[Senate Hearing 116-380]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                     S. Hrg. 116-380

                          PENDING LEGISLATION

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON 
                   PUBLIC LANDS, FORESTS, AND MINING

                                 OF THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                                   on


		S. 180                S. 2828            S. 3485
		S. 129                S. 2890            S. 3670
		S. 1765               S. 3241            S. 4431
		S. 1870/H.R. 722      S. 3366            S. 4475
		S. 2533               S. 3427          H.R.  255
 
                               ----------                              

                           SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

                               ----------
                               
[GRAPHIC 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                    
41-907 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
 
               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
                                 ------                                

           Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining

                           MIKE LEE, Chairman

JOHN BARRASSO                        RON WYDEN
JAMES E. RISCH                       MARIA CANTWELL
STEVE DAINES                         DEBBIE STABENOW
BILL CASSIDY                         MARTIN HEINRICH
CORY GARDNER                         MAZIE K. HIRONO
CINDY HYDE-SMITH                     ANGUS S. KING, JR.
MARTHA McSALLY                       CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO
JOHN HOEVEN

                      Brian Hughes, Staff Director
                      Lucy Murfitt, Chief Counsel
            Nick Matiella, Senior Professional Staff Member
            Annie Hoefler, Senior Professional Staff Member
                 Renae Black, Democratic Staff Director
                Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
                David Brooks, Democratic General Counsel
        Bryan Petit, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member
                     Darla Ripchensky, Chief Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Lee, Hon. Mike, Subcommittee Chairman and a U.S. Senator from 
  Utah...........................................................     1
Wyden, Hon. Ron, Subcommittee Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator 
  from Oregon....................................................     5
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Alaska....    43
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from 
  West Virginia..................................................    64
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S., a U.S. Senator from Maine..............    65
Heinrich, Hon. Martin, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico............    66
Daines, Hon. Steve, a U.S. Senator from Montana..................    67
Cortez Masto, Hon. Catherine, a U.S. Senator from Nevada.........    67
Risch, Hon. James E., a U.S. Senator from Idaho..................   121
McSally, Hon. Martha, a U.S. Senator from Arizona................   262

                               WITNESSES

Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from California...........    68
Udall, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico..................   121
Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon, a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island.......   125
French, Chris, Deputy Chief, USDA Forest Service.................   269
Kaster, Amanda, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary, Land and 
  Minerals Management, U.S. Department of the Interior...........   291
Dunn, Mark, Member, Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition...........   363
Forward, Haydn, Board Member, Heritage Waters Coalition..........   367
Crockett, Jamie, Co-Owner, Gila Backcountry Services.............   374

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

3R Enterprises, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................     8
Adams, Josh:
    Letter for the Record........................................   432
Agenda...........................................................     2
American Exploration & Mining Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   433
American Farm Bureau Federation, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   237
American Fly Fishing Trade Association, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   436
American Offshore Wind Coalition:
    Letter for the Record........................................   439
American Whitewater:
    Letter for the Record........................................    11
American Wind Energy Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   126
American Woodcock Society, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   238
ANCSA Regional Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    45
Anderson, Michelle:
    Letter for the Record........................................    48
Anuta, Karl G.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   441
Appalachian Mountain Club:
    Letter for the Record........................................   446
Appalachian Trail Conservancy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   447
Association of California Water Agencies:
    Letter for the Record........................................   240
Back Country Horsemen of Missoula:
    Letter for the Record........................................   450
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers:
    Letter for the Record........................................    17
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers--Montana Chapter:
    Letter for the Record........................................   395
Backcountry Sled Patriots:
    Letter for the Record........................................   397
Baker, Jesse:
    Letter for the Record........................................   452
Beattie, Linda:
    Letter for the Record........................................   453
Bering Straits Native Corporation:
    Letter for the Record........................................    50
Big Blackfoot Chapter of Montana Trout Unlimited:
    Letter for the Record dated 5/6/2016.........................   454
    Letter for the Record dated 9/16/2020........................   456
Billings Jr., Hon. Gerald W.:
    Letter for the Record dated 7/18/2020........................   458
    Letter for the Record dated 9/14/2020........................   460
Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project:
    Letter for the Record........................................   462
Bragg, Cory Silva:
    Letter for the Record........................................   466
Bridenstine, Daniel:
    Letter for the Record........................................   467
Buretta, Sheri:
    Letter for the Record........................................    52
Business for Montana's Outdoors:
    Letter for the Record........................................   468
Butte County (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record regarding S. 4431......................    75
    Letter for the Record regarding H.R. 7978....................    77
Calaveras County (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    79
California Natural Resources Agency:
    Letter for the Record........................................   241
Calista Corporation:
    Letter for the Record........................................   470
CALPECO/Liberty Utilities:
    Letter for the Record........................................    80
Cantwell, Hon. Maria:
    Photo of the Fire in Yakima, Washington......................   380
    U.S. Air Quality Index Chart (Color-Coded Map of Puget Sound)   382
Cassidy, Hon. Bill:
    Written Statement............................................   266
Catron County (NM) Commissioners:
    Letter for the Record........................................   472
    Resolution 63-2019...........................................   474
Center for Biological Diversity, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   477
Chandler, Scott:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   481
Citizens for Balanced Use:
    Letter for the Record........................................   398
City of Beverly Hills (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    81
City of Laguna Beach (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    82
City of Thousand Oaks (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    83
City of Torrance (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    86
City of Ventura (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    87
Clark, Kim:
    Letter for the Record........................................   482
(The) `Club':
    Letter for the Record........................................   483
(The) Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead 
  Nation:
    Letter for the Record........................................   484
(The) Conservation Alliance:
    Letter for the Record regarding S. 1765 and S. 2828..........    23
    Letter for the Record regarding S. 1765......................   485
Conservation Lands Foundation:
    Statement for the Record regarding S. 2828...................    25
    Statement for the Record regarding S. 3670...................   487
Consumer Energy Alliance:
    Letter for the Record........................................   489
Cook Inlet Region, Inc.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    54
Cortez Masto, Hon. Catherine:
    Opening Statement............................................    67
Council of Border Conservation Districts:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   490
County of Fresno (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................    88
County of Nevada (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................   524
County of San Bernardino (CA):
    Letter for the Record to Senator Feinstein regarding S. 4431.    89
    Letter for the Record to Chairman Murkowski regarding H.R. 
      255........................................................   526
County of San Diego (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    91
County of Santa Barbara (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    92
County of Ventura (CA):
    Letter for the Record........................................    93
Cramer, Hon. Kevin:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   527
Crockett, Jamie:
    Opening Statement............................................   374
    Written Testimony............................................   376
Daines, Hon. Steve:
    Opening Statement............................................    67
Defenders of Wildlife, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   529
Deming Soil and Water Conservation District:
    Letter for the Record........................................   532
Donaldson, Buddy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   535
Donaldson, Hazel:
    Letter for the Record........................................   536
Donaldson, Tex and Patti:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   538
Douglas County (NV) Commission:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   539
Douglas County (NV) Board of Commissioners:
    Letter for the Record dated 2/12/2015........................   544
    Agenda Action Sheet for 4/5/2018 Meeting.....................   546
    Letter for the Record dated 4/5/2018.........................   547
Dow, Hon. Rebecca L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   548
Doyon, Limited:
    Letter for the Record........................................    57
Dunn, Mark:
    Opening Statement............................................   363
    Written Testimony............................................   365
    Response to Question for the Record..........................   431
Edison Electric Institute:
    Letter for the Record........................................    94
Eickhoff, Jon and Susan:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   549
Faust, Jodi:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   550
Federal Forest Resource Coalition:
    Letter for the Record........................................   243
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne:
    Opening Statement............................................    68
    Chart entitled ``California Active Incidents'' dated 9/16/
      2020 by CAL FIRE Cal OES...................................    70
    Endorsements for the ``Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety 
      Act of 2020'' (S. 4431)....................................    72
Forest Resources Association:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   245
Forward, Haydn:
    Opening Statement............................................   367
    Written Testimony............................................   369
French, Chris:
    Opening Statement............................................   269
    Written Testimony............................................   271
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   415
Friede, Curtis S.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   400
Friends of Acadia:
    Letter for the Record........................................   551
Friends of Nevada Wilderness:
    Letter for the Record........................................   552
Garcetti, Hon. Eric:
    Letter for the Record........................................    95
Gila Conservation Coalition:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   553
Gila Resources Information Project:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   555
Gomez, Hon. Frank:
    Letter for the Record........................................   557
Great Old Broads for Wilderness:
    Letter for the Record........................................    27
Griffin, Richard & Charlotte:
    Letter for the Record........................................   558
Hartwig, Chief Mark A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    97
Hellgate Hunters & Anglers:
    Letter for the Record........................................   559
Heinrich, Hon. Martin:
    Opening Statement............................................    66
Heritage Waters Coalition:
    Letter for the Record........................................   560
Hidalgo County Commissioners (NM):
    Resolution #2019-38 for the Record...........................   562
Hidalgo Soil and Water Conservation District:
    Resolution #20-004 for the Record............................   565
High Divide Collaborative:
    Letter for the Record........................................   568
Hopkins, Hon. Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................   570
Hunt, Patricia E.:
    Comment for the Record ......................................   571
International Mountain Bicycling Association, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   572
(The) John Muir Project:
    Letter for the Record........................................   574
Kaine, Hon. Tim:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   584
Kaster, Amanda:
    Opening Statement............................................   291
    Written Testimony............................................   293
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   422
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S.:
    Opening Statement............................................    65
Klumker, Tom:
    Letter for the Record........................................   585
Koniag:
    Letter for the Record........................................    58
La Paz County (AZ) Board of Supervisors:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   586
Lee, Hon. Mike:
    Opening Statement............................................     1
Lewis & Clark County (MT) Board of County Commissioners:
    Letter for the Record........................................   588
Little, John K.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   590
Little, Mary E.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   591
Los Angeles County (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................    98
Los Angeles County (CA) Fire Department:
    Letter for the Record........................................    99
Malek, Hon. Sue:
    Letter for the Record........................................   592
    Statement for the Record.....................................   593
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
    Opening Statement............................................    64
MAPPS:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   594
McSally, Hon. Martha:
    Opening Statement............................................   262
    Statement for the Record.....................................   264
Mimbres Local Farm & Livestock Bureau:
    Letter for the Record........................................   595
Missoula (MT) Area Chamber of Commerce:
    Letter for the Record........................................   597
Missoula County (MT) Board of County Commissioners:
    Letter for the Record to Senator Daines......................   401
    Letter for the Record dated 2/6/2018.........................   598
    Letter for the Record to Senator Tester dated 10/8/2019......   599
Modoc County (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................   600
Montana Association of Christians:
    Letter for the Record........................................   602
Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission:
    Resolution for the Record dated 5/12/2016....................   603
Montana Forest Collaboration Network:
    Letter for the Record........................................   605
Montana Logging Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   246
Montana Outfitters & Guides Association:
    Letter for the Record dated 3/7/2016.........................   607
    Letter for the Record dated 9/22/2020........................   608
Montana Snowmobile Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   402
Montana Telecommunications Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   247
Montana Trout Unlimited:
    Letter for the Record........................................   404
Montana Wilderness Association:
    Letter for the Record regarding S. 1765......................   609
    Letter for the Record regarding S. 4431......................   621
Montana Wilderness Association, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   406
Montana Wood Products Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   248
MTB (Mountain Bike) Missoula:
    Letter for the Record........................................   623
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa:
    Opening Statement............................................    43
National Association of Conservation Districts:
    Letter for the Record........................................   250
National Association of State Foresters:
    Letter for the Record........................................   252
National Audubon Society:
    Letter for the Record........................................   129
National Mining Association:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   624
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   254
National Society of Professional Surveyors and U.S. GEO:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   626
National Water Resources Association, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   256
National Wild Turkey Federation:
    Letter for the Record........................................   631
National Wildlife Federation:
    Press Release for the Record.................................   131
Nelson, Joe and Carolyn:
    Letter for the Record........................................   633
    Statement for the Record.....................................   634
Neptune Aviation Services:
    Letter for the Record........................................   258
New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts (NMACD):
    Resolution 2019-3 for the Record.............................   635
New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   638
    Letter for the Record........................................   640
New Mexico Wild:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   642
New Mexico Wilderness Alliance:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   646
New Mexico Wildlife Federation, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   649
Newsom, Hon. Gavin:
    Letter for the Record........................................   100
Northern California Power Agency:
    Letter for the Record........................................   259
Northwest Public Power Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   102
Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    30
NorthWestern Energy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   261
Old Harbor Native Corporation:
    Letter for the Record........................................    59
Outdoor Alliance:
    Letter for the Record........................................   651
Overacker, Rob:
    Letter for the Record........................................   657
Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    31
Owyhee Irrigation District and South Board of Control:
    Letter for the Record........................................    33
Owyhee Paddle Co. & Ontario Board Shack, et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    35
Owyhee Sportsmen Coalition:
    Letter for the Record........................................    37
Pacific Gas and Electric Company:
    Letter for the Record........................................   104
Payne, Wendy and John:
    Letter for the Record........................................   658
(The) Pew Charitable Trusts:
    Statement for the Record.....................................    39
Placer County (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................   105
Powell County (MT) Commissioners:
    Letter for the Record........................................   659
Professional Wilderness Outfitters Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   660
Professional Wilderness Outfitters Association of Montana:
    Letter for the Record........................................   661
Ramos, Hon. Gabriel:
    Letter for the Record........................................   662
Ravalli County (MT) Collaborative:
    Letter for the Record........................................   664
Risch, Hon. James E.:
    Opening Statement............................................   121
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation:
    Letter for the Record........................................   666
Sacramento (CA) Municipal Utility District:
    Letter for the Record........................................   107
Sanders County (MT) Board of County Commissioners:
    Letter for the Record........................................   668
San Francisco Soil and Water Conservation District (NM):
    Resolution No. #002-2019 for the Record......................   669
Seeley Lake Community Council:
    Letter for the Record........................................   672
Seeley Lake Driftriders Snowmobile Club:
    Letter for the Record........................................   673
Sempra Energy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   108
Sequoia Riverlands Trust:
    Letter for the Record........................................   110
Sharetrails.Org/BlueRibbon Coalition:
    Letter for the Record........................................   411
Shee Atika, Incorporated:
    Letter for the Record........................................    61
Shelley, Jerrell:
    Letter for the Record........................................   674
Shelley, Terrell and Charlene:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   675
Shoemaker, Rose:
    Letter for the Record........................................   676
Sierra County (NM) Board of County Commissioners:
    Resolution No. 108-026 for the Record........................   677
Sons and Daughters In Touch:
    Letter for the Record........................................   679
Southern California Edison:
    Letter for the Record........................................   112
Southwestern County Commission Alliance:
    Letter for the Record........................................   680
Spurgeon, Dale:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   696
Stanislaus County (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................   113
Sustainable Trails Coalition:
    Letter for the Record........................................   697
Taylor, Gail E.:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   700
Texas Forestry Association:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   701
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   703
Trout Unlimited:
    Letter for the Record regarding S. 4431......................   708
Tuolumne County Alliance for Resources and Environment:
    Letter for the Record........................................   114
Tuolumne County (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................   115
Udall, Hon. Tom:
    Opening Statement............................................   121
    Written Statement............................................   123
Upper Gila Watershed Alliance:
    Letter for the Record........................................   712
Ventura County Fire Department:
    Letter for the Record........................................   118
Volcanic Gold & Silver LLC:
    Letter for the Record........................................   713
Walter, Warren D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   723
Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California:
    Letter for the Record dated 5/26/2011........................   724
    Letter for the Record dated 5/2/2018.........................   726
    Resolution No. 2018-04-WTC-035...............................   728
    Letter for the Record dated 5/7/2019.........................   730
Western Governors' Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   732
Whatley, James Lynn and Sharon Ann Patton:
    Letter for the Record........................................   771
Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon:
    Opening Statement............................................   125
    Press Release by First Street Foundation entitled ``Rising 
      Seas Erode $15.8 Billion in Home Value from Maine to 
      Mississippi,'' dated 
      2/27/2019..................................................   132
    Insight Report by Freddie Mac's Economic & Housing Research 
      group entitled ``Life's a Beach,'' dated 4/26/2016.........   178
    Announcement by Moody's Investors Service entitled ``Climate 
      change is forecast to heighten U.S. exposure to economic 
      loss placing short- and long-term credit pressure on U.S. 
      states and local governments,'' dated 11/28/2017...........   185
    Research article by Torbjorn E. Tornqvist, et al., entitled 
      ``Tipping points of Mississippi Delta marshes due to 
      accelerated sea-level rise,'' in Science Advances, dated 5/
      22/2020....................................................   189
    Article by James R. Houston entitled ``The economic value of 
      America's beaches--a 2018 update,'' in Shore & Beach, dated 
      Spring 2018................................................   197
    Report entitled ``Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, 
      and the Implications for U.S. Coastal Real Estate,'' by 
      Union of Concerned Scientists dated 6/18/2018..............   208
(The) Wilderness Society:
    Letter for the Record........................................   772
Winter Wildlands Alliance:
    Letter for the Record........................................   779
Wyden, Hon. Ron:
    Opening Statement............................................     5
    Bulletin Editorial Board:
        Editorial entitled ``Owyhee wilderness plan may have 
          found a better balance'' dated 12/27/2019..............    21
Yuba County (CA) Board of Supervisors:
    Letter for the Record........................................   119
Yuba Water Agency:
    Letter for the Record........................................   120

----------
The text for each of the bills which were addressed in this hearing can 
be found on the committee's website at: https://www.energy.senate.gov/
hearings/2020/9/subcommittee-on-public-lands-forests-and-mining-
legislative-hearing.

 
                          PENDING LEGISLATION

                              ----------                              


                     WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

                               U.S. Senate,
  Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:36 p.m. in 
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mike Lee, 
presiding.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LEE, 
                     U.S. SENATOR FROM UTAH

    Senator Lee [presiding]. Good afternoon, everyone. The 
Subcommittee will come to order.
    The purpose of today's hearing is to receive testimony on 
15 bills pending before the Public Lands, Forests, and Mining 
Subcommittee. Because of the large number of bills on today's 
agenda, I am not going to go through all of them right now, but 
the complete agenda will, of course, be included in the record.
    [The complete agenda for today's meeting follows:]

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                          COMMITTEE ON ENERGY

                         AND NATURAL RESOURCES

           Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining

    September 16, 2020 Hearing regarding Pending Legislation

                             AGENDA

   S. 180, a bill to streamline the oil and gas 
        permitting process and to recognize fee ownership of 
        certain oil and gas drilling or spacing units (Hoeven)
   S. 1295, Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform Act 
        (Cramer)
   S. 1765, Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act 
        (Tester)
   S. 1870/H.R. 722, Miracle Mountain Designation Act 
        (Lee/Curtis)
   S. 2533, a bill to amend the Alaska Native Claims 
        Settlement Act to exclude certain payments to Alaska 
        Native elders for determining eligibility for certain 
        programs (Murkowski)
   S. 2828, Malheur Community Empowerment for the 
        Owhyee Act (Wyden)
   S. 2890, Douglas County Economic Development and 
        Conservation Act (Cortez Masto)
   S. 3241, a bill to amend the John D. Dingell, Jr. 
        Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act to 
        establish the Cerro de la Olla Wilderness in the Rio 
        Grande del Norte National Monument, New Mexico 
        (Heinrich)
   S. 3366, Gold Star Families Parks Pass Act (King)
   S. 3427, Modernizing Access to Our Public Land Act 
        (McSally)
   S. 3485, OFFSHORE Act (Whitehouse)
   S. 3670, M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and 
        Scenic Rivers Act (Udall)
   S. 4431, Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 
        2020 (Feinstein)
   S. 4475, La Paz County Solar Energy and Job Creation 
        Act (Sinema)
   H.R. 255, Big Bear Land Exchange Act (Cook).
    Senator Lee. I want to note at the outset, we have a former 
member of our Committee here. Former Senator Mary Landrieu from 
Louisiana, a longtime member of the Senate and of this 
Committee, is with us in the back and we have members who will 
be joining us shortly who have another committee assignment at 
the moment and we have others who will be joining us remotely.
    I also want to begin by recognizing the staggering loss of 
life that has occurred and embedded within what has shaped up 
to be a really horrific wildfire season. More than 36 people 
have perished in infernos raging throughout the Western United 
States this year, dozens more are missing. In Oregon, my 
colleague, Senator Wyden's, home state, thousands have lost 
their homes and over half a million people were evacuated last 
week alone. In my home State of Utah and elsewhere in the West, 
we have wind-driven fires that continue to spread across our 
federal, state, tribal and public lands. With all these 
wildfires raging throughout the West, I was thrilled to see 
that we would be receiving testimony on legislation to address 
the management of our federal forests. I strongly believe that 
the megafires we are watching on TV could have, in many, many 
instances, been prevented if only active management practices 
had been implemented.
    As many of you are probably aware, forests have been shaped 
and have been influenced by fire for certainly as long as our 
species has been around and even longer. Cycles of burning and 
regrowth are completely natural. They are not a new feature of 
current climate conditions, as some would have us believe. 
These fires were not unpredictable. They were predictable and, 
in fact, they were predicted. We could have prepared for them. 
But the management of our forests has regrettably become 
hamstrung, partly by regulations promulgated by bureaucrats, 
often operating many thousands of miles away from the lands 
that they are in charge of administering. For example, 
regulations under the Clean Air Act perversely, and most likely 
unintentionally, work to discourage the practice of letting 
fires burn, especially in those areas that have air pollution 
levels that exceed permissible standards. In these instances, 
they may favor reactive, short-term fire suppression at the 
expense of heightened, long-term risks.
    When Congress imagined activities like prescribed burns or 
removal of snag trees, Congress did not foresee a regulatory, 
Byzantine labyrinth that led to litigation at every turn, 
litigation that, in many instances, would end up forestalling 
the taking of precautionary measures and ultimately could lead 
to fires that could, in turn, lead to the loss of life and 
environmental catastrophe. Management of our forests has moved 
away from proactive measures, largely out of fear--a quite 
legitimate, well-founded fear of being sued. This, in turn, has 
led to bigger fires, threatening greater numbers of lives, 
livelihoods and homes. In many cases, it has also resulted in 
additional and worse air pollution than would have otherwise 
been the case had prescribed burns been allowed to occur or 
forest overgrowth been eliminated. Research tells us that 
between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in 
prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California's 
agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a 
year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 
13,000 acres. That is a tremendous gap between the natural 
cycle and what our forest management efforts have provided.
    Now I am grateful that we have skilled emergency personnel 
who help prevent tragedy from forest fire. These brave women 
and men put their lives on the line during the course of their 
work and do so on a regular basis and quite heroically. They 
are a necessary part of our forest management strategy, but we 
can do more to ease the burden that they face with targeted 
controlled burns and with removal of excess fuel that builds up 
within our forests. With these burns, people can plan ahead, 
get out of town, install a HEPA filter in their house, make a 
rational plan to meet their needs. Furthermore, the fire 
suppression and military style of firefighting can be more 
environmentally destructive in some cases than controlled burns 
or, in some rare instances, than the wildfire itself. 
Suppression tactics often include cutting down large snags, 
bulldozing miles of ridge tops and lighting high severity fires 
to control the fire behavior. I believe that a large portion of 
this could be prevented if local agencies and federal partners 
could sidestep illogical, regulatory barriers and address the 
obvious problems that lead to catastrophe. I hope that today we 
can make real progress in addressing the needs of communities 
put at risk by poor management practices.
    Additionally, on the hearing agenda today are a number of 
bills relating to the proper management of our public lands, 
including the Miracle Mountain Designation Act which I have 
introduced in the Senate. This bill memorializes the events 
surrounding the Bald Mountain Fire of 2018, a fast-moving 
wildfire, not unlike the explosive infernos we have seen in 
Oregon and California of late, and this fire, the Bald Mountain 
Fire of 2018, is one that nearly incinerated the community of 
Elk Ridge City in Utah. Defying all logic, the advancing fire 
unexpectedly stopped along an unnamed mountain barely two miles 
from homes and from evacuation routes. The mountain quickly 
earned the nickname, Miracle Mountain by Utahans. Elk Ridge 
City was blessed but elsewhere around the country, year after 
year, families are forced to evacuate their homes due to 
wildfire. As previously mentioned, better forest management can 
reduce the severity of wildfires and reduce the risk to fire-
prone communities. We need a range of management tools to cut 
the red tape and curb frivolous litigation that has stalled 
fuel reduction projects and efforts to remove dead and dying 
trees from poorly managed federal land.
    It is timely today that we will hear testimony of the 
Emergency Wildlife and Public Safety Act, a bill sponsored by 
Senators Feinstein and Daines, that proposes to accelerate 
wildfire prevention projects across the Cottonwood State. 
Senator Feinstein has joined us to provide a few brief remarks 
about her bill. Senator Udall and Senator Whitehouse will also 
be providing statements about their respective bills on today's 
agenda, and Chairman Murkowski will also join us to speak about 
her Alaska Native Claims Settlement amendments to expand 
services and resources for elderly Alaska tribal members. I 
look forward to hearing more about each of these bills and the 
other bills on today's agenda.
    With that, I would like to turn to Senator Wyden, who is 
the Ranking Member on this Subcommittee, for his remarks.
    Senator Wyden.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON

    Senator Wyden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate your holding this hearing. I also note the presence 
of our Chair, Senator Murkowski. One of the aspects of service 
I most enjoyed was when I was Chair and she was the Ranking 
Member, and we have continued those kinds of efforts over the 
years, and I thank her for her courtesy this morning as well.
    What I can tell you, colleagues, is scores of fires have 
hit my state harder than a wrecking ball, many of them are 
still going on. These are not your grandfather's fires. They 
are bigger. They are hotter. They are more dangerous. They are 
more powerful. I never conceived growing up of fires leaping 
over rivers, and we had fires in our part of the country that 
reduced whole neighborhoods to ash and actually melted cars. 
There is nothing left there of a car. I mean, just picture what 
it means to get so hot that you are just melting, you know, 
automobiles.
    And there is a connection between fire and the bill that I 
have introduced, S. 2828, the Malheur Community Empowerment for 
the Owhyee Act. This is extraordinarily important in rural 
Oregon, Malheur County, where the Owhyee flows in the canyon. 
It attracts thousands of visitors each year, is actually the 
poorest in my state and one of the counties hardest hit by the 
Coronavirus. The bill is about two things. It is about 
preserving ranching and the Ag way of life as an economic 
engine, growing the local economic engine and also protecting 
the absolutely gorgeous places that are part of this region, 
just extraordinary.
    Now I am going to go into the bill just briefly in a 
moment, and I just want to come back to the relationship to the 
fires for just one moment. If the fires teach us anything, and 
the Chair and I went through this this morning because this is 
going to be a watershed moment with respect to this whole fire 
debate. If the fires teach us anything, it is that people who 
need jobs can and should be put to work restoring our public 
lands, preparing homes for fire resiliency and shoring up rural 
communities against the encroachment of the pandemic, and this 
includes jobs for the restoration of a million acres of weed-
infested public lands in Malheur County. I really have 
appreciated the comments of my friend from Nevada over the 
years with respect to her public lands because her public lands 
are a bit different than our public lands. But in both cases, 
we need to do a lot of restoration work and we can put people 
to work and we can spare us, ourselves, catastrophes. The only 
other point is the Senate in working on these issues has to 
step up its pace. We talked about that this morning.
    So, the Malheur bill. Two years ago, a contingent of 
Malheur family ranchers came to DC and they asked for a meeting 
with me. I was a little, kind of, slack-jawed because I was 
just stunned that they were coming to meet with me and asked to 
work with me on a big project. I was under the impression I 
would be probably the last person they would come and talk to. 
I asked them why they were there in the office and they didn't 
really say. Finally I said, I think you have come because you 
believe I am the only one, Senator Murkowski, crazy enough to 
get in the middle of trying to work out an agreement that has 
been sought for decades in this part of the world between the 
ranchers and environmental folks and the like. And when I said 
it, they all pretty much smiled and said, yup, that's why we're 
here. We're here because we, kind of, think you're the only one 
crazy enough to be willing to try to get in the middle of this 
thing and try to sort it out. And it is a fabulous area. 
Senator Heinrich, my great friend, knows a lot about it.
    What I said when we started working on this, at that point, 
an impossible undertaking--Senator Murkowski, you and I have 
been there before--is look, we are going to protect the Ag way 
of life. We are not going to let anybody trample over the 
farmers and the ranchers and the Ag way of life. But I also 
said, we are not going to throw the environmental laws in the 
trash can. We are not going to just eviscerate the 
environmental laws. And everybody knew those priorities going 
forward and there was widespread agreement that juniper and 
fire-prone weeds were putting the lands at risk. We heard 
ranchers dealing with visitors who would follow their GPS but 
it was risking their life to go into these dangerous places. So 
we said we are going to have to have some loop roads to help 
facilitate the safe visit to these wonderful sites without 
compromising them. We went round and round, and we listened to 
scientists and educators and people who love the land, like 
farmers, and we put pencil to paper, and the bill that we are 
hearing today represents the spirit of compromise. Nobody got 
everything they wanted, but everybody got something better than 
they have right now.
    I would also tell my colleagues, from a historical 
standpoint, the Owhyee is not that far away from the area where 
we had the wildlife takeover. So there have been some 
challenges in this part of the world, and I can't credit the 
Owhyee community enough because they said, we are going to find 
some compromise. Nobody is going to get everything they wanted. 
The bill ensures land management can adapt to changing 
circumstances like climate change and drought by establishing 
new citizens-led communities to support transparent, real-time 
management of BLM lands. There is certainty for land users by 
setting a set of agreed upon ranching and range improvement 
practices that are eligible for streamlined environmental 
review. The bill sets aside just over a million acres of land 
as wilderness, every acre of which was previously managed as 
wilderness without the flexibility of rangeland improvements. 
While protecting environmental laws, we move away from a full-
blown NEPA analysis if you are talking about moving an 
irrigation trough away a bit from a river.
    I will just conclude by way of saying now there are a lot 
of ranchers who say, this is something I can build my future 
around. This is an opportunity for my kids and my grandkids to 
have a future in the Owhyee, and a lot of environmental folks 
have said that they can live with this bill and neither side 
would have written it.
    The last point I would make because when I started on this 
legislation the Chair was very gracious, and I told her that 
this was really important to me in a personal way because our 
staffer, Mary Gautreaux, who had been with me for a quarter 
century, had been working on this for ages and ages and when I 
went to visit her in her hospice bed, her whole wall was full 
of maps of the Owhyee, the whole wall was filled with maps. She 
was talking to people and trying. That was what she stood for. 
When people would talk to her she said, you know, Ron's just 
going to stay at this thing until he gets both sides together, 
the ranchers and the environmentalists. And I said no, if we 
get them together, it is going to be because of Mary Gautreaux. 
I really want to get this bill passed, and we are all going to 
dedicate it to Mary. Chair Murkowski, from the day that Mary 
passed, you have been in our corner on a lot of things. I just 
want to say thanks.
    Thank you, Chairman.
    [Letters regarding S. 2828 follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Senator Wyden.
    We have several members who have joined us to speak about 
their respective bills, so we will start doing that. We are 
going to start with our Chairman, Senator Murkowski, and then 
we will go to Senator Manchin beyond that and I will outline 
the order from there. Thank you.
    Senator Murkowski.

               STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

    The Chairman. Thank you, Chairman Lee, and I will be brief 
with my comments today because we do have a fair number, not 
only of those of us that are on the dais that have bills to 
speak to today, but we also have friends to the Energy 
Committee that are here to speak to their bills as well.
    I have one bill, a small bill, that I want to speak to 
briefly, but before I do I want to share my thoughts and 
prayers and really my sincere hope for rain and for recovery 
for so many who are facing the horrendous wildfires out West, 
in Oregon, in Washington, of course, we are looking at it very 
carefully and, of course, in California too. To you, Senator 
Wyden, and to you, Senator Feinstein, you have my heartfelt 
condolences for the loss of life, loss of property, 
environmental damage that your states are enduring currently 
and know that it is just not my thoughts that are reflected, 
but so many of us share in a real sense of loss for what you 
are experiencing right now.
    Right now there are thousands of men and women that are 
working on these fires, bravely working on putting out these 
devastating fires. They are putting their lives at risk, 
morning, noon and night in the midst of a pandemic on top of 
all of this. And so our hearts and prayers are with them and 
with their family members. Alaskans are certainly thinking 
about them and hoping that they are safe, because we have a 
good group of Alaskans, some 400+ that are in your states, 
whether it is in California, Oregon, Colorado, there around. We 
escaped some significant fires this year. And so I think you 
have some folks that are fresh, that have come to you. We have 
also sent assets, but knowing that we are in this fight with 
you is important to us as we keep you all in our prayers.
    I want to thank Mr. French and Ms. Kaster for being here to 
provide testimony today, including on Senator Feinstein's bill 
that she has with Senator Daines, seeking to reduce the risk of 
wildfires and protect our communities. Senator Feinstein, you 
and I had an opportunity on the floor for me to thank you for 
your continued work on this. It is greatly appreciated. And to 
Senator Daines, I know he is coming, to thank him for his 
critical work on this very important, important issue.
    I want to acknowledge the work of my friend from Rhode 
Island on his Offshore Act, and he and I have had much time to 
speak about that and we will do more on that.
    I also want to recognize, Mr. Chairman, that we have a 
former Chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee 
here, Mary Landrieu is in the back. It is always good to see 
Mary, and know that you are vigilant, you are staying on top of 
these issues and we appreciate that.
    Ms. Kaster, since you are here representing the Department 
of the Interior, I want to take just a quick moment to 
recognize and to congratulate the Department on its recently 
completed review from the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). 
OGE took a look at the structural improvements the Department 
has made to its ethics program, including additional training, 
new staff and a consolidated, consistent approach across all of 
its bureaus and agencies. OGE found that all 14 of the 
recommendations from its last comprehensive review back in 2016 
have been fully resolved. The agency offered no new findings or 
recommendations for improvements. That is something that, I 
understand, has never happened before at the Department. In 
fact, it is rare across the whole of government. So I want to 
pass my appreciation on to Secretary Bernhardt, to designated 
Agency Ethics Officer, Heather Gottry, and to all in the 
Department who have rebuilt its ethics program. I think OGE's 
report is a testament to this significant, multiyear effort and 
you are to be commended on this effort.
    Briefly, Mr. Chairman, here are a few words about S. 2533. 
I have introduced this measure. It is very simple. It prevents 
Alaska native elders from becoming ineligible for federal 
needs-based programs because of benefits that they receive from 
the settlement trust. This is authorized under the Alaska 
Native Claims Settlement Act. These settlement trusts are an 
important source of support for many elders who live in very 
remote, high cost, rural areas but they do not displace the 
need for any federal support that combats the poverty and 
health care challenges these communities face. So I have a 
stack of letters of support for this bill that I would ask 
unanimous consent be included as part of the record.
    Senator Lee. Without objection.
    [Letters of support for S. 2533 follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. And Mr. Chairman, I want to, again, thank you 
for holding this hearing. There are lots of good bills on the 
agenda today. We also have more that we would like to hear 
before the end of the year. Senator Manchin and I have been 
talking about this. We hope we will be able to schedule one 
more Subcommittee hearing likely early on in the lame duck, 
provided that we are able to do that. But I thank you for this 
very expeditious review of so many significant matters, and I 
thank the Subcommittee for its time.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    We will now turn to Senator Manchin.

              STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III, 
                U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA

    Senator Manchin. Thank you, Chairman Lee, and thank you, 
Ranking Member Wyden, for convening the legislative hearing 
today which is so important. I am glad that my good friends, 
Senator Whitehouse, who we have had many conversations with is 
here, and Senator Udall, I think is here virtually, and of 
course, Senator Feinstein. Thank you for being here. We are so 
glad to have them. Also, it is good to see Senator Mary 
Landrieu, a good friend of all of ours, and someone I enjoyed 
very much working with and have been a dear friend with her and 
Frank and the family. So I appreciate her being here.
    The agenda before us today represents the priorities of 
many members of both sides of the aisle, including several 
members of the Committee. As you know, many of these bills 
reflect years of work to get to this point, and I am pleased to 
see them included in today's hearing. I would like to take a 
moment to acknowledge the horrific wildfires that many of our 
Western states are facing and our heart goes out to each and 
every one of you and all your constituents in your states. It 
is just unbelievable. And this year states throughout the West 
are experiencing an extraordinary number of very large 
wildfires called megafires that are each over 100,000 acres in 
size. These megafires require intensive staffing but due to the 
COVID concerns at the beginning of the season, firefighters 
testing positive during this season, exhaustion and the sheer 
size of these fires, staffing levels to fight these fires are 
far lower than normal and lower than where they need to be. I 
am told that we need 4,000 firefighters to adequately be able 
to do the job that needs to be done on each of these megafires. 
Given that 6 of the 20 largest wildfires in California's 
history are burning right now, right now, in Senator 
Feinstein's home state, I look forward to hearing from her 
directly about the needs of the people in her state and how we 
can help.
    Immediate action is needed to respond to the ongoing fires. 
In addition, we all need to recognize that this is a perennial 
issue, that it is worsening every year. And so we need to be 
thinking of both short- and long-term solutions to these 
wildfires that includes securing additional firefighters, 
ensuring the necessary fire prevention work, like controlled 
burns to help prevent future large wildfires, gets underway. We 
must commit to taking the necessary proactive mitigation steps 
going forward and, furthermore, we need to ensure that the 
Administration is using every tool that is already in the 
toolbox to provide assistance right now. We are not talking 
about next week or next month or next year, but right now. I 
stand by my Western colleagues and am ready to work with each 
of you.
    I would also like to take a moment to speak on Senator 
Whitehouse's OFFSHORE Act which would establish a revenue-
sharing model for offshore wind that varies slightly from the 
offshore revenue sharing model set up by the oil and gas in the 
Gulf of Mexico. His bill would create a dedicated revenue 
stream to invest in the protection of coastal communities, 
something that I know each and every one of us knows that he 
feels very, very passionate about and rightfully so. We were 
not able to consider his bill as part of the Great American 
Outdoors Act earlier this year, but I am glad that it is on our 
agenda today, and I look forward to hearing from Senator 
Whitehouse and learning more about this bill.
    With that, I thank you again and all my colleagues for 
joining us and our witnesses for appearing before us today.
    Thank you, Chairman Lee.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Senator Manchin.
    Okay, let me tell you where we are going to go next. We 
have now heard from the Chair and Ranking Member of the 
Subcommittee and of the Committee as a whole. We are now going 
to hear, alternating between Democrats and Republicans, from 
members of the Committee who want to speak briefly about 
legislation that we will be discussing today. After that, we 
will hear from other members of the Senate who are not members 
of the Committee, alternating between Democrats and 
Republicans. I think we have all Democrats at this point, so 
you might have the run of the show.
    Please signal to me if you are here either virtually or in 
person if you want to speak, but we have Senator King who is up 
to bat next. We will hear from him now, and he is joining us 
virtually.
    Go ahead, Senator King.

             STATEMENT OF HON. ANGUS S. KING, JR., 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM MAINE

    Senator King. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 
thank you for having this hearing. I want to join all my 
colleagues in expressing my regret and sympathy and heartfelt 
wishes to the people of the West that are experiencing these 
terrible fires.
    Secondly, I want to add my voice to support Senator 
Whitehouse on the OFFSHORE bill. I think this is something that 
is going to be important for the country going forward and 
using the analogy of the offshore oil industry and the revenues 
and the dedication of those revenues to coastal states that 
will be having some of the impacts, I think, makes total sense.
    What I do want to speak about just for a couple of minutes, 
Mr. Chair, is S. 3366. This is a very simple bill that provides 
free park passes to Gold Star Families. The sacrifices that 
have been made on behalf of this country by Gold Star Families 
is almost unimaginable, and I think anything we can do to show 
our recognition of those sacrifices and our appreciation, we 
should do it. Basically, as I said, it was very simple--free 
park passes and it would be for family members. There would be 
a technique to allow them to identify themselves or to provide 
a document at the park just as we now do for active duty 
military. And this is supported by the American Legion. It is 
supported by the various park supportive groups, by the VFW.
    This is a very strong bill, I believe. It has been 
introduced in the House. My co-sponsors on this side are 
Senator Daines and Senator Alexander. The good news is from a 
budget point of view, the CBO says it does not score. The cost 
would be incidental and immeasurable but the value to these 
families would also be immeasurable in a positive way.
    So, Mr. Chair, I am glad, I appreciate your giving me time 
to say a few words. I think this is a bill that we can move and 
move expeditiously, and we have found during this epidemic that 
people really, seriously value their time outdoors and they 
value the great benefits that are provided by the experiences 
of our national parks and public lands. So I will look forward 
to the consideration by the Committee, and I appreciate the 
Committee's taking up this bill today.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will turn it back to you.
    Senator Lee. Thank you very much, Senator King.
    Any other members of the Committee who are here who want to 
speak to a particular piece of legislation?
    Okay, I see Senator Heinrich and Senator Cortez Masto.
    Go ahead, Senator Heinrich.

              STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman Lee, Ranking Member 
Wyden. Thank you for including two bills important to New 
Mexico on today's agenda.
    The M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic Rivers 
Act would permanently protect some of the most dynamic and 
spectacular rivers and streams in our country. The Gila and San 
Francisco Rivers are the beating heart of Southwest New Mexico 
and are home to some of the most spectacular places in the 
West. Full stop. This legislation is the result of many years 
of advocacy by community members who want to see their local 
rivers protected. I was quite happy to join Senator Udall in 
both drafting and introducing this legislation in response to 
the overwhelming community support. We named the bill in honor 
of my friend, Dutch Salmon, a writer, an angler, 
conservationist and the Gila's most ardent defender who passed 
away last year. The Gila is wild and free today, undammed and 
undiverted in no small part because of Dutch's decades and 
decades of work to keep it that way. This legislation will make 
sure that it will stay that way for generations to come.
    The second bill for New Mexico on today's agenda is the 
bill to designate Cerro de la Olla as a wilderness area. Cerro 
de la Olla with a peak of nearly 10,000 feet is the home of 
some of the best elk habitat in Northern New Mexico. I know 
that because I hunted this unit just last fall. This 
legislation is supported by a wide range of community members 
as well as the Taos County Commission and Taos Pueblo. 
Protecting this peak and its spectacular views has long been a 
priority for the Taos community, and I am glad that this bill 
is moving forward today.
    Thank you to the witnesses testifying today, including both 
New Mexicans, and thank you, Chairman Lee and Ranking Member 
Wyden, for including these bills on the docket today.
    Senator Lee. Thank you.
    Senator Daines, were you wanting to speak on your 
legislation before we go to the witnesses?
    Senator Daines. Yes.
    Senator Lee. Okay, we will hear from Senator Daines, then 
Senator Cortez Masto.

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

    Senator Daines. Yes, well, I am grateful that I am here 
with Senator Feinstein today as we have been working together 
on this important piece of legislation that addresses the issue 
of forest management and now being better stewards of our 
forests. As we say in Montana, either we are going to better 
manage our forests or our forests are going to manage us as we 
are seeing the raging wildfires in California, in Oregon, 
Washington. A lot of that smoke is coming into Montana and we 
grieve with the people of California that have lost life, have 
lost structures, have lost habitat. So I am grateful that we 
are here today to consider this piece of legislation.
    I will just tell you, it is not too often that a Republican 
from Montana and a Democrat from California are locking arms 
and joined together to address an issue here to keep our 
communities safer through better forest management.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Lee. Thank you.
    Senator Cortez Masto.

           STATEMENT OF HON. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM NEVADA

    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 
Member Wyden, for holding today's legislative hearing before 
the Subcommittee. I appreciate you including my bill, S. 2890, 
in the package today. The Douglas County Economic Development 
and Conservation Act is important for Nevada. This is truly a 
bill that not only is important for the state but the 
constituents, and I just thank everybody and the witness 
testimony today for the opportunity to have a discussion around 
this bill.
    I introduced this bill to promote conservation to improve 
public lands management and expand it, limited yet focused 
economic development opportunities for Douglas County, Nevada. 
The bill is developed in collaboration with local officials and 
includes the support of my Nevada colleague, Senator Jacky 
Rosen, and Congressman Mark Amodei in the House. This bill 
represents the Nevada style of legislating our local land 
management needs as it is the culmination of a multiyear-long 
effort of people coming together and making compromise. It 
includes the support from local government, the business 
community, conservationists and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and 
California.
    Before going further, let me just give you an idea of what, 
when I talk about Douglas County, what it involves. Douglas 
County is located in Western Nevada, and within its boundaries 
are portions of Lake Tahoe, the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, 
Topaz Lake and the Carson and Walker Rivers. These diverse 
landscapes draw outdoor enthusiasts from around the world. The 
county also contains the oldest permanent settlement in Nevada, 
cultural heritage sites, historical agricultural operations, 
paleontological treasures and natural resources. It strives to 
cater to a growing annual visitorship while retaining its rural 
character.
    Douglas County's land base is 67.9 percent federal land 
that is administered by the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service. 
That is important. This is one of many of our counties where 
the Federal Government comes in and owns most of the land. 
Nearly 256,000 acres is managed by the Federal Government. 
These public lands provide a variety of popular recreational 
opportunities. These activities and the industries they support 
are critical to the economic prosperity of the county, 
employing 30 percent of the local workforce. In 2009 is when 
Douglas County started this comprehensive planning effort and, 
during that time they incorporated the Washoe Tribe of Nevada 
and California, federal agencies, state agencies, local towns, 
general improvement districts and more than 90 stakeholder 
groups to facilitate the bill that is before you today.
    I am so pleased to be able to introduce this knowing all of 
the work that has gone into this lands bill. Specifically, it 
conveys 67 acres to the State of Nevada to be managed within 
the Lake Tahoe State Park, it conveys over 7,000 acres to the 
county for local flood control management and recreation, it 
directs the sale of 60 acres whose revenue will fund local 
conservation measures, conveys nearly 27 acres of important 
cultural sites to the Washoe Tribe; and designates nearly 
12,400 acres of wilderness. This bill has come a long way since 
2009 when it was initially conceived and although some issues 
still remain, many of the complicated issues have been 
resolved. I look forward to working not only with our federal 
partners who I know are committed to work with us on this bill 
but all of my colleagues here to make sure that we can move 
this important piece of legislation. Thank you.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Senator Cortez Masto.
    We will now be hearing from a number of our Senate 
colleagues, not members of the Committee, who would like to 
make statements regarding their legislation. We will hear first 
from Senator Feinstein.

              STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA

    Senator Feinstein. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. Although 
she isn't here at the moment, I want to thank Chairman 
Murkowski for her words and for Ranking Member Manchin's.
    Subcommittee Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Wyden and members 
of the Committee, thank you for moving so quickly on this bill. 
And I want to thank Senator Daines--thank you for being here. 
Thank you for being a partner. It took a while to put this 
together, but we have it now and I hope it can pass quickly.
    Let me be blunt. California is on fire. Smoke is blanketing 
the entire Western part of the United States and a good dose of 
it was here yesterday. California's traditional fire season has 
only just started, but five of California's largest fires in 
history have occurred this year. As I speak 25 major fires are 
burning across nearly two million acres statewide.
    [The chart entitled ``California Active Incidents'' 
follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Senator Feinstein. Twenty-five Californians have died in 
these fires; 4,200 homes and structures have been destroyed; 
and more than 42,000 people have been evacuated. I think we 
have 90 pieces of equipment in the state today from other 
states. The largest fire in state history is now burning in the 
Mendocino National Forest. It is 875,000 acres. All told, 4.2 
million acres have burned so far this year, the most in state 
history, and the same is happening across the West. Three 
hundred fifty thousand acres of fires, as you pointed out, 
Senator Wyden, in Oregon, displacing more than ten percent of 
your population. Three hundred thousand acres have burned in 
Washington; 150,000 acres in Montana; and 100,000 in Colorado. 
We have to change our approach in dealing with wildfire and how 
we manage our forests. We can't just sit here and do nothing.
    Just as an aside, lightning is the source of this, these 
huge fires. And I have kind of decided I am going to make 
lightning a pursuit and see what I can learn about it, what we 
might be able to do about, if anything, because every year it 
becomes more and more a source of major fire in the state. That 
is why Senator Daines and I worked for months to draft the 
bipartisan Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act to make 
some important changes that will help us cope with catastrophic 
wildfire. Our bill has the endorsement of California Governor 
Gavin Newsom, dozens of cities and counties in California and 
numerous conservation organizations, fire districts and 
utilities. And I would ask that a list of endorsers be placed 
in the hearing record, if I might?
    Senator Lee. Without objection.
    [List of endorsers for S. 4431 follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Feinstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I would like briefly just to explain three key provisions 
of the bill. We have to address the dead and dying trees in our 
forests that provide fuel for these disasters. There are more 
than 150 million dead trees in California's forests, the result 
of drought and bark beetle populations that thrive in warmer 
temperatures. Our bill creates a $100 million grant program and 
provides other incentives to help make harvesting dead trees 
more commercially viable, incentivizing businesses to step in 
and reduce the fuel load in our forests.
    Secondly, we need to increase the use of fire breaks and 
prescribed burns. Much like removing dead trees, fire breaks 
help slow fires and limit their spread. Our bill would allow 
for expedited environmental reviews regarding the installation 
of fire breaks near existing roads, trails, transmission lines 
and pipelines. The bill also requires the Forest Service to 
consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service when new peer-
reviewed research shows that a project could harm threatened or 
endangered species. As Senator Wyden has noticed, we must also 
increase the use of prescribed burns that help prevent forests 
from becoming overgrown and more susceptible to unstoppable 
fires. Our bill establishes a new prescribed fire center to 
coordinate research and training of foresters and forest 
managers in best practices.
    And third, we need to do more to help improve resiliency in 
fire-prone communities. Our bill expands a key program to aid 
the retrofit of homes with fireproofing materials to prevent 
the leveling of entire neighborhoods as we saw in Paradise, 
California, in 2018. I went up there and I have never seen 
anything like it. When you see the expanse of fire and how the 
wind moves fire and how it will catch one block in rural areas 
and then skip a block and then the next block and wipe out half 
of a commercial area. That is what happened in one of these 
huge fires in Paradise in 2018. We also promote the 
undergrounding of utility wires to prevent wildfires and the 
development of distributed energy such as microgrids to 
mitigate the impact of power shutoffs.
    Yes, climate change is making these fires worse by the year 
and we have to address it. Our bill takes aim at the direct, 
most immediate causes of this unprecedented series of 
wildfires, and I hope this Subcommittee will see fit to act 
swiftly to approve it for consideration by the full Senate. So 
Mr. Chairman and members, thank you so much.
    [Letters regarding S. 4431 follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
    Senator Risch.

               STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES E. RISCH, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO

    Senator Risch. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 
the opportunity to make an opening statement.
    First of all, I want to say I appreciate the Subcommittee 
Chairman and Subcommittee Ranking Member holding this hearing 
today. I was home in Idaho this past weekend, and I will be 
headed back again this weekend. It seems all anyone can talk 
about is the smoke in the air and the wildfires causing it. 
What is unusual this time is it is not our smoke. It is coming 
from my good friends from the South and from the West. But we 
are living with it and it is a big deal in Idaho, and Vicki and 
I are praying for the brave firefighters and fire crews 
battling these deadly blazes and for the communities throughout 
Idaho and the West who are worried about losing their homes and 
their worldly possessions.
    We do have some fires burning in Idaho. They are not as 
extensive as they have been in years past. Certainly our hearts 
go out to the people in California and the other states that 
are having the larger fires. It seems like it rotates from year 
to year. One year it is Washington, one year it is Idaho, one 
year it is Oregon, one year it is California. But it does seem 
to cycle around the states. Right now, there are more than a 
dozen fires burning thousands of acres throughout Idaho and the 
vast majority of which are located on federal lands. Years of 
insufficient forest management have turned the West into a 
tinder box. There are many factors that make wildfires spread, 
but regular fuel reduction is a critical and indisputable 
strategy to prevent wildfires of this magnitude and 
particularly once they start from spreading. If we leave our 
forests unmanaged and our rangelands ungrazed, the health of 
the ecosystem deteriorates and their ability to host native 
plants and critical species diminishes and when fire comes, it 
burns. That is something that we can unquestionably improve.
    I am proud to co-sponsor the Emergency Wildfire and Public 
Safety Act and would like to thank my colleagues, Senator 
Daines and Senator Feinstein, for their leadership in 
introducing it. This bill offers common sense solutions to 
these common sense problems of improving our ability to reduce 
these fuels and improve our forests and protect communities in 
a productive and collaborative way. Now I want to thank 
everyone that is involved in this effort. It is certainly a 
common sense effort. It is something that we can do. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Senator Risch.
    We will now turn to my cousin, Senator Udall, who is 
joining us virtually.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

    Senator Udall. Chairman Lee, thank you so much, and Ranking 
Member Wyden and members of the Subcommittee, and thank you for 
the opportunity to speak in support of S. 3670, the Dutch 
Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. I know you have 
16 bills on the agenda today, so I will be brief.
    This bill is named for Dutch Salmon, a good friend of mine, 
a writer, a conservation advocate, who began championing the 
Gila River in the 1980's after moving to Southwest New Mexico 
and falling in love with the Gila while hiking and canoeing it 
from its headwaters to Stafford, Arizona. Dutch was not the 
only one. The residents of Southwest New Mexico and visitors 
from all around the country and the world love the Gila too. 
And Senator Heinrich and I have both spent time on the river 
and in the Gila wilderness, our nation's first wilderness. We 
have been working on this legislation for two years and 
introduced this bill at the urging of New Mexicans from all 
walks of life who also value this jewel of the Southwest. 
Senator Heinrich and I even took the unusual step of posting a 
discussion draft of the legislation earlier this year which we 
revised to reflect community concerns. To those in support of 
the bill, we thank you. To those who still question the 
legislation, please know we heard you and made every attempt to 
address the concerns, all the concerns that we could.
    The Greater Gila Watershed, including the San Francisco 
River and other main tributaries, comprises the largest 
remaining network of naturally flowing river segments in the 
Southwestern United States. It provides unique and memorable 
outdoor experiences for families, spectacular scenery and 
wildlife habitat and the foundation of a rural economy that 
includes farming, grazing and recreation. Designating the river 
as wild and scenic will protect abundant cultural resources and 
the integrity of this important water source and existing 
traditional uses. To make sure future generations can enjoy the 
Gila like we and so many generations of New Mexicans have, we 
must take action to protect it. Designating portions of the 
Gila River and its watershed as wild and scenic will protect 
one of the nation's most iconic and treasured river systems as 
well as support the booming outdoor recreational industry in 
that part of the state and the agricultural economies that rely 
on it.
    Our bill takes pains to preserve both the river itself and 
existing uses along the river. This is a theme we heard 
consistently as we worked on the legislation. For the past two 
years our staffs have met with local officials, soil and water 
conservation districts, farmers and ranchers, property owners 
and folks who just like to spend time on the river. This took 
them to living rooms, conference rooms, city halls and to spur 
of the moment meetings with maps spread out on the tailgates of 
pickups. This bill provides involuntary condemnation of private 
property which has never been a part of the Wild and Scenic 
Rivers Act and preserves not only private property rights but 
also water rights, existing irrigation and water delivery 
operations, grazing permits, public lands access and future 
restoration projects.
    Thank you for including this important bill in today's 
hearing. I look forward to working with you to protect this 
critical watershed and the people whose lives and livelihoods 
depend upon it. Thank you so much.
    [Senator Udall's written statement follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Senator Udall.
    Senator Whitehouse.

             STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, 
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM RHODE ISLAND

    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman Lee, and thank you 
also to Ranking Member Wyden for this Subcommittee hearing. 
Thank you to Ranking Member Manchin and to our Chairman, 
Senator Murkowski, for their help with our bipartisan OFFSHORE 
Act. And finally, I want to thank Senator Cassidy, my partner 
in this bipartisan effort for his important work and also thank 
you to Chairman Wicker for joining as a co-sponsor.
    The reason for this bill is that coastal communities are 
getting walloped by frequent and severe storms, sea level rise, 
shifting fisheries and all manner of conservation and 
infrastructure challenges. We can see it right now on the Gulf 
Coast, walloped by Sally. Yet, per capita, coastal states 
receive substantially less federal preparedness and resiliency 
funding than inland states. Two examples, the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund (LWCF) and the Army Corps' Flood and Coastal 
Storm Damage Reduction Fund. For LWCF, over the past decade for 
every dollar that the fund sent to inland states, per capita, 
coastal states got just $0.40 and much of that in the coastal 
states was for inland and upland projects, not for their 
coasts. Over at the Army Corps, the so-called Flood and Coastal 
Storm Damage Reduction Fund has varied over the past ten years 
between 19 times and 120 times more spent annually on inland 
work than on coastal work--120 to 1 for a fund whose name has 
coastal in it. This persistent imbalance overlooks massive 
risks that coastal community's infrastructure and economies now 
face.
    Just look at Freddie Mac's warnings of coastal property 
value crash with estimates between $238 and $507 billion worth 
of coastal real estate submerged below sea level by 2100. And 
of course, the economic hits will come way sooner than the 
submergence. Economic hits will hit mortgage and insurance 
markets, Freddie warns, with, ``economic losses and social 
disruption likely to be greater in total than those experienced 
in the housing crisis and great recession.'' And around the 
country Moody's is revisiting coastal municipal bonds for this 
risk. So it is real, and the imbalance is real, and our bill 
helps remedy the imbalance with revenues from offshore wind and 
renewable energy development to support coastal states, provide 
resiliency and adaptation funding and to boost coastal 
infrastructure.
    With Senator Cassidy, let me request that several 
documents, Mr. Chairman, be admitted as exhibits for the 
record, including support letters and other reports.
    Senator Lee. Without objection.
    [Reports and letters of support for S. 3485 follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Whitehouse. I close by thanking the members of this 
Committee and Subcommittee for their support and help, and I 
look forward to working with you to advance this bipartisan 
measure.
    Thank you, Chairman.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.
    We will wait for two additional members who would like to 
put in--for their legislation before we introduce the 
witnesses. So we will go next to Senator Daines and then 
Senator McSally, who is joining us via internet connection.
    Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I first want to 
begin by thanking the brave firefighters, smoke jumpers, pilots 
and first responders in Montana and across the West for their 
ongoing heroism and sacrificing, battling the deadly wildfires 
ravaging the West. In fact, just last week, I visited the 
Bridger Foothills fire which is near my home town of Bozeman. 
It destroyed 28 homes. I want to thank Gallatin County Sheriff, 
Brian Gootkin, and others who are doing their part to ensure 
that no lives were lost during this tragedy. Their work saved 
lives.
    And before I begin, I ask that we might take a moment of 
silence in honor and remembrance of the over 35 individuals who 
have lost their lives this season, including Montana's Tom 
Duffy and Sara Madsen and the grieving American families who 
have lost loved ones, their homes and their livelihoods in the 
wildfires. If you would join me.
    [Moment of silence.]
    Thank you.
    As we speak here today hundreds of thousands of families 
have fled their homes as wildfires ravage over six million 
acres across the West. We have lost 35 lives, over 4,000 homes 
and there is no end in sight. The impact these fires have in 
our rural communities will be felt for years to come, including 
our economy and our outdoor way of life. And the severity and 
intensity of wildfires we are witnessing can be attributed to 
multiple factors, including both a decline in forest management 
and warming temperatures. And while we can debate the extent to 
which different factors contributed to the wildfire activity, I 
think we can all agree on the need for a bold, broad, 
bipartisan solution.
    The bill I have introduced with Senator Feinstein offers 53 
pages worth of set solutions. We worked together on this for a 
year, and I want to thank Senator Feinstein for collaborating 
on this bipartisan bill and she has been a strong partner on 
forestry issues. This bill has bipartisan support, both in the 
Senate and the House, and then the support of a broad array of 
stakeholders including many conservation environmental groups. 
It should come as no surprise as it takes critical steps to 
restoring the health of our forests and restoring good paying 
timber jobs.
    I would like to ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, to 
submit for the record, letters of support.
    Senator Lee. Without objection.
    [Letters of support for S. 4431 follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Daines. I want to go ahead and debunk just a couple 
of myths I have heard regarding this bipartisan bill. Some have 
said this legislation undermines environmental law and skirts 
judicial review. That could not be further from the truth. This 
bipartisan bill uses time tested approaches to expedite and 
streamline critical projects without circumventing public input 
or environmental review. Bipartisan policies enacted in 2014 
and 2018 serve as the foundation for these provisions, proving 
it is truly a bipartisan compromise.
    We are at a critical time. The West is burning. People are 
dying. The smoke is, literally, starting to cover our country 
and our way of life as we know it is in danger. We cannot run 
to our corners. We cannot continue to fall to partisan 
politics. It is a time to come together, Democrats and 
Republicans, and pass meaningful forestry reform and this 
bipartisan bill does just that.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Lee. Thank you.
    Senator McSally.

               STATEMENT OF HON. MARTHA MCSALLY, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA

    Senator McSally. Thank you, Chairman Lee, Ranking Member 
Wyden. I appreciate you convening this hearing on many 
important bills related to public lands, including my bills: S. 
3427, Modernizing Access to Our Public Lands Act; and S. 4475, 
the La Paz County Solar Energy and Job Creation Act, which I am 
leading with my colleague, Senator Sinema. Both of these bills 
will ensure that our public lands work better for our 
constituents, but because of the severity of the wildfires 
raging across the West, I do want to focus some of my time on 
this important topic as well.
    Arizona currently has 227 personnel deployed across the 
West helping our neighbors battle the flames. The wildfire 
crisis is real and it does require bold action from Congress to 
reduce hazardous fuels and improve the health of our forests. 
If we are serious about reducing the intensity and the severity 
of these wildfires, we need to focus on policies that actually 
improve the health of our forests. And that is exactly what I 
have done since I have been in the Senate.
    Last year, I introduced the Accelerating Forest Restoration 
Act with Senator Sinema to streamline the overly burdensome 
forestry regulations in the Southwest, and this will jump-start 
the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, or 4FRI, in Arizona. 
While I am glad to see the Forest Service adopt many of the 
proposals in my bill, more work needs to be done to make 4FRI a 
success and reduce the wildfire risk. Unfortunately, 4FRI has 
continued to encounter delay after delay and even though this 
is the single most important project underway to reduce the 
risk of wildfire in Arizona, the Forest Service recently pushed 
back Phase 2 even further. This is unacceptable. We cannot 
afford to delay active forest management practices any longer. 
We must get projects like 4FRI out of the planning room and 
into the forest immediately.
    One of the biggest challenges we have had of forest 
restoration in Arizona is the crushing expense of harvesting 
and removing low value biomass, like branches, slash and 
undergrowth from the forest. That is why this week I am 
introducing my bill, the Forest Health and Biomass Energy Act. 
My bill will accelerate forest restoration by reducing the cost 
and regulatory barriers to clearing out dangerous overgrowth 
and utilizing that material for carbon neutral biomass 
electricity. My bill compliments the forest management 
policies, included in the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety 
Act which I have co-sponsored with Senator Daines and we are 
considering in the hearing today. Together our bills offer 
practical, cost-effective solutions to target the real root 
causes of these catastrophic wildfires while also supporting 
low-carbon energy.
    Again, I appreciate you having this hearing today. I look 
forward to moving these bills forward as well and bipartisan 
solutions to address the raging forest fires around the West 
and better management of our forests as quickly as possible.
    Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman.
    [Senator McSally's written statement regarding S. 4431 
follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Senator Lee. Thank you very much, Senator McSally.
    Okay, it is now time for us to hear from our witnesses who 
I will briefly introduce here in a moment. You may notice that 
some members will be filing in and out. They have called a vote 
and members will be going in and out to vote, and I will have 
to do that at one point or another. But in the meantime, I will 
introduce the witnesses. We have two witnesses joining us in 
person today. The first is Chris French, the Deputy Chief of 
the U.S. Forest Service. Welcome, sir. The second is Amanda 
Kaster, the Acting Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals 
at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Welcome, Ms. Kaster.
    Joining us virtually are three witnesses. Mr. Mike Dunn, a 
representative of the Owyhee Basin Stewardship Council in 
Oregon here to testify on S. 2828, the Malheur Community 
Empowerment for the Owyhee Act; Mr. Haydn Forward, a Board 
Member of the Heritage Waters Coalition, New Mexico, who will 
testify on S. 3670, the M.H. Dutch Salmon Gila Wild and Scenic 
Rivers Act; and Ms. Jamie Crockett, the co-owner of Gila 
Backcountry Services, New Mexico, who will testify on S. 3670, 
the M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
    At the end of the witnesses' opening statements, members 
will be able to ask questions, alternating between Republicans 
and Democrats. Your full written statements will be made part 
of the official hearing record. Please keep your statements to 
five minutes so that we can have time for questions. We have 
also agreed to receive a written opening statement from Senator 
Cassidy which will be admitted into the record, without 
objection.
    [Senator Cassidy's opening statement follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Lee. I look forward to hearing your testimony.
    Mr. French, we will start with you, then we will proceed 
through each of the five witnesses as you were introduced.
    Thank you, Mr. French.

           STATEMENT OF CHRIS FRENCH, DEPUTY CHIEF, 
                      USDA FOREST SERVICE

    Mr. French. Thank you, Chairman Lee and members of the 
Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before 
you today.
    I offer the U.S. Department of Agriculture's view on the 
bills that are before you, and my complete testimony detailing 
the Administration's position on each bill is included in the 
written record. Before I begin, I'd like to thank the 
Subcommittee and all the Senators for their support during this 
tragic fire season. With more than 31,000 interagency 
firefighters actively engaged, the entire interagency wildland 
fire effort is stretched to its limits and the loss of life and 
homes and lasting effects to our communities, air quality and 
the nation's natural resources continues an increasing trend 
that is unacceptable.
    The Forest Service is committed to keeping our communities 
and our firefighters safe. As for our firefighters, I've been 
in their shoes. I know their dedication. Their bravery and 
their professional integrity is second to none. Many lost their 
own homes as they helped to save the communities that they're a 
part of. So as we work without pause with our many partners to 
assist communities impacted by these fires, we are committed 
through shared stewardship to change the trend that is coming 
in the years to come. We're working with states, tribes, 
communities and partners. We know that we can only change this 
by collaboratively working across boundaries on all lands to 
address our current wildfire reality. We have a nearly year-
round season with ever increasing catastrophic outcomes. We 
thank you for your continued focus and help. The authorities 
and capacity you've given us has helped us achieve our highest 
wildfire fuel reduction and prevention actions in more than 20 
years.
    We're working really hard, but we know it's not nearly 
enough. The scale of our action must match the scale of our 
problem, and in places like California it means treating two to 
three times more acres per year than our current efforts. This 
is our great challenge and it affects all aspects of delivering 
our conservation mission. It dominates our work. We know a new 
paradigm has emerged. We know that we must scale our solutions, 
our resources, capacity and resolve to create solutions that 
match these fires. And we look forward to your ideas and 
thinking to help us get through that.
    In relation to the bills at hand, the Big Bear Land 
Exchange Act would require a portion of the PCT to be relocated 
in a land exchange for a biomass utilization facility. We 
support the bill's goals, and we look forward to working with 
the sponsor as it goes forward.
    The Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act directs the 
Secretary of Agriculture to develop a landscape assessment, 
restoration needs and a schedule of restoration projects on the 
Lolo National Forest. It establishes two recreation management 
areas and additional acres as wilderness. We share Tester's, 
Senator Tester's, commitment to collaboration. We do have some 
concerns about the implementation of certain provisions, and 
we'd like to work with the Subcommittee and the Senator as this 
bill progresses.
    We support the Miracle Mountain Designation Act which would 
designate a currently unnamed peak in Utah as Miracle Mountain 
following the events that occurred during the Bald Mountain 
fire as Senator Lee talked about earlier.
    The M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic Rivers 
Act designates parts of the Gila River system as a wild and 
scenic river and transfers National Forest System lands to the 
Gila Cliff Dwellings Monument. The Forest Service is committed 
to collaborating during our current land management planning 
process to identify river sections for designation, and we look 
forward to working with the Committee to ensure multiple uses 
are not affected.
    The Douglas County Economic Development and Conservation 
Act requires conveyance, disposal or Congressionally-directed 
special use permits of National Forest System lands in Douglas 
County. We look forward to working with the bill's sponsor and 
the Committee to address some of the technical issues as it 
moves forward.
    The Gold Star Families Parks Pass Act would make National 
Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass free for Gold Star 
Families. We support this bill to respect the ultimate 
sacrifice of our Gold Star Families by allowing them to connect 
to our public lands, and we share the interest in recognizing 
their service and sacrifice that this bill is designed to 
honor.
    The Modernizing Access to our Public Land Act directs the 
Forest Service to jointly develop and adopt interagency 
standards for outdoor recreation data. We support the goals of 
this bill and look forward to working with the Committee.
    And finally, the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act 
is a comprehensive bill designed to increase wildfire 
preparedness, post fire response through a variety of measures 
including a new statutory categorical exclusion, allowing for 
the export of unprocessed timber from dead and dying trees and 
establish a new landscape level program for management 
activities designed to improve forest conditions. We very much 
appreciate Senator Feinstein and Senator Daines' attention to 
these important issues, and we support the intent and goals of 
the bill. Our written testimony offers several comments and 
observations meant to improve the language of the bill, and we 
look forward to working with this Subcommittee as this moves 
forward.
    Thank you for your time today. That concludes my remarks, 
and I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statements of Mr. French follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Mr. French.
    Ms. Kaster.

STATEMENT OF AMANDA KASTER, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, 
 LAND AND MINERALS MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Ms. Kaster. Chairman, Ranking Member and members of the 
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I am 
Amanda Kaster, the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land 
and Minerals Management at the Department of the Interior. 
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the legislation before 
us today.
    S. 180 intends to streamline permitting processes where the 
Federal Government has less than a 50 percent mineral interest 
under non-federal service ownership. We support these efforts 
to streamline administrative processes and reduce unnecessary 
procedural reviews.
    S. 1295, the Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform Act, 
directs the Department to develop a multipurpose register of 
all federal, real property assets and eliminate duplicative 
data systems across the Federal Government. The Department is 
working to update and modernize our land ownership information 
systems, and we support the provisions of the bill that align 
with those efforts.
    S. 2828, the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owhyee 
Act, directs the development of a programmatic EIS allowing for 
adaptive management of certain federal lands in Oregon. It 
would also designate 1.1 million acres of wilderness and 
approximately 15 miles of the Owhyee River as wild and scenic. 
The Department has concerns that designating wilderness areas 
outside of existing WSAs may not be the most appropriate land 
management tool and that some of the provisions of the bill 
would launch potentially duplicative planning efforts.
    S. 2890, the Douglas County Economic Development and 
Conservation Act, authorizes public land sales and conveyances 
in Nevada and provides for the transfer of public lands to be 
held in trust for the Washoe Tribe. The bill also designates 
12,000 acres of wilderness. We are committed to ensuring public 
access and support the goals of S. 2890 that align with this 
important priority. The Department remains concerned with the 
broad scope of the proposed land disposals which are 
inconsistent with the Administration's position in opposition 
of the wholesale disposal of lands.
    S. 3241 proposes to amend Public Law 116-9 to establish the 
Cerro de la Olla Wilderness in the Rio Grande del Norte 
National Monument in New Mexico. The Department is concerned 
that the wilderness designation in the bill may be inconsistent 
with traditional uses such as grazing and collection of 
firewood and pinon nuts that are important to local 
communities.
    The Department supports the goals of S. 3366, the Gold Star 
Families Parks Pass Act. This Administration supports our 
military, veterans and Gold Star Families. The Department 
believes free access to National Parks and other federal lands 
should be extended to all veterans and Gold Star Families. My 
father is a veteran, and I thank all those that have sacrificed 
for our country.
    S. 3427, the Modernizing Access to our Public Land Act, 
would direct the Department, Forest Service and the Army Corps 
to collaborate on the collection, sharing and publication of 
public lands recreation data. We believe that this bill has the 
potential to address some longstanding challenges surrounding 
public access and data management and we look forward to 
working with the sponsor and the Committee to address a number 
of technical issues.
    S. 3485, the OFFSHORE Act, would amend the National Oceans 
and Coastal Security Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands 
Act to expand revenue sharing for offshore wind. The 
Administration has made it a priority to boost domestic energy 
production while providing responsible stewardship of the 
environment and ensuring the taxpayers receive a fair return 
from the safe development of these public resources.
    S. 4431, the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 
2020, seeks to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest 
management by establishing wildfire mitigation projects, 
providing expedited review of certain fuel break projects, 
promoting the development and use of biomass and easing certain 
timber export restrictions. The Department supports the goals 
of the bill and would like to work with the sponsors on certain 
critical improvements, including language to ensure DOI 
receives the same active management and wildfire risk reduction 
authorities under the bill that are provided to the Forest 
Service.
    Finally, S. 4475, the La Paz County Solar Energy and Job 
Creation Act, would direct the Department to convey 
approximately 3,800 acres of public lands to La Paz County, 
Arizona, with the intention of expanding a solar energy 
project. The Department is focused on restoring collaboration 
and coordination with local communities to achieve this 
priority, and we support the goals of the bill that align with 
these priorities.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to 
answer any questions.
    [The prepared statements of Ms. Kaster and the Department 
of the Interior follow:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Senator Lee. Thank you, Ms. Kaster.
    Okay, I am going to run out and vote, but I want to set 
this in motion and keep it in motion. So we will now hear from 
our three witnesses in the order in which they were introduced 
from Mr. Dunn, Mr. Forward and then Ms. Crockett. One of you 
can follow right after the other. Keep that going and hopefully 
I will be back by the time you finish your statements. I figure 
that is less inhumane than pausing the hearing and then making 
you come back. I will be back momentarily.
    Mr. Dunn.

   STATEMENT OF MARK DUNN, MEMBER, OWYHEE BASIN STEWARDSHIP 
                           COALITION

    Mr. Dunn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of 
the Committee. My name is Mark Dunn, and I represent the Owyhee 
Basin Stewardship Coalition (OBSC). I am here today to discuss 
S. 2828.
    The OBSC is comprised of ranchers, hunters, 
recreationalists and local business owners in Malheur County, 
Oregon. Malheur County, as Senator Wyden said, is the poorest 
county in Oregon in terms of economic activity. Seventy-two 
percent of the area is federal public land. Agriculture is the 
sustaining enterprise in the region with cattle ranching as a 
significant contributor to this activity. These family-based 
ranching operations are sustained through the use of permitted 
cattle grazing on public lands.
    For many years this area has been embroiled in controversy 
as groups with differing points of view regarding how federal 
public lands should be used became focused on the Owyhee Canyon 
lands. This has resulted in costly lawsuits and delays in 
important management issues. Most recently those efforts 
revolved around an attempt to ask the President to create a 
national monument encompassing most of the public land in the 
county. OBSC was formed to prevent a monument from being 
designated. Once that perceived threat was temporarily removed, 
the coalition members decided that a proactive approach was 
better suited for the long-term benefit of the public federal 
land and also the community. We believe that a collaborative 
approach based on the health of the land and traditional land 
uses could create an environment whereby a long-term resolution 
to conflicts might be possible.
    In December 2018 leadership from the Owyhee Basin 
Stewardship Coalition and I traveled to Washington, DC, to meet 
with Senator Wyden and his staff. At that meeting we asked 
Senator Wyden if he would be willing to lead an effort to bring 
various parties together to find a solution. We made clear that 
enhancing land health was the focus and our goal and we're very 
grateful to Senator Wyden and his staff for agreeing to take on 
this challenging issue.
    Throughout 2019 Senator Wyden and his staff regularly met 
with representatives from the Owyhee Basin Stewardship 
Coalition and environmental groups with an interest in the 
area. Their tireless efforts supported by Senator Merkley are 
the reason this legislation is before you today. There are some 
areas in the bill where OBSC believes agreement was reached but 
require more precise definition. In a perfect world, there are 
other language clarifications and enhancements that we would 
have preferred, and I'm happy to provide those to the Committee 
separately.
    Let me proceed to summarize some of those specifics as 
follows. To start, over two million acres of public land in 
Malheur County are designated as either current wilderness 
study areas (WSAs) or lands with wilderness characteristics 
(LWCs). As you may know, WSAs and LWCs are managed as de facto 
wilderness. This legislation creates slightly more than one 
million acres of wilderness while releasing over one million 
acres back to multiple use. OBSC feels this release language 
needs to be clarified in the bill.
    To continue, there are incredibly valuable precedent 
setting aspects of this bill which could be used as a model in 
other areas of the Western United States. One of those is given 
that the health of the land was the driving factor of the 
negotiations, the use of adaptive management tools on all 
federal public land designated or with administrative overlays 
in the county is invaluable. That will not only allow but also 
require federal agencies to use best practices to maintain and 
improve land conditions. It will ensure seamless practices 
throughout the county in restoration and multiple use.
    Another precedent setting aspect of the bill is the CEO 
Committee, as Senator Wyden calls it. This allows the local 
community, as well as other interested parties an opportunity 
to help direct priorities and management objectives with the 
focus on what's best to maintain land health. Since diverse 
groups have a seat at the table, we would appreciate 
clarification providing additional oversight capabilities of 
the group. We would ask that this Committee have authority and 
does not become simply another advisory committee that agencies 
can ignore.
    The legislation also provides various needed drivers of new 
economic activity for the county. It strives to enhance 
protections for sensitive ecosystem areas and allow for better 
access for visitors, campers and sightseers, where appropriate. 
We support those efforts.
    In conclusion, it was our members who derive their 
livelihood from these lands who asked Senator Wyden to 
undertake this process. We feel he and his staff have done an 
outstanding job, and we strongly support their efforts and are 
very grateful to him. Thank you for the opportunity to testify 
and for your consideration of this bill which is critically 
important to all residents of Malheur County.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Dunn follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Cantwell [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Dunn, and I 
know our colleagues are in the middle of rotating in and out 
for voting so I thank our witnesses for their indulgence. Now 
we are going to hear from Mr. Haydn Forward.

   STATEMENT OF HAYDN FORWARD, BOARD MEMBER, HERITAGE WATERS 
                           COALITION

    Mr. Forward. Subcommittee Chairman Lee, Minority Leader, 
Senators, thank you for extending this privilege to speak with 
you today. I am Haydn Forward, a principal with the San 
Francisco Soil and Water Conservation District and just for 
clarification, I need to make sure that everybody understands 
that's the San Francisco River Watershed in New Mexico and not 
to be confused with that beautiful city in California. I'm also 
speaking today on behalf of Heritage Waters Coalition of which 
I'm a board member and both agencies are in opposition of the 
Dutch Salmon bill, S. 3670. I'd like to point out that since 
our conception in June of this year, four short months ago, 
Heritage Waters Coalition has absolutely been magnetic. In our 
short existence we have gained 3,500 members with four local 
county commissions, five local governmental entities and 39 New 
Mexico conservation districts, all opposing S. 3670 and the 
wild and scenic rivers designation.
    The secret to our success is simple. We are balancing the 
scales and telling the risks that are associated with the Wild 
and Scenic Rivers Act and S. 3670. Unfortunately, this 
legislation you're hearing about today attempts to designate 
river segments where private lands and water developments lie 
within, above and below proposed river segments. That's 
important. I'm going to bring this up a number of times, 
private property that is above and below designated river 
segments. These private properties have water diversions, 
wells, crossings, rights-of-way, livestock use and other 
utilizations of these river segments that make them inherently 
incompatible with the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
    I want you to consider for a moment a checkerboard pattern 
and this is established between the designated rivers and the 
private lands that I'm talking about above and below. You will 
have a designation of a river coming down, jumping over private 
property, designation river, leaping private property again. 
And it almost reaches absurdity. I will use an example of 
Mineral Creek designation where they have divided up small 
segments, as small as .02 tenths of a mile, .03 tenths of a 
mile. I have one segment here that is .01 tenth of a mile. So 
these short river segments are not in line with the spirit and 
the meaning of a free flowing, wild and scenic river.
    A little bit of history. In 2002 the Gila National Forest 
plan recommended nine river segments for designation as wild 
and scenic. All were within the designated wilderness areas. 
The legislation that you're looking at today has designated an 
additional 51 river segments that, this is important, that were 
deemed ineligible in 2002. The diverse group that was 
associated with the review of designation saw nothing 
outstandingly remarkable in these 52 river segments that are 
now being designated. So the rivers haven't changed. Something 
else has changed here. The proposed legislation also ignores 
the National Environmental Protection Act, NEPA. Additionally, 
S. 3670 ignores any evaluation of economic impacts. It ignores 
the public comments because none of the opposing public 
comments that were shared are reflected in this new 
legislation. So it certainly is not taking into full 
consideration all the people that live and work along the 
river.
    So speaking of those people, the population, let's 
recognize for a minute the partnership that has lasted for 
years between the USDA and the NRCS. These are farmers, 
ranchers, allotment holders, who have spent in kind, millions 
of dollars of money to do good conservation on the river. 
Section 7 of Wild and Scenic Rivers Act takes control of state 
and local government and overlays federal law, meaning all the 
traditional government agencies that were doing good 
conservation on the river are now out and federal law is taking 
place. I will move along here quickly. The bill will no longer 
balance good conservation from water use within the Gila 
Watershed, and it'll move towards full protection of the river 
eliminating 134 years of economic growth and rights along the 
river. We need to understand that the Secretary or custodian in 
charge will have the powers to allow for any conservation work 
to be done on the river. He will be using a written management 
plan that will be written to minimize the use of waters to the 
maximum extent.
    One more comment. Let's talk about jobs for just a moment. 
Some of our nation's largest mining operations or organizations 
have operations in Southwest New Mexico. Grant County GDP, 40 
percent of their GDP is mining. These operations do indeed have 
diversions in the rivers which were placed under full NEPA 
protection. Should maintenance be required the permitting would 
be placed in the hands of the Secretary in charge who would 
have the ability to stop maintenance on the diversion, shut 
down the mine and demolish 44 percent of Grant County's 
economy. I think that would be absolutely devastating.
    Forgive me for going long, and I will look forward to any 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Forward follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. 
Forward. Now we would like to turn to Jamie Crockett, our last 
witness. Thank you for being here virtually.

            STATEMENT OF JAMIE CROCKETT, CO-OWNER, 
                   GILA BACKCOUNTRY SERVICES

    Ms. Crockett. Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Wyden and 
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to 
testify before you today in regard to S. 3670. As introduced by 
Senator Tom Udall and co-sponsored by Senator Martin Heinrich, 
this legislation seeks to permanently protect close to 450 
river miles of the most outstanding rivers in New Mexico as 
wild and scenic rivers. My name is Jamie Crockett, and I am a 
property owner in a rural community on the river in the middle 
of the Gila Wilderness, where my husband and I own and run Gila 
Backcountry Services, an outfitting business permitted by the 
U.S. Forest Service. We run multiday mule packing, naturalist 
guiding and boating trips throughout the Gila National Forest 
for hunters, fishermen, biologists, trail crews, horseback 
riders and birders. Our week-long rafting expeditions go 
through the incredibly beautiful main canyon of the Gila River 
in the Gila Wilderness.
    We've been privileged to spend the last 15 years in these 
incredible canyons. These places are important to my family 
because they are our home and our livelihood. New Mexicans 
travel great distances to get to the water's edge. It's where 
we connect with family and friends. It's where we escape the 
summer heat in the cool, clear water and it's where we raise 
our children to respect nature, God and each other. These 
intrinsic values are our way of life and they're the reason why 
I live here, and it's why this area is a destination. Tourism 
is the second largest industry in our state and outdoor 
recreation is one of the fastest growing sectors here. Tourism 
in Silver City is on the rise, and I expect the wild and scenic 
designation will increase the draw to this area and will 
continue to sustain this growth in a healthy way that respects 
our local traditions.
    This bill is the result of grassroots movement and nearly a 
decade of work from and by the people of my community to 
guarantee protections of these rivers, their values, their 
current uses and our traditional ways of life. The vast 
majority of residents in the Gila region support wild and 
scenic rivers and I know this personally from doing community 
outreach and getting signatures from over 150 local businesses, 
in attending meetings with our fellow constituents and talking 
with my neighbors. As a community we asked Senator Udall and 
Senator Heinrich to write this important bill for our river, 
and Senator Udall and Senator Heinrich took great care in 
taking multiple meetings with community members that represent 
a variety of opinions on the subject. I was present at one 
meeting where Senator Heinrich generously listened to 
stakeholders on all sides of the political spectrum, including 
parties concerned about how this may effect their water rights 
and ranching traditions and I saw firsthand how our Senators 
cared about those concerns and have done the work necessary to 
ensure that everyone involved has been acknowledged and 
accounted for in the text of the bill.
    This bill has received broad support from a wide variety of 
community organizations like the Fort Sill Apache Tribe and the 
All Pueblo Council of Governors, also the local towns of 
Hurley, Bayard and Silver City have passed resolutions of 
support as has the Grant County Commission. There's been formal 
support from sportsmen and women's organizations, veterans' 
groups, faith leaders and civic groups like LULAC. In the 
American West we measure our wealth in water so while Southwest 
New Mexico isn't dominated by wealth in a traditional sense, 
we're the heirs of an incredible fortune by way of this free-
flowing gem of the Gila River. We carry the honor and the 
burden of protecting the river and its traditional uses 
indefinitely through this important legislation.
    S. 3670 has been a community driven effort involving years 
of outreach and education among diverse interests and we're 
thankful that the Senators worked with us to introduce this 
legislation in the U.S. Senate. On behalf of the many, many 
local area farmers, ranchers, hunters, anglers, private 
landowners, recreationists, business owners, tribes and elected 
officials, I wish to convey our collective view that it is 
vitally important to protect these critical watersheds and 
rivers by designating certain segments of the Gila River for 
inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic River system. I 
encourage the Committee to proceed with expedited consideration 
and approval of the M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and 
Scenic Rivers Act.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee for 
your time and consideration. This concludes my testimony and 
I'd be happy to answer questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Crockett follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Cantwell. Well thank you, Ms. Crockett. You 
certainly have enticed me to look more into this legislation 
and want to visit the Gila River area, so thank you for being 
part of this hearing today.
    Again, we are awaiting members to return from votes and, 
fortunate for me as I was high on the list anyway, I am going 
to go ahead and ask my questions. I am going to start, if I 
could, with first a fire picture as I talk about our state.
    [The photo of the fire in Yakima, Washington, follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Cantwell. This is a picture from Yakima, 
Washington, but we are at over 600,000 acres burned with 
300,000 of those acres burning in just one day. This is not a 
new story to us. We, obviously, have been through these very 
intense fire years for several years in a row. And as Senator 
Feinstein started talking about what is going on in California 
today, when people start saying this is the biggest fire ever 
in the history of our state, that is where we were several 
years ago. So that is what is happening--record fire seasons.
    The second chart I would like to put up--because in 
response to these, we have passed new fire legislation and are 
obviously trying to give the Forest Service, Vicki 
Christiansen, and you, Deputy Chief French, the tools that you 
need to help fight the fires--and one of the things that we did 
was give you the formal authorization of smoke forecasters. Why 
did we do this? Well, we knew that the fire season was going to 
bring these very daunting, health situations.
    [The U.S. Air Quality Index chart follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Cantwell. As you can see on this color-coded map of 
Puget Sound here, we might want to bring it a teeny bit closer, 
but these colors are showing us--that you have a big part of 
Puget Sound and a big part of our state and on into Oregon and 
a little bit into Idaho, either unhealthy, very unhealthy, or 
hazardous. So all of this area there in the purplish color is 
basically unacceptable health risk with smoke.
    So I wanted to ask you, Deputy French, how has this helped 
us in understanding the risk of the fire season and giving us 
information with these forecasters to communicate to the public 
and to the firefighting community what we need to do to take 
care during this process?
    Mr. French. Thank you, Senator.
    It's been a great help. The Department of Agriculture and 
Department of Interior have been using many of the aspects that 
came out of the law to really focus on how we use technology 
differently. So you talked about one. In terms of air quality, 
what sort of changes do we need to make in terms of movements 
of people, where do we need to put resources, those sorts of 
things?
    We've also been working very much on ground-based image 
technology to understand where we're seeing shifts and changes 
in fires and where to put resources associated with that. We 
have an RC-26 aircraft that has a distributed real-time, 
infrared capability, that's from the 141st air refueling wing 
up on the Washington Air National Guard and that's been 
deployed in support of wildland fire operation to provide a 
number of these services. We're on track right now for awarding 
a contract for location services, for wildland firefighters, 
and we're also using some of the technology advances for our 
smoke jumpers to be able to drop things into areas more 
precisely than we've done before. And all that has come out of 
the focus that came from the passage of that bill.
    Senator Cantwell. That is great to hear, because we felt 
like we needed more data. I don't think anybody in Puget Sound 
is confused when they look outside. They don't think it is 
healthy, but what this really has done is help us with the 
information about the level of severity of the smoke, is what 
you are saying, and then, helping us move the resources in the 
right places based on that information.
    Mr. French. And it helps us understand the effects as well. 
I think we all knew, I mean, we saw the smoke in the air but we 
didn't know, necessarily, where the intensity was and that sort 
of thing. So it's all around, it's helped us both in thinking 
about where we need to do preventative work but also how to 
manage things once some of the fires begin.
    Senator Cantwell. Where can we take this going forward, 
because I certainly believe on the prescribed burn side. You 
know, we were a fan of changing it. People said, oh, you can't, 
you can't change this from a seasonal perspective. People don't 
want to have smoke in March. Well, I guarantee you, on a 
prescribed burn, they would rather that smoke in March than a 
whole week or a whole month of smoke during the fire season.
    How can this now help us have a regional conversation about 
prescribed burning and things like the pine pilot that is, 
basically, now more of a global discussion about how to use 
those tools?
    Mr. French. Yeah, thank you.
    So I think, I think people are understanding that in these 
fire-prone forests that one of the main things we need to do as 
part of our active management is bring in more prescribed fire, 
reintroduce fire into these places. And if we can have the 
predictive services to understand what the smoke impacts will 
be, we can educate folks. We can make changes to how we're 
doing things, pick the right times of year to do that and get 
that work done more effectively. That's the part of it, I 
think, that's been most exciting.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
    So basically you are saying predictive services like these 
that we have put into previous fire bills can now help us 
target prescribed burns. Then to the Ranking Member's comment 
about 5,000 firefighters needed right now. Do you agree with 
that number?
    Mr. French. You know, honestly, I don't know what the exact 
number would be. We, I could tell you that we have more than 
31,000 firefighters deployed right now. We've had a pretty 
sustained effort in the interagency response through the entire 
year. And even with COVID, we were managing that very well. 
These last weeks have really shown, though, the stresses in the 
system, but I don't know the exact number offhand.
    Senator Cantwell. Well I see the Chairman has returned, and 
I appreciate it. I thank you for your testimony.
    Mr. French. Absolutely.
    Senator Cantwell. I would say, I hope that we all will look 
for more support of firefighting----
    Mr. French. Thank you.
    Senator Cantwell. ----with the range protection 
organizations, with international countries who haven't helped 
us and we need to be aggressive about getting more resources.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. French. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Lee [presiding]. Thanks, Senator Cantwell.
    Mr. French, in my opening statement I talked about the Bald 
Mountain fire in the Uinta National Forest that nearly reached 
the community of Elk Ridge City, Utah. For the record, what do 
you think could have happened had the fire advanced just a few 
more miles, had it not been for Miracle Mountain?
    Mr. French. So I'll be thoughtful in my response only 
because there is some ongoing litigation associated with that 
response, but as we have seen in many places, often the 
difference between catastrophic impacts to communities and a 
fire not having that can be based on very quick changes in 
weather events and other events and the potential is huge. We 
see that play out time after time in many of these fires that 
we can see singular things like just happened last week where 
we had these wind events where suddenly something that would 
appear to be normal and something that is manageable under 
normal circumstances can absolutely change overnight and a 
million acres are burned within days.
    Senator Lee. Thank you. I appreciate that. It really was an 
awful fire. It could have been so much worse, and we were 
grateful that it turned out the way that it did.
    Ms. Kaster, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about S. 
2828, the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owhyee Act. We 
would love to get some clarification on the lands intended for 
multiple use management under this bill. The bill, as I 
understand it, would designate about a million acres of 
wilderness while releasing another million acres that currently 
are managed as wilderness study areas and lands with wilderness 
characteristics. Tell us what are lands with wilderness 
characteristics?
    Ms. Kaster. So Senator, lands with wilderness 
characteristics are inventoried by the Bureau of Land 
Management during the land use planning process, also the 
resource management planning process, and they will inventory 
those LWCs and then work through the public process to identify 
and determine how best to manage those characteristics.
    Senator Lee. And if Congress were to release these lands 
within wilderness characteristics under the bill, would they 
continue to be managed under the BLM resource management plans 
and potentially with wilderness character or some similar 
restriction?
    Ms. Kaster. To the best of my knowledge, yes. So it would 
be really contingent on that land use planning process that the 
BLM employs.
    Senator Lee. Now the bill proposes that we convert two BLM 
grazing allotments into land held in trust by the Secretary for 
the Burns Paiute Tribe, is that right?
    Ms. Kaster. Yes, to my knowledge.
    Senator Lee. So we understand that the Tribe currently 
holds the grazing permits to those allotments and then 
subleases to other ranchers in the area. Are there any land 
uses or access issues that arise in the conversion of these 
lands?
    Ms. Kaster. Not that I'm aware of, but I think one thing 
we'd like to further explore, Secretarial Order 337, the--73, 
excuse me--you know, requires the Bureau of Land Management to 
access recreational values, and I think that would be a key 
thing to access across the board with these actions proposed in 
the legislation.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, yes. I would appreciate anything 
that you could do to help us look into that and help us 
understand that point. We have been told by Representative 
Walden from Oregon, Oregon's 2nd Congressional district, that 
some local ranchers and sportsmen may have some concerns about 
that provision. So I would love to find out more about that if 
you have anything.
    Mr. French, let's go back to you for a minute on the 
Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act, S. 1735. Like the bill we 
were discussing just a moment ago, the Blackfoot Clearwater 
Stewardship Act is another bill that purports to, sort of, 
``split the baby,'' for lack of a better word on wilderness for 
multiple use land. The bill would designate about 80,000 acres 
of wilderness in Montana's Lolo National Forest while setting 
aside about 2,300 acres for two recreation management areas 
intended to be of benefit to the areas snowmobilers use. Now 
the Montana Snowmobile Association contacted the Subcommittee 
to warn us that some of the lands in these recreation 
management areas have elevated the avalanche potential in the 
area. Is that something you can confirm or dispute?
    Mr. French. I can't confirm or dispute it. We've heard the 
same information. I've asked our folks in the area about the, 
about whether or not there is an increased potential and what 
they basically said is any backcountry areas like that for 
snowmobiling there is increased potential depending on 
different snow loads.
    Senator Lee. Okay, but they did not identify anything 
beyond that, anything specific to these circumstances?
    Mr. French. Not that I had in time for this hearing.
    Senator Lee. Okay.
    Also, does this bill release any wilderness study areas?
    Mr. French. Not that I'm aware of.
    Senator Lee. Okay. All right, we will ask some additional 
questions in any subsequent round.
    Next up to bat will be Senator Stabenow, who joins us 
online. Go ahead, Senator Stabenow.
    Senator Stabenow. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 
thank you to all of our witnesses and, of course, our Ranking 
Member, and thank you for all of the legislation that is in 
front of the Subcommittee.
    My first comment is just that my heart goes out, like all 
of ours does, to those who are impacted----
    Senator Lee. We lost your audio feed there. Debbie, if you 
can push the----
    Senator Stabenow. Yes.
    Senator Lee. There we go. Wait, you are back. Thank you. 
You were saying something very profound, and we lost you for a 
second. So we are glad to have you back.
    [Connection issues.]
    Senator Lee. Okay, we appear to have an interrupted 
internet connection there. Okay, I can see her again.
    Senator Stabenow. Hello?
    Senator Lee. There we go.
    Senator Stabenow. Okay, I am sorry. Mr. Chairman, can you 
hear me?
    Senator Lee. Yes, we can hear you intermittently. We can 
see you and we can hear a few words out of every sentence.
    Senator Stabenow. I am here.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Mr. Chairman, maybe if she turns off 
her video and does audio only.
    Senator Lee. That is a good idea.
    Senator Stabenow. --to the entire hearing, so I am not sure 
what the problem is.
    Senator Lee. Okay.
    Senator Stabenow, Senator Cortez Masto raised a good 
suggestion. Try turning your video feed off and let's try to do 
this through an audio connection only because right now we are 
getting only broken pieces of both your video and your audio 
feed. Let's try that and see if that works.
    Senator Stabenow. Hello?
    Senator Lee. Okay, okay, that is better. I can hear you 
now. We don't see you, but Senator Cortez Masto's suggestion 
appears to have worked. Go ahead.
    Senator Stabenow. Alright, well, thank you so much. It is 
interesting that, I am sorry that this is not a good 
connection, but as I was indicating, Mr. Chairman, thank you to 
you and the Ranking Member. First, my heart goes out to 
everyone affected by the horrific fires, and a huge thank you 
to all the firefighters and others who are really heroes in 
this battle against the fires. And I really want to speak, in 
part, as the Ranking Member of the Agriculture and Nutrition 
and Forestry Committee which is the other committee of 
jurisdiction on so many of these issues. And thank you to Mr. 
French and the fire service and everyone who is working so 
hard.
    But I think it is important to step back a moment and 
realize that in Congressional testimony, time and time again, 
experts really have been pointing to two things to address 
these fires. One is what is happening on the climate crisis, 
and the other is a lack of resources to manage and restore our 
forests. These are key drivers of today's wildfire issues. So 
this is not about environmental protection laws, it is about 
resources, it is about fire management. And that is why so many 
of us worked together to broker the bipartisan Forest Service 
budget fix in 2018 to free up the necessary dollars to 
undertake science-based restoration of our forests. And so, we 
freed up about a little over half a billion dollars that we 
thought was going to go back into funding prescribed burns, Mr. 
Chairman, as you talked about, which are possible now if the 
resources are there and so on, the coordination.
    But instead, what we saw, instead of the savings being used 
to decrease wildfire risks, the Trump Administration cut the 
Forest Service budget and in every single submission they have 
made to Congress which is deeply concerning to me. It is also 
important to really focus on the fact that if we had the 
resources, the fact is that it is important to emphasize that 
the Forest Service already has over 30 categorical exclusions 
(CEs) from the National Environmental Protection Act, at their 
disposal, including three new major exclusions that we 
authorized in the last six years from the 2014 Farm bill, 2018 
Omnibus package and the 2018 Farm bill. So I am truly concerned 
and don't understand why the Administration is not fully 
implementing the new restoration tools we have already given 
them.
    Just one example and then a question to Mr. French. In the 
2018 Farm bill we reauthorized and doubled the funding for the 
popular Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program. The 
Forest Service's own website says this program is proven to be 
an effective tool for improving forest conditions. And yet, the 
Administration has proposed to zero out the program in every 
single one of its budgets. Mr. French, again, thank you for 
your service and everyone who you represent, and we all agree 
we need to do more on forest management. But after working on 
these issues for a lot of years and trying to give you more 
tools to do that, why not fund and prioritize the programs 
Congress has already given you to do what needs to be done, 
what I know you want to do?
    Mr. French. Thank you, Senator.
    So the wildland fire funding fix was a game changer for the 
agency and it went into effect this year and, you know, the 
biggest benefit right now that we're seeing is, we're not 
having to do those mid-year transfers to help pay for our 
suppression activities. That's given a lot more consistency to 
our ability to do work. We have really emphasized the use of 
the tools that the Congress has given us, including those CEs 
that you talked about. We had a concerted national effort 
across the agency to use those in a broad way.
    The reality is, is that if, you know, the average 
environmental assessment we do in the agency, you know, takes, 
for a fuels project, takes somewhere around, you know, 685 days 
whereas if we, when we went to one of the new authorities and 
CEs that Congress gave us, it's around 243 days. I think the 
biggest issue we're running into now, it's just a matter of 
scale. The types of fires we're seeing, these megafires and the 
hundreds of thousands of acres, the types of active management 
we need to do on the ground, the tools we have need to match 
the scales of the fires that we're seeing. And so, we're, we've 
really dedicated tremendous amounts of the agency just to this 
work, but that's the challenge that we're facing right now. And 
we're really grateful to the efficiencies that Congress has 
given us. I think it's why you're seeing the highest outputs 
that we've been able to achieve, just know that we need to do a 
lot more.
    Senator Stabenow. So just one follow-up, Mr. Chairman, and 
that is, Mr. French, when you talk about scaling it up, is this 
an issue of providing more resources, funding, to be able to do 
that?
    Mr. French. In order to do more acres, we need to have the 
resources that meet those acres. It takes wildlife surveys. It 
takes vegetation surveys. It takes the compliance to do through 
NEPA, the contracts to do the fuels work or the timber removal 
work. It's all of the above. And so, it--we use every resource 
we have right now toward that priority.
    Senator Stabenow. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am so sorry for the technical 
difficulties.
    Senator Lee. Oh, no worries at all. It was worth the wait, 
and we have Senator Cortez Masto to thank for it.
    [Laughter.]
    We will have to refer to her as our tech expert----
    Senator Cortez Masto. It only goes so far.
    Senator Lee. ----on the Committee now.
    Senator Cortez Masto, you are next.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, thank you.
    Let me bounce back here to S. 2890 and this is the Douglas 
County bill, and thank you both. I know you have been working 
with us and I appreciate there is still some things we have to 
work through, but Ms. Kaster, if I could start with you. You 
made a comment that there are many provisions within the bill 
that you support but there is a concern about the transfer of 
public land that does not, and correct me if I am wrong, but 
you said that does not comport with the Administration's 
position on wholesale disposal of lands. Is that right?
    Ms. Kaster. That's correct.
    Senator Cortez Masto. And what does that mean, the 
Administration? And who are you referring to when you talk 
about the Administration?
    Ms. Kaster. Senator, I'm referring to the President and the 
Secretary. With that said, you know, we would be interested in 
working with you on this legislation. We appreciate the fact 
that Douglas County has unique recreational opportunities and 
one of Secretary Bernhardt's first Secretarial Orders he 
signed, S.O. 3373, contemplates land tenure actions and 
recreational opportunities. And so, we'd like to ensure as the 
legislation moves forward that those key recreational 
opportunities and access are not impacted moving forward.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay. I absolutely want to talk with 
you, because I think in question here is just about 7,000 acres 
of BLM-managed land which Douglas County is looking for 5,000 
of that to be in their control so they can manage the flood 
control piece of that, for flood control management and then 
the other 2,000 would be used for recreation purposes. Is that 
something different? Are you hearing something different than 
that?
    Ms. Kaster. So I believe, and you can correct me, Senator, 
that the conveyance would be a best part of R&PPA conveyance 
and typically the acreage of an R&PPA conveyance is not that 
high. So we can work with you on additional options for how 
best to facilitate, how to deal with that language moving 
forward.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    And then Mr. French, let me ask you this. In your 
testimony, in your notes, you have concern with a particular 
parcel that has been identified for potential disposal that is 
adjacent to the Forest Service's Plymouth Interagency Work 
Center and that is an administrative site that holds the 
firefighter barracks, a management office and other facilities. 
I understand that the Forest Service completed a NEPA review 
for additional administrative facilities at that site and the 
parcel of interest back in 2010. And so, I guess my question to 
you is, are you looking to then move forward with development 
on that site or can you give me an update so that I can relay 
to Douglas County what the intent is with that site that we are 
trying to get transferred?
    Mr. French. Yeah, I mean, this is actually a pretty simple 
one. It's not that we're opposed to that sort of exchange. It's 
just that that particular one we put a lot of investment in for 
the expansion of our facilities. I think, as you know, we have 
a huge deferred maintenance backlog in the agency and we've 
been, we have strategies in place of how to reduce that. And 
so, the Forest Supervisor out there, Bill Dunkelberger, has 
worked hard to try to figure out how do you consolidate some of 
that. That was part of that broader plan to use that site to 
consolidate other units to save the agency money over time.
    We certainly would work with the County and the community 
on finding alternatives to that, but, you know, if that's the 
way it goes, we just want to make clear that, you know, we put 
considerable investment into----
    Senator Cortez Masto. Yes, and I--that is what I am 
hearing. So, and it sounds like, correct me if I am wrong, you 
are looking, you have to make priority decisions based on 
funding resources and this has not been at the top because you 
have had the backlog to consider--is that right?
    Mr. French. Yup.
    Senator Cortez Masto. So now that we have passed 
legislation to address the backlog and appropriately fund it, 
hopefully this goes back to the priority list to address this 
parcel and what you are going to do with it. Is that possible?
    Mr. French. Yeah, fair point. I mean, I think you're 
referring to the Great American Outdoors Act and what one of 
the things the Great American Outdoors Act does for us is it 
allows us to use our other appropriations that would be used 
for things like this and in addressing some of those issues. 
So, fair enough.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for 
being here today. I really appreciate it.
    Senator Lee. Mr. French, as I am sure you are aware, there 
are some, as we have discussed today, really ugly fires raging 
in the West due in part to poor federal land management. I 
noticed that S. 1765 contains provisions that can be read to 
prohibit timber harvesting in certain areas. Do you think that 
without such harvesting and maintenance that these recreation 
areas might actually have a tendency to become more prone to 
catastrophic wildfire, even though I know that is not the 
intent? I don't think anyone would want to do something that 
leaves these lands more subject to catastrophic wildfire, but 
could it have that effect?
    Mr. French. I think, in general, anytime that tools are 
taken out of our toolbox for addressing our ability for 
reducing wildfire risk, it just makes it harder to deal with. I 
always appreciate when we create areas, or designate areas, 
that have outcome-based type standards and then we can use the 
different tools to meet those outcomes. But I think, you know, 
that's one of the things that is one of our lessons learned 
over years is that as we're trying to figure out how to 
actually reduce that risk, whether it's through active 
management of prescribed fire, reducing fuels, that we need 
every tool in the toolbox, especially because when you're 
dealing with fuels reduction, there's not a market for it most 
of the time. You're usually paying for it in other ways, maybe 
through commercial timber.
    Senator Lee. Okay, but typically that should be something 
that we should look out for though, right? If we are, anytime 
we take a parcel of federal land and we tell the government, we 
tell the land management agencies that they can't harvest or we 
take off the table certain activities that would involve either 
creating fire breaks, removing snags or otherwise that does, 
almost inevitably, increase the wildfire risk, right?
    Mr. French. Our position for years on all designated areas 
is to allow the full set of tools for accomplishing the goals 
of what that designated area was meant to be.
    Senator Lee. Okay. Thank you. That is helpful.
    Let's get back to, and this will be for Mr. Forward, 
talking about S. 3670. This legislation proposes to designate 
more than 30 segments of Forest Service land in New Mexico 
under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act totaling more than 440 
miles. Wild and Scenic River designations do not just affect 
rivers and streams, they also extend wilderness restrictions up 
to one half mile from the streams' high water mark. How, Mr. 
Forward, will this bill affect water access and not just water 
rights for irrigation and for livestock growers?
    Mr. Forward. Thank you for the question.
    The primary concern is that dozens of diversions that are 
currently on the San Francisco and the Gila River do require 
maintenance from time to time. With the overlay of federal law 
and a custodian that is in charge of permitting, he will have 
every right, based on the river management plan to deny permits 
to maintain diversions and he may have many different reasons 
to deny permits. Who knows? Silt, perhaps going down the water, 
or it may change the visual of an outstanding, remarkable 
feature. So it could effectively shut down irrigation and, in 
fact, forced abandonment of water rights if they cannot 
continue to maintain their diversions.
    Senator Lee. Mr. Dunn, if--go ahead.
    [Pause.]
    Mr. Dunn, if this legislation is enacted, do you think 
there is still a threat of a monument being designated?
    Mr. Dunn. Obviously that would depend on the President and 
whoever that might be at the time. I think it's unlikely that 
having gone through this process and negotiating an agreement 
with all sides that a monument would be declared. I think 
they'd give us an opportunity to make sure that this works and 
that's certainly what we're hoping for.
    Senator Lee. Ms. Kaster, in your testimony you mentioned 
that S. 2828 may include some lands that may not be appropriate 
for wilderness designation. Can you expand on that a little 
bit?
    Ms. Kaster. Happy to.
    So, Senator Lee, I think you captured it really well in 
your questions to Mr. French. When you look at parcels of land 
and then decide how to manage them and, kind of, remove that 
multiple use overlay, that does have an impact on the agency. 
And so we'd like to ensure that that is the best use of the 
land and given the ongoing fire activity out West, you know, 
the Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior, 
would like all of its multiple, multiple use resources 
available to be able to combat fire.
    Senator Lee. Thank you.
    Since Senator Hoeven has now joined us, Senator Hoeven, you 
are next.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. 
Also, thanks to Ranking Member Wyden and to the witnesses for 
being here.
    Before the Committee today is S. 180, the Bureau of Land 
Management, BLM, Mineral Spacing Act--legislation I have been 
working on now for a number of years, and I appreciate Chairman 
Lee joining me as an original co-sponsor of the legislation. 
The legislation would streamline and approve the permitting 
process for energy development by lifting the requirement for a 
federal permit when less than 50 percent of the subsurface 
minerals are owned or held in trust by the Federal Government 
and there is no federal surface land ownership. And so I 
appreciate, Chairman Lee, you having this on the docket today 
and am hopeful we can advance the bill which, I think, is 
important for continued energy development for our country.
    Let me start with you, Ms. Kaster. I appreciate the 
Interior Department's supportive testimony on the legislation. 
Thank you for that. My question is, would you agree that this 
practice of getting the requirement now that we get multiple 
overlapping permits, especially when BLM owns a minority 
interest in the mineral acres and its basic unit has no surface 
acreage is an overly burdensome process?
    Ms. Kaster. Thank you, Senator Hoeven.
    We believe that streamlining the permitting processes where 
the Federal Government has a less than 50 percent mineral 
interest under non-federal surface ownership reduces 
unnecessary procedural reviews which allows us to address the 
backlog at a faster rate.
    Senator Hoeven. Under my legislation energy developers 
would still be subject to all state laws, regulations and 
guidance governing energy activity in each relevant 
jurisdiction. Do you believe that our legislation would ensure 
adequate environmental and safety review, particularly if 
operators submit state-approved drilling permits to the BLM as 
you suggest in your testimony?
    Ms. Kaster. Generally, yes, Senator.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay. Now a typical spacing unit is 1,280 
acres. In North Dakota there are about, well, almost 3,000 
spacing units with a small percentage of federal minerals. That 
means over three million acres are not being developed because 
they contain, excuse me, these federal minerals. Would you 
agree that my legislation would be a benefit to the taxpayer by 
making more areas available to lease and opening new energy 
development opportunities?
    Ms. Kaster. Yes, we agree, Senator.
    Senator Hoeven. All right.
    Deputy Chief French, would you agree that redundancies in 
permitting which do not lead to greater safety or better 
environmental stewardship are hindering the multiple use 
mission of the Forest Service for its forest lands and 
grasslands?
    Mr. French. Yeah, we have a number of, a number of cases 
where we can see where that redundancy is affecting our 
efficiency.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay. And will you continue to engage with 
stakeholders in North Dakota as well as my office as you move 
forward with your final management plan?
    Mr. French. We certainly will, Senator.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay. Again, I want to thank both of you, 
and I want to thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for 
holding this hearing today. Thank you so much.
    Mr. French. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Lee. Thanks, Senator Hoeven.
    I have a few more questions, if that is alright.
    On S. 3366, the Gold Star Families Parks Act, I have a 
question for Ms. Kaster and Mr. French. Approximately how many 
families do you think would be eligible for passes under this 
legislation? Do you have any estimate on that?
    Ms. Kaster. Senator, I do not. We would work with the 
relevant government agencies to determine that number.
    Senator Lee. Okay.
    Now under S. 3485, the OFFSHORE Act, Ms. Kaster, I see 
under the authorized uses section of the bill that, 
``mitigation of damage to fish, wildlife and natural resources 
is addressed.'' Are you concerned that offshore wind leasing 
poses substantial harm to state resources?
    Ms. Kaster. Senator, I would need to take that question 
back to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
    Senator Lee. Okay. Okay. Great, thank you. I appreciate any 
insight you might have on that.
    Mr. French, as to Senate bill 4431, the Emergency Wildfire 
and Public Safety Act of 2020, this legislation includes an 
exemption for the State of California from the prohibition on 
the export of unprocessed timber of dead and dying trees. Can 
you tell me why this prohibition exists in the legislation and 
why we would consider exempting California from it?
    Mr. French. Well, I think, you know, that's a question for 
the authors, but I can talk about the situation generally. The 
only way that we can export dead, dying trees or logs from 
national forests is to make a determination they're in excess 
of domestic capacity and that is generally a very hard thing to 
do.
    It has been a discussion for years in areas with large dead 
and dying trees like California, like we see in other areas 
that, right now, they don't get utilized because they don't 
have value, yet there are markets that have developed in, 
especially in Asia, where those could be utilized. And I think 
that's what is driving the intent, because right now we don't 
have the markets for those dead standing trees out there. 
They're not being purchased right now. And not in all areas, it 
just depends on where you are. It's really driven by the market 
forces.
    Senator Lee. Okay. So with California, but I am not sure I 
am understanding how that makes--I know this is not your 
legislation so I have to phrase this the right way. Is there 
anything you are aware of that makes California truly unique in 
that regard?
    Mr. French. The sheer number of dead, dying trees that you 
see in the Sierras. I think it's around 151 million right now. 
And the other thing that I'd add into this, I think it's a 
driver of this idea is that the timeframe it takes us to make a 
determination for export, you've usually lost the value in 
those trees by the time we do that rulemaking. It requires a 
rulemaking. And so, this would change that.
    I do think it could certainly be looked at in other areas 
that have a similar situation as California, if that answers--
if that's the question you're trying to get at.
    Senator Lee. Right. Okay.
    Should we care about the destination of that material? In 
other words, when we are talking about the prohibition against 
the export of unprocessed timber, should that matter to us as a 
Congress?
    Mr. French. I think it depends on the lens that you're 
looking at, and I think this is worth a discussion. If no one 
is buying it and it's creating a fuels and fire issue, then I 
think it's worth a debate.
    Senator Lee. Right. It is not as if we are concerned about 
it contaminating someone else's, you know, becoming an invasive 
species or something like that?
    Mr. French. No. And there are very strong safeguards in 
place for how we manage the export. I mean, we can manage and 
there are certain species we export right now and there are 
strong safeguards in place that manage for that.
    Senator Lee. Right.
    So this restriction under existing law is not about that, 
it is just about a requirement that is in place.
    Mr. French. Yes.
    Senator Lee. So that you have to get this approval before 
you can export as a condition precedent for exporting?
    Mr. French. Yeah, for the majority of species, especially 
those in the Sierras in California right now is an example. If 
we were to make that determination which we've looked at a 
number of times, honestly, generally by the time you do it, the 
timeframes for the value that might even be there for an export 
market are usually lost.
    Senator Lee. Thank you.
    Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Thanks, Chairman Lee.
    I want to talk about timber jobs for a moment. When I was 
growing up in Montana there were 31, 31 sawmills. Today in 
Montana that has dwindled down to seven. What was once a major 
economic driver in Montana is now struggling to survive. It is 
devastating rural communities and the management of our 
forests. Commercial timber often provides the economic means to 
accomplish fuels treatment, restoration and salvage work and 
stewardship projects like those that are streamlined and 
prioritized in my bill.
    Mr. French, can you speak to the important role that timber 
companies play in completing work on the ground and why is it 
critical we bring these timber jobs back to Montana?
    Mr. French. It's critical. I mean, if you think about the 
comments that Senator McSally said earlier about, you know, her 
focus on us with 4FRI in Arizona, one of the big challenges we 
have in Arizona right now to deal with those conditions is that 
we've lost most of the forest products infrastructure. Where we 
lose that infrastructure, we lose great ability for dealing 
with this situation. Where we still have it, we're able to make 
progress. It's critical for our ability to prepare forests for 
reintroduction of fire, it's critical for thinning the forests 
so that we have reduced fire and it's critical in supporting 
our rural economies.
    Senator Daines. Thanks, Mr. French.
    I want to shift gears and talk about the Blackfoot 
Clearwater Stewardship Act. First of all, I want to commend the 
proponents of the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act for 
their great collaborative efforts over the past ten years. 
COVID-19 certainly has brought to light the importance of 
public access to our treasured public lands as more families 
have retreated to the great outdoors, including ours. This 
highlights the need to carefully weigh and deliberate 
legislation that affects public land management in perpetuity. 
Land management policy decisions can be challenging and 
divisive, and we have worked on them over many years in Montana 
to find a place we can all land here in agreement in a spirit 
of collaboration. And the management in the Blackfoot Watershed 
is no different.
    I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the 
record the letters of support and letters of opposition I have 
received in the past year, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Lee. Without objection.
    [Letters of support and opposition for S. 1765 follow:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Daines. Mr. French, my question is this. Proponents 
of this legislation have stated it will enhance timber 
production in the area. What change in timber production has 
resulted or will result from this proposal?
    Mr. French. From my understanding, Senator, the agreed upon 
collaborative approach as to restoration will increase and the 
forest is already on a pathway to increase, but we'll--one of 
the outcomes of that should increase timber production.
    Senator Daines. And do you believe that this wilderness 
designation would in any way increase the risk of wildfire for 
surrounding communities?
    Mr. French. Well, we manage wildfire differently in 
wilderness. We use different techniques. We use low impact 
techniques. If that, if the fire is starting to threaten the 
community, we can change and we'll go to a much more direct, 
harder, fire suppression activity. So, you know, that's the way 
I would answer it is that fires in wilderness are managed 
differently. If they're threatening communities then we're 
going to change our suppression tactics to prevent that threat.
    Senator Daines. In your written testimony you speak to 
potential challenges accessing the recreation areas. Do you 
anticipate challenges to recreation as a result of this bill?
    Mr. French. From the folks that I've talked with I think 
those are issues that we'd like to work with the Committee on 
to resolve some of those issues that we've heard about that 
access.
    Senator Daines. Okay.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Lee. Thanks, Senator Daines.
    Thanks to all of our witnesses for being here. This has 
been a fantastic hearing and it has been very informative. I 
especially appreciate your patience with us while we were 
running in and out for votes. We do pay attention while we are 
here, most of the time, at least, and even when we are not it 
establishes a record that we can then review later. It would be 
impossible for us to get the information that we need without 
hearings like this one, even though it is frustrating at times 
when we have to vote in between.
    The record for this hearing of this Committee will be left 
open for a period of two weeks for anyone who wants to 
supplement the record.
    And we will stand adjourned.
    Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 4:59 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

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