[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


INVESTING IN WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT, ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION, AND RESILIENT 
COMMUNITIES: EXAMINING IMPLEMENTATION OF THE BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE 
                                  LAW

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

                           OVERSIGHT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

       SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC LANDS

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                         Tuesday, April 5, 2022
                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-17
                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
       
       
                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                 

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
                                   or
          Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
          
                                ___________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
47-289 PDF                   WASHINGTON : 2022          
          
          
                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                      RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Chair
                JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, IL, Vice Chair
   GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, CNMI, Vice Chair, Insular Affairs
                  BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Ranking Member

Grace F. Napolitano, CA              Louie Gohmert, TX
Jim Costa, CA                        Doug Lamborn, CO
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,      Robert J. Wittman, VA
    CNMI                             Tom McClintock, CA
Jared Huffman, CA                    Garret Graves, LA
Alan S. Lowenthal, CA                Jody B. Hice, GA
Ruben Gallego, AZ                    Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Joe Neguse, CO                       Daniel Webster, FL
Mike Levin, CA                       Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
Katie Porter, CA                     Russ Fulcher, ID
Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM           Pete Stauber, MN
Melanie A. Stansbury, NM             Thomas P. Tiffany, WI
Nydia M. Velazquez, NY               Jerry L. Carl, AL
Diana DeGette, CO                    Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., MT
Julia Brownley, CA                   Blake D. Moore, UT
Debbie Dingell, MI                   Yvette Herrell, NM
A. Donald McEachin, VA               Lauren Boebert, CO
Darren Soto, FL                      Jay Obernolte, CA
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU        Cliff Bentz, OR
Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, IL         Vacancy
Ed Case, HI                          Vacancy
Betty McCollum, MN
Steve Cohen, TN
Paul Tonko, NY
Rashida Tlaib, MI
Lori Trahan, MA

                     David Watkins, Staff Director
                       Luis Urbina, Chief Counsel
               Vivian Moeglein, Republican Staff Director
                   http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                 ------                                

       SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC LANDS

                         JOE NEGUSE, CO, Chair
                    RUSS FULCHER, ID, Ranking Member

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,      Thomas P. Tiffany, WI
    CNMI                             Louie Gohmert, TX
Diana DeGette, CO                    Doug Lamborn, CO
Paul Tonko, NY                       Tom McClintock, CA
Rashida Tlaib, MI                    Jody B. Hice, GA
Lori Trahan, MA                      Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., MT
Ruben Gallego, AZ                    Blake D. Moore, UT
Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM           Yvette Herrell, NM
Debbie Dingell, MI                   Jay Obernolte, CA
Ed Case, HI                          Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU
Katie Porter, CA
Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio

                                 ------                                
                                CONTENTS

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on Tuesday, April 5, 2022...........................     1

Statement of Members:

    Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Arizona...........................................     8
        Prepared statement of....................................     9
    Herrell, Hon. Yvette, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of New Mexico........................................     5
    Neguse, Hon. Joe, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of Colorado................................................     2
        Prepared statement of....................................     3
    Westerman, Hon. Bruce, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Arkansas..........................................     6

Statement of Witnesses:

    Ferebee, Brian, Chief Executive of Intergovernmental 
      Relations, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 
      Washington, DC.............................................    32
        Prepared statement of....................................    21
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    33
    Hall-Rivera, Jaelith, Deputy Chief, State and Private 
      Forestry, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 
      Washington, DC.............................................    20
        Prepared statement of....................................    21
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    25
    Rupert, Jeff, Director, Office of Wildland Fire, U.S. 
      Department of the Interior, Washington, DC.................    10
        Prepared statement of....................................    11
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    15

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:

    Tall Timbers, J. Morgan Varner, Director of Research, 
      Statement for the Record...................................    61

    List of documents submitted for the record retained in the 
      Committee's official files.................................    62

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Tiffany

        Forest Service Timber Data...............................    46
                                     


 
  OVERSIGHT HEARING ON ``INVESTING IN WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT, ECOSYSTEM 
RESTORATION, AND RESILIENT COMMUNITIES: EXAMINING IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 
                    BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE LAW''

                              ----------                              


                         Tuesday, April 5, 2022

                     U.S. House of Representatives

       Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                             Washington, DC

                              ----------                              

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in 
room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Joe Neguse 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

    Present: Representatives Neguse, Sablan, Tonko, Tlaib, 
Gallego, Leger Fernandez, Dingell, Porter, Grijalva (ex 
officio); Herrell, Tiffany, Gohmert, McClintock, Rosendale, 
Moore, and Westerman (ex officio).

    Mr. Neguse. The Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, 
and Public Lands will come to order. The Subcommittee is 
meeting today to hear testimony on investing in wildfire 
management, ecosystem restoration, and resilient communities: 
examining implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

    Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at 
hearings are limited to the Chair and the Ranking Minority 
Member or their designee. This will allow us to hear from our 
witnesses sooner and help Members keep to their schedules. 
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that all other Members' 
opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they 
are submitted to the Clerk by 5 p.m. today or the close of the 
hearing, whichever comes first.

    Without objection, the Chair may also declare a recess 
subject to the call of the Chair. Hearing no objection, so 
ordered.

    As described in the notice, statements and documents or 
motions must be submitted to the electronic repository at 
[email protected]. Members physically present here should 
provide a hard copy for staff to distribute by e-mail. Please 
note that Members are responsible for their own microphones, as 
with our fully in-person meetings. This is a hybrid meaning, of 
course. Members can be muted by staff to avoid inadvertent 
background noise.

    Finally, Members or witnesses experiencing any technical 
problems should inform Committee staff as soon as possible.

    With that, I will now recognize myself for an opening 
statement.

 STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOE NEGUSE, A REPRESENATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

    Mr. Neguse. First, let me say thank you to each of the 
witnesses for being here today and to my fellow colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle for the Subcommittee on National Parks, 
Forests, and Public Lands oversight hearing on implementation 
of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We are happy to be back 
here in person in the Committee room to host this hybrid 
hearing on a topic that I certainly know merits a high level of 
interest from Members on both sides of the dais and is of 
particular importance to communities in my state of Colorado.
    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a historic investment 
in our country's infrastructure, which included billions of 
dollars for the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest 
Service to support natural infrastructure, to reduce wildfire 
risk, restore healthy ecosystems, and build safe, resilient 
communities.
    In my district in Colorado, Colorado's 2nd Congressional 
District, communities from the Front Range to the Continental 
Divide have been deeply impacted by unprecedented wildfires in 
recent years, including the Marshall Fire in December 2021, the 
Cameron Peak Fire in 2020, and the East Troublesome Fire in 
that year as well.
    The reality that we are living with throughout the Rocky 
Mountain West is that wildfires are no longer simply contained 
to a season. They are year-round. There are no wildfire seasons 
in Colorado or in the Rocky Mountain West. There are wildfire 
years. And these fires are now occurring in larger areas at 
higher intensity, and it is only projected to increase in the 
coming years as a result of climate change.
    In my community in Colorado, back in December on New Year's 
Eve, 1,084 homes were destroyed literally within an 18-hour 
time period in the most destructive wildfire that has ever 
occurred in Colorado. We need more Federal firefighting 
resources. We need to invest in our forests. And, ultimately, 
we need to take wildfire resiliency and mitigation seriously 
for our communities, for our families, and for the many people 
that we represent in the western United States.
    That is why, as Chair of this Subcommittee, we have 
prioritized wildfire oversight and legislation, including 
hearings on Build Back Better, natural disasters, climate 
change, the Civilian Climate Corps, public lands management and 
workforce and, yes, forest management as well. For example, the 
Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership Act, which I was 
proud to introduce alongside Senator Bennet, was included and 
funded in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    As with the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management 
Strategy, and more recently, the Forest Service' ambitious 10-
Year Wildfire Plan, the goal is to promote more fire-adapted 
landscapes and reduce the vulnerability of at-risk communities.
    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law combines investments in 
hazardous fuels, prescribed fire, and fuel breaks, alongside 
programs to reform the wildfire workforce and increase 
firefighter pay, improve community wildfire defenses, and 
support more science-based monitoring and ecosystem 
restoration.
    The law also funded wildfire response and pre-planning 
workshops, burned area recovery, and significantly increases 
funding available through the Reforestation Trust Fund. Beyond 
Federal Lands, the BIL, the Infrastructure Law, also includes 
critical investments to enable an `all-lands' landscape-scale 
approach to wildfire preparedness.
    This multi-layered approach provides land management 
agencies with a generational opportunity to demonstrate a 
paradigm shift away from commercial management and emergency 
suppression and toward fire adaptation and ecosystem services.
    In that regard, some of the primary implementation 
questions for the Natural Resources Committee include: 
evaluating the adequacy of these investments in the context of 
annual appropriations, measuring success beyond board feet and 
acres treated, and assessing if additional investments, 
workforce, or policy changes may be necessary.
    While I recognize that there is genuine bipartisan interest 
in these issues, I would be remiss if I didn't say it's 
unfortunate that my friends on the other side of the aisle 
voted against this legislation that I have described and all of 
the myriad benefits that I think it will have for forest 
management.
    But I hope that they will join us in the efforts that are 
well underway to build on the success that we have achieved as 
a result of that Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including 
expanding compensation for wildland firefighter pay. I 
understand that we can expect some clarity on the wildland 
firefighter classification issue, which I have touched on in 
prior hearings in May from the Administration.
    And I hope that we can continue to work together on Tim's 
Act, which is my legislation with Republican Representative Liz 
Cheney, that establishes a minimum wage for Federal 
firefighters and provides incentives and benefits needed to 
support and retain an effective Federal wildland firefighter 
workforce.
    Finally, I'd like to thank our witnesses from the 
Administration for joining us in person today. I know there is 
a lot moving with the Fiscal Year 2023 budget, implementation 
of the Omnibus, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, so no 
shortage of pressing issues for all of you to grapple with.
    We very much appreciate you taking the time to visit with 
us today. As you know, these investments are of the utmost 
importance to the members of this Committee on both sides of 
the aisle. We all have a vested interest in transparent, 
effective, and efficient implementation of the law.
    With that, I look forward to your testimony.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Neguse follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Joe Neguse, a Representative in Congress 
                       from the State of Colorado
    Thank you all for being here today for the Subcommittee on National 
Parks, Forests, and Public Lands oversight hearing on implementation of 
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    I'm happy to be back here in the Committee room today to host this 
hybrid hearing on a topic I know merits a high level of interest from 
members on both sides of the aisle, and is of particular importance to 
the communities in my state.
    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a historic investment in our 
country's infrastructure, which included billions for the Department of 
the Interior and U.S. Forest Service to support natural infrastructure, 
reduce wildfire risk, restore healthy ecosystems, and build safe, 
resilient communities.
    In my district in Colorado, communities from the Front Range to the 
Continental Divide have been deeply impacted by unprecedented wildfires 
in recent years, including the Marshall Fire in December 2021.
    The reality we're living with throughout the West is that wildfires 
are not just contained to a season, but burn year-round in larger areas 
at higher intensity, and this is only projected to increase as a result 
of climate change.
    That is why, as Chair of this Subcommittee, I have prioritized 
wildfire oversight and legislation, including hearings on Build Back 
Better, natural disasters and climate change, Civilian Climate Corps, 
public lands workforce, and, yes, even forest management.
    For example, the Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership 
Act, which I was proud to introduce alongside Senator Bennet, was 
included and funded in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    As with the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, 
and more recently, the Forest Service' 10-Year Wildfire Plan, the goal 
is to promote more fire-adapted landscapes and reduce the vulnerability 
of at-risk communities.
    To that end, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law combines investments 
in hazardous fuels, prescribed fire, and fuel breaks alongside programs 
to reform the wildfire workforce and increase firefighter pay, improve 
community wildfire defenses, and support more science-based monitoring 
and ecosystem restoration.
    The infrastructure law also funds wildfire response and pre-
planning workshops, burned area recovery, and significantly increases 
funding available through the Reforestation Trust Fund.
    Beyond Federal lands, the BIL includes critical investments to 
enable an `all-lands' landscape-scale approach to wildfire 
preparedness.
    This multi-layered approach provides land management agencies with 
a generational opportunity to demonstrate a paradigm shift away from 
commercial management and emergency suppression, and toward fire 
adaptation and ecosystem services.
    In this regard, some of the primary implementation questions for 
the Natural Resources Committee include: Evaluating adequacy of these 
investments in the context of annual appropriations; measuring success 
beyond board feet and acres treated; and assessing if additional 
investments, workforce, or policy changes are needed.
    While I recognize there is genuine bipartisan interest in these 
issues, it's unfortunate that every current Republican Member of this 
Committee voted against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    Committee Republicans have consistently opposed bipartisan 
investments and programs to address climate change, conservation, 
wildfire, biodiversity, and workforce needs, including those germane to 
today's hearing.
    Fortunately, there is some good news on the workforce front: I 
would like to thank the Biden administration and the witnesses here for 
their efforts to ensure no Federal wildfire firefighter makes less than 
$15 an hour, while working to address mental health needs and other 
line-of-duty hazards.
    I understand we can expect some clarity on the `wildland 
firefighter' classification by May, and I hope we can continue to work 
together on Tim's Act--my legislation that establishes a minimum wage 
for Federal firefighters, and provides incentives and benefits needed 
to support and retain an effective Federal wildland firefighter 
workforce.
    Lastly, I'd like to thank our witnesses from the Administration for 
joining us in person today. I know there is a lot moving with the FY23 
budget, implementation of FY22 Omnibus, the Bipartisan Infrastructure 
Law and we appreciate your time today.
    As you know these investments are of the utmost importance to the 
members of this Committee and we all have a vested interest in 
transparent, effective, and efficient implementation of the law.
    I look forward to your testimony.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Neguse. I will yield back the remainder of my time and 
recognize Ranking Member Herrell for 5 minutes.

   STATEMENT OF THE HON. YVETTE HERRELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

    Ms. Herrell. Thank you, Mr. Speaker--sorry, I just gave you 
a raise.
    Mr. Neguse. No, thank you. I appreciate the promotion.
    Ms. Herrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today, we meet to 
discuss the implementation of the wildfire ecosystem 
restoration provisions contained in the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law. This marks the very first time that our 
Committee will have a chance to meaningfully weigh in on this 
effort, as the House was completely shut out of the regular 
order process in crafting the so-called bipartisan law.
    So, while we welcome the opportunity to provide oversight, 
this hearing is, at best, a half a year late. And, frankly, the 
apparent lack of anger from my friends on the other side of the 
aisle of this dais who are equally barred from offering 
meaningful input on an infrastructure package is baffling.
    The items we are discussing today are of profound 
importance for our nation as a whole and especially our Western 
states that have experienced historical devastation from our 
seemingly endless catastrophic wildfire crisis. My home state 
of New Mexico has had over 2,700 fires burn over half a million 
acres over the last 5 years.
    And in the last 2 years, we had record-breaking wildfire 
seasons that have burned a collective 17 million acres 
nationwide. Our Western communities have grown painfully 
accustomed to deadly and destructive blazes wreaking havoc year 
after year.
    The wildfire and ecosystem restoration provisions that we 
are going to discuss today do little more than light money on 
fire by throwing millions of dollars at the wildfire crisis 
without pairing it with meaningful regulatory reform to ensure 
our lands are actually managed properly. Decades of consistent 
mismanagement have shown that it is not a lack of funding that 
has prevented us from properly tackling our wildfire crisis but 
rather onerous regulations and endless litigation from activist 
environmentalist groups.
    For instance, while the Forest Service's overall budget has 
more than doubled since 2014, the amount of hazardous fuel 
treatments have remained frustratingly stagnant, only 
addressing roughly 2 percent of their needs annually. I am 
concerned that the recently announced 10-year strategy to 
combat the wildfire crisis will fall short because not only are 
the tools not in place to implement this strategy, but the 
Forest Service is also relying on only 5 years of funding to 
execute a 10-year plan. This is especially concerning 
considering yesterday's release of the Department of the 
Interior's wildfire strategy, which is only 5 years. If given 
the chance, Committee Republicans would have offered real 
improvements to the infrastructure package to truly address the 
foundational obstacles that have continuously bogged down 
responsible management of our fire-prone forests. This includes 
the Resilient Federal Forest Act which I am proudly co-
sponsoring.
    I also introduced the Wildfire Prevention and Drought 
Mitigation Act, which was included in that package. That would 
protect drought-affected forest communities from catastrophic 
wildfire by streamlining the environmental review process for 
active forest management projects aimed at protecting 
watersheds, wildlife habitat, snowpack, and improving water 
quality. The Resilient Federal Forest Act also included 
streamlining based on firesheds, which the new 10-year strategy 
is based on. These substantive pieces of legislation would 
unquestionably lead to better management of our forests and 
better recovery from the devastation left in the wake of past 
wildfires.
    I do look forward to hearing from the Administration today, 
and I want to thank the witnesses for being here. And while the 
so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law undeniably falls short 
on truly unleashing the type of wildfire treatments and 
restoration work necessary to respond to this historic crisis, 
it is vital that we do everything we can to ensure that the 
increased funding is being used as wisely as possible.
    Ultimately, we must rise to the unprecedented threats 
facing our Western lands, and any notion that the provisions 
contained in the Infrastructure Law fully address the enormity 
of these dangers must be rejected. As we speak, over 100 
million acres of our Federal lands remain at high risk for 
wildfire and over a billion acres are at risk nationwide.
    Even if the Forest Service can fully achieve the increased 
targets they have set, which is a big ``if,'' it would still 
not fully tackle the backlog of treatments needed on our 
Federal lands. We simply must do better. And with that, I yield 
back the balance of my time.

    Mr. Neguse. The gentlewoman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the Full 
Committee, Mr. Westerman, for 5 minutes. I suspect we are going 
to hear about Trillion Trees, but I am not sure. I am going to 
wait and see.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRUCE WESTERMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

    Mr. Westerman. No Trillion Trees today. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman. We are going to talk about what we need to do with 
the trees that we have before we talk about planting more of 
them. And we are doing a miserable job with the trees that we 
have.
    But Mr. Chairman, I wanted to first express my gratitude 
that today's hearing is a hybrid format. It gives us a chance 
to meet in person to discuss the very important wildfire 
crisis. And as you know, Committee Republicans have 
consistently opposed the Majority's decision to conduct 
Committee business virtually. And we welcome this return to the 
hearing room. Good to see you in person and other Members 
around the dais.
    Mr. Chairman, you have rightly said that we need to take 
wildfire mitigation and resiliency seriously. And I have been 
saying that since I first came to Congress. Unfortunately, I 
don't think we have taken it seriously yet. Hopefully, we can 
keep working on that. And someday we will take it seriously, 
and we will see the results of it. I do want to echo 
Representative Herrell's concerns that the so-called Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law reflects yet another example of Congress 
just throwing money at a problem, trying to put a Band-Aid on 
the symptoms instead of actually getting to the root problem of 
the problem and in blocking the scientifically supported forest 
management that is so desperately needed. And with the wildfire 
and ecosystem restoration projects in this infrastructure 
package, it is sadly just the latest installment of increased 
funds to a system that is clearly broken.
    Just 4 years ago, Congress delivered the Fire Funding Fix, 
which gave the Forest Service and DOI $2.25 billion of new 
budget authority. We were promised that this was the primary 
obstacle to increasing the pace and scale of forest management. 
Yet, hazardous fuels treatments have remained stagnant. Like 
Representative Herrell mentioned, the Forest Service's budget 
has more than doubled, doubled, in 10 years, and yet that still 
is not enough.
    Maybe we should look at changing the name of the Forest 
Service to the Fire Service. Even the forest testimony today 
calls the $5.5 billion provided by the BIF a mere down payment 
on the actual funding that is needed. If we were serious about 
wildfire mitigation and resiliency and if the BIF was an 
attempt to fix that, you would think we would have had at least 
one hearing in the House about the so-called Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Bill. The largest infrastructure spending in the 
history of the world--and not only did it not go through this 
Committee, it didn't go through the Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee. And the truth is that even as the 
budgets have continued to climb for our land management 
agencies, we are not seeing the type of paradigm shift that we 
all know needs to happen if we are ever going to truly tackle 
this historic crisis.
    The primary culprits bogging down responsible management 
and recovery of our overgrown fire-prone forests have been and 
remain onerous regulatory burdens and the continued 
weaponization of our courts by activist environmental groups 
that litigate even the smallest management projects. I have 
said many times before, and I will keep saying it over and 
over, that the forest and nature could care less what we say in 
this room. They could care less how much money the Federal 
Government sends to an agency. They just keep growing, and the 
fires keep burning.
    And as long as we are talking and throwing money at it and 
not addressing the root problem, that is what they are going to 
do. We are to the point that we have been for quite some time 
where we need a lot less talk or a little less talk and a lot 
more action. That is the only thing that is going to fix this 
wildfire crisis. Representative Herrell is correct in talking 
about the bills that we have introduced on the Republican side, 
the Resilient Federal Forest Act and other bills that look at 
the real problems that our forest land managers face.
    With all this money, I am waiting to see some actions. But 
it is not going to happen with the environmentalists that come 
in and stop the projects. Until they quit suing, until we quit 
giving them the ability to hold up the management, there is no 
amount of money and no number of staff that are going to be 
able to fix the problem with our forests.
    If people want to truly understand how bad our catastrophic 
wildfire crisis has gotten, look no further than our giant 
sequoias. Over a 15-month period from 2020 to 2021, we lost 
nearly one-fifth of the world's giant sequoias. Let me say that 
again. These iconic trees that are thousands of years old only 
grow in about 37,000 acres in California, and we lost 20 
percent of them in a short period of time.
    And these trees are the most fire-resilient species, 
probably, on the planet. Their bark is 2 feet thick at the 
base. They used to get 31 fires per century. But we started 
putting the fires out, and they only had three fires in the 
20th century. And now the fires get in the crowns and wipe them 
out. That is unacceptable.
    And if we don't act, we are going to lose all of our giant 
sequoias. They will grow back. We will have little spindly 
giant sequoia seedlings growing out there. But these iconic 
trees, we have to do something to fix that. I want to thank the 
witnesses for being here today. I appreciate your patience in 
letting me go over a little bit, and I yield back.

    Mr. Neguse. The Ranking Member yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the distinguished Chairman of the 
Full Committee, Mr. Grijalva, for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

    Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Chairman Neguse and 
Ranking Member, for having me on the Subcommittee today. And I 
appreciate the Biden administration witnesses joining us as we 
work to implement the priorities of the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law that is an important and historic investment 
not only in the nation's infrastructure but in the natural 
world and the systems most impacted by climate change.
    And that is why I decided to vote for it. And like any 
Member that voted for it, I didn't like everything in it. I 
wasn't crazy about the process. And I know some of my 
colleagues had legitimate concerns about passing it while so 
much was still up in the air and off the table. But at the end 
of the day, I voted to support it. And I did so because it was 
a tremendous benefit to my constituents.
    And, of course, with that, an acknowledgment that more has 
to be done. We know that. But that is why this Committee has 
spent considerable time and effort on a legislative and 
oversight agenda that maybe, just maybe, will be enough to 
begin to address our climate, jobs, justice and public lands 
needs. That is why I also voted for the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law when I had a chance. Unfortunately, not a 
single Republican on this Committee can say the same except, of 
course, for the late Dean of the House from Alaska, 
Representative Don Young, who, in all his wisdom, recognized 
that it was an important historic vote and that it would 
benefit directly his people in Alaska.
    I expect we will hear the usual complaints that the bedrock 
environmental laws or endangered species protections are the 
real problem or outside environmental extremists who are 
clogging up the courts day after day and not allowing anything 
to be done. But we also know what is really deeply needed: 
Federal leadership in support of the long-term investments, 
working with states and other partners to make those 
investments as fruitful as possible, and to meaningfully 
address climate change, wildfire, and biodiversity.
    That is what the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law does, and 
that is what the Protecting America's Wilderness Act does, and 
that is what we will continue to do by any means that are 
available to us to promote that.
    Without continued action on climate change, communities 
that rely on forests and public lands for their clean water, 
recreation, and wildlife habitat will continue to be at risk 
from climate impacts like drought in my state and wildfires in 
my state.
    The record of the Natural Resources Committee, I think, 
speaks for itself. The hearing today is about making sure the 
Department of the Interior or the U.S. Forest Service are 
transparent, accountable, and guided by science in implementing 
what needs to be the historic down payment in our efforts to 
address climate change, wildfire, restoration, reforestation 
and the very critical workforce needs.
    So, again, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member, thank you and the 
witnesses, and I look forward to the testimony. I yield back.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:]
 Prepared Statement of the Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Chair, Committee on 
                           Natural Resources
    Thank you Chair Neguse and Ranking Member for having me in the 
Subcommittee today. I also appreciate the Biden administration 
witnesses joining us as you work to implement priorities for the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    Listen, I don't care what you call it, Infrastructure Investment 
and Jobs Act, BIL, BIF, whatever--What matters is that Congress came 
together to pass a historic investment in the future of our nation's 
infrastructure, including the natural world and systems most impacted 
by climate change.
    That is why I decided to vote for it. I didn't like everything in 
it. I didn't love the process. And I know some of my progressive 
colleagues had legitimate concerns about passing it while so much else 
was up in the air. But at the end of the day, I voted in support 
because I decided that it what would benefit my constituents.
    Of course, there is an acknowledgement that more needs to be done. 
That is why this Committee has spent considerable time and effort on a 
legislative and oversight agenda that maybe, just maybe, will be enough 
to begin to address our climate, jobs, justice and public lands needs.
    That is also why I voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law when 
I had the chance. Unfortunately, not a single Republican on this 
Committee can say the same. Except, of course, for the late Dean from 
Alaska, Rep. Don Young, who in all his wisdom recognized an important 
vote that would benefit the State of Alaska.
    I expect we'll hear the usual complaints that bedrock environmental 
laws or endangered species protections are the real problem. But we all 
know that what is deeply needed: Federal leadership in support of long-
term investments, working with states and other partners, to 
meaningfully address climate change, wildfire, and biodiversity.
    That's what the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law does, that's what 
Protecting America's Wilderness Act does, and that's what we'll 
continue to do through any means available to us.
    Without continued action on climate change, communities that rely 
on forests and public lands for clean water, recreation, and wildlife 
habitat will continue to be at risk from climate impacts like drought 
and wildfires.
    The record of Natural Resources Committee Democrats speaks for 
itself.
    This hearing today is about making sure the Department of the 
Interior and the U.S. Forest Service are transparent, accountable, and 
guided by science in implementing what needs to be a down payment in 
our efforts to address climate change, wildfire, restoration, 
reforestation, and workforce needs.
    I'd like to again thank the Chair, Ranking Member, and witnesses, I 
look forward to your testimony.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chairman yields 
back. Now I'd like to turn to our witness panel. Let me remind 
the witnesses that under Committee Rules, they must limit their 
oral statements to 5 minutes but that their entire statement 
will appear in the hearing record.
    When you begin, the timer will begin. The lights in front 
of you will turn yellow when there is 1 minute left and then 
red when the time has expired. For any Members and witnesses 
joining remotely, it will turn orange when you have 1 minute 
remaining. And I recommend that you pin the timer so it remains 
visible.
    After your testimony is complete, please remember to mute 
yourself on the microphone in front of you, and we will also 
allow the entire panel to testify before we proceed with 
questions. The Chair will now recognize our first witness, Mr. 
Jeff Rupert, Director of the Office of Wildland Fire at the 
U.S. Department of the Interior. Mr. Rupert, you are recognized 
for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF JEFF RUPERT, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WILDLAND FIRE, 
        U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Rupert. Chairman Neguse, Ranking Member Westerman, and 
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 
provide testimony on the Department of the Interior's 
investments in wildfire management, ecosystem restoration, and 
resilient communities. The investments made in the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law provide an unprecedented opportunity to 
reduce the impacts of wildfire on ecosystems and communities as 
well as modernizing our wildland fire workforce.
    We appreciate the Subcommittee's commitment to these 
outcomes and look forward to our continued work together. 
Climate change continues to drive the devastating intersection 
of extreme heat, drought, and wildland fire danger across the 
United States, creating wildfires that move with the speed and 
intensity previously unseen.
    Climate change has created a continuous fire year for our 
nation and American communities continue to bear the brunt of 
the resulting cycle of intensifying droughts, wildfires, and 
poor air quality. Funding provided by the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law supports the Department's efforts to 
mitigate the impacts of these changes on wildland fire and 
better safeguard people, communities, and resources.
    Current drought conditions and the drought outlook for much 
of the United States is very concerning. The NOAA Climate 
Prediction Center's seasonal drought outlook shows continued 
drought across nearly all of the West. And even in areas that 
have seen above normal rainfall this past winter, we may expect 
them to experience increased spring vegetation growth and then 
fast-moving wildfires during a dry, hot summer.
    The United States has over 1 billion burnable acres that 
are at some level of risk from wildfire. More than 250 million 
of those acres are at high or very high wildfire hazard 
potential. And 7.1 million of those high/very high hazard acres 
are administered by Interior. Funding provided in the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allows the Department to 
dramatically increase our efforts to reduce wildfire risk, 
improve community resiliency, and support post-fire recovery in 
these areas.
    The additional investment in ecosystem restoration 
amplifies this support with efforts to restore ecological 
health, providing millions for restoration projects and 
supporting national revegetation efforts, including 
implementation of the National Seed Strategy. Today, I am happy 
to announce that yesterday, Interior released its 5-year 
monitoring, maintenance, and treatment plan, as required by the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. DOI's plan provides a roadmap 
for increasing the pace and scale of fuels management and 
rehabilitation of lands damaged by wildfires with a focus on 
fire-prone Interior and Tribal Nation lands. It directly aligns 
with the USDA Forest Service 10-Year Wildfire Crisis Strategy 
and identifies needed investments in science, technology, and 
tools to inform and empower stakeholders to work 
collaboratively.
    Together, both blueprints facilitate a coordinated multi-
jurisdictional approach to reducing wildfire risk over broad 
landscapes. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding also 
enables the Department to accelerate plans initiated in Fiscal 
Year 2021 to transform the firefighting workforce. Recent 
challenging fire seasons have focused attention on the 
increasing threat of wildfire to people, communities, and the 
natural environment.
    Yesterday's fire season is today's fire year. Shifting the 
fire workforce toward a more permanent, full-time appointment 
supports career growth, increases retention, and more 
experienced and knowledgeable firefighters. In turn, this will 
have a substantial long-lasting effect in support of a more 
robust, sound management, decision making, and safety for 
firefighters and the public.
    The Department maintains strong relationships with states, 
Tribal Nations, other Federal agencies, and local governments 
and stakeholders. We remain committed to work in partnership to 
address wildland fire management issues and manage wildfire 
risk.
    Our work with elected officials, tribes, and organizations, 
such as the Western Governors' Association and National 
Association of Counties, are key to implementing sound 
principles and wildlife fire management before, during, and 
after wildfires. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also 
authorizes establishment of the Wildland Fire Mitigation 
Management Commission announced in December 2021.
    It will play a key role in recommending Federal policies 
and strategies to more effectively prevent, mitigate, suppress, 
and manage wildfires, including the rehabilitation of burned 
areas. The Commission is in the process of reviewing 
applications for membership from individuals with a broad 
spectrum of knowledge and interest to address wildfire impacts 
to our nation.
    Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to 
discuss these important investments and partnerships, ecosystem 
restoration, and the well-being of our wildland firefighters. 
This concludes my statement. I am happy to answer any 
questions.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Rupert follows:]
  Prepared Statement of Jeffery Rupert, Director, Office of Wildland 
                 Fire, U.S. Department of the Interior
    Chairman Neguse, Ranking Member Fulcher, and Members of the 
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on the 
Department of the Interior's (DOI) implementation of the investments in 
the Wildland Fire Management Program contained in Public Law 117-58, 
the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also referred to as the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).
    President Biden signed the BIL on November 15, 2021, making a once-
in-a-generation investment in the Nation's infrastructure and economic 
competitiveness. This landmark investment will help rebuild America's 
critical infrastructure, tackle the climate crisis, advance 
environmental justice, and drive the creation of good-paying jobs. By 
addressing long overdue improvements and strengthening our resilience 
to the changing climate, this investment in our communities across the 
country will grow the economy sustainably and equitably so everyone 
gets ahead for decades to come.
    The Biden-Harris Administration's strong commitment to supporting 
the wildland firefighting workforce, coupled with the provisions in the 
BIL, represent an historic investment in Federal wildland fire 
management efforts, and DOI's Wildland Fire Management Program. The BIL 
provides significant investments in wildfire mitigation work and post-
fire rehabilitation efforts that will be integral to the restoration of 
ecosystems and important landscape services like reliable and clean 
water supplies, clean air, biodiversity and productivity, healthy 
native species habitat, and recreation opportunities.
    We appreciate the Committee's interest in the Department's plans 
and priorities for implementing the BIL.
Drought
    Current drought conditions and drought outlooks for much of the 
United States looks very concerning for communities and virtually every 
resource dependent on water or precipitation. The U.S. Drought Monitor 
shows some slight improvement in parts of the Eastern U.S., but 
moderate degradation across many areas of the West. The NOAA Climate 
Prediction Center U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook (March 17, 2022) shows 
continuation of drought across nearly all the West, except for the 
coastal Pacific Northwest and a part of the Northern Rocky Mountains.
    Seasonal outlooks from the Center show that warmer than normal 
temperatures are also likely for a good part of the West.
    Wildland vegetation has not yet recovered from a long-term drought 
across much of the West, where we expect to see increased drought 
stress and mortality in shrubs and trees. One concern is that parts of 
the West that had seen above normal rainfall for part of the past 
winter, might see germination and growth of grasses that stop growing 
into late spring and summer, and become fuel to spread fast moving 
wildfires.
Climate Change

    Drought conditions and other climate influences on wildfire that we 
have seen in recent years are consistent with scientific descriptions 
of climate change, including from the U.S. Global Change Research 
Program and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN). For 
example, we have seen more intense precipitation for shorter periods of 
the winter, longer and warmer growing seasons accompanied by drought, 
and earlier snowmelt in higher elevations. We are beginning to see 
changes in vegetation itself, driven by drought and insect infestations 
and in some instances, shorter periods of time between high severity 
wildfires. These factors have contributed to increasingly devastating, 
intense, and historic fire seasons in recent years.
    In the near term, wildfires near communities, watersheds, critical 
resources, and infrastructure are of greatest concern with climate-
induced wildfire changes, including elevated risk to human health and 
the environment from unmanaged smoke. However, over the longer term, 
wildfires that change vegetation types, and wildfires burning in peat 
lands and tundra, may have longer lasting effects that ultimately 
contribute to further warming, compounded wildfire risk and greater 
carbon emissions.
    Climate change is creating longer fire seasons and American 
communities continue to bear the brunt of the resulting cycle of 
intensifying droughts, wildfires, poor air quality, and flooding. 
Wildfires can undercut the many benefits and services we receive from 
lands managed by DOI, including those held in trust for Tribal nations, 
such as foraging, hunting and fishing, clean water, clean air, 
wildlife, recreational opportunities, and cultural resources. 
Additionally, wildfires threaten drinking water and cause billions of 
dollars in damages to homes and infrastructure.
    Managing wildfire risk is key to the protection and stewardship of 
these federal lands and honors our trust responsibilities and special 
commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated Island 
Communities. Addressing this challenge will require us to focus the 
significant investment of resources, to scalable risk reduction 
strategies informed by the best available science around changing 
climate conditions and shifting demographics. As we all know, wildfire 
knows no boundaries and solutions will require collaboration and 
cooperation. The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy's 
goals of creating resilient landscapes, promoting fire-adapted 
communities, and ensuring a safe and effective wildfire response, 
culminates in the vision of a Nation able to live with wildland fire.
    The United States has over one billion acres at some level of risk 
from wildfire. More than 250 million of those acres are at high or 
very-high hazard potential, and 7.1 million acres of lands administered 
by DOI are identified as having a very-high or high likelihood of 
exposure to wildfires. To address this, the Department is putting 
people first by working with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and 
the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to recognize the efforts of 
our Federal wildland firefighters who respond to ignitions, implement 
fuels treatments to reduce the risk from wildfires before they start, 
and administer post-fire rehabilitation efforts to reduce further 
damage from severe wildfire events and set these landscapes back on the 
path to recovery.

    As part of this effort, with support from the BIL, the Department 
in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service, Tribal Nations, and 
other Federal and non-Federal partners, will increase fuels treatment 
accomplishments that reduce risk to adjacent communities and 
watersheds, and that align with the Department's Fuels Management 
program objectives:

     Integration with Resource and Land Management activities.

     Stewardship-Based projects with shared stewardship values 
            and joint, mutually agreed upon priorities coordinated with 
            partners and stakeholders.

     Geographic Landscape-Based projects that contribute to a 
            broad-scale strategy to achieve mutually agreed upon 
            management goals and objectives that are coordinated 
            locally.

     Outcome Based projects that protect, maintain, and improve 
            resiliency to wildfire; mitigate significant wildfire risk 
            to Department and Tribal values; protect, maintain, or 
            improve resiliency to wildfire; and meet bureaus' statutory 
            obligations for wildland fire management responsibilities.

    Over the past decade, the Department has invested more than $2 
billion in pre- and post-hazardous fuels management treatments to 
protect communities and ecosystems. Maintaining this investment in 
areas where the Department has successfully reduced wildfire risk is an 
important component of the Department's long-term success. As the 
Department completes treatments in new areas we will continue to 
protect and maintain these investments in pre-wildfire risk reduction, 
post-fire hazard mitigation, and ecosystem restoration.
Ecosystem Restoration & BIL Overview

    Under the BIL, the Department will dramatically expand its efforts 
to reduce wildfire risk, improve community resiliency to wildfire, 
prepare for and respond to harmful wildfires, and support post-fire 
recovery, including in communities that have traditionally been 
overlooked.

    The BIL provides more than $5 billion to both DOI and the USDA 
Forest Service Wildland Fire Management programs over the next five 
years for coordinated efforts for managing wildfire risk. Of that 
amount, nearly $1.5 billion is provided to DOI, including:

     $255 million to support science, technology, training, and 
            workforce reforms including increased pay and mental health 
            and safety programs for firefighters.

     $325 million to support recovery after a fire. These 
            actions will help mitigate the damaging effects of 
            wildfires and set landscapes on a path toward natural 
            recovery and climate resilience.

     $878 million to manage fuels and mitigate wildfire risk 
            before a wildfire occurs. This work will protect vulnerable 
            communities from wildfire while preparing our natural 
            landscapes for a changing climate.

    The BIL also provides the Department $905 million for ecosystem 
restoration. These resources will be targeted to projects nationally to 
build climate resilience, restore and connect core habitats as well as 
build partnerships and leverage strategic conservation plans. The 
ecosystem restoration funds include several areas where we are 
coordinating internally and with the Department of Agriculture across 
Wildland Fire Management and Ecosystem Restoration programs and see 
opportunities to amplify our efforts such as $70 million to Interior to 
support a national revegetation effort including implementation of the 
National Seed Strategy.
    The BIL also provides $50 million to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service for sagebrush ecosystem conservation. Priority investments for 
those resources include complimentary efforts of protecting sagebrush 
habitat against the spread of the invasive annual grasses and the 
destructive wildfires they fuel as well as restoring mesic (wet) 
habitats to combat the effects of extreme drought.
    Overall, this funding will directly create private sector, state, 
Tribal, and local jobs in forestry, rangelands, land and water 
management and related industries. This includes opportunities to 
supply materials and carry out restoration work, conduct science, as 
well as generate economic ripple effects as those new hires spend their 
money in the local economy. Restored, fire-resilient ecosystems will 
also create jobs in the tourism, outdoor recreation, and commercial 
fishing sectors, as well as the many other sectors that depend on 
plants, animals, and healthy landscapes.
Workforce Reform

    In coordination with the Department of Agriculture and the Office 
of Personnel Management, the Department is developing a new wildland 
firefighter classification series and pay and compensation reforms. The 
goals of this reform include:

     Advancing the President's commitment to ensuring that 
            wildland firefighters receive a livable wage and pay that 
            is commensurate with the arduous work that they perform. 
            DOI in coordination with the Forest Service is taking steps 
            again this year to pay firefighters no less than $15/hour. 
            Additionally, both agencies are working with the Office of 
            Personnel Management to develop a wildland firefighter 
            occupational series and increase base pay, as directed by 
            BIL. The agencies are also exploring a long-term solution 
            to increase future compensation to better support the 
            contemporary wildland firefighter workforce. Continuing to 
            convert temporary wildland firefighters and support 
            positions to permanent, full-time positions available year-
            round for fire response and risk mitigation activities. The 
            Department and the U.S. Forest Service began conversions in 
            FY 2021 and will continue converting wildland firefighters 
            with the support provided in BIL.

     The Department's Wildland Fire Management Program is 
            coordinating with the U.S. Forest Service to establish 
            programs and capacity to recognize and address mental 
            health needs of firefighters and ensure access to 
            appropriate resources. The Department is immediately 
            focused on further defining firefighter mental health needs 
            and identifying evidence based primary prevention and early 
            intervention strategies. Next, adequate Critical Incident 
            Stress Management response capacity will be established in 
            every bureau. Additional responder-tailored mental health 
            support services that will be prioritized and made 
            available through interagency national contract or 
            contracts.

Partnerships

    The Department has established and maintains strong relationships 
with states, Tribal Nations, local governments, other Federal agencies, 
and stakeholders. Together, we continue to work in partnership to 
address wildland fire management issues and manage wildfire risk. Our 
work with elected officials, tribes, and non-governmental organizations 
(NGOs) such as the Western Governors Association and the National 
Association of Counties are key to implementing sound principles of 
wildland fire management and prioritizing post-fire restoration needs 
across landscapes.
    The Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) remains a vital partner 
and a key player in the implementation of BIL. Through WFLC, the 
Department is continuing work with the Environmental Protection Agency, 
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Forest 
Service to assess the impacts of smoke on air quality and public health 
from wildfires and prescribed fires to inform future land management 
and wildland fire management strategies. BIL funding provides an 
opportunity to expand this innovation and implement additional smoke 
exposure mitigation activities. The Department continues to partner 
with WFLC to better coordinate management activities across boundaries 
and jurisdictions to implement the Cohesive Strategy and support its 
member agencies and organizations to better address the challenges and 
needs of underserved communities.
    Approximately 6.5 million acres of land managed by the Department 
are adjacent or near Tribal land. The proximity and interconnectedness 
necessitate close communication and collaboration on wildland fire 
management. We have solidified our relationship with tribes by 
establishing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Intertribal Timber 
Council (ITC). The ITC is a non-profit consortium of 54 member Tribes. 
All are dedicated to improving the oversight and management of 
resources of interest to Native American communities. Under the 
memorandum, the Department and ITC commit to work collaboratively on 
reducing wildland fire risk and mitigating post-wildfire impacts.
Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission

    In December 2021, USDA, DOI, and the Department of Homeland 
Security through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 
announced the establishment of a Wildland Fire Mitigation and 
Management Commission. Authorized under the BIL, the Commission will 
play a key role in recommending federal policies and strategies to more 
effectively prevent, mitigate, suppress, and manage wildland fires, 
including the rehabilitation of affected lands.
    The commission is reviewing applications for membership from 
volunteers from diverse backgrounds, with a specific focus on members 
who represent non-federal interests as required by the BIL. Membership 
will include state, local, Tribal, territory, and non-government 
partners with experience in preventing, mitigating, and managing 
wildland fires and the wildland-urban interface.
Conclusion

    Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss 
these important investments in partnerships, ecosystem restoration, and 
the mental health and well-being of our wildland fire professionals. 
These investments are integral in supporting the Department's efforts 
to meaningfully address wildfire risk and respond to the complexities 
of longer and more intense wildfire seasons.

    This concludes my written statement. I am happy to answer any 
questions.

                                 ______
                                 

Questions Submitted for the Record to Jeff Rupert, Director, Office of 
               Wildland Fire, Department of the Interior
              Questions Submitted by Representative Porter
    Question 1. How much money did DOI spend on reimbursement to state 
and local authorities for firefighting resources through 
intergovernmental agreements or other mechanisms during FY22? What does 
DOI project to spend in FY23? Please provide information disaggregated 
by State and Region.

    Answer. The Department of the Interior (Department) spent $90.5 
million on reimbursements to state and local authorities for 
firefighting resources in fiscal year (FY) 2021 and $13.5 million 
through the first two quarters of FY 2022. These amounts include direct 
reimbursements to state and local governments from the Department's 
Wildland Fire Management program. Intergovernmental agreements with 
other Federal agencies, Tribal Nations, state and local governments, 
and private partners improve the interoperability and efficiency of 
wildfire response by facilitating the coordination and exchange of 
resources.
    Approximately 7.1 million acres of land administered by the 
Department and Tribal Nations are identified as having a very high or 
high likelihood of exposure to wildfires. (See, www.fs.usda.gov/nnrs/
projects/firesheds-and-fireshed-registry). Additionally, climate change 
is contributing to more frequent and severe wildfire activity. FY 2023 
reimbursement spending will be heavily influenced by fire activity over 
the next several months and is thus inherently unpredictable.
    Please refer to Attachment 1 for total reimbursements to state and 
local authorities for FY 2021 and for the first two quarters for FY 
2022 disaggregated by state and region (Geographic Area). The National 
Multi-Agency Coordinating Group (NMAC), located at the National 
Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, has divided the United States 
and Alaska into ten Geographic Areas for the purpose of incident 
management and mobilization of resources (people, aircraft, and ground 
equipment). These Geographic Areas facilitate efficient fire management 
activities to ensure efficient operational wildfire response and cost-
effective sharing of resources.

    Question 2. How much money did DOI spend contracting for 
firefighting resources during FY22? How much does DOI project to spend 
in FY23? Please provide information disaggregated by State and Region.

    Answer. The Department spent a total of $166 million on contracting 
for firefighting resources in FY 2021 and $102.6 million through the 
first two quarters of FY 2022. These amounts include direct contracting 
costs from the Department's Wildland Fire Management program. As 
discussed above, given the very high or high likelihood of Department 
and Tribal Nation lands exposure to wildfire and the impacts from 
climate change, the Department generally anticipates that the total 
contracting costs for firefighter resources for FY 2022 and for FY 2023 
will be in general alignment with total contracting costs for 
firefighting resources that were incurred in FY 2021.
    Please refer to Attachment 2 for the total contracting costs for 
firefighting resources for FY 2021 and for the first two quarters for 
FY 2022 disaggregated by state and region (Geographic Area). The 
National Geographic Area Coordinating Group, located at the National 
Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, has divided the United States 
and Alaska into ten Geographic Areas for the purpose of incident 
management and mobilization of resources (people, aircraft, and ground 
equipment). These Geographic Areas facilitate efficient fire management 
activities to ensure efficient operational wildfire response and cost-
effective sharing of resources among public agencies and Tribes.

    Question 3. DOI's Wildland Fire Management Initial Spend Plan 
states that ``Beginning October 1, 2021 (no deadline for completion set 
in the law): DOI and USDA Forest Service will:

     Seek to convert not fewer than 1,000 seasonal wildland 
            firefighting positions to permanent year-round positions 
            that are full time and reduce hazardous fuels on Federal 
            land not fewer than 900 hours per year (each position);

     Increase the salary of wildland firefighters by an amount 
            equal to the lesser of $20,000 or 50 percent of base salary 
            if the DOI and USDA Secretaries and the OPM Director 
            determine that a position is in a geographic area where it 
            is difficult to recruit or retain Federal wildland 
            firefighters.''

    (3a). How many seasonal employees have DOI and USDA Forest Service, 
respectively, converted to permanent year-round positions since the 
enactment of IIJA?

    Answer. To date, the Department had completed approximately 90 
percent of the conversions with the funding that was appropriated in FY 
2021 to begin its wildland firefighter workforce transformation. This 
equates to a total of 498 of 568 total targeted positions for 
conversion. The majority of the salaries and expenses funding 
authorized in Section 40803(c)(2) of IIJA is being used to implement 
the supplemental pay increases in FY's 2022 and 2023. The FY 2023 
President's Budget requests additional funding to bolster firefighter 
pay, convert more firefighters to permanent positions, and increase the 
number of wildland fire management personnel.

    (3b). How are DOI and USDA determining geographic areas for the 
purposes of increasing the salaries of Wildland Firefighters? What are 
the average salary increase for wildland firefighters since the 
enactment of the IIJA, by GS level and geographic area?

    Answer. The Department and the USDA Forest Service are committed to 
providing a fair and livable wage to federal employees, and have 
ensured that no firefighter makes less than $15 an hour, consistent 
with President Biden's direction last year. DOI has worked closely with 
the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to coordinate the temporary 
supplemental pay increase included in the IIJA to ensure implementation 
of the law as intended and in alignment with Federal personnel 
standards and guidelines. This includes an analysis comparing federal, 
state, municipal, and private firefighter wages to help determine 
recruitment and retention difficulty across geographic areas, as well 
as assessing DOI staff across GACCs to determine the appropriate 
increases in firefighter base salaries. Based on this analysis, it was 
determined that it is difficult to recruit and retain wildland 
firefighters in every geographic area. Please refer to Attachment 3 for 
information regarding the average salary increase in pay for wildland 
firefighters by GS level and geographic area.

    Question 4. DOI's Wildland Fire Management Initial Spend Plan 
states that ``DOI and USDA Forest Service are coordinating with OPM on 
an analysis to propose a special rate request for firefighters?''

    (4a). Is this analysis complete? If so, please provide the 
Subcommittee with a copy. If not, when will it be completed?

    Answer. President Biden recently announced the temporary 
supplemental pay increases for wildland firefighters that are 
authorized by IIJA. The Administration is continuing to assess long-
term firefighter workforce reforms, including a potential special 
salary rate with OPM, and looks forward to working with Congress on 
these important investments as they continue to evolve.

    (4b). What specific criteria is/was DOI and USDA Forest Service 
using to determine whether to make a special rate request to OPM for 
wildland firefighters?

    Answer. The Administration remains to committed to a long-term 
solution to addressing firefighter pay. As discussed above, the 
Department is working with its Federal partners to develop potential 
long-term reforms. As part of this effort, we are assessing data in 
consideration of a potential special salary rate request for wildland 
firefighters. This includes criteria such as agencies' current staffing 
status; cross-sector salary cost comparisons; recruitment and retention 
challenges; assessment of the broader labor market; interaction with 
other pay flexibilities or other non-pay solutions; and estimates of 
the full staffing costs.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                                 

    Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Rupert.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Jaelith Hall-Rivera, a Deputy 
Chief of State and Private Forestry at the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, Forest Service. Ms. Hall-Rivera, you have 5 
minutes.

   STATEMENT OF JAELITH HALL-RIVERA, DEPUTY CHIEF, STATE AND 
   PRIVATE FORESTRY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST 
                    SERVICE, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Great. Thank you so much Chairman Neguse, 
Ranking Member Herrell, and members of this Subcommittee. Thank 
you for the invitation to testify before you today. I deeply 
appreciate Congress' passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure 
Law, or BIL, which provides a significant down payment on the 
work the Forest Service intends to accomplish under the 10-year 
strategy to confront the wildfire crisis.
    The Agency recognizes that the American people depend on 
the nation's forests and grasslands for their social, economic, 
and personal well-being. All the benefits that the nation's 
forests provide are at risk, as nearly a quarter of the 
contiguous United States is currently in a high to moderate 
wildfire condition.
    Over the last two decades, we have witnessed what has 
become a now familiar pattern--bigger and more destructive 
wildfires that are extremely challenging and costly to 
suppress. We have experienced catastrophic fire seasons in the 
last 2 years alone, devastating communities and destroying 
resources in their wake. They threaten human health, water 
quality, homes, jobs, local economies, communities, and 
infrastructure. They also threaten key ecological values, 
including carbon storage, species habitat, soil stability, and 
watershed functions, in some cases, even resulting in long-term 
deforestation.
    We are experiencing and are prepared for another long and 
arduous fire year in 2022. In fact, as we know, there was 
already significant fire activity occurring in the South, and 
we went nationally to preparedness Level 2 last week. Much of 
the West remains in drought. A high level of hazardous fuels 
across the landscape and the expanding wildland urban interface 
indicate we will face an extremely challenging fire year.
    Our priority, first and foremost, is to protect the health, 
safety, and well-being of the fire management community and the 
public we serve. The BIL supports the Forest Service's efforts 
to confront this crisis by investing in hazardous fuels 
reduction, fire risk mitigation across boundaries, 
technological advancements, and firefighter compensation.
    We are currently working on sending this money out to the 
field to begin work in high-priority landscapes to reduce 
wildfire risk to communities and watersheds. The over a billion 
dollars in funding targeted toward hazardous fuels reduction in 
Section 40803 of the BIL will allow us to begin implementing 
the 10-Year Wildfire Crisis Strategy. This funding also helps 
us to build new markets by providing financial assistance to 
facilities that purchase and process byproducts for ecosystem 
restoration projects from the $400 million that was authorized 
under Section 40804 of the law.
    The Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program will provide 
financial assistance using the billion dollars under Section 
40803(f) to be focused on at-risk communities to help them 
develop community wildfire protection plans and to implement 
those prevention and mitigation activities that are outlined in 
those plans.
    Hiring and retaining firefighters in increasingly long and 
complex fire years is a challenge that we all take seriously. 
Section 40803(d) of the BIL calls for the classification of the 
new and unique wildland firefighter series, provides funding 
for short-term salary increases, provides the ability for us 
and the Department of the Interior to convert a thousand 
seasonal firefighters into permanent fire managers and provides 
us the ability to increase investments in programs that focus 
on mental health, resilience, and well-being.
    USDA, in collaboration with its partners at Interior and 
the Office of Personnel Management, is working to implement 
these classification, pay, and staffing conversion provisions. 
The Infrastructure Law was a significant step in the right 
direction in terms of wildland firefighter compensation. And, 
once again, I thank you for your work on that. But we need to 
continue to work together to find a permanent solution to 
increasing our wildland firefighters' pay and making other 
system changes that ensure that we can continue to support our 
firefighters and ensure that this is a career that others will 
pursue in the future.
    The Infrastructure Bill also made investments in wildfire 
detection through sensors, cameras, and satellite platforms. 
The Forest Service has strong partnerships with NOAA, NASA, and 
the Department of Defense to continue using the best remote 
technology to detect and access wildfires on the landscape. 
Once again, I thank you for your investments and your interest 
in wildfire management, ecosystem restoration, and resilient 
communities. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I 
look forward to answering your questions.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Hall-Rivera follows:]
  Prepared Statement of Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Deputy Chief for State & 
    Private Forestry, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Forest Service
                                  and
     Brian Ferebee, Chief Executive of Intergovernmental Relations
    Thank you for inviting us to testify about the Forest Service's 
implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). We deeply 
appreciate Congress's passage of the BIL, which provides a significant 
down payment on the work we intend to accomplish under the 10-year 
Strategy to Confront the Wildfire Crisis. Of the $5.5 billion in 
funding provided by the BIL for the Forest Service, about $3 billion 
will be invested over five years to reduce the risk of wildland fire to 
communities and restore ecosystems.
Value of Forests to People

    Since before America's founding, the health and productivity of the 
continent's lands and waters supported an abundance of human life and 
activity. Native peoples built some of the most enduring and advanced 
civilizations on Earth and are the original caretakers of all the 
beautiful lands across our nation. Traditional Ecological Knowledge 
continues to be at the heart of sustainable agriculture, 
environmentally sound fire management, and good land stewardship 
practices.
    Today, people continue to depend on the nation's forests and 
grasslands for their social, economic, and personal well-being. 
National forests and grasslands are critical for climate resilience, 
providing benefits that include carbon storage, habitat and 
connectivity for wildlife, and clean air and water. For example, 
nationwide, more than 60 million people living in 3,400 communities 
across 36 states depend on the national forests and grasslands for 
their drinking water.
    Americans also rely on their national forests and grasslands for 
outdoor recreation, cultural and spiritual connections, and respite. 
The benefits include physical exercise and all the mental and other 
health improvements that come with it. In 2020, the National Forest 
System had 168 million visitors, equivalent to more than 50% of the 
United States population. For local communities, this is where they 
live and gather. Outdoor activities and scenery give communities a 
sense of identity and place, adding to their quality of life.
    The National Forest System is also a tremendous source of jobs and 
economic opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Americans. In 2020, 
the National Forest System (NFS) supported more than 370,000 jobs and 
contributed more than $35 billion to our nation's Gross Domestic 
Product (GDP). In 2020, 66 percent of the NFS GDP contribution ($23.3 
billion) was associated with direct use of forest and grassland 
resources, including hunting, fishing, and other forms of outdoor 
recreation, livestock grazing, energy and mineral development, and 
forest products. Of this, recreation visitor use supported about 
168,300 jobs and contributed $13.5 billion. In addition, 31 percent of 
the GDP contribution ($10.9 billion) was tied to resource management 
investments, such as construction and maintenance of infrastructure, 
firefighting, ecosystem restoration, research and development, fuels 
treatments, and Job Corps. Finally, 3 percent of the GDP contribution 
($872 million) was derived from payments to states and counties to 
support schools, roads, and other government services.

    All this and more are at risk on forests and grasslands nationwide.
The Risks to Forests

    Nearly a quarter of the contiguous U.S. is currently in a high to 
moderate wildfire condition. Over the last two decades, we have 
witnessed what has become a now familiar pattern: bigger and more 
destructive wildfires that are extremely challenging and costly to 
suppress due to over 100 years of fire suppression, climate change, and 
expanding Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). We have experienced back-to-
back catastrophic fire seasons in the last two years, devastating 
communities and destroying resources in their wake. Big destructive 
wildfires threaten human health, water quality, homes, jobs, local 
economies, communities, and infrastructure. They also threaten key 
ecological values, including carbon storage, species habitat, soil 
stability, and watershed function; and in some cases, even result in 
long-term deforestation.
    Conditions are only expected to worsen as the climate continues to 
change, and development in the WUI continues unabated. Vast areas of 
the West and across the country are at risk from huge wildfires that 
can quickly spread 10 to 30 square miles or more, burning through 
multiple landownerships, forest types, and communities.
    This growing wildfire crisis created the need for a new land 
management strategy--one designed to support strategic management and 
restoration of millions of acres of land in high-risk areas to protect 
forest health, ecosystem and watershed function, and human 
infrastructure. The need for increased pace and scale of restoration 
necessitates a holistic response in partnership with the Department of 
the Interior (DOI) and other Federal agencies, State and Tribal 
governments, communities, industries, organizations, and private 
landowners.
    This collaborative response needs to be a paradigm shift from 
small-scale, independently managed treatments to strategic, science-
based landscape-scale treatments that cross boundaries and meet the 
scale of the problem, starting initially with those places critically 
at risk. It also needs to be paired with thoughtful reforms to address 
growth into the WUI and the growing climate crisis.
The Wildfire Crisis Strategy

    Our 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy would increase science-based 
fuels treatments by up to four times previous treatment levels, 
especially in those areas most at risk. Fuels treatments by the Forest 
Service together with partners have made a difference over the years. 
But the scale of treatments has been outmatched by the rapid increase 
in the scale and severity of wildfires as climate change accelerates.
    This strategy calls for treating up to 20 million additional acres 
of National Forest System lands over the coming decade, and working 
with partners, including colleagues at the Department of the Interior, 
to treat up to 30 million additional acres on adjoining lands of 
multiple landownerships, while building a long-term maintenance plan. 
The intent for these treatments is to reduce the trajectory of wildfire 
risk to people, municipal water sources, communities, and natural 
resources, and restore fire-adapted landscapes so they are more 
resilient.
    Active management rooted in sound science and ecological principles 
will remain a key tool in this work. We are using every tool and 
authority we have to protect and improve the health of America's 
forests. The tools we have include, but are not limited to, prescribed 
fire, mechanical thinning, targeted grazing, Good Neighbor Authority 
agreements, Tribal Forest Protection Act agreements, and stewardship 
contracts.
    It will be imperative to use fire itself for fuel and forest 
management in our western landscapes because many of those ecosystems 
evolved with fire. Fire is an essential and highly effective fuel 
treatment to reduce wildfire risk and can have ecological benefits for 
many western forest types.
    Connecting landscape risk reduction and resilience with community 
risk reduction and resilience at the necessary scale is a critical part 
of the paradigm shift. Our tools for these connections include 
community fire prevention programs, community wildfire protection plans 
(CWPP), and Firewise practices for homes and communities to reduce the 
risk of catastrophic wildfire.
    I want to stress that the additional acres treated under the 10-
year strategy will be over and above regular appropriations. That means 
the work that we have historically accomplished--in timber production, 
recreation, mining, wildlife habitat management, and more--will 
continue. We look forward to working with Congress on the President's 
Fiscal Year 2023 budget and beyond to ensure sufficient resources are 
in place to deliver on the 10-year strategy.
BIL and the Wildfire Crisis Strategy

    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides a down payment to begin 
the critical work outlined in our 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy. To 
achieve the collective impact that our forests and communities need, we 
must build a coalition to work across land management jurisdictions, 
leverage diverse capacities, and build broad public and community 
support for the work at the scale necessary to make a difference. This 
includes work across Federal, Tribal, State, local, and private lands. 
Partnerships, including those beyond existing contracts and agreements, 
will help identify barriers to success and ways to overcome them.
Hazardous Fuels Reduction

    The Forest Service has worked closely with the regions to identify 
projects within high risk fireshed landscapes designed to reduce 
wildfire risk to communities and watersheds. The funding of these 
projects, using the over $1.6 billion in the BIL, will allow us to 
begin implementing the 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy. The Forest 
Service is also leveraging this moment to increase funding 
opportunities to work with Tribal partners, young adult, Native youth, 
and veteran crews to treat hazardous fuels in firesheds on federal 
lands.
    The Forest Service is prioritizing investments of the $400 million 
authorized under Section 40804 of the BIL to provide financial 
assistance to facilities that purchase and process byproducts from 
ecosystem restoration projects and the $12 million from Division J of 
the BIL that support wood innovations and community wood proposals in 
priority fireshed landscapes. The Forest Service will also explore 
options to establish innovative new approaches for delivering financial 
assistance to forest products facilities via existing authorities.
    Section 40804 of the BIL provides $160 million to provide funds to 
States and Tribes for implementing restoration projects on federal 
lands through the Good Neighbor Authority.
    Section 40808 of the BIL codifies the Joint Chiefs Landscape 
Restoration Partnership Program, including criteria for evaluation of 
proposals, and authorizes the appropriation of $90 million for each of 
fiscal years 2022 and 2023, with not less than 40 percent allocated to 
carry out eligible activities through the National Resource 
Conservation Service (NRCS) and not less than 40 percent allocated to 
carry out eligible activities through the Forest Service. The Joint 
Chiefs program reduces wildfire threats to communities and landowners, 
protects water quality and supply, and improves wildlife habitat for 
at-risk species. The Joint Chiefs program also leverages technical and 
financial assistance to increase the pace and scale of restoration 
efforts across all lands. This multi-year partnership between the 
Forest Service and the NRCS has been in place since fiscal year 2014 
and has provided $335 million in funding for 110 projects.
    Section 40806 of the BIL provides the Forest Service with new 
National Environmental Policy Act authorities, including a new 
Categorical Exclusion for linear fuel breaks. The Forest Service has 
prepared guidance to assist Forests and Regions in applying the new 
Categorical Exclusion and it is available for use currently. We will 
update Forest Service NEPA directives to include the categorical 
exclusion in the future.
Cooperative Fire Risk Mitigation

    The Forest Service is working with the National Association of 
State Foresters, Intertribal Timber Council, and other partners to 
implement the Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) Program 
authorized in Section 40803(f) of the BIL and funded with $1 billion to 
be spent over a five-year period. The CWDG program will provide 
financial assistance to ``at-risk'' communities to develop CWPPs and to 
implement prevention and mitigation activities described within CWPPs 
which will reduce wildfire risk. Communities that have a high or very 
high risk of wildfire, are considered low-income, or have been impacted 
by a severe disaster will all be given priority in the consideration 
process for grants.
    Division J of the BIL appropriates not less than $88 million 
additional funds for State Fire Assistance (SFA) and $20 million for 
Volunteer Fire Assistance (VFA) to be spent over a five-year period. 
The additional SFA grant funding will assist State forestry agencies to 
improve the capacity State forestry agencies to assist communities with 
wildfire mitigation efforts and to increase local capacity to respond 
to and suppress wildfires. The additional VFA funding will assist rural 
volunteer fire departments to make initial attack response on wildfires 
while they are small and easier to suppress.
BIL and Post Fire Recovery

    Sections 70301-70303 of the BIL, the REPLANT Act, gives us a 
historic opportunity to address the reforestation backlog needs from 
wildfires and other disturbances. This provision removes the $30 
million annual cap on the Reforestation Trust Fund, giving the Forest 
Service more resources for post-fire reforestation. With the REPLANT 
Act, we anticipate spending between $140 to $260 million per year for 
reforestation and related work. This will enable us to ramp up 
reforestation treatments to almost 500,000 acres/year, including 
200,000 acres of planting--a more than 300% increase. The Forest 
Service is developing policy to implement this program using existing 
programmatic structures. Reforestation provides one of the main tools 
for national forests to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate 
change. By reforesting in the right place, at the right time, with the 
right trees, we foster development of future resilient forests, and the 
ecosystem benefits they provide for us and future generations.
    Section 40803 of the BIL provides $100 million to the Forest 
Service for burned area rehabilitation activities that must be 
implemented within 3 years of containment of a wildland fire. Division 
J includes $45 million each of fiscal years 2022-2026 for post-fire 
recovery as well. These funds are being focused on the repair or 
improvement of lands unlikely to recover naturally to a management-
approved condition and to repair and replace minor infrastructure and 
facilities damaged by the fire.
    Section 40804 of the BIL also provides funding for revegetation 
activities which will involve interagency collaboration and 
coordination in support of the National Seed Strategy.
    Section 40807 of the BIL authorizes emergency determinations that 
allow for proactive or post-event emergency actions to address 
underlying emergency conditions. The authority can be used for single 
event responses or be applied to larger landscapes as conditions 
warrant. Procedures and guidance for applying the emergency 
determination authority are being developed.
    Division J of the BIL appropriates $300 million in additional 
funding for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program to repair 
damages to the waterways and watersheds resulting from natural 
disasters. The Forest Service is currently working with NRCS to develop 
an MOU to guide the process of using these funds to implement projects 
on NFS lands.
BIL and Wildland Firefighter Compensation
    Hiring and retaining firefighters in increasingly long and complex 
fire years is a challenge that we take seriously. The BIL provides 
targeted funds that enable the Forest Service to make significant 
investments in a stable, professional, permanent wildland firefighting 
workforce, and in programs that focus on mental health, resilience, and 
well-being. Section 40803(d) of the BIL calls for the classification of 
a wildland firefighter series, provides for possible pay increases for 
wildland firefighters, and for the Forest Service and the Department of 
the Interior to convert 1,000 seasonal firefighters into permanent fire 
managers. USDA, in collaboration with its partners at DOI and the 
Office of Personnel Management (OPM), is working to implement the BIL 
classification, pay, and staffing conversion provisions.
    To implement Section 40803(d)(4)(B), we are coordinating with DOI 
and OPM to provide the Secretaries with analyses of ``specified 
geographic areas in which it is difficult to recruit or retain a 
Federal wildland firefighter'' as outlined in the BIL.
    The funds allocated in the BIL are a first step in appropriately 
compensating our federal wildland firefighters. We are looking beyond 
the BIL to develop longer-term proposals to permanently revise wildland 
firefighter pay.
BIL and Technology Investments in Wildland Fire

    Section 40803 of the BIL establishes $10 million for the Forest 
Service and DOI to spend on the Geostationary Operational Environmental 
Satellite (GOES) Program to rapidly detect and report wildfire starts; 
$30 million for USDA grants to States and local governments to 
establish and operate Reverse-911 telecommunication systems; and $10 
million shared between Forest Service and DOI for the procurement and 
placement of wildfire detection and real-time monitoring equipment, 
such as sensors, cameras, and other relevant equipment, in areas at 
risk of wildfire or post-burned areas.
    On March 9, 2022, the initial kickoff for the ground-based cameras 
and sensors project was conducted and we are working with Alert 
Wildfire regarding architectures and agreement structures. We have also 
met with NASA and Delphire Technologies regarding sensors and 
integrating sensor data. We are working with the Colorado Center of 
Excellence to secure agreements and kick off pilot testing.
    We have been meeting weekly with NOAA and Interagency Council for 
Advancing Meteorological Services (ICAMS) to coordinate work plans and 
spend plans through active public-private partnerships. We are also 
working with the Thermal Working Group to build an evaluation plan of 
GOES, Fire Autonomous Detection & Dissemination System (FADDS), and 
other sources of data.
Wildfire Commission in BIL

    In December 2021, USDA, DOI, and the Department of Homeland 
Security through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 
announced the establishment of a Wildland Fire Mitigation and 
Management Commission. This Commission fulfills Sections 70201-70207 of 
the BIL and represents a critical step in combating the wildfire crisis 
and improving resilience on the nation's landscapes. The Wildfire 
Mitigation and Management Commission is tasked to study and make 
recommendations to improve Federal policies relating to--(1) the 
prevention, mitigation, suppression, and management of wildland fires 
in the United States; and (2) the rehabilitation of land in the United 
States devastated by wildland fires. An announcement calling for 
applications to the commission, with a focus on non-federal members, 
representing State, local, Tribal, and private stakeholders, was 
announced on March 10, 2022, and closed on March 25, 2022. Applications 
are currently under review, with the first Commission meeting targeted 
for late spring.
Conclusion

    We greatly appreciate the significant resources Congress has 
provided through the BIL that will allow the Forest Service, with our 
many partners, to take the initial steps to address the wildfire 
crisis. This work will result in resilient landscapes that have 
ecologic integrity, provide essential ecosystem services including 
carbon storage and habitat for wildlife, and boundless opportunities 
for American citizens to recreate.
    The Forest Service looks forward to working with this Subcommittee 
to reduce the severity of wildfires in our country. This concludes our 
testimony. We welcome any questions the Subcommittee may have.

                                 ______
                                 

   Questions Submitted for the Record to Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Deputy 
         Chief, State and Private Forestry, U.S. Forest Service
              Questions Submitted by Representative Porter
    Question 1. The Subcommittee is aware that the U.S. Forest Service 
recently completed a Recruitment and Retention Survey in Region 5. 
Please provide the Subcommittee with the results of this survey and any 
additional views USFS wishes to share with the Subcommittee.

    Answer. The Pacific Southwest Region (Region 5) is in the process 
of soliciting information from firefighters on what they perceive to be 
the challenges for recruiting and retaining firefighters in California. 
Initial data has been summarized into eight issues. While these issues 
were previously identified, extensive analytical and empirical 
breakdown of the barriers impacting recruitment and retention has been 
lacking. The Pacific Southwest Regions' efforts to gather data will 
help support agency-wide efforts to address these issues. The Region 5 
Fire and Aviation Management Recruitment and Retention Survey is 
included as Appendix A. [The Appendix can be viewed on the Committee 
Repository at: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II10/20220405/114579/
HHRG-117-II10-20220405-SD32425667.pdf]

    Hiring and retaining wildland firefighters in increasingly long and 
complex fire years is a challenge that we take seriously. The BIL and 
the FY 2023 President's Budget provide a significant down payment 
toward Forest Service investments in a stable, professional, permanent 
wildland firefighting workforce, as well as for workforce programs that 
focus on mental health, resilience, and wellbeing. The BIL remedies 
many issues that have been front and center for the wildland 
firefighting community. We continue to hear substantial concerns from 
the field, and we acknowledge that there is more work to do on issues 
such as housing and work/life balance during the very stressful fire 
years, as well as the need to increase firefighter capacity. We will 
continue to work on these issues so that jobs with the Forest Service 
remain a desirable and sought-after opportunity.

    The BIL provides a $600 million investment in firefighter pay 
increases to the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior, as 
well as conversions of temporary employees to permanent full-time 
employees. These permanent firefighters will be able to respond to 
wildfires as well as increase hazardous fuel treatments across 
landscapes before wildfires happen. We are working diligently with the 
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to identify which positions are 
eligible for BIL pay increases.

    The BIL also directed the development of a new Wildland Firefighter 
occupational series. The Forest Service is collaborating with the 
Department of the Interior and the OPM to create a wildland firefighter 
occupational series that better reflects the unique responsibilities 
and skillsets of our firefighters. To ensure this process is evidence-
based and objective, we are assembling and analyzing extensive 
workforce data and collecting input from a diverse group of 
firefighters across a range of positions, particularly from field-level 
personnel.

    The FY 2023 Budget requests an increase of more than $330 million 
from the FY 2022 Enacted level in Wildland Fire Management Salaries and 
Expenses to ensure ongoing support of these priorities, implement the 
$15 per hour minimum wage for firefighters, and gradually raise base 
capacity levels to enhance response to year-round fire activity. 
Additionally, a $20 million increase in the FY 2023 Budget from FY2022 
Enacted levels in Wildland Fire Management Preparedness will be 
leveraged to supply fleet, equipment, and supplies for increased base 
capacity staffing levels.

    Under President Biden's initiatives to recognize and support 
federal wildland firefighters, more than 11,300 firefighters received 
an additional $24.3 million in pay in 2021. In January 2022, a 
permanent federal minimum wage of $15/hour was implemented via 
Executive Order. Creating greater pay parity commensurate with non-
federal firefighters will likely help resolve recruitment and 
challenges, and result in significant cost savings in training 
firefighters due to attrition.

    The Forest Service continues to work through the staffing process 
of our largest onboarding period for firefighters for both temporary 
and permanent employees. Interviews and selections are ongoing.

    Question 2. How much money did USFS spend on reimbursement to state 
and local authorities for firefighting resources through 
intergovernmental agreements or other mechanisms during FY22? What does 
USFS project to spend in FY23? Please provide information disaggregated 
by state, region, and National Forest.

    Answer. Through March FY 2022, the Forest Service spent the 
following on reimbursements to states and local authorities for 
firefighting resources through cooperative agreements. The data is 
provided by state only. Reimbursements are managed at the national 
level for state payments, and we do not reconcile them at different 
levels of the agency (region and national forest).
Table 1: Forest Service Fire Suppression Cooperative Agreements

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    National Support includes costs for fire suppression 
activities occurring on multiple wildfires which cannot be attributed 
to a specific wildfire, such as dispatch work or local cache activity. 
It also includes Severity costs, which are used to adjust planning to 
improve initial attack response as well as wildfire prevention 
activities when extraordinary weather and/or fire conditions have the 
potential to result in wildfires. Lastly, it includes costs to mitigate 
the spread of the coronavirus.

    The agency does not project suppression costs by individual cost 
categories but instead focuses on the estimated overall need for the 
upcoming year's fire activity. For FY2023, the agency requested $1.011 
billion in Suppression and $2.21 billion in the Wildfire Suppression 
Operations Reserve Fund (fire fix) in the President's Budget Request. 
Each fire year's suppression costs are unique and driven by the 
complexities of fire activity, and most significantly by locations of 
fire starts, which are unpredictable.
    Note that fires not only span fiscal years, but also costs 
associated with a wildfire incident may take multiple fiscal years to 
resolve as items like cost-share agreements, cost-recovery efforts, and 
invoice submissions are reconciled. Consequently, the figures displayed 
in this table reflect significant costs from fire suppression activity 
from the fourth quarter of FY21 and prior.

    Question 3. How much money did USFS spend contracting for 
firefighting resources during FY22? How much does USFS project to spend 
in FY23? Please provide information disaggregated by state, region, 
National Forest.

    Answer. Through March of FY 2022 the Forest Service has spent the 
following on contracts for firefighting resources.

Table 2: Forest Service Fire Suppression Contracts by National Forest

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     National Support includes costs for fire suppression 
activities occurring on multiple wildfires which cannot be attributed 
to a specific wildfire, such as dispatch work or local cache activity. 
It also includes Severity costs, which are used to adjust planning to 
improve the initial attack response as well as wildfire prevention 
activities when extraordinary weather and/or fire conditions have the 
potential to result in wildfires extraordinary weather and/or fire 
conditions have the potential to result in wildfires. Lastly, it 
includes costs to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

    **Non Forest Service Jurisdiction are Wildfires managed by other 
agencies in which the Forest Service contributed to the efforts.

    ***Regional Services includes costs for suppression activities that 
occur across forest boundaries within the region.

    The agency does not project suppression costs by individual cost 
categories but instead focuses on the estimated overall need for the 
upcoming year's fire activity. For FY2023, the agency has requested 
$1.011 billion in Suppression and $2.21 billion in the Wildfire 
Suppression Operations Reserve Fund (fire fix) in the President's 
Budget Request. Each fire year's suppression costs are unique and 
driven by the complexities of fire activity, and most significantly by 
locations of fire starts, which are unpredictable.

    Note that fires not only span fiscal years, but also costs 
associated with a wildfire incident may take multiple fiscal years to 
resolve as items like cost-share agreements, cost-recovery efforts, and 
invoice submissions are reconciled. Consequently, the figures displayed 
in this table reflect significant costs from fire suppression activity 
from the fourth quarter of FY21 and prior.

    Question 4. The Subcommittee understands that Region 6 Type 1 
Interagency Hotshot Crews (IHC) receive an average of $38,000 per year 
to procure equipment such as PPE, chainsaws, and communications 
equipment. The Subcommittee understands that most Region 5 IHCs receive 
a budget of roughly $8,000-$10,000 for the same requirements.

    (4a). Please explain this discrepancy.

    (4b). Does the USFS believe that out-of-pocket expenses associated 
with equipment may be contributing to the financial strain on wildland 
firefighters in Region 5? If so, what steps is USFS taking to address 
these add financial burdens?

    Answer. The disparity between operating budgets of Hot Shot crews 
is happening, and we are taking steps to address the issue. This 
disparity occurs for several reasons but can be attributed primarily to 
the way we allocate funds within the agency. All funds are initially 
allocated from the national office to Regions who then distribute these 
funds amongst national forest units based on national and regional 
priorities. Given the range of priorities across Regions, the amount 
allocated to one national forest and subsequent crews within that unit 
does vary across the agency.

    Given the importance of all firefighting assets, the Forest Service 
recognizes the need to standardize the process for acquiring equipment 
to ensure crews can operate safely and effectively. In FY 2022 the 
agency established a new process that supplements the initial 
allocation crews and other firefighters receive for equipment, so they 
can replace, purchase and maintain existing essential equipment. This 
enables all firefighting assets to maintain equipment standards 
throughout the year. The agency is assessing a more robust change in 
our allocation strategy that will move toward a more standardized 
system for allocation of funds to Regions for IHCs and other national 
fire response resources for firefighting equipment needs.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Ms. Hall-Rivera.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Brian Ferebee, Chief Executive 
of Intergovernmental Relations at the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, Forest Service. Mr. Ferebee, you have 5 minutes.

        STATEMENT OF BRIAN FEREBEE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF 
 INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
                 FOREST SERVICE, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you, Chairman Neguse, Ranking Member 
Herrell, and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the 
invitation to testify before you today. The Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law, or BIL, is a critical first step in helping 
the Forest Service to confront the wildfire crisis. As outlined 
by Deputy Chief Hall-Rivera, the benefits that American forests 
and grasslands provide are at risk from wildfire. Unless we do 
something about the wildfire crisis, it would only get worse.
    To protect communities and natural resources, we need to 
restore healthy, resilient, fire-adapted forests. It would take 
a paradigm shift to confront the wildfire crisis facing the 
nation. The old paradigm is to use our limited funds and 
capacity to scatter treatments randomly across the landscape to 
the best of our limited ability.
    The new paradigm is to step up the pace and scale of our 
treatments to match the actual scale of the wildfire crisis 
across the landscape while using science as an underpinning to 
assist in determining where we treat. We worked with 
scientists, tribes, state governments, and partner 
organizations to prepare the 10-year strategy and draft 
implementation plan for confronting the wildfire crisis while 
also working with DOI on their 5-year strategic plan. While we 
sustain current treatment levels in the South, Midwest, and 
Northeast, we plan to dramatically increase fuels and forest 
health treatments by up to four times the current treatment 
levels in the West where the wildfire risk to homes and 
communities are the highest.
    Less than 10 percent of our fire-prone forests in the West 
account for roughly 80 percent of the fire risk to communities. 
While we will focus on high-risk firesheds where the risk to 
lives, homes, communities, and natural resources are the 
greatest, we will work with partners to treat an additional 20 
million acres on National Forest System lands and 30 million 
acres on other Federal, state, and tribal private lands.
    In order to implement this nation-wide strategy, we are 
building a workforce capacity in the Forest Service to match 
the scale of the work. To achieve the collective impact that 
our forests and communities need, we must build a coalition to 
work across land management jurisdictions, leverage diverse 
capacity, and build broad public and community support to work 
at the scale necessary to make a difference. This includes work 
across Federal, state, local, and private lands and with 
nongovernmental organizations. The BIL supports the Forest 
Service's efforts to confront this crisis by investing in 
hazardous fuel reduction, bio-risk mitigation across 
boundaries, and post-fire restoration.
    The Agency is working closely with the regions to identify 
projects within high-risk fireshed landscapes, designed to 
reduce wildfire risks to communities and watersheds. The 
funding of these projects using the over $1 billion authorized 
under the Section 40803 in the BIL will allow us to begin 
implementing the 10-Year Wildfire Crisis Strategy.
    The REPLANT Act under Section 70301-70303 of the BIL gives 
us an historic opportunity to address reforestation backlog 
needs with wildfires and other disturbances. This provision 
removes the cap from reforestation trust funds, giving us more 
resources for post-fire restoration. This will enable us to 
ramp up the reforestation treatments to almost a half a million 
acres a year, including 200,000 acres of planting, a more than 
300 percent increase.
    The BIL provides $100 million under Section 40803 and $45 
million under Division J for restoration activities that are 
implemented no later than 3 years after the date of wildfires 
is contained. These funds are being focused to repair and 
replace minor infrastructure and facility damaged by fires and 
on the repair or improvement of lands that are unlikely to 
recover naturally to the management-approved conditions. The 
BIL makes important investments in cross-boundary tools such as 
Good Neighbor Authority by providing $160 million in Section 
40804 to provide funds to states and tribes for implementing 
restoration projects on Federal lands and by codifying the 
Joint Chief Landscape Restoration Partnership Program in 
Section 40808.
    In closing, we greatly appreciate the significant down 
payment Congress has provided through the BIL that will allow 
us, the Forest Service, with many of our partners, to take the 
initial steps to address the wildfire crisis. This work will 
result in resilient landscapes that have ecologic integrity, 
provide essential ecosystem services, including carbon storage 
and habitat for wildlife, and boundless opportunities for 
American citizens to recreate.
    The Forest Service looks forward to working with you in the 
Subcommittee to reduce the severity of wildfires in our 
country. Thank you for this opportunity. Happy to answer any 
questions you may have.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Ferebee follows:]

Mr. Ferebee's prepared statement is combined with Ms. Jaelith 
Hall-Rivera (see page 21).

    Questions Submitted for the Record to Mr. Brian Ferebee, Chief 
     Executive of Intergovernmental Relations, U.S. Department of 
                      Agriculture, Forest Service
             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva
    Question 1. How much (or what percentage) of USFS BIL funding is 
expected to support salaries and related expenses? Please provide as 
much detail as possible about which positions within the agency will be 
funded, including which BIL programs and appropriations accounts will 
support which positions.

    Answer. Implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) 
will take significant staff support, both federal employees and 
contract staff. However, funds were not provided specifically for 
salaries and expenses (S&E). With the new Forest Service budget 
structure, S&E funds needed to be transferred from the program funds 
into the specific S&E accounts. The Forest Service continues to refine 
these estimates as implementation continues. Below is more detail on 
funding and positions:

     Research and Development (R&D) account

            --  Research and Development is funded at $68M, including 
        transfers. $26.4M or 39% of the funds will be used to support 
        S&E.

            --  In FY 2022, the agency's investment in R&D salaries 
        will focus on staffing to provide science, science delivery, 
        and decision support to enhance the rigor and impact of the 
        implementation of BIL provisions.

            --  Positions for science support of implementation include 
        field technicians, postdoctoral scientists (terms and NTEs), 
        technology transfer specialists, science communication 
        specialists, and project coordinators to leverage partnerships 
        with universities and to assist with delivering value to the 
        deputy areas implementing provisions.

     Capital Improvement and Maintenance (CIM) account--The 
            National Forest System is analyzing the appropriate mix of 
            federal and contract staff prior to transferring any CIM 
            funds for S&E.

     National Forest System (NFS) account

            --  National Forest System is funded at $499M, including 
        transfers. $146.8M or 29% of the funds will be used to support 
        S&E. This may be impacted by the mix of federal and contract 
        staff determined for CIM.

            --  For FY 2022, the agency's support to NFS salaries will 
        be focused on providing funds for on-the-ground staffing and 
        support staff needed to facilitate funding to partners for 
        critical project work.

            --  Positions to support implementation include contracting 
        specialists, grants and agreement specialists, engineers, as 
        well as natural resource specialists providing technical 
        assistance, oversight, and monitoring.

     State and Private Forestry (SPF) account

            --  State and Private Forestry is funded at $260M, 
        including transfers. $9.1M or 3% of the funds will be used to 
        support S&E.

            --  For FY 2022, the agency's support to SPF salaries will 
        be focused on providing funds for on-the-ground staffing and 
        support staff needed to facilitate funding to partners for 
        critical project work.

            --  Positions to support implementation include grants and 
        agreement specialists and natural resource specialists to 
        provide technical assistance, oversight and monitoring.

     Wildland Fire Management (WFM) account

            --  Wildland Fire Management is funded at $552M, including 
        transfers. $499M or 91% of the funds will be used to support 
        S&E. Of this, $480 million, or 87% is for the wildland 
        firefighter pay supplement provision.

            --  For FY22, the agency's support to WFM salaries will be 
        focused on addressing the wildfire crisis with a primary focus 
        on the recently announced initial landscapes at high risk of 
        wildfire and ongoing fire suppression needs.

            --  Positions to support implementation include 
        firefighters for on the ground implementation and resource 
        specialists to provide technical assistance, oversight, and 
        monitoring.

     Forest Service Operations (FSO) account

            --  Of the funds transferred to FSO, $69M or 33% of the 
        funds will be used to support S&E.

            --  Positions to support implementation include human 
        resources specialists, information technology specialists, 
        grants and agreements specialists, contracting specialists, 
        budget and management analysts, accountants and financial 
        analysts, work environment specialists, and communications 
        coordinators.

    Question 2. BLM recently announced an initiative focused on hiring 
hundreds of additional staff to make up for a long-standing shortfall 
in workforce capacity. The Forest Service has similarly testified about 
the challenges associated with addressing non-fire staffing capacity 
which has significantly declined over time. Is USFS planning a similar 
staffing effort focused on non-fire workforce? If so, for what 
positions and where within the agency will these new hires be located?

    Answer. The Forest Service is preparing a strategic staffing plan 
to meet the expectations of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). 
With major investments in ecosystem restoration, now is the time to add 
both short and long-term capacity for delivering outcomes associated 
with these efforts, which requires staffing support from a variety of 
occupations. With the amount of attrition estimated to exceed 20 
percent over the next 5 years, coupled with historically low staffing 
levels and limited Human Resource Management capacity needed to enable 
the hiring and onboarding of additional Forest Service positions we 
will use a collective hiring model to build capacity in priority 
programs and locations.

    To facilitate short-term, large-scale hiring, we are implementing a 
national hiring strategy designed to target our most critical capacity 
needs using expedited processes. In the first wave, we hired:

     91 Grants and Agreements Specialists

     149 Contract Specialists

     Over 100 Human Resources Specialists and Assistants

    The second, and future waves, are focused on occupations that 
increase capacity to conduct critical program-level projects, including 
Civil Engineers, Foresters and natural resource professionals to 
design, create, and ensure agency work meets the highest standards of 
natural resource management. These positions are targeted toward 
locations across the spectrum of National Forest System lands, 
primarily at the National Forest and Ranger District levels, for the 
purpose of planning, and implementing vital ecosystem restoration and 
wildfire mitigation work. Currently, we are employing traditional 
advertisements and using special hiring authorities to add critical 
engineering and natural resources (STEM) positions. Hiring for the 
following vacant positions is well underway and we anticipate many of 
the selected candidates will be onboard by the end of September, with a 
handful onboarding in early FY 2023.

     Approximately 150 Civil Engineers

     250 Foresters, and more than 500 Forestry Technicians

     1,000 Recreation Management Specialists, Recreation 
            Technicians, and Archaeologists (total for all three 
            professions)

    In late July, we anticipate starting the process to hire for the 
following occupations, starting with the Partnership and Community 
Engagement Coordinators. Onboarding is anticipated to occur through the 
first quarter of FY 2023:

     Approximately 50 Partnerships and Community Engagement 
            Coordinators

     Over 100 Lands and Special Uses Specialists

     Natural Resources Specialists and Biological Scientists 
            (number to be determined)

    This critical hiring effort includes positions at all levels of the 
agency and in locations across the nation.

    Additionally, State and Private Forestry programs have evolved, and 
we are developing our workforce to meet these trends and future demand. 
Non-fire positions are being added to assist States, Tribes, 
localities, and underserved communities. The BIL limited spending for 
salary and related expenses to 3% of funds within Division J. With 
available funds from BIL and regular appropriations, State and Private 
Forestry will focus staffing to contribute to agency goals. Our 
cooperative programs protect communities from wildfire, restore and 
increase resilience of non-federal forests, help create markets for 
wood products, enhance urban forests, especially to advance racial 
equity, and address threats to Federal and non-federal forests from 
insects and disease. Positions in State and Private Forestry are being 
added principally in regional and field offices to revitalize and 
expand technical customer service delivery for all our programs. Demand 
for technical assistance has increased due to trends in climate change 
and increased invasive species introductions. Forest health technical 
assistance provides support for prevention and suppression management 
activities to address these issues. Positions in Cooperative Forestry 
are being added to support enhanced forest conservation and retention, 
urban and community forestry and wood innovations like mass timber 
market development and biomass-based renewable fuels.
    Question 3. The BIL requires USFS to issue a Five-Year Monitoring, 
Maintenance, and Treatment Plan. This type of information is also 
typically provided in annual budget submissions. Please outline how 
USFS will be reporting annual accomplishments to Congress, specifically 
how the agency plans to communicate metrics and programmatic 
accomplishments beyond simply ``acres treated'' and board feet cleared. 
For example, is there a plan to monitor metrics such as improved Fire 
Regime Condition Class and expected maintenance intervals, acres 
treated with prescribed fire or restored by managed fire, miles of 
unneeded road removed, road to trail conversions, watersheds moved to 
an improved condition class, miles of fish habitat reconnected, the 
number of culverts storm-proofed, acres of critical habitat and 
wildlife corridors restored? Are there other metrics USFS is tracking 
or considering?

    Answer. Congress passing the BIL provided the Forest Service a 
unique opportunity to be more strategic in the way we approach planning 
and implementation of our work. In addition, we are leveraging this 
opportunity to evaluate how we define and measure success related to 
reducing risk to our communities, community infrastructure and 
associated economies. In short, we are developing new outcome 
performance measures that better describe success while building upon 
our current output measures.
    The complexity of BIL funding allocation poses several unique 
reporting challenges that merit special action to ensure that the 
Forest Service can provide full accountability for funding use and 
provide the highest possible service to the public. The agency is 
establishing a centralized and comprehensive data governance model to 
assist land managers in making funding decisions over the life of BIL 
implementation. Accurate and precise planning and frequent reporting in 
our authoritative data systems are critical foundational steps to 
creating transparency, accessibility and engagement in BIL 
implementation.
    We are focused on outcome-based work to achieve mutually desired 
priorities, including reducing risk to people, communities, natural 
resources, and other values at the scale of wildfire risk. While 
accomplishing this work with and through partners, we will use 
prioritization tools including Potential Operational Delineations when 
looking at project layout and design. The Forest Service currently uses 
the Terrestrial Condition Assessment to analyze and report on 
ecological outcomes in an annual key performance indicator (percent of 
National Forests System landscape ecosystems improved, maintained, or 
recovering due to management actions). We are also developing outcome-
based performance measures to track accomplishments and effectiveness 
and inform continued work, including fireshed key performance 
indicators.
    In addition to reducing wildland fire risk, successful 
implementation of the BIL will include a wide range of restoration 
activities, including restoring fish passages; detecting and 
eradicating invasive species; mitigating environmental hazards from 
mined lands; and national reforestation efforts. Measures of success 
with these activities may include resilience improved in watersheds and 
landscapes; our ability to tackle climate change; and how we can 
advance social and racial equity and accessibility during 
implementation. Ecosystem restoration creates resilient landscapes that 
can be managed for multiple uses and provide ecosystem services, such 
as carbon storage and sequestration. Baseline metrics are often our 
best tangible measure of success in these areas.
    For the work under the ecosystem restoration provisions of the BIL, 
the agency is working to develop guidance in collaboration with our 
Research and Development Deputy Area for monitoring, reporting, and 
tracking accomplishments. We are working to develop tracking approaches 
to work within existing databases and reporting mechanisms (i.e., 
Biennial Monitoring and Evaluation Reports, Broad Scale Monitoring). 
National level staff will summarize data for the Regions when it is 
more efficient to do so. The agency is also exploring options for 
displaying and communicating these outcomes to the public through our 
website and other means.
    For example, the Forest Service is committed to tracking and 
reporting on Legacy Roads and Trails projects, requiring several 
project performance metrics to be reported for all projects receiving 
BIL funding, including miles of unauthorized and previously closed 
roads decommissioned, miles of roads converted to trails, miles of 
upstream aquatic habitat reconnected, number of Endangered Species Act 
(ESA)-listed species positively impacted, number of culverts replaced, 
number of road bridges and miles of road improved and others. Reports 
for all completed projects will be submitted in the fiscal year the 
project construction is complete.
    We recognize the need for monitoring and performance metrics that 
incorporate old growth conservation or restoration. The agency is in 
the early stages of working with the science community to develop 
monitoring protocols for the BIL. We are developing a monitoring system 
for old growth that uses Forest Inventory and Analysis data, and may 
incorporate small area estimation techniques and locally collected 
information to allow us to track the amount of old growth on National 
Forest System lands. This method will recognize the ecological 
variation in regional old growth definitions. We are also evaluating 
other methods to provide information on the location of old growth 
forests and track the Forest Service's success conserving, restoring, 
and adapting these valuable ecosystems. This effort is also consistent 
with provisions in the recent Executive Order 14072, Strengthening the 
Nation's Forests, Communities, and Local Economies.

    Question 4. The BIL contains several grant programs and other 
mechanism designed to award funds and address cross-boundary projects. 
These programs and projects are of critical importance to states and 
local communities. Can USFS commit to notifying Congress and the public 
as funding opportunities are available, projects are selected, and 
awards are granted?

    Answer. The Forest Service is committed to communicating BIL grant 
program opportunities on a regular basis to Congress and the public. 
All competitive grant announcements will be posted to grants.gov to 
ensure that the public is notified of opportunities to apply. All award 
information is available to the public via usaspending.gov.
    Some BIL provisions have resulted in specific programs that will 
conduct national and regional competitive grant processes. For the 
Community Wildfire Defense grant program, the agency is excited about 
the opportunity to increase community mitigation efforts, working 
closely with our partners and non-governmental organizations. Another 
process relates to invasive species funding on non-federal lands. This 
process will be conducted on a regional basis through State, private, 
and Forest Service collaboration to determine priority issues, areas 
and to select projects aimed at those priorities.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Neguse. Thank you. The hearing will proceed with Member 
questions, and we will start with the gentleman from New York, 
Mr. Tonko. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Chairman Neguse and Ranking Member 
Herrell, for holding this hearing and to our witnesses for 
taking meaningful action to combat wildfires and the climate 
crisis that fuels them so that communities across our great 
nation may continue to access clean water, recreation, and 
certainly wildlife ecosystems for generations.
    I am indeed proud to represent the capital region of New 
York where many in our community care deeply about our nation's 
public lands and forests, whether they be at home in New York 
or across the nation. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law focused 
on the Western forests facing the greatest wildlife risks. But 
nationally, 20 percent of the nation's freshwater flows from 
these Forest Service-managed lands.
    Mr. Ferebee, as you mentioned in your testimony, more than 
60 million people living in 3,400 communities across some 36 
states depend on our national forests and grasslands for their 
drinking water. It is so critical that we implement science-
based holistic restoration strategies to combat the wildfire 
crisis and protect these vital forests for the benefit of 
communities everywhere. Among the Bipartisan Infrastructure 
Law's investments was a $100 million annual increase to the 
Reforestation Trust Fund, wildfire funding included for burned 
area recovery, restoration programs, and significant funding 
for DOI and USFS ecosystem restoration and remediation 
programs. So, Mr. Ferebee, how will the Forest Service leverage 
these investments to ensure reforestation and restoration are 
based on science while accounting for climate change, 
biodiversity loss, and ecosystem services?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congressman. As we 
move out on this work, it is critically important that we 
acknowledge all of our work aligned with the provisions, the 
intent in the provisions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. 
And to that point, we are looking at opportunities when we go 
into project selections to really look at several factors in 
addition to meeting the intent of the legislation itself.
    To your question and point, for instance, around watersheds 
and watershed health and the critical nature of them, when it 
comes to, for instance, Legacy Roads and Trails Program, we are 
looking at criteria such as: Do projects that we receive meet 
the intent of NEPA? Are they compliant? Are they aligned, and 
are they in critical watersheds that are important to our 
nature? Do they help us actually connect upstream habitat for 
wildlife from a reconnection perspective? Do they address some 
of the challenges we have when it comes to small culverts in 
place that have caused us degradation problems?
    There will be a number of those kinds of criteria that we 
will establish to make sure that we are receiving the kind of 
outcomes that we want to on the landscape as well as outputs. 
In respect to your question about tracking, we are working 
closely internally to not only look at how we might allocate 
these funds in the right place but also having the appropriate 
mechanisms in place to really track and be transparent around 
these funds for the American public.
    Mr. Tonko. And then how will these investments help build 
the reforestation pipeline, including efforts to address 
reforestation needs in Eastern forests and urban areas with 
poor tree equity?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question again, Congressman. 
With respect to reforestation, the REPLANT Act provision in 
legislation really provides us an opportunity from a resource 
standpoint to do a number of things. One, our agency has 
developed a strategy to really address the backlog that we are 
experiencing with reforestation. And in that light, we are 
looking at being able to treat up to a half a million acres a 
year with 200,000 of that being reforestation of planting. 
Alongside of that, as a part of our strategy, we were really 
looking at how we can grow capacity within our nurseries 
themselves to have more stock available for reforestation. And 
lastly, to actually increase our capacity, we are also looking 
at the opportunity to partner and collaborate more closely with 
states and tribal governments.
    Mr. Tonko. And lastly, Mr. Ferebee, the Forest Service has 
many existing science-based tools such as the Watershed 
Condition Framework to help identify restoration needs. Beyond 
the wildfire funding, how is the Forest Service using these 
tools and other data to identify priority restoration needs 
utilizing BIL investments?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for your question, Congressman. To 
your point, we have a number of tools, such as the Watershed 
Condition Class Framework. We also have our National Cohesive 
Strategy. We have shared steward agreements. As I mentioned in 
my testimony, we also have tools like Good Neighbor Authority. 
And the Agency is looking at using every tool that we have made 
available to us by Congress to really show up in this space, to 
really change the trajectory of wildfire and at the same time, 
to make sure that the work that we do is sound, ecologically.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you so much. With that, Mr. Chair, I yield 
back and thank you for your courtesy.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Ranking Member Herrell for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Herrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for the 
testimony. I have a question for Ms. Hall-Rivera. The BIL 
authorized a new categorical exclusion for fuel breaks and 
included a new authority for emergency actions, which would 
allow for fire prevention work to go forward more quickly. So, 
my question is, why did the 10-year strategy that you published 
in January include no references to how these authorities will 
be implemented?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you for that question, 
Congresswoman. We deeply appreciate the new tools that are 
provided to us in the BIL. And I would say, frankly, it was 
probably just a bit of a timing issue. We were in development 
with the strategy during the time frame that the Infrastructure 
Law was being considered because we knew that we needed to be 
prepared for this crisis either way. We need a plan.
    But I will say these tools are important to us, and we are 
already using them. In fact, I was made aware yesterday there 
are five projects that are already using this new fuel break 
CE. So, it's a tool in our toolbox, and we are using it.
    Ms. Herrell. Great. Thank you. And the BIL authorized the 
establishment of a commission to study and provide 
recommendations to Congress focused on wildland fire 
management, including issues related to aerial wildland 
firefighting equipment. USDA, DOI, and the Department of 
Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency 
announced that the establishment of the Commission would be 
December 2021.
    But my question to you is--when can we expect the members 
to be appointed to this Commission, and how will this 
Commission differ from existing agencies such as the Wildland 
Fire Leadership Council or the White House Wildland or Wildfire 
Resilience Interagency Working Group? How will it differ?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Sure. I will try to answer that as best I 
can. The nomination process for the Commission closed last 
Friday. And I understand we had a very large amount of 
interest, over 500 applications. So, we, Interior, FEMA, are in 
the process now of evaluating those. I would expect us to have 
a list of members--there are a number of categories in the BIL 
that you are probably aware of that make up the Commission, so 
I would think maybe in about a month or two that we would be 
able to name that and then have the Commission get started.
    And you rightly point out we have many other inter-agency 
groups that work in this space. Wildland Fire and Forest 
Restoration is a complex, inter-jurisdictional, multi-
governmental issue. So, at least I think, from our perspective, 
the more voices that we can get to weigh in on this, the 
better. And what the Commission does that's a little different 
than the other ones that you named is that it's really broad, 
and there are a number of non-Federal entities that will be a 
part of it that are not present on the other commissions, even 
on WFLC, which does have non-Federal membership. So, like I 
said, more voices--more and more people and more and more 
citizens are being impacted by this problem. And I think that 
the nature of the make-up of the Commission recognizes that.
    Ms. Herrell. OK. And last, we have heard that the Forest 
Service's use of an existing categorical exclusion for removing 
hazard trees along roads after wildfires has been challenged in 
court.
    So, my question is, are you safely able to re-open roads in 
places like Oregon or California, or does Congress need to 
clarify that you have the authority to do so? We just want to 
make sure that with the tools, you have the authority to do 
some of these.
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you for that question, 
Congresswoman. I know we are implementing numerous hazard tree 
projects throughout the West, and we are using a fair amount of 
the funding that came from the disaster supplemental to do 
that. And we are very appreciative of that. Certainly, we 
probably do have litigation on some of those projects. I don't 
have those details in front of me, but I would be happy to get 
back to you on that and work with you if we are seeing some 
spaces where we might need a little bit of clarification or 
assistance. So, thank you for that.
    Ms. Herrell. OK. And just a final question for all three. 
Have all of you been out and toured our national forests? Have 
you been to New Mexico, California, Oregon and seen the burn 
scars or the fire, what our forests look like in terms of the 
fuel on the ground? I live in the middle of the Lincoln 
National Forest. Have you been out there, boots on the ground, 
to see for yourselves what we are dealing with?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, I certainly have and turn to my 
colleagues.
    Ms. Herrell. Sir?
    Mr. Rupert. Yes. We were actually out on a trip together 
just a week ago. I am looking at fuels reduction work and 
impacts. And I do want to, real briefly, apologize. I misspoke 
during my opening statement and am guilty of just reading and 
not thinking.
    Ms. Herrell. No apologies. I heard it, but it's no 
apologies. I will answer to anything, so you are fine.
    Mr. Ferebee. Yes. As well as my colleagues mentioned, I 
have had the fortunes or unfortunes to be able to go out and 
look at some of the great work that's going on but also some of 
the impacts from areas we have not been able to get to scale at 
this point to address the issue that we are here to talk about 
today.
    Ms. Herrell. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentlewoman yields back. I certainly would 
concur with the Ranking Member and encourage all of you and 
your staffs within the various departments to come to Colorado 
and to New Mexico, to the Western states, and see the burn 
scars for yourself. Clearly you all have but encourage your 
teams to do so as well. The Chair will now recognize for 5 
minutes the gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. Leger Fernandez.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you very much, Chair Neguse. And 
thank you very much for holding this hearing and for having 
these witnesses testify about the important work that's being 
done. Wildfires have been a reality in New Mexico for 
centuries, for millennia. But we know that climate change and 
drought are making wildfires worse and we must address that. My 
brothers, friends, and neighbors are or have been wildland 
firefighters. Tribes and villages in my district send hotshot 
crews to battle these life-threatening blazes and have 
Indigenous ecological knowledge that the Infrastructure Bill is 
actually going to help fund to utilize that.
    And I really appreciate the partnerships that we are doing 
with the Intertribal Timber Council. Thank you for that. I 
think we need to remember that our local wildland fighters see 
their work as not just a job but as a way of protecting the 
watersheds that our communities depend on for our water, to 
quench our thirst and grow our crops and as noted, for us to be 
able to go out and enjoy that nature. So, I think we have to 
recognize how deep the commitment is that our wildland fighters 
have, and we must provide them with the support that we can.
    My vote in support of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was 
a recognition of this huge need. It was a recognition that we 
had to invest in New Mexico and in this region in the reduction 
of hazardous fuels and community resilience, ecosystem 
restoration, and more. My community needs these resources, and 
I am glad that Congress responded.
    I also want to give a shout-out. In my district, we have 
New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at 
Highlands University, which is located in Las Vegas, New 
Mexico. We want to continue to rely on conducting that research 
and then putting it into the field. I recently visited the 
Carson National Forest where they are using the Collaborative 
Forest Restoration Program to work with the Cerro Negro 
Forestry Council, which hires local leneros and woodcutters to 
help thin certain areas.
    It is one of those instances where we are going to have a 
great symbiotic relationship between community-led forestry. 
Locals are getting in the business, shall we say, rather than 
bringing in big, hot crews from elsewhere, right? It is a way 
of developing local industry as well. Deputy Chief Hall-Rivera, 
as the Forest Service is rolling out these investments from the 
Infrastructure Law, how can we make sure we continue to 
incentivize using local resources and leveraging traditional 
practices?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you very much for that question, 
Congresswoman. And I think there are a number of ways that we 
can look at that with this historic investment that we are 
going to be doing. And you have named a couple of them. 
Incorporating traditional ecological knowledge is going to be 
critical.
    And we are improving our acumen in that area. I am not 
going to say that we have always been perfect at that, but what 
we need to do is learn together with our tribal sovereign 
partners on how we can better incorporate their knowledge they 
have. They have been fire stewards for millennia in this 
country. So, we are working to be able to incorporate that into 
our project plans, into our fire plans, to learn from one 
another as we co-develop these projects. And a great 
opportunity that BIL gives us is that it names a dollar amount 
that we can use for the Tribal Forest Protection Act, which is 
really not something that's happened before. That's a tool that 
we have had, but having funding associated with it makes it a 
higher level of focus for us and ability for us to get those 
funds and use those projects where we work together with tribes 
where National Forest System lands and tribal lands are near 
one another, and we can co-prioritize those projects. So, those 
are a couple places I would name.
    But we are working through roundtables to listen to and 
work with all kinds of stakeholders at the state and local 
level in every region of the country, and those are ongoing 
now.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you very much. And I would also 
point out that you have that $200 million that's available to 
enter into contracts or employ labor crews. I really want to 
emphasize the importance of trying to do it locally. Mr. 
Ferebee, we only have a little bit of time left, but do you 
want to add anything to that?
    Mr. Rupert. I will say I appreciate your emphasis on tribes 
and tribal contributions. In recent weeks, we have engaged in 
tribal consultation around infrastructure and received lots of 
feedback from many tribes identifying the support needs that 
they have as we move forward with implementing BIL.
    Within the Department's existing programs, there are 
several programs focused on tribal support, Reserved Treaty 
Land Rights Program. We have a contract support program that we 
are also focusing on as we implement BIL, looking at really 
efficiently and effectively moving that support to tribes. And 
I am very much looking forward----
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. My time is up, so thank you very much. 
And, also, by looking at tribes, I want to also look at local 
communities like the Lenero Program. Thank you very much. I 
yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentlewoman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the Ranking Member for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 
Herrell, for having this hearing. Thank you to the witnesses. 
Sometimes it might seem like we are negative about the 
agencies, but I have traveled across the country and the people 
that work out in the field that want to do the right thing--
it's got to be more frustrating for them than it is to me to 
see how ineffective we are at managing our Federal lands. At 
the end of this week, we are having the Western Caucus visit my 
home of Hot Springs, Arkansas. And I am excited to take them 
out on the Ouchita National Forest and show them how forest 
management is actually happening on the national forests and 
how resilient those forests can be.
    Looking at management across the country, the vast amount 
of the management done and the expenditures happens in the 
Southeast and the North, definitely east of the hundredth 
meridian. The wildfires happen mostly west of the hundredth 
meridian. Can anybody explain to me why the management is 
vastly happening in the Southeast and North and the fires are 
mainly happening in the West?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Mr. Westerman, I will take a crack at that 
and then turn it over to my colleagues as well. I would say 
part of our aim with the Forest Service's 10-year strategy is 
to take the model that we have in the Southeast, which is 
managed forests, that are closer to their natural fire regime 
because they also have fires. The Southeast is a leader in 
prescribed fire. And we'd like to take that model and take it 
into the West and be able to have our forests----
    Mr. Westerman. Do they just burn in the South, or do they 
do mechanical thinning before they burn?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, sir. They do both.
    Mr. Westerman. Is there a danger of doing prescribed fire 
without mechanical thinning first?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. I would say in most cases, especially in 
the West, we need to do mechanical treatment before we 
introduce fire.
    Mr. Westerman. How much mechanical treatment happens in the 
West?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. In the Forest Service, a little over a 
million acres a year in the West.
    Mr. Westerman. Of mechanical treatment?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Westerman. How much needs to happen?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, gosh, we think at least 20 million 
more acres over the next 10 years, and most of that is in the 
West.
    Mr. Westerman. And what's the biggest impediment to that?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, I think there are a lot of 
challenges. Funding, which the BIL helps us with, capacity, 
which we are building toward, not only capacity in the Forest 
Service but, as you know, finding----
    Mr. Westerman. What about outside litigants? Does that stop 
any of it?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. We do have challenges with litigation. 
Yes, sir.
    Mr. Westerman. And you can't fix that. Only Congress can 
fix that?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. We are always happy to work with you, 
Congressman, any tools.
    Mr. Westerman. We need to fix that, and we haven't. So, I 
will just go down the panel. The wildfire crisis, is it caused 
mostly by lack of management or by climate change, Mr. Ferebee?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I 
would say that we have acknowledged that there are a number of 
factors, those two being a part of it.
    Mr. Westerman. Which one is the greatest?
    Mr. Ferebee. I am not sure if we as the agency decided 
which one is the greater. We just acknowledged that there are a 
number of factors that affect our ability and how we are 
showing up currently.
    Mr. Westerman. Ms. Hall-Rivera?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes. I would concur with that. They are 
all interwoven. They are not mutually exclusive.
    Mr. Westerman. Mr. Rupert?
    Mr. Rupert. I agree. Several factors I think as Interior is 
clearly identifying that climate change is the leading impact 
with the intensity----
    Mr. Westerman. The actions tend to show that we believe it 
is more climate change. So, doesn't that logically make the 
reason that instead of spending money on the agencies, we 
should take all the money we are putting out there to the 
agencies and invest that in something to mitigate climate 
change since the management side is not really happening? 
Aren't you making an argument to dissolve your very agencies 
and spend that taxpayer money somewhere else?
    Mr. Rupert. No, I don't think so. In fact, I see our 
initial work to implement with BIL, it really is that important 
step. We have been talking about the need to increase support 
and increase capacity on the ground.
    Mr. Westerman. If we come back in a year or 2 years, and 
there are not any results to show for the money that's being 
spent, does that not make the argument to the American public 
that it is an ineffective expenditure of their tax dollars? It 
is not accomplishing or addressing the real problem?
    Mr. Rupert. I think you will see increased activity on the 
ground and accomplishments on the ground in Year 1 and Year 2. 
And I think Year 3 and beyond is where you will start to see 
the real transformative change.
    Mr. Westerman. I know part of the plan that was put out 
projected Year 6 through 10, but we definitely need to see some 
progress like last year. We are way behind the eight ball. So, 
my hope would be that we see dramatic improvements and a 
dramatic amount of acreage that is being treated and not just 
all in the Southeast. If you look at the numbers in the West, 
where most of the fires are happening, it's almost laughable to 
think that we are claiming a small amount of treatments, and 
then the treatments aren't really happening where the fires 
are. I am out of time, and I yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the Chair of the Full Committee, 
Mr. Grijalva, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Mr. 
Rupert, just a general question, as you were giving your 
testimony about how important cross-agency, cross-
jurisdictional cooperation and joint planning are going to be 
in the mission, one of the areas in which I don't think there 
is a lot of discussion, or needs to be some discussion, has to 
deal with the jurisdiction prerogatives that exist, cities and 
towns and counties to basically do their own land use plan. And 
high-growth regions also happen to be high drought and wildfire 
impacted regions. I know that's the case made in Arizona and 
other parts of the country.
    So, my question is, how do you see bridging that, beginning 
with the question about people dealing with the same 
information because the relationship between the watershed 
protection, restoration, and the interface, I don't know that 
that's always a factor. And coming from, as a former county 
supervisor, it wasn't in the range.
    Mr. Rupert. I will just start with the, as you described, 
the importance of local community engagement. I think, in even 
thinking about the Southeast and what is different in the 
Southeast than perhaps some other parts of the country, that 
focused work that's going on in the Southeast also includes 
very active collaborative local level engagement.
    That's a fundamentally important part of what happens there 
to allow everything else. And I think as we talk about tensions 
and conflicts around land use planning and about risk reduction 
activities, in my mind, perhaps one of the most important steps 
we can take, if not the most important, is to have local 
community members, local unit managers, Federal, state, tribal, 
all those other stakeholders in the same room at the same table 
talking about shared values and coming up with collaborative 
risk reduction strategies. I think that is the key.
    Mr. Grijalva. Yes, and I think particularly in the Forest 
Service that strengthening that role of having the Forest 
Service play the necessary role of the honest arbitrator in 
those kind of discussions is critical, and how you build 
capacity in order to be able to do that as opposed to just 
getting kind of carried along with the winds because your 
comment is required in that process. And, at least my 
experience, sometimes yes, sometimes no, depending. The 
participation by the Forest Service and by public land agencies 
was--the consistency wasn't there, on the science and the 
impact and everything.
    So, it's just not even a suggestion--I think it becomes 
more and more critical for the agency to play that honest 
arbitrator in those land use kind of discussions that happen at 
the local level. With that, I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Neguse. The Chairman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Tiffany for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the 
time. Mr. Rupert, you used the term ``collaborative.'' Aren't 
Federal agencies supposed to coordinate with local units of 
government?
    Mr. Rupert. Yes, absolutely. And I think, from my 
perspective, that is one of the exciting aspects of 
infrastructure, is it provides the support for us to have more 
capacity in that direction and also to develop those 
relationships to provide the community support for that to 
happen.
    Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Chairman, I would just say to you that 
this is a very important distinction in terms of collaborate 
versus coordinate. They mean two very different things. And I 
think the agency people know that. ``Coordinate'' is treating 
people as equals at the table, local, state officials that they 
be treated as equals when you are making that decision, rather 
than where it is the all-knowing people up here in the Federal 
Government that are dictating to local units of government. 
That is a great frustration local and state officials have.
    Mr. Rupert, you emphasize climate change in your testimony, 
I believe, and then also in your questioning with 
Representative Westerman. So, with us being told that it is 
going to be decades in the future that this is going to 
continue, why would we spend all kinds of money on this if it 
is not going to do anything to fix the problem or fix the, 
quote/unquote, problem?
    Mr. Rupert. Well, clearly the vision and the strategy is to 
make progress and to start on that progress, and the very real 
experience that we see in Interior wildland fire programs 
across the land. And, I mean, those effects and that 
consequence are very real, this trajectory that we are on with 
impacts, catastrophic intense wildfire. And we have that----
    Mr. Tiffany. And you know that that's due to climate 
change?
    Mr. Rupert. I know that the impacts on the ground that we 
are experiencing are very real.
    Mr. Tiffany. Let me enter into the record here, if I may. 
Here is the Forest Service timber-harvested data from the early 
1900s to 2014, very easy to see the peak that we had back in 
about 1990. If I may enter that--thank you very much, Mr. 
Chairman.

    [The information follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

    Mr. Tiffany. What if it says a result of lack of 
harvest, the lack of management, the point our Ranking Member 
has been making consistently that it is a lack of management 
that is causing this problem more than anything else. I think 
this is a terrific document that we should all look at very 
closely because maybe that is where our problem is. I would 
just also add living near Lake Superior, we were told--and I 
see extensive weather data due to a job I had previously coming 
to here. And from 2004 to 2011, Lake Superior was at a very low 
level, historic low levels, and we were told it was climate 
change. Well, Lake Superior now is back at historic high levels 
as a result of the extreme precipitation or high precipitation 
we have had in the last 10 years. And we are being told it is 
climate change that is causing that. And for a lot of people, 
you just go, ``Is there anything that climate change can't 
do?''
    Ms. Hall-Rivera, I think you used the term ``historic 
investment'' in your testimony. I think you said significant 
down payment. So, you are going to come back looking for more 
money? Is that right?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Congressman, thank you for that question. 
I think we have to be realistic about what this problem is 
costing us as a nation. And you made an important point. We 
have to do increased management, and we need to use all the 
tools for doing that, and that includes timber harvest and that 
includes hazardous fuels treatment. And these are not 
inexpensive endeavors. It is expensive to treat fuels, it is 
expensive to do that work.
    Mr. Tiffany. How many jobs have we lost since 1988 as a 
result of the lack of harvest on the national forests?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, I don't have that figure in front of 
me, Congressman, but I can tell you that we have shifted 
probably--we lost 40 percent of our non-fire workforce in the 
Forest Service. So, we are having that challenge just within 
the Forest Service. We have lost a lot of our capacity and our 
expertise in timber harvests.
    Mr. Tiffany. When are we going to reach the ASQ?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, I know we do meet allowable sale 
quantities on some of our forests, but we don't meet it on all 
of them. So, we have more work to do.
    Mr. Tiffany. How are we going to accomplish this without 
litigation reform?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, we are appreciative of the reforms 
that we have received, including the fuel break CE that we 
talked about earlier. And we are open to working with all of 
you on additional tools that can help us increase our fuels 
treatment.
    Mr. Tiffany. I appreciate your answers. Mr. Chairman, I 
just submit to you we have a huge litigation problem here. I 
understand that there are multi-million-dollar organizations 
across the country that do nothing but file lawsuits. And they 
have created a real problem. And a lot of that problem you see 
right in this chart that we entered into the record. But I 
think we should also look at the number of jobs that we have 
lost, the number of businesses that we have lost in America, 
especially in the West, as a result of shutting down harvests 
on our national forests.
    We will not correct the problem that we have here without 
having active management and getting litigation reform. If we 
don't reform NEPA, it is not going to happen. We will be here 
10 years from now talking about the same thing. Thank you so 
much for attending today, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair will now recognize himself for 5 minutes of 
questions.
    First, let me say to my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle that attended today's hearing, I very much appreciate it. 
Clearly, there is a strong interest from Members regarding 
these issues to Mr. Tiffany to Ms. Herrell and to Mr. Westerman 
as well as to my Democratic colleagues. I would say thank you 
for participating in today's hearing. I would be remiss if I 
didn't note that for the better part of the last 2 years since 
I obtained the gavel, chaired this Subcommittee, I have heard 
quite a few of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
talk about the need for forest management and hearings on 
forest management.
    And lo and behold, we have a hearing on this important 
topic. Unfortunately, many of them chose not to attend. But I 
credit those who did participate, and I appreciate their 
questioning of the witnesses today. I would like to just take a 
step back and kind of reframe where we are because I think some 
of this has kind of gotten lost during the course of today's 
hearing.
    My objective is to follow the science. The science tells us 
that we need to do more when it comes to forest management. 
That is an argument that colleagues of mine on both sides of 
the aisle have made. The science also tells us that the root 
causes in terms of the intensity, the severity, the 
pervasiveness, the frequency of these natural disasters that 
have befallen much of our country and, in particular, the Rocky 
Mountain West with respect to wildfires and floods is caused by 
climate change.
    So, we ought to take steps to do what we can to mitigate 
and fight against the climate crisis. Those are not mutually 
exclusive. I am not really--I guess I am unclear as to why they 
are being framed as some sort of binary choice. We can and we 
must do both. And that is precisely why we are gathered here 
today for this important hearing, and in particular today, we 
are talking about the former because as our witnesses have 
expounded about in great detail today, because of the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we have a unique generational 
opportunity to invest in forest management in a way that we 
haven't in some time.
    This bill ultimately allocates $28 billion which the 
departments have now announced they will utilize by treating 
upwards of 50 million acres, 20 million acres with respect to, 
that is within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government and 
then through a variety of different grant programs enabling the 
treatment of 30 million acres on private and tribal land in 
coordination, as Mr. Tiffany noted.
    That should be applauded. That is something that is a 
unique achievement of the Biden administration. And I just, 
again, have to say that for my friends on the other side of the 
aisle who continually kind of pound the table about the need to 
take these steps and then vote against the same measures that 
propose to take those steps, it can be a bit confusing to me. 
But, nonetheless, I am grateful that the Department is taking 
the steps that they have announced in states ranging from 
Colorado to Idaho to Utah to Nevada to Wyoming to New Mexico, 
irrespective of how the Members of Congress who represent those 
states voted on the ultimate law and the funding that you all 
now will be implementing.
    So, I thank you for your service, and I certainly thank 
your respective teams back at headquarters and in states across 
our country who are doing incredibly important work. I have one 
question. And it relates to the private land and the grant 
programs that will be set up under this particular piece of 
legislation. And I'm interested in hearing a bit more about how 
you anticipate the Community Wildfire Defense Grants being 
deployed within our communities.
    This money has to get to our communities. In my view, it 
should have gotten to our communities long ago. And as I said, 
I come from a district and a state that has been besieged by 
wildfires as of late. And I guess I would like to get some 
clarity and some representations from you all that you have the 
resources that you need from a staffing perspective to deploy 
these dollars as quickly as possible to communities in the 
Rocky Mountain West and, of course, across the country that are 
in desperate need of those resources. And I'm happy to let any 
of the witnesses respond.
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you, Chairman. I will start. Yes, 
the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program, a billion dollars 
between both provisions is an absolutely historic investment in 
community wildfire protection plans and the projects that are 
named within them. And we have a spotlight on getting this 
grant program up and running.
    We are working--the Department of the Interior, Forest 
Service, and the National Association of State Foresters--hand-
in-hand to develop the guidelines and get the program out. We 
anticipate those guidelines being ready by May. We hope to have 
the funding opportunity announced in June and get some of the 
first grants out by September. So, less than a year to put 
together a brand-new program at that level I think is really, 
really important.
    The other thing that we are doing is we are contemplating 
what I would call kind of a base capacity level funding for 
each state so that they do have their resources to be able to 
carry out the program. So, I turn to my colleague, Mr. Rupert, 
to add anything.
    Mr. Rupert. Well, I will just add that Interior very much 
appreciates the work of the Forest Service. That Community 
Defense Grant support is directed at the Forest Service, and we 
appreciate the collaboration and the leadership that they are 
providing for that work, including us as well. Thank you.
    Mr. Neguse. Thank you both, and I will just simply say we 
look forward to working with you and seeing the fruits of your 
labor materialize here, certainly in my communities and 
communities across the country. And not to belabor the point, 
but I do think Mr. Tiffany raises a good point that these 
programs have to be in coordination with our local communities. 
So, I suspect that that's of heavy emphasis for each of your 
agencies. But it is something to keep in mind. With that, the 
Chair will now recognize Mr. Gallego from Arizona for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning to each of 
our witnesses for your time today. As you all know, wildfire is 
an issue that is always top of mind in Arizona. In the first 3 
months of 2022, there have already been around 90 fires in the 
state. Dry conditions indicate that the 2022 fire season will 
start earlier than normal. Large parts of the state face 
abnormally dry drought conditions and fine fuels are 
anticipated to be above average.
    Through all these issues, it is vital that we be prepared 
to manage fires and increase resilience. I am hopeful that 
funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help make 
that happen. My first question is for Deputy Chief Hall-Rivera. 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law directed $20 million to the 
Southwest Ecological Restoration Institute to create and 
maintain a national fuel treatment database and to publish a 
report every 5 years. What is the Forest Service's strategy for 
ensuring that data is entered consistently and reflects 
Congress' investments in our Federal lands?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. 
We actually just had a meeting with the Institutes last week 
and are excited to get into this partnership together. Of 
course, we work very closely with the SWERIs already, but this 
is an added investment and a focus on something that the New 
Mexico University piloted and that now we are going to be able 
to expand to the rest of the country.
    So, we are going to be working with them very closely, 
primarily our research branch. And they will be co-developing 
how we are going to expand that project. And then we will work 
together with our regions to ensure that we have the right kind 
of data and the data standards to ensure that that can be 
successful across the country.
    Mr. Gallego. Thank you. My next question is for Mr. 
Ferebee. The Department of the Interior's wildfire spend plan 
identified several different criteria to inform fuels work and 
prioritize BIL funding, including the retention of large trees 
and fire-resilient stands and limits on permanent and temporary 
road construction. How will USFS projects ensure the protection 
and conservation of wilderness and roadless areas?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congressman. As 
stated in our strategy, our strategy focuses on community 
exposure. So, we are in that footprint in close proximity to 
those areas, which is what we consider our managed lands, which 
is not in our roadless areas and our wilderness areas.
    So, by the way our strategies are aligned and how we are 
looking to focus, we are not looking to focus in those areas 
when it comes to mitigation of exposure to our communities. In 
addition to that, what I would say is our intent is to meet the 
provisions in the intent of all the provisions in this 
legislation. And all of our projects are designed with an 
ecological frame in mind while they may also be trying to 
achieve other outcomes and so very much committed to meeting 
the intent of other laws like the Wilderness Act and our 
requirements when it comes to managing roadless areas.
    Mr. Gallego. Thank you. My final question can be answered 
by either Forest Service witness. With $4.5 billion of the 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directed toward wildfire 
and forest provisions, significantly new funding and important 
programs are expected to be implemented by the Forest Service.
    Does the Forest Service have adequate staff capacity to 
fulfill the new dollars they will be responsible with 
implementing, and how does the Forest Service plan to address 
staffing capacities with new hiring? Thank you.
    Mr. Ferebee. As a part of our strategy, we are working with 
our field to really identify what we think are the skillsets 
that are needed in order to deliver on this work. What I would 
also like to highlight, though, is as we talked about in this 
community already, this is an all-lands issue.
    So, while we are the agency working on our capacity needs, 
we are also having conversations with our Federal partners, our 
state partners, tribes, and NGOs in this same space because if 
we are going to address this issue and address it at scale from 
an all-lands perspective, it is going to require all of us to 
have the capacity that we need and to the degree that we don't 
have it, working closely together in kind of a collaborative 
form really helps us leverage our collective resources as well.
    The Agency has very much developed a strategy to look at 
hiring our needs but, at the same time, looking at how we show 
up with the rest of our partners in this all-lands issue.
    Mr. Gallego. Ms. Rivera? Ms. Rivera, do you have anything 
to add?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. I don't have anything to add, sir.
    Mr. Gallego. I yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Moore.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chair, Ranking Member. And thank you 
all for joining us today. We are rapidly approaching another 
wildfire season. Like last year, and the year before, and the 
year before, we have done little to nothing to fundamentally 
improve the way we manage our lands to prevent catastrophic 
wildfires. One key fundamental point, Utahans feel this every 
day in the summer as we inhale smoke from California and 
Oregon. That is at the root of what I am really trying to do 
here. I am trying to improve this.
    I introduced the FIRESHEDS Act and co-sponsored Ranking 
Member Westerman's Resilient Federal Forests Act to 
fundamentally improve the way our lands are managed. We can 
prevent these out-of-control fires that threaten our 
communities. We can prevent them.
    For Mr. Rupert--Why do you think it is important to enhance 
shared stewardship agreements, adopt fireshed research and 
mapping, and extend the Good Neighbor Authority in our fight 
against fire?
    Mr. Rupert. Well, there has been reference to tools in the 
toolbox over the course of the day and, certainly, Good 
Neighbor Authority, shared stewardship and, yes, improved data 
standards and using technology to inform decision making pre-
fire, during fire, post-fire. All of those are important tools 
to ultimately changing the trajectory that we are on and 
reducing risk of wildfire to local communities. Those were all 
parts and pieces.
    Mr. Moore. Yes. And our fundamental argument with the 
FIRESHEDS Act is that Utah has experienced some success here. 
Like, let's take what we do here and let's share this with 
other states. These shared stewardship agreements, they are 
designed to reduce the amount of bureaucracy to just work 
together, and each state can work with their Federal agencies.
    Ms. Hall-Rivera, can you describe for us what actions 
private forest owners take to protect their lands against 
catastrophic wildfire?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes. Thank you for that question, 
Congressman. Many private forest landowners do treatment on 
their landscapes and around their homes to help protect against 
fire. And we have programs in the Forest Service and the 
Department of the Interior that help support that, working 
through our state foresters. But we also know that not every 
landowner has access to those programs. Our underserved 
communities may not be aware of those programs or may not have 
the capacity to, say, do grant-writing. So, we are working 
together with the National Association of State Foresters and 
many of our other partners to ensure that private landowners 
know about these programs, they have access to Service 
foresters who can help them do plans for their forests and to 
ensure that we can distribute funding like through the 
Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program more broadly.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you. I will just point out that there are 
a lot of tools at private owners' disposal. And the NEPA 
regulations that we do sometimes make it impossible for them to 
do something good and to get past this. This is an argument 
that we make. We must take a close look at how we can improve 
NEPA so that it doesn't discourage the kind of management 
behaviors that our Federal lands desperately need.
    Mr. Ferebee, as I understand it, the Forest Service has 
been contributing to help fund wildfire corridor projects in 
coordination with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. As 
you look to expand this engagement, what efforts, if any, are 
currently underway to integrate big-game wildlife corridors in 
National Forest Systems projects?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congressman. As a 
part of our strategy, we acknowledge there are a number of 
values that are important to us to achieve with our work. While 
we are looking at mitigating exposure to communities, things 
like improving habitat for wildlife species, protecting big-
game corridors, helping with recovery of T&E species, 
protecting critical watersheds, all of those are values that we 
are also looking to achieve as a result of our work.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you. Sir, I have never officially asked 
three different people three questions within my 5-minute 
timeline, so this is a monumental day for me, and I want to 
thank you all for being a part of this. The point that I wanted 
to----
    Mr. Neguse. It is not likely to happen again.
    Mr. Moore. The point that I want to just reiterate is there 
is a lot of good going on. And I asked people--Utah, and as I 
have stepped into this role, I have seen so much good 
collaboration taking place in Utah from conservation to 
wildlife protection across the board. We want to limit 
emissions and toxins being put into our atmosphere, into our 
air.
    And it is all the work that we are doing on our wildfire 
work. And we have had great results. We are not perfect, but we 
have had great results that I know other states can 
incorporate. I encourage the Majority to take a really sincere 
look at the FIRESHEDS Act to look at what the true cause of 
this is, and we can get out ahead of this if we were to take an 
objective and not political look at it. Thank you very much. I 
yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair will now recognize for 5 minutes Ms. Porter from 
California if she is on.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Ms. Hall-
Rivera, you have testified in this Committee previously about 
the challenges with wildland firefighter hiring. How many 
firefighters does the Forest Service need to hire so you have 
no idle engines, you have fully staffed hotshot crews, and so 
on? What is the full staff number?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you for that question, 
Congresswoman. Our goal this year in the Forest Service is 
11,300 firefighters. And that is an increase----
    Ms. Porter. What do you have right now?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, I can't tell you the exact number we 
have right now, Congresswoman. I can get back to you on that. 
We are still bringing people on. Of course, it is the time of 
year where our temporary and even our permanent seasonal 
firefighters are onboarding. And we just completed an 
additional fire hire event in California at the end of March, 
and those numbers are still coming in.
    Ms. Porter. And how did that fire hire event go? Do you 
think you are on pace to have the number to be fully staffed in 
California? Do you think you are on pace for that based on the 
hiring event?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Congresswoman, yes. I do think we are on 
pace. And by all accounts, that hiring event went very well. 
And, importantly, what we are seeing is a very high acceptance 
rate in our permanent and seasonally permanent firefighting 
positions, which is what we want. We want to be able to convert 
this workforce to have more or a larger proportion of it be 
permanent and a smaller proportion of it be temporary.
    We are in the same boat as a lot of sectors in this country 
where hiring is difficult and labor is short. But by all 
accounts, these events are going well, and we think that we 
will be at the capacity that we need in the Forest Service this 
year.
    Ms. Porter. That is really great to hear because, as you 
know, last year, according to the National Federation of 
Federal Employees, about 30 percent of the Federal hotshot 
crews that worked on the front lines of wildfires in California 
were understaffed. Last year, the Forest Service had 60 fire 
engines in California alone that were idle because of 
understaffing. So, I am very heartened to hear a concrete 
number or concrete goal for what full staffing looks like, the 
fact that, in general, recognizing that everybody faces labor 
challenges, and in general, you feel like hiring is going well. 
And I am hoping to see that a year from now in the outcome. And 
I am hoping to have a number of idle engines and the number of 
partially staffed, unstaffed crews go down. If you don't hit 
that target--I really appreciate, again, you giving that 
number. Where do you get the people power when you don't have 
enough firefighters? What happens when you don't have enough 
Federal firefighters?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, as we have talked about, 
Congresswoman, fire is an all-lands challenge. And we take an 
all-lands approach or a multi-jurisdictional approach to fire 
suppression as well. And we always have done that in this 
country. We are able to flux our numbers of firefighters across 
the country. The couple of different ways that we do that are: 
One, contractors. Department of the Interior and the Forest 
Service, we both employ contractors, and we can staff up using 
that mechanism.
    We also, in both of our agencies, have employees who are 
not full-time firefighters that do have fire qualifications. 
They have what is called a red card. And we can bring them on 
during high periods of fire activity. We also have an authority 
called ``administratively determined,'' which allows us to 
bring on others. They tend to be people who are retired or 
otherwise no longer engaged in the firefighting. But they are 
red-carded, and we are allowed to bring them on. So, we can 
surge. We had upwards of, what, 29,000 firefighters on the 
landscape last year during our highest levels of activity.
    Ms. Porter. Do you ever have to hire local fire departments 
or CAL FIRE, and how much did you spend at Forest Service last 
year on borrowing resources from local or state fire 
departments?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. We have agreements with state and local 
firefighters all over the country. We have a particularly 
robust agreement with California. It is called the California 
Fire Assistance Agreement. And Interior is part of that as 
well. And we are able to activate local and volunteer fire 
departments through that agreement, and it is reciprocal. They 
go on our fires. We go on their fires. It is a really great 
example of intergovernmental cooperation in the fire space.
    Ms. Porter. Just reclaiming my time, Ms. Hall-Rivera, would 
you be able to later provide the cost of those reciprocal 
agreements? I know they are complicated, but if you could 
provide a cost number to the Committee. Is that something you 
would be able to do later?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, Congresswoman. We would be happy to 
do that.
    Ms. Porter. And Mr. Rupert, could you do the same thing, 
please, for the Department of the Interior?
    Mr. Rupert. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you. I really appreciate it. My last 
question was just to ask Mr. Ferebee. Could you just say 
briefly, particularly for Southern California, what you think 
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill is going to be doing to 
benefit our community?
    Mr. Ferebee. Yes. Thank you for the question, 
Congresswoman. Our strategy is really looking at critical 
firesheds that are based on a lot of fire history as well as 
ignition sources and vegetative communities. And the intent of 
that is really to mitigate exposure to communities like those 
in Southern California.
    So, we want to place an effort and emphasis in those 
firesheds working very closely with counties, states, and 
tribal governments as well as a number of other partners in the 
community to determine where we should be treating within those 
firesheds to make a difference.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
McClintock, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ferebee, the 
Forest Service used to have what was called the 10 a.m. rule. 
It was basically an informal policy that any fire spotted would 
be put out by 10 o'clock the next morning.
    We had the Tamarack Fire last year in Alpine County. A 
lightning bolt struck a tree. That tree smoldered on about a 
quarter of an acre for about 10 days. Every day, the Forest 
Service had helicopters flying over to take pictures for 
Facebook but never bothered to drop a bucket of water or put 
the damn thing out. On the 10th day, it exploded, took out 
70,000 acres, devastating the local community, which depends 
upon tourism, cost a number of families their homes. What in 
the world were you people thinking?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Mr. McClintock. 
And I will allow my colleague, Ms. Rivera, to address that.
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, I would be happy to talk about that. 
Thank you, Congressman, for that question. The Tamarack Fire is 
one of those challenges that we have when we have hundreds of 
large fires on the landscape, and we are at preparedness 
levels----
    Mr. McClintock. Wait a second. Wait a second, though. This 
was a fire that could have been put out with one aerial drop 
and maybe a ground crew. Instead, you allowed it to explode to 
70,000 acres that cost us millions and millions of dollars to 
combat and did enormous damage not only to the forest but the 
surrounding communities. Why aren't we getting on top of these 
fires when they first break out, when we can easily put them 
out, rather than waiting for them to explode? And this is not 
the first time this has happened. This happened over and over 
again. This happened on Park Service land as well. We had the 
Reading Fire about a decade ago. Same thing. On the very same 
fire footprint as the Tamarack, we had the Woodfords Fire about 
30 years ago. Same thing exactly. Small fire breaks out. In 
that case, the local fire department came to put it out and 
were told to go away by the Forest Service.
    This is insane. Please tell me that you are dropping that 
policy and that you will be vigorously attacking fires on their 
initial discovery rather than waiting for them to become these 
massive conflagrations.
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, Congressman. We put out 98 percent of 
fires on initial attack. And the Tamarack Fire is one of those 
2 percent that we were not able to do that because we were 
resource-limited, and----
    Mr. McClintock. But you knew about it. You deliberately sat 
on it. And, again, not the first time this has happened. This 
happened over and over again. That was the cause of the 
disastrous Yellowstone Fires in 1988 when the Reagan 
administration rescinded the let-burn policy, and then you put 
it back after the Reagan administration left.
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, let me assure you, Congressman, we 
do not have the let-burn policy in the Forest Service. We 
manage every fire. We monitor every fire.
    Mr. McClintock. Can you assure me that henceforth, upon 
discovery of a fire, you will order an aggressive initial 
attack?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, Congressman. That is what we do.
    Mr. McClintock. All right. Thank you. Next question 
involves the management of our forests. We used to send 
foresters out every year to mark off surplus timber. We then 
auctioned that timber off for bid. We actually made money on 
those timber auctions. Logging companies paid us to come in to 
remove that excess timber and 25 percent of those revenues went 
to the local communities directly affected. The other 75 
percent went back to the Forest Service for forest management.
    We passed laws in the 1970s that made the thinning of our 
forests endlessly time-consuming and ultimately cost-
prohibitive. The millions of dollars that it takes to do the 
environmental impact reports now costs more than the value of 
the timber. So, not a lot is getting done. We got a categorical 
exclusion from NEPA for the Tahoe Basin for projects up to 
10,000 acres. The Forest Service has been using that very, very 
effectively. I think that is what saved South Lake Tahoe from 
the Caldor Fire. When that fire hit the treated portion under 
that new authority, which was assigned in 2016, the fire lay 
down. They were able to extinguish it before it took out the 
city of South Lake Tahoe. Can't we do that throughout the 
Forest Service system? It is a proven success. Why don't we 
extend that throughout the Forest Service?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congressman. And 
to your question, yes. We can do that across the National 
Forest System lands. We are using a number of category 
exclusions, if you will. And you----
    Mr. McClintock. What I have been told, this categorical 
exclusion takes the review process from 4 years down to less 
than 4 months. Takes the EIR from about 800 pages down to about 
20 pages and actually gets stuff done. Will the Forest Service 
support legislation to extend this provision across all Forest 
Service lands?
    Mr. Ferebee. The Agency is currently using them to the 
degree that we absolutely can. We would support working with 
you on any future legislation that enhances the tools that we 
have to really address the needs we have when it comes to 
managing the national forest.
    Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair 
will now recognize Ms. Tlaib from Michigan for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you all for the 
witnesses for today that are here. One of the things I want to 
talk about is how our agencies are implementing Justice40 in 
delivering benefits to disadvantaged communities, or what I 
call my frontline communities like the ones I represent, 
because I think many folks across our nation will wonder how 
wildlife management and ecosystem restoration impacts them.
    Mr. Rupert, I will start with you. How is the Department of 
the Interior incorporating Justice40 Initiative into 
consideration of certain projects using the infrastructure 
funding?
    Mr. Rupert. Yes, thank you. In Interior, up to this point, 
as we have begun to focus work on implementing infrastructure, 
we have taken it program by program, so many different 
provisions of infrastructure crossing multiple programs in 
Interior, looking at programs for opportunities to highlight 
and promote Justice40. And then as the Administration has been 
working at an all-of-government level to develop support and 
tools, and we will interact with those tools as they come 
online to provide that focused priorities for it.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you. Mr. Ferebee or Ms. Hall-Rivera, is 
the Forest Service also incorporating the Justice40 Initiative 
into their 10-Year Wildlife Plan in infrastructure 
implementation?
    Mr. Ferebee. Yes, we are. Today, we have identified cover 
programs within our organization. We have identified priorities 
that would benefit tribes, underserved communities, and 
disadvantaged communities as well and have developed indicators 
to help us track how we are progressing in that arena and, as 
well, develop implementation plan that will help modify how we 
currently show up so that we can serve those communities better 
as we would like.
    Ms. Tlaib. Well, one of my concerns about the 
Infrastructure Bill is that it did strip requirements out of 
the National Environmental Protection Act, NEPA, that will 
fast-track certain projects without full environmental reviews. 
Are you all aware of that?
    Mr. Ferebee. No. I am not--I am not sure, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Tlaib. Well, Mr. Ferebee, the Department of the 
Interior's wildlife spend plan identifies several different 
criterias to inform its work and prioritize infrastructure 
funding, the first of which is a completed National 
Environmental Policy, you know, NEPA compliance. How has NEPA 
worked to protect critical species habitat and conservation 
areas as well as prioritize project work? Just want to show my 
colleagues how important it is.
    Mr. Ferebee. So, the Forest Service has equal criteria, if 
you will, that we are using when it comes to implementing this 
work as it relates to our strategy. One is to ensure that we 
are compliant with NEPA. The other one is we meet the intent of 
the BIL itself. And third, we want to make sure that the work 
that we are looking to invest in aligns with the science that 
we have informing where we should be investing.
    Ms. Tlaib. I know NEPA is important even in frontline 
community like mine. They are building an international bridge 
crossing how NEPA can actually help mitigate some of the issues 
regarding air quality. And I don't know if this is for Mr. 
Ferebee or Ms. Hall-Rivera--But how many projects or acres have 
been completed under NEPA compliance that you are all aware of?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I 
can't give you exact acres or the number of projects. What I 
can assure you is that all the projects that we implement at 
the ground level have met our NEPA compliance requirement.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes. That is what I am afraid of is there are no 
exceptions. So, it is clear to me that our work didn't end with 
the Infrastructure Bill. To any of the witnesses, how would the 
investments in the House-passed Build Back Better Act allow 
your agencies to continue to address climate, wildlife, and 
community needs. Do you believe the investments beyond 
infrastructure might be necessary to achieve desired outcomes?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. We 
are very appreciative of the financial support and the 
provisions within the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And as we 
have indicated, we acknowledge that given the level of 
treatment that is needed in the scale of the issue, we 
acknowledge that the BIL, in and of itself, is a great down 
payment toward achieving that work.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Chairman. I yield.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentlewoman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Rosendale from Montana for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I assure you that 
we in Montana are very concerned about forest management.
    Mr. Neguse. And we welcome you to the Committee.
    Mr. Rosendale. It impacts our air quality, our water 
quality, our economy, and just our way of life. So, it is 
critically important to us. Mr. Rupert and Ms. Hall-Rivera, 
could you tell me how many timber sales in the Montana area or 
the U.S. Forest Service Region 1 are currently stalled due to 
litigation?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. I will take that question, Congressman. I 
don't have that number, but I can ask our team to get that for 
you.
    Mr. Rosendale. And I am assuming that you wouldn't have the 
acreage that that would cover as well?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. No, I don't. But I know that we can easily 
get that information for you.
    Mr. Rosendale. OK. Well, you might be interested to know, 
it took me many months to get that, probably about 6 months to 
be exact. Finally, it was provided to me. In Montana, 27 timber 
sales are currently tied up, totaling 188 million board feet of 
timber. In Region 1, Montana and Idaho combined, that number 
jumps to 41 sales tied up or 438.35 million board feet of 
timber that is being tied up and not being brought to market, 
nor out of the forest to help keep our forests healthy.
    That is approximately 35,162 acres that are tied up in 
litigation in Region 1 completely stalling proper forest 
management. I am glad to see there was funding included in the 
Infrastructure Bill for forest management. But to be completely 
candid with you, that money is going to do squat if it can't be 
spent because all these projects are tied up with litigation. I 
have attended and gone into the field and visited Lubrecht 
Research Lab, which is a forest management operation, and have 
seen the difference between forest that is properly managed 
through mechanical treatment, through fire treatment, through 
both fire and mechanical treatment and forest that has not been 
touched at all.
    And not only does it make for very unhealthy conditions for 
the forests, and the trees themselves are unhealthy, but it 
creates an incredible fire hazard. And these are some of the 
things that are leading to the very fires that are out of 
control that my colleagues here have been talking about. What 
must I do to get the support of you folks sitting here today on 
forest management litigation reform such as the legislation 
that I introduced in H.R. 4579?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congressman. While 
I am not aware exactly what your piece of legislation entails, 
we would be more than happy to work with you. The Agency is 
very interested in having all the tools possible for us to be 
able to address the active management need that we see on the 
landscape to mitigate or induce the kind of wildfires that we 
are experiencing.
    Mr. Rosendale. Again, we know what it requires, proper 
management. We have seen it demonstrated in the field. It is 
not rocket science. No offense. We just need it to be 
implemented. And the only way that we are going to be able to 
implement it is if we have proper litigation reform. And that 
is where I need your support.
    Does the Endangered Species Act have any impact on forest 
management?
    Mr. Ferebee. So, the Endangered Species Act is one of the 
many legal requirements that our agency is obligated to meet 
the intent of. And our agency is about the sustainability of 
all of our natural resources. That includes species that are 
covered under that Act.
    Mr. Rosendale. I understand that. But, again, does the 
Endangered Species Act negatively impact the proper management 
of our forests?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I 
can't say that it negatively impacts. I would just say it is a 
condition of which we have to consider in the management of our 
activities when we are planning projects.
    Mr. Rosendale. So, the habitat that is located in a healthy 
forest, we certainly would be able to manage the wildlife 
population as well. If we have a forest that is not properly 
managed, we have fuels build up. We have a wildfire take place. 
It completely sterilizes the soil because it has burned so hot. 
It then creates problems with erosion, water quality problems, 
fisheries problems. Again, I will ask--Do you not think that 
that negatively impacts the habitat and the very species that 
we are trying to preserve?
    Mr. Ferebee. Thank you for the question, again, 
Congressman. The way that you described that lastly, I would 
say, yes, we have experienced a number of post-fire situations 
that is not conducive to resilient landscapes or habitat for 
wildlife.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Chair, I see that my time has expired, 
so I would yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Gohmert, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for 
being here today. Last year, we sent a letter to the Forest 
Service asking about boat ramps on Lake Sam Rayburn in my 
district, which I am sure you are familiar with the history of 
the national forests, but local/state governments were assured 
that by providing land that could not be taxed and would not be 
used for commercial purposes that the U.S. Forest Service would 
share 25 percent of the proceeds of the timber harvesting with 
the local government.
    Back in the 1980s, for example, Sabine County had $1.6 
million as their shared portion. Very rural county. But in 
recent years, it has dropped as low as 60,000. And then with 
the so-called stewardship program, I know, according to Mr. 
Westerman, it has been helpful in Arkansas. But in East Texas, 
it seems to be used to hide money from being shared with local 
government.
    We run into problems like, where a culvert is, a bridge 
goes down. A culvert becomes impassible. But it is as if the 
U.S. Forest Service likes the area being unable to traverse for 
local residents. We have boat ramps that have ceased being 
used. And it took over 4 months, but we got a response: ``boat 
ramp is not sustainable from a structural or financial 
perspective'' and that ``using volunteers is neither safe nor 
practical''.
    And in case you are not familiar, we don't have any 
sequoias or redwoods. We have pine trees. And newer pine trees 
actually sequester more carbon, if you are not familiar. So, it 
ends up being one of our best renewable resources--20, 25 
years, you plant pine trees, and they are back in East Texas. 
They can be harvested. The older they get, the less carbon they 
sequester.
    But it just seems that, regardless of the administration, 
the U.S. Forest Service is doing a great disservice to East 
Texas and other places. The trees are not being harvested, the 
resources not being renewed. And we had a deputy in San 
Augustine County chase a criminal into the national forest but 
stopped in order to get permission. And he was in hot pursuit. 
I think it was about 5 days later, after lots of screaming by a 
lot of us, that someone was sent from Arizona to come check 
things out and was surprised to find the most sophisticated 
marijuana growing area that they had ever experienced.
    But because of the lack of assistance from U.S. Forest 
Service aiding and abetting the getaway of those who 
constructed the marijuana growing service, they got a little 
ahead of the game of it being legalized. They were free to go 
to some other national forest and again continue to engage in 
criminality. So, we haven't gotten a whole lot of help, nor a 
lot of cooperation, out of the U.S. Forest Service.
    And if we get an Administration so amenable, I am going to 
be pushing hard to get land given back to local communities so 
that they don't continue in their struggle just to survive 
because the U.S. Forest Service has become so blase about doing 
what it originally agreed to do. I realize I have 10 seconds 
left and haven't arrived at a question. But I wanted to make 
sure that you knew how unpalatable the U.S. Forest Service has 
become in East Texas. And we are hoping that we can bring it to 
an end unless you turn about very quickly in helping the local 
area instead of hurting it. I yield back.
    Mr. Neguse. The gentleman yields back. I give the witnesses 
an opportunity to respond if they would like to. But if not, we 
will proceed.
    Mr. Gohmert. I didn't realize I made a question there. So, 
yes, thanks for extending my time.
    Mr. Neguse. My pleasure.
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. I would like to respond because I think 
the points that you brought up are very important, Congressman. 
And I would say all of our leaders in the field pride 
themselves on their relationships that they have with their 
state and local partners. But it is not always perfect, and we 
can do better. So, it is important that we heard your concerns, 
and I can commit that we will work on those in Texas. I think 
our district rangers and our forest supervisor there are always 
going to be wanting to improve their relationships. I can 
assure you of that.
    Mr. Gohmert. Would you understand when someone is in hot 
pursuit, taking 5 days to give permission is really not 
helpful, right? And when you shut down the boat ramps that 
would help provide fishing tournaments, things like that, some 
source for the economy, and you continue to shut them down, 
shut down camping areas, that is not what the locals consider 
to be extremely cooperative. You get that, right?
    Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes. I understand what you are saying, 
Congressman.
    Mr. Gohmert. Well, we would love to hear a better response 
than, no, it's just not going to work out.
    Mr. Neguse. Aren't you glad that I gave the witnesses an 
opportunity to respond?
    Mr. Gohmert. I appreciate it.
    Mr. Neguse. Before we conclude with this witness panel, are 
there any other Members who have not had their 5 minutes and 
who wish to seek recognition to ask questions now. Do we have 
anybody virtually?
    Hearing none, I want to thank the witnesses for their 
valuable testimony and the Members for their questions. Look, 
these are tough issues and so no shortage of very nuanced and 
difficult questions and, I think, thorough and insightful 
answers. We appreciate the partnership. And we will look 
forward to continuing to work with the Administration on these 
issues and more.
    The members of the Committee may have some additional 
questions for the witnesses. And we will ask you to respond to 
those in writing. Under Committee Rule 3(o), members of the 
Committee must submit witness questions within 3 business days 
following this hearing. And the hearing record will be held 
open for 10 business days for these responses.
    If there is no other further business, without objection, 
the Subcommittee stands adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

            [ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]

                        Statement for the Record
                         J. Morgan Varner, PhD
                          Director of Research
                              Tall Timbers

    On behalf of Tall Timbers, we thank the Committee for its interest 
in prescribed fire. Management of fire in our nations forests and 
rangelands is a tremendous challenge as we face the complications of a 
changing climate and past land management that failed to recognize the 
benefits of fire. We hope that we can work with the Committee to find 
solutions to use prescribed fire as a way to reshape and restore our 
forests for reduced wildfire risk and a more resilient future.
    Tall Timbers is a non-governmental research organization with over 
60-years of experience using prescribed fire science to solve land 
management problems. From the 1960s through today, we provide key 
leadership for proactive use of prescribed fire and research on how 
fires behave, what their ecological effects are, and how society 
interacts with fire-prone landscapes. Our unique perspective is rooted 
in a long-term practice of working cooperatively to conduct research 
and apply it to over a one million acres through a network of land 
managers in the Southeast US. Our mission is to foster exemplary land 
stewardship through research, conservation and education.
    As the Director of Research at Tall Timbers, I see firsthand every 
day how we can prevent extreme fire using controlled burns. I also 
serve on California's Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force and share 
guidance on how controlled burns can enhance firefighting efforts in 
the west. In a time when there is no longer a fire season, all tools 
should be deployed, and we are pleased that the Forest Service and 
Department of Interior were given greater resources under the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to address fire issues.
    Tall Timbers is a long-time partner of the Forest Service, 
Department of Interior and other federal agencies. We are working with 
the Forest Service and Department of Interior on prescribed fire best 
practices and are awaiting guidance on how the $500 million for 
prescribed fire as authorized in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will 
be implemented.
    We also were pleased to hear that the members of the wildfire 
commission will be announced in the coming months. Hearing perspectives 
from outside the federal government is extremely helpful in providing a 
holistic view on what must be accomplished across the country to keep 
people safe and our ecosystems intact.
    Workforce training is another critical piece of the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law that we are watching closely. We were excited to see 
that the Forest Service and Office of Personnel Management will develop 
a ``wildland firefighter'' occupational series. This is vital to ensure 
wildland firefighters have the tools they need to operate in at times 
life-threatening settings. Increasing the prescribed fire workforce via 
investments in training capacity and technologies for federal and state 
agencies and private land managers is critical to overcoming the 
backlog of lands in need of restoration and fuels management.
    And finally, funding for data science is an ongoing critical need. 
Wildland fire research is a major need moving forward to enable the 
increases in pace and scale of prescribed fire and managed wildfires 
that federal land management agencies have prioritized. Increasing the 
budget to $20 million for the multi-agency Fire and Smoke Model 
Evaluation Experiment (FAASME) will have a big impact on advancing the 
fire and smoke models that fire managers need for both prescribed fire 
and wildland fires.
    We applauded the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's focus on wildfire 
and believe these funding increases and increased engagement 
opportunities for non-government stakeholders will create long-lasting 
benefits. Tall Timbers thanks this Subcommittee for its continued 
interest in wildfire management and providing transparency throughout 
implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Please view Tall 
Timbers as a partner on policy related to wildfire management.
    Thank you for the opportunity to contribute this feedback.

                                 ______
                                 

[LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE COMMITTEE'S 
                            OFFICIAL FILES]

Letter from Jessica Turner, President at Outdoor Recreation 
Roundtable, expressing support for the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act dated April 5, 2022.

                                 [all]