we do this is a challenge and a good one. I think we
have some good legislation in front of us. We have a lot of
good ideas to work with.
I am certainly going to be soliciting more as we work to
build a broader package, but when I think about those component
pieces of energy measures that we can move through this
Committee, it is good to talk about our natural resources in
the sense of our oil, our gas, our coal, our renewables, our
minerals, but also to recognize that the recreation component
on our lands is an extraordinarily important part of our
economy and an extraordinarily important part of our national
identity.
We have some work to do, and we will look forward to doing
it with you all.
Thank you so much, and we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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