[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 4235, H.R. 4353, H.R. 4717,
H.R. 5582, H.R. 5665, H.R. 6070,
AND DISCUSSION DRAFT OF H.R. ____,
``BIOCHAR ACT''
=======================================================================
LEGISLATIVE HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LANDS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-77
__________
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
54-102 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Chairman
DOUG LAMBORN, CO, Vice Chairman
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Member
Doug Lamborn, CO Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Tom McClintock, CA CNMI
Paul Gosar, AZ Jared Huffman, CA
Garret Graves, LA Ruben Gallego, AZ
Aumua Amata C. Radewagen, AS Joe Neguse, CO
Doug LaMalfa, CA Mike Levin, CA
Daniel Webster, FL Katie Porter, CA
Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM
Russ Fulcher, ID Melanie A. Stansbury, NM
Pete Stauber, MN Mary Sattler Peltola, AK
John R. Curtis, UT Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY
Tom Tiffany, WI Kevin Mullin, CA
Jerry Carl, AL Val T. Hoyle, OR
Matt Rosendale, MT Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Lauren Boebert, CO Seth Magaziner, RI
Cliff Bentz, OR Nydia M. Velazquez, NY
Jen Kiggans, VA Ed Case, HI
Jim Moylan, GU Debbie Dingell, MI
Wesley P. Hunt, TX Susie Lee, NV
Mike Collins, GA
Anna Paulina Luna, FL
John Duarte, CA
Harriet M. Hageman, WY
Vivian Moeglein, Staff Director
Tom Connally, Chief Counsel
Lora Snyder, Democratic Staff Director
http://naturalresources.house.gov
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LANDS
TOM TIFFANY, WI, Chairman
JOHN R. CURTIS, UT, Vice Chair
JOE NEGUSE, CO, Ranking Member
Doug Lamborn, CO Katie Porter, CA
Tom McClintock, CA Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Russ Fulcher, ID Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Pete Stauber, MN CNMI
John R. Curtis, UT Mike Levin, CA
Cliff Bentz, OR Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM
Jen Kiggans, VA Mary Sattler Peltola, AK
Jim Moylan, GU Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio
Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio
----------
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Tuesday, November 14, 2023....................... 1
Statement of Members:
Tiffany, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Wisconsin......................................... 2
Neguse, Hon. Joe, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Colorado................................................ 11
Panel I:
Lamborn, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado.......................................... 4
Amodei, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nevada............................................ 5
Kim, Hon. Young, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California.............................................. 6
Salinas, Hon. Andrea, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon............................................ 7
Stansbury, Hon. Melanie A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New Mexico.................................... 9
Westerman, Hon. Bruce, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arkansas.......................................... 10
Barr, Hon. Andy, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Kentucky, prepared statement of......................... 62
Statement of Witnesses:
Panel II:
Oshiba, Edwin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the
Air Force for Energy, Installations, and Environment,
Department of the Air Force, Washington, DC................ 13
Prepared statement of.................................... 14
Rupert, Jeff, Director, Office of Wildland Fire, U.S.
Department of the Interior, Washington, DC................. 16
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
Hall-Rivera, Jaelith, Deputy Chief of State, Private, and
Tribal Forestry, Forest Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture,
Washington, DC............................................. 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 22
Panel III:
Sherren, Pat, Director, New Product Development and Sales,
Metzler Forest Products, Reedsville, Pennsylvania.......... 40
Prepared statement of.................................... 42
McFall, Hon. Dwayne, Commissioner, District 3, Fremont
County, Colorado........................................... 43
Prepared statement of.................................... 44
Questions submitted for the record....................... 46
Meyer, Jason, Executive Director, White Oak Initiative, Grand
Rapids, Michigan........................................... 47
Prepared statement of.................................... 49
Goldbeck, Janessa, CEO, Vet Voice Foundation, Portland,
Oregon..................................................... 51
Prepared statement of.................................... 53
Goodman, Linda, Former Regional Forester and Forest Service
Job Corps National Director, National Job Corps
Association, Washington, DC................................ 54
Prepared statement of.................................... 56
Topoleski, Jim, Division Chief for Air and Wildland Division,
San Bernardino County Fire Department, Redlands, California 58
Prepared statement of.................................... 60
Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:
Bureau of Land Management, Statement for the Record on H.R.
5665....................................................... 68
LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON H.R. 4235, TO DIRECT THE SECRETARY OF
AGRICULTURE AND THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR TO ESTABLISH A
WILDFIRE TECHNOLOGY TESTBED PILOT PROGRAM, AND FOR OTHER
PURPOSES, ``WILDFIRE TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION, EVALUATION,
MODERNIZATION, AND OPTIMIZATION ACT'' OR ``WILDFIRE TECHNOLOGY
DEMO ACT''; H.R. 4353, TO AMEND PUBLIC LAW 91-378 TO AUTHORIZE
ACTIVITIES RELATING TO CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CENTERS, AND FOR
OTHER PURPOSES, ``CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CENTER ENHANCEMENT ACT
OF 2023''; H.R. 4717, TO AMEND THE HEALTHY FORESTS RESTORATION
ACT OF 2003 WITH RESPECT TO THIRD-PARTY CONTRACTS FOR WILDFIRE
HAZARD FUEL REMOVAL, TO AMEND THE NATIONAL FOREST MANAGEMENT
ACT WITH RESPECT TO THE THRESHOLD FOR ADVERTISED TIMBER SALES,
AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, ``LOCALLY LED RESTORATION ACT OF
2023''; H.R. 5582, TO PROVIDE FOR WHITE OAK RESTORATION, AND
FOR OTHER PURPOSES, ``WHITE OAK RESILIENCE ACT''; H.R. 5665, TO
REQUIRE A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF CERTAIN FEDERAL TRAILS,
CAMPSITES, BOAT DOCKS, AND OUTDOOR RECREATION FACILITIES TO
DETERMINE THE ACCESSIBILITY OPTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH
DISABILITIES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, ``PROMOTING ACCESSIBILITY
ON FEDERAL LANDS ACT OF 2023''; H.R. 6070, TO AMEND THE
MILITARY LANDS WITHDRAWAL ACT OF 1999 TO CLARIFY THE AUTHORITY
OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TO CONDUCT CERTAIN MILITARY ACTIVITIES
AT THE NEVADA TEST AND TRAINING RANGE, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES;
AND DISCUSSION DRAFT OF H.R. ____, TO ESTABLISH DEMONSTRATION
PROJECTS TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION OF
BIOCHAR AND A COMPETITIVE GRANT PROGRAM TO CARRY OUT RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT WITH RESPECT TO BIOCHAR, ``BIOCHAR INNOVATIONS
AND OPPORTUNITIES FOREST CONSERVATION, HEALTH, AND ADVANCEMENTS
IN RESEARCH ACT'' OR ``BIOCHAR ACT''
----------
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Federal Lands
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in Room
1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Tom Tiffany
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Tiffany, Lamborn, Fulcher,
Stauber, Bentz, Westerman; Neguse, Porter, and Peltola.
Also present: Representatives Amodei, Kim; Hoyle, Salinas,
and Stansbury.
Mr. Tiffany. The Subcommittee on Federal Lands will come to
order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the Subcommittee at any time.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to consider seven bills:
a Discussion Draft of H.R. ____, the BIOCHAR Act, it doesn't
have a number, it is a discussion draft; H.R. 4235, Wildfire
Technology Demonstration, Evaluation, Modernization, and
Optimization Act; H.R. 4353, Civilian Conservation Center
Enhancement Act; H.R. 4717, Locally Led Restoration Act of
2023; H.R. 5582, White Oak Resilience Act; H.R. 5665, Promoting
Accessibility on Federal Lands Act of 2023; and H.R. 6070, to
amend the Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1999 to clarify the
authority of the Department of Defense to conduct certain
military activities at the Nevada Test and Training Range, and
for other purposes.
I ask unanimous consent that the following Members be
allowed to participate in today's hearing from the dais: the
gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Amodei; the gentleman from Kentucky,
Mr. Barr; the gentlewoman from California, Mrs. Kim; and the
gentlewomen from Oregon, Ms. Salinas and Ms. Hoyle.
Without objection, so ordered.
Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at
hearings are limited to the Chairman and the Ranking Minority
Member.
I therefore ask unanimous consent that all other Members'
opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they
are submitted in accordance with Committee Rule 3(o).
Without objection, so ordered.
I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM TIFFANY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN
Mr. Tiffany. Those who understand the magnitude of our
forest health crisis understand it is not a problem the Federal
Government can fix alone. State, tribal, local, and private
partners will play a crucial role in addressing our overgrown,
fire-prone Federal lands.
As my colleague on this Subcommittee, Congressman
McClintock, often likes to say, we have a choice. We can either
carry excess biomass out of our forests or we can burn it out.
In one scenario, we create jobs and sustain rural communities
through wood products. In the latter scenario, we degrade air
and water quality, decimate wildlife habitat, and let rural
economies shut down along with the wood products industry. The
choice is clear, which is why the Subcommittee on Federal Lands
will be considering several pieces of legislation today that
will strengthen the partnership and coordination between
Federal and non-Federal partners.
A key piece of addressing this crisis is creating new
markets for wood products and expanding existing markets.
Between 2000 and 2019, 1,500 mills shut down their operations.
I will repeat that. Between 2000 and 2019, 1,500 sawmills in
the United States of America in the West shut down their
operations. It should come as no shock to us that wildfires
dramatically increased over this same period, as you can see on
the chart behind me.
[Chart.]
Mr. Tiffany. Today, despite the fact that the Forest
Service's mission is to harvest timber under a multiple use and
sustained yield mandate, the agency is failing to meet even its
own modest timber targets. In 2021, the top 10 lumber producers
harvested 17 billion board feet of timber, more than five times
what the Forest Service produced.
One of the bills that would begin to address this problem
is H.R. 4717, the Locally Led Restoration Act, offered by
Congressman Lamborn. This bipartisan bill empowers third-party
contractors to propose their own stewardship contracts, and
requires that at least 10 percent of any project involve the
removal of salvaged timber. This requirement will help address
the enormous amount of hazard trees that have been killed by
wildfires, disease, and insects over the past several years.
H.R. 4717 also raises the cap on timber sales that the
Forest Service can have without undertaking a full competitive
bidding process. This will enable the Forest Service to do
direct sales for small, but still very meaningful, forest
management projects. The positive changes in this bill provide
benefits to rural economies and lead to better forest
management.
Similarly, Congressman Barr's White Oak Resilience Act is
another bipartisan proposal that relies on public-private
partnerships to ensure the longevity of the white oak. White
oak plays a critical role in supporting healthy forest
ecosystems, and is also used to make furniture, flooring, and
perhaps, most famously, barrels for wine and spirits.
Scientists have warned that a looming shortage of white oak is
imminent without intervention for this keystone hardwood
species.
While we need to improve markets for high-value timber, we
must also evaluate solutions for low-value hazardous fuels that
must be removed from our Federal forests. That is why I am
looking forward to hearing more from Chairman Westerman today
on his bipartisan BIOCHAR Act, which would do just that.
Finally, we will consider Representative Young Kim's
Wildfire Technology DEMO Act, which is a well-crafted bill that
will improve the technologies and tools used to combat
wildfires. This bipartisan proposal leverages public-private
partnerships to test new and emerging technologies to detect
and suppress wildfires early, which will ultimately reduce fire
suppression costs.
This is a quality slate of serious proposals, and I look
forward to discussing the merits of each today. I hope that,
with today's hearing, we can move away from conversations about
spending endless amounts of deficit dollars to manage our
forests, and instead evaluate the truly novel concept that
active forest management will enhance forest health and boost
local economies.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today,
and I look forward to your testimony.
With that, we are going to go to our first panel. I think
the Ranking Member is in Rules, which it is pretty important
that he be in Rules today.
So, with that, first we will go to Representative Lamborn
to introduce his bill.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DOUG LAMBORN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. Lamborn. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this
important legislative hearing. I want to thank the witnesses on
the next panel for what I am sure will be an enlightening and
helpful dialogue with our members of the Committee and
yourself.
Mr. Chairman, for decades our nation has been engaged in a
hands-off approach to managing our natural resources in the
attempt to preserve wilderness. My state of Colorado has been a
pioneer of this approach, boasting over 3.7 million acres of
designated wilderness and another 4 million acres of designated
roadless. And these acres are used for hunting, fishing,
backpacking, and more. Like all Coloradans and residents of
Western states, I appreciate having public land that is
available for these activities.
However, our national forests are facing immediate threats
of devastation if we don't take the wildfire emergency
seriously. That is why I have introduced the Locally Led
Restoration Act, which attempts to establish more efficient
ways of removing dead and dying timber from our forests.
Research shows that many parts of Colorado have four times
more trees today than the forests did historically and
naturally. Not only are these forests overcrowded, but they are
also full of dead and dying trees that cannot be removed. In
fact, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore testified before this
Committee in April and stated that some of the areas of the
country have a tree stand density of 600 to 800 trees.
It is no wonder that in the fall of 2020 Colorado saw the
two largest wildfires in state history: the Cameron Peak Fire
and the East Troublesome Fire. The Cameron Peak Fire burned
over 208,000 acres through two snowstorms, while the East
Troublesome burned over 193,000 acres. What is worse is that
these fires burned so hot that they scorched the ground
underneath, removing nutrients, chemicals, and fungal networks
that allow a forest to regenerate after a fire.
In 1996, my district experienced the Buffalo Creek Fire,
which burned 12,000 acres. The burn scar is still visible on
the mountainside almost 30 years later, as vegetation struggles
to recolonize the land. That land is still to this day unable
to be hunted, fished, or provide timber as the landscape
recovers from the catastrophic fire.
In current forest contracting, timber companies do not have
a formal process to propose or counter-offer a contract from
Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. It is a take-
it-or-leave-it scenario, and many timber companies choose the
leave-it option, due to the rising costs of hauling, the low
price of small diameter timber, and other factors.
Right now, the Pike and San Isabel Forests, which have
already faced massive wildfires, are full of brush piles that
cannot be removed from the forest due to the cost and due to
other punitive regulations. That is why I have introduced H.R.
4717, the Locally Led Restoration Act, as the Chairman
mentioned.
I also want to give kudos to my, until recently, staff
member, Taylor Tougaw, who is now with the Western Caucus. But
he has been instrumental in forming this legislation.
Timber contractors are the only vehicle by which land
management agencies can carry out forest restoration.
Therefore, it is imperative that Congress streamlines the
contracting process to make it more effective for both parties.
My bill would allow timber contractors to propose their own
contracts to land management agencies on the condition that at
least 10 percent of the timber in a contract is salvaged
material.
To be clear, the 10 percent threshold is a floor, not a
ceiling, and can be altered during negotiations if needed.
This bill also increases the threshold with which the
Forest Service must advertise sales from $10,000 to $50,000 to
account for the inflation that has occurred since 1976, almost
half a century ago.
I appreciate the Committee looking into this matter, and I
look forward to forming a strong consensus on this important
issue.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Representative Lamborn. I would now
like to recognize Representative Amodei for 5 minutes on H.R.
6070.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MARK AMODEI, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For your record, Mark
Amodei, representing Nevada's 2nd Congressional District.
H.R. 6070 is a technical amendment to the Military Lands
Withdrawal Act of 1999. It results as the need for the Air
Force in the Nevada Test and Training Range to update their
threat emitter array for realistic training for folks who show
up at Nellis Air Force Base and Creech Air Force Base to
conduct ground attack and air-to-air training to be able to be
some of the best warfighters in the country.
The proposal allows the Air Force, in conjunction with the
land that they train on down there, which also shares some
ground with the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, which is co-
managed with the Fish and Wildlife Service, to construct up to
15 new threat emitter pads.
You may say, what is a threat emitter pad? A threat emitter
pad can be as much as 150 feet by 150 feet to be the home for
electronic measures, countermeasures, that are part of the
training program.
You say, well, how much acreage is that? That turns out to
be, if each of the 15 were constructed and they were all
constructed to the 150-foot-by-150-foot footprint, we are
talking about 7.75 acres of ground that would be impacted.
Well, how do we know how that is going to be in terms of an
environmental sense? Fully subject to NEPA, fully subject to
all the requirements that the Air Force has to comply with in
order to do any construction, even this of a fairly de minimis
nature.
And because of this Committee's foresight in terms of a
Chairman who will remain unnamed, you want to run this through
regular order. So, in order to amend the 1999 Military Lands
Withdrawal Act, this bill is before this Committee that will, I
believe, be subject of an amendment through substitution later
on in your process during your markup to also incorporate two
more measures which say, hey, you have to have some memorandums
with the appropriate resource folks in how you are going to
handle this construction of this potential 7.75 acres regarding
the 15 emitter sites.
So, Mr. Chairman, in view of your Committee's time, and
thank you for your courtesy in allowing me to go, I know you
have a full schedule today, that is the presentation of the
bill. If there are any questions from you or Committee members,
we would be happy to respond.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, thank you, Representative Amodei, and now
I would like to recognize Representative Kim from California
for 5 minutes in regards to H.R. 4235.
Welcome to the Committee.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. YOUNG KIM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mrs. Kim. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, I thank you for
holding this hearing. And I also want to thank Chairman
Westerman and your staff for your leadership on the issues
before us today.
Chairman Westerman participated in a wildfire roundtable in
my district last year, and I am very grateful for your
continued engagement and partnership, and actually taking the
time to come out to California to see for yourself the
challenges that I face every single day in my district.
I represent California's 48th Congressional District that
covers parts of Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties
in Southern California. My district includes unincorporated
areas spanning several canyon communities and the Cleveland
National Forest Trabuco District.
I am proud to see H.R. 4235, the Wildfire Technology
Demonstration, Evaluation, Modernization, and Optimization Act,
or the Wildfire Technology DEMO Act, being considered in
today's hearing. I introduced the Wildfire Technology DEMO Act
after hearing directly from first responders in my district,
including U.S. Forest Service rangers from the Trabuco District
of the Cleveland National Forest and the firefighters from the
Orange County Fire Authority and the San Bernardino County Fire
Protection District.
I also heard from private-sector stakeholders developing
innovative wildfire technologies like thermal cameras to track
wildfires and heat trigger devices that release fire retardant
hydrogels into the soil and air.
H.R. 4235 aims to improve public-private partnerships in
developing and deploying the next generation wildfire
technology. It directs the Secretaries of the Agriculture and
the Interior to jointly create a 4-year pilot program that
allows private entities developing wildfire technologies to
partner with Federal land management agencies and test their
technologies alongside ongoing hazardous fuel mitigation
activities and training.
The bill allows Federal land management agencies to
communicate key technology needs to private-sector partners,
and it also prioritizes consideration for emerging technologies
including AI, quantum sensing, and augmented reality for
wildfire mitigation.
This bill is a win-win for private entities looking to test
their technologies at scale, and Federal land management
agencies working to deploy emerging technologies to help first
responders address wildfires and keep communities safe. It is
bipartisan, common sense, and does not authorize new funding.
I thank Wildland and Aviation Division Chief Jim Topoleski
from San Bernardino County Fire Protection District for joining
us at this important hearing today. Our local firefighting
agencies in Southern California are at the forefront of
wildfire technology innovation, and serve as a model for
Federal wildfire management efforts. I look forward to hearing
Chief Topoleski's testimony today.
Many of my constituents in California's 48th Congressional
District, especially in canyon communities, are weary of the
increased threat of wildfires, and have felt the damage they
can cause firsthand. We need to ensure that our Federal
wildland firefighters have timely access to the best tools
needed to address this threat.
Thank you for your consideration of H.R. 4235, and I yield
back.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Representative Kim. I will now
recognize Representative Salinas for 5 minutes in regards to
H.R. 4353.
Representative Salinas.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ANDREA SALINAS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Ms. Salinas. Thank you, Chair Tiffany. Thank you for
hosting this bill today. And I want to thank Chair Westerman,
as well Ranking Members Neguse and Grijalva, for their work and
for holding this important hearing.
I appreciate your attention to H.R. 4353, the Civilian
Conservation Center Enhancement Act, which I did introduce with
bipartisan co-leads Representatives Guthrie, Edwards, and my
fellow Oregonian, Representative Hoyle.
For Oregonians, the threat of wildfires is all too real,
and it is only growing more serious across the West. The last
several years have been some of our worst fire seasons on
record; 2020, in particular, was devastating to our state. That
year saw upwards of 1.2 million acres of land and more than
5,000 homes burned in what was an unprecedented and deadly
emergency.
And Oregon is not alone in facing increasingly disastrous
wildfires. Studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration show that wildfires have grown increasingly
intense and widespread over the last decade, causing billions
of dollars of damage and costing us countless lives. It is
clear that Congress must do more to prevent these catastrophic
wildfires, but also to ensure adequate resources and personnel
are available to respond to them.
Since coming to Congress and assuming my role as Ranking
Member of the House Agricultural Committee's Forestry
Subcommittee, it has been my goal to work to increase our
nation's ability to respond to these wildfires. As part of that
goal, I was proud to work in a bipartisan manner to introduce
this bill, the Civilian Conservation Center Enhancement Act.
This legislation takes a number of steps to improve and
expand the wildland firefighting workforce by utilizing
Civilian Conservation Centers, or we call them CCCs, which are
operated by the U.S. Forest Service under Job Corps. CCCs
provide important training and employment opportunities in
natural resources conservation. The forest operates right now
24 CCCs around the country, and we have 3 in Oregon. They
already play an important role in supporting wildland
firefighting activities.
In fact, Job Corps actually estimates that CCC students
provided almost 205,000 hours of support to Federal
firefighters in 2022. This track record is why it is critical
to build on the successes that CCCs have already had.
This legislation would do this through several means. It
directs the Forest Service to create and pilot a specialized
training program for wildland firefighting, including forestry
practices and rangeland management. The Forest Service would
also be directed to conduct an assessment of workforce
shortages and needs at public land agencies and related
agencies in an effort to determine better strategies for
recruitment and workforce expansion, as well as retention.
Further, this legislation would set a firm goal that the
Forest Service hire 300 CCC graduates per year into wildland
firefighting roles or other critical workforce needs. To do so,
the legislation ensures that the Forest Service can provide
signing bonuses to graduates, and that the Forest Service has
direct hiring authority, which they currently do not have, for
graduates of the CCC programs.
The CCC Enhancement Act also benefits CCC graduates
themselves. It ensures that they actually have a clearer career
pathway available to them following graduation. Importantly, it
also clarifies that the Forest Service can pay CCC students for
the work that they are already doing to improve and maintain
Federal lands.
Taken together, the pieces of this legislation will help to
address our wildland firefighting workforce shortage, build on
the successes that we have already seen through these CCCs, and
provide pathways to careers for students seeking to protect and
preserve our nation's natural resources. Quite simply, it is a
critical step in mitigating the harm that increasingly common
and severe wildfires cause.
I will close by once again thanking my co-leads on this
legislation, Congressmen Guthrie, Edwards, Hoyle, as well as
the stakeholders we have worked with to advance this
legislation. I also want to thank Senators Merkley and Daines
for their leadership on this on the Senate side. And finally, I
want to thank one of our Oregonians, Linda Goodman, a respected
former regional forester and former Forest Service Job Corps
Director, for making the trip out here from Oregon to be able
to testify today.
Once again, thank you, Chair Tiffany, for holding this
hearing and considering this important step forward in
addressing wildland firefighting.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, thank you for your testimony,
Representative Salinas. I would now like to recognize
Representative Stansbury in regards to H.R. 5665.
The floor is yours for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MELANIE A. STANSBURY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
Ms. Stansbury. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and good afternoon, everyone. It is wonderful to be here with
you this afternoon. I want to thank our Chairman for holding
this hearing to consider all of the legislation that is on the
docket today, but in particular our bipartisan bill, H.R. 5665,
which is called Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act of
2023.
I also want to extend a welcome to all of our witnesses who
are here today and, in particular, my dear friend, Ms. Hall-
Rivera, who I worked with at OMB many moons ago, when we had
different lives.
And also, I wanted to thank Vote Vets Foundation for being
here today and providing testimony on our bill. This
organization is a non-profit, non-partisan group that works to
strengthen the voices of our veterans. And, of course, this
seems especially apropos as we are coming off of Veterans Day
weekend.
And while we are here and I see some veterans in the
audience, I want to say thank you for your service, for your
sacrifice. Every day is Veterans Day, and we appreciate your
service to our great nation. So, thank you.
I also want to take a moment to thank REI and Hispanics
Enjoying Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors, or what is also
known as ECHO, for supporting our legislation.
And to tell you a little bit about our bill, we introduced
this bill in honor of Public Lands Day and Veterans Day, and
this bill would direct the United States Forest Service and
Department of the Interior to conduct a comprehensive
assessment of accessibility options for trails, campsites,
facilities, and public lands so that all people, regardless of
their physical limitations and abilities, will have access to
our public lands.
More than 45 percent of New Mexico's lands are publicly
owned, from the Cibola National Forest which overlooks my
hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, or the world-class skiing
and recreation of Santa Fe National Forest. These places are
homes to unique heritage and culture that stretches back to
time immemorial, including for our traditional pueblo and
tribal communities, for our Hispano communities who have been
there for countless generations, and all who enjoy these
beautiful public spaces.
These spaces are crucial for connecting between people and
our sacred lands. They provide opportunities for our
communities to inspire stewardship for education, recreation,
health benefits, and, of course, also for cultural activities.
Under the leadership of Secretary Haaland and Secretary
Vilsack, our Federal land management agencies have invested
heavily in the Great American Outdoors Act and the Inflation
Reduction Act to help make our public lands more publicly
accessible. But despite these efforts and the Americans with
Disabilities Act, the ADA, and nationwide efforts by our
Federal agencies to expand access for our family members and
community members who live with disabilities, the reality is
that many of our trails, our beaches, and our campgrounds are
still not available and accessible to everyone.
America's public lands are for everyone, regardless of who
you are and how you access them. This legislation, which I am
co-leading with my fellow bipartisan supporter, Representative
Ciscomani from the great state of Arizona, will help us to
identify those disparities in access and help to take another
critical step forward in making sure that these lands are
accessible to every single American.
So, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Representative Stansbury. I would
now like to turn to the Chairman of the Full Committee, Mr.
Westerman, in regards to his BIOCHAR Act.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRUCE WESTERMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, and thank you
to the witnesses today. It is nice to come to a hearing where
we are talking predominantly about trees. I have always said
that trees are the answer; what is your question? Trees are
something that should be bipartisan. We should all be able to
come here and look at the benefit that trees and forests
provide to us on many different levels, and I look forward to
participating in the hearing and in future markups on these
bills.
There are a couple of bills I am particularly interested in
today, the first one being the BIOCHAR Act.
Biochar may seem like a strange concept for a congressional
hearing, but I think it is something that the more we
understand it, the more we all can get behind it. It is not a
new product. The Incans were making biochar thousands of years
ago in the Amazon, and you can go dig it up today because it
lasts that long when you put it in the soil. You heat wood
without oxygen, you drive off the volatiles which you can
condense into transportation fuels or you can generate
electricity from them. I was actually in a meeting earlier in
my office with a company that is looking to invest a multi
billion dollars in sustainable aviation fuel basically using
the process that you make biochar with.
Biochar can be anywhere from 75 percent to 99.9 percent
pure carbon. The density of carbon in wood is about 45 to 50
percent. This nice wood lectern here has stored carbon in it
from many years ago, when the tree that this wood came from was
performing photosynthesis and storing that carbon in the wood.
The BIOCHAR Act would provide demonstration facilities in
every region of the Forest Service and with the Bureau of Land
Management to look at specific species, specific technology,
and how you apply this biochar to the agriculture in the region
to make the lands more productive.
And what we know about biochar is it is like a sponge in
the soil that holds moisture, it holds nutrients, makes the
moisture and the nutrients available for plant uptake, which
makes your agriculture land more productive. So, we could thin
our overgrown forest to make biochar, have renewable energy and
carbon sequestration, and make agricultural land more
productive, which sounds like multiple wins if we utilize that
technology, not to mention create jobs in rural areas across
the country.
The other bill that we will be talking about today is
Representative Barr's White Oak Act. And as the only forester
in Congress I often get asked, ``What is your favorite tree?''
And I say, if you are talking about hard woods, it is white
oak, or Quercus alba.
Several of us went to the Yale School of Forestry to do a
little field trip up there. And if you look at the emblem for
the School of Forestry, it has a couple of white oak leaves and
acorns on it. It is a very important tree to our country. A lot
of things are made from white oak. It also provides tremendous
wildlife habitat, and it has wood that is unique in that the
grain structure of the wood prevents liquids from going through
and vapors from seeping out. So, if you make bourbon, it has to
be made in a new white oak barrel.
We have a lot of white oak in our country today, but the
problem is it is kind of like our demographics with our human
population. It is getting older, and we don't have enough young
people. We have a lot of big old white oak trees, but we don't
have the new young trees coming on for the future. So, if you
are going to have a problem with forestry, this is more of an
easy one to solve, where you can go in and promote
regeneration, as we call it in forestry, to get more young
white oak trees out there so that we will have great white oak
forests for the future.
I am very excited about that and the other bills that we
have in this hearing that others have talked about. I look
forward to the testimony from all of the panels.
I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. I think we saw a biochar demonstration in
Palau back in August. Thank you for the testimony, Chairman
Westerman.
And now we have Ranking Member Neguse for an opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOE NEGUSE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. Neguse. Good afternoon. Thank you to Chairman Tiffany
for his indulgence and to Members on both sides of the aisle
for participating in today's incredibly important legislative
hearing.
And my apologies on the delay. I was in the Rules
Committee, which was a bit more contentious than this one. It
is good to be back in the Federal Lands Subcommittee hearing.
No fights breaking out, no elbowing or anything like that.
Anyway, we are grateful for, I think, the bipartisan approach
and the collegial approach.
Mr. Tiffany. It is early in the hearing.
Mr. Neguse. It is early in the hearing.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Neguse. But the collegial approach that Chairman
Tiffany and I have been able to establish.
And I will say, and he has heard me say this quite a bit,
but in the 117th Congress when I had the privilege of chairing
this Committee and, of course, serving as Chairman during the
course of the 117th Congress, this Subcommittee was the most
prolific in terms of volume of hearings held for bills, and was
a member services Committee. And, of course, Mr. Fulcher knows
that, having served as the Ranking Member in the prior
Congress. On a bipartisan basis, we produced more legislative
hearings on bills from Members than any other Subcommittee in
the U.S. Congress.
And I will say I am heartened that Chairman Tiffany and, of
course, under the leadership of Chairman Westerman and Ranking
Member Grijalva, have taken a similar approach. And that is, of
course, evidenced by today's hearing with six bills and, of
course, including two Democratic bills, which we are certainly
grateful for.
I would just simply say, with respect to the two bills that
have been introduced by colleagues on my side of the aisle, I
could not be more supportive of both, and grateful to their
respective sponsors for bringing them forward. Of course, that
includes Representative Salinas' bill, H.R. 4353, the Civilian
Conservation Center Enhancement Act of 2023, which represents a
creative response to the call for increased attention towards
fire response, which is something I know she has worked on
quite a bit throughout her career, going back to her time in
the Oregon legislature, and essentially would build staffing
support throughout our national forests in what I think is a
creative approach. So, I am certainly excited about that bill
and hearing the testimony on the same.
Secondly, I am also very excited about the bill that
Representative Stansbury has introduced, again on a bipartisan
basis, H.R. 5665, the Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands
Act of 2023, which, as we have heard, would require the
Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service to
conduct a comprehensive assessment of accessibility options
across the lands under their jurisdiction.
This is something that we hear often about. I say ``we,''
my district, my office. I represent a district that is over 50
percent Federal public lands, larger than nine states, as I
remind my colleagues from the Eastern Seaboard often, and I am
grateful to Representative Stansbury for taking the initiative
to raise this flag on this particular issue, which I think will
inure to the benefit of countless citizens across our country.
So, I hope that we can consider both bills in short order
in the Full Committee and get them to the Floor.
With that, I will yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Representative Neguse. We are now
going to move on to our second panel.
Let me remind the witnesses that under Committee Rules, you
must limit your oral statement to 5 minutes, but your entire
statement will appear in the hearing record.
To begin your testimony, press the ``on'' button on the
microphone.
We use timing lights. When you begin, the light will turn
green. At the end of 5 minutes, the light will turn red, and I
will ask you to please complete your statement.
I would now like to introduce Mr. Edwin Oshiba, Principal
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy, Installations, and
Environment at the Department of the Air Force.
Mr. Oshiba, welcome, and you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF EDWIN OSHIBA, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF THE AIR FORCE FOR ENERGY, INSTALLATIONS, AND ENVIRONMENT,
DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Oshiba. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member
Neguse, and esteemed members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
conducting this hearing to discuss H.R. 6070, a vital bill to
amend the Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1999 to clarify the
authority of the Department of Defense to conduct certain vital
military readiness activities at the Nevada Test and Training
Range, or NTTR.
This hearing is timely. We are nearing the end of this
legislative cycle, and if this legislation is not enacted we
will continue to compromise realistic, mission-oriented
training against our peer adversaries, which puts our nation at
risk.
The NTTR is the Air Force's premier location for training
our warfighters and testing our most advanced weapons
technologies. Every year, the Air Force flies approximately
40,000 sorties on the NTTR, training approximately 12,000 joint
warfighters for combat operations.
Notwithstanding the training value of the NTTR, I want to
assure this Subcommittee that the Department of the Air Force
takes its commitment to conservation, preservation, and
enhancement of natural resources very seriously. The Integrated
Natural Resources Management Plan prepared for the NTTR
demonstrates how the Air Force seeks to achieve these
commitments exemplified by conducting wildlife and vegetation
surveys, performing habitat enhancement and restoration, and
coordinating with the Bureau of Land Management, Nevada
Department of Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the
U.S. Geological Survey.
The range itself has been a vital resource for Air Force
readiness for over 50 years, but it is no longer adequate. The
capabilities and technologies of our adversaries have advanced
to the point where the current constraints on NTTR no longer
allow our warfighters to train as they will need to fight. The
Air Force is currently constrained geographically by other land
uses beyond its control. While the Air Force can simulate
adversary threat systems, it must also provide the realism to
simulate how our pilots may encounter those threats spatially
on the ground. Without that ability, the NTTR will no longer
provide the capability for simulating real-world threat
scenarios that will be encountered.
Having said all of that, I want to make clear that this
bill does not include a geographic expansion of the range or
any transfer of jurisdiction. It simply clarifies certain
military activities that can be conducted in the joint use
areas of the NTTR, a clarity not existing in the 1999 Military
Land Withdrawal Act. These additional military activities are:
the establishment and use of new or existing electronic
tracking and communication sites, to include up to 15 gravel
pads 150 feet by 150 feet to place mobile threat emitters;
maintenance of existing roads to allow access to and periodic
maintenance of those emitters; and emergency response.
H.R. 6070 requires these military activities within the
Joint Use Area on lands under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
primary jurisdiction be discussed and assessed by the
Interagency Committee and the Inter-Governmental Executive
Committees to determine if they may be conducted. Both
Committees were established in the Fiscal Year 2021 National
Defense Authorization Act, and the Air Force is committed to
their success.
It is also important to note the Air Force will comply with
the National Environmental Policy Act and all other
environmental laws before undertaking the additional authorized
activities.
The added flexibility provided in the legislation was
carefully developed in coordination with the Department of the
Interior, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Nevada
Congressional Delegation, and other stakeholders, and will
foster continued collaboration. Without this flexibility, the
Air Force's ability to provide training and testing against
peer adversaries as directed in the National Defense Strategy
would be compromised, and our nation's competitive advantage
would be diminished.
I respectfully request your support of H.R. 6070, and look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Oshiba follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mr. Edwin Oshiba, Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Air Force for Energy, Installations and Environment,
Department of the Air Force
on H.R. 6070
Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and esteemed members of
this subcommittee, thank you for conducting this hearing to discuss
H.R. 6070--a vital bill to amend the Military Lands Withdrawal Act of
1999 to clarify the authority of the Department of Defense (DoD) to
conduct certain vital military readiness activities at the Nevada Test
and Training Range or ``NTTR.'' If not enacted, we will continue to
compromise realistic, mission-oriented training against peer
adversaries to the Department of the Air Force's (DAF) servicemembers.
The NTTR is the Air Force's premier location for training our
warfighters and testing our most advanced weapons technologies. Simply
put, the NTTR represents an irreplaceable national security treasure as
the most advanced test and training range in the world. Every year, the
Air Force flies approximately 40,000 sorties on the NTTR, training
approximately 12,000 warfighters for combat operations.
The NTTR is divided into the North and South Ranges, consisting of
approximately 1.8 and 1.2 million acres, respectively, of withdrawn
land. The Desert National Wildlife Refuge is the largest national
wildlife refuge in the contiguous United States, encompassing nearly
1.6 million acres. About half of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge
overlaps the lands withdrawn for the NTTR--South Range. This overlap
area, commonly referred to as the ``Joint Use Area'', consists of
approximately 846,000 acres. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
exercises primary jurisdiction over 734,000 acres of Desert National
Wildlife Refuge lands within the Joint Use Area and secondary
jurisdiction over the natural and cultural resources within the Air
Force's primary jurisdiction lands (112,000 acres of designated impact
areas) in the Joint Use Area.
As one of the largest federal landowners, the DoD takes its
commitment to conservation, preservation, and enhancement of natural
resources very seriously. The Integrated Natural Resources Management
Plan prepared for the NTTR demonstrates how the Air Force seeks to
achieve these commitments, exemplified by conducting wildlife and
vegetation surveys, performing habitat enhancement and restoration, and
coordinating with the Bureau of Land Management, Nevada Department of
Wildlife, USFWS, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
However, while the range has been a vital resource for Air Force
readiness for over 50 years, it is no longer adequate. The capabilities
and technologies of our adversaries have advanced to the point where
the current constraints on the NTTR no longer allow our warfighters to
train as they will need to fight. A foundational component to ensure
that the NTTR remains at the leading edge of tactical training and
operational test and evaluation of our current and future weapons
systems is ready access to capable range infrastructure. Emitters being
acquired by the DoD/DAF have far greater capabilities to simulate
adversarial threat systems and therefore provide our men and women the
fidelity and realism they need to train as they would fight when called
upon. Adversary threat systems have increased detection distances,
which put our pilots in jeopardy at greater distances from a potential
target or intended mission objective. Our emitters simulate these
capabilities which then teach our pilots how to respond with the
appropriate tactics, techniques, and procedures, and to exploit
aircraft characteristics and capabilities.
As currently configured, the Air Force is constrained
geographically by other land uses beyond its control. While the Air
Force can simulate adversary threat systems in terms of spectrum
attributes, it must also provide the realism to simulate how our pilots
may encounter those threats spatially on the ground. Without that
ability, the fidelity of the training is lost, and the NTTR will no
longer provide the capability for simulating real-world threat
scenarios that will be encountered.
The Air Force supports Representative Amodei's bill, which mirrors
the Administration's Fiscal Year 2024 NDAA proposal as set forth in
section 2844 of H.R. 2670. The Administration's proposal was developed
in close coordination with USFWS, the Department of the Interior, the
Council on Environmental Quality, the Department of the Air Force, the
Department of Defense, and the Office of Management and Budget. It is a
narrow provision which effectively balances the need to modernize the
NTTR while preserving the purposes for which the Desert National
Wildlife Refuge was established.
This bill does not include an expansion of the range or a transfer
of jurisdiction. Rather, this provision clarifies certain military
activities that can be conducted in the joint use areas of NTTR and
clarifies membership on the two committees which advise the Air Force
and the Fish and Wildlife Service regarding their respective management
obligations.
These additional military activities are:
Establishment and use of new or existing electronic
tracking and communication sites, to include up to 15
gravel pads (150 feet by 150 feet) to place mobile
emitters;
Maintenance of existing roads to allow access to emitters
and periodic maintenance; and
Emergency response.
While these activities could be undertaken on land under sole DAF
jurisdiction, to include impact areas within the overlapping area (land
that is within both NTTR and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge), H.R.
6070 requires the additional military activities within the joint use
area on lands under Fish and Wildlife Service primary jurisdiction be
discussed and assessed by the Interagency Committee (comprised of the
DAF & USFWS) and the Intergovernmental Executive Committee (IEC)
(comprised of the DAF, USFWS, state and local governments, tribes, and
the public) to determine if they may be conducted. Those committees
were established in the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization
Act, and the Air Force is committed to their success. It is important
to note, the Air Force will comply with the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) and all other applicable environmental laws before
undertaking the additional authorized activities. Additionally, those
military activities proposed to take place in lands of the joint use
area under the primary jurisdiction of FWS are subject to the National
Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, as amended, and would
require a compatibility determination.
The Desert National Wildlife Refuge is an irreplaceable national
asset. The NTTR too is an irreplaceable national asset. H.R. 6070
leverages the NTTR's continued value to our national security in a
manner which is protective of the Refuge. H.R. 6070 will enable the
NTTR to fully support current or future operational test and training
requirements. The added flexibility provided in the legislation, which
has been developed in coordination with the other departments, will
foster continued collaboration between the Air Force and the USFWS.
Without this flexibility, the Air Force's ability and duty to provide
training and testing against peer adversaries as directed in the
National Defense Strategy would be compromised and our nation's
competitive advantage would be diminished. I respectfully request your
support of H.R. 6070 and look forward to your questions.
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you very much, Mr. Oshiba. I would now
like to introduce Jeff Rupert, Director of the Office of
Wildland Fire at the Department of the Interior.
Director Rupert, welcome back. You have 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JEFF RUPERT, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WILDLAND FIRE,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Rupert. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Tiffany,
Ranking Member Neguse, members of the Subcommittee, and
Chairman Westerman. Thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you this afternoon to provide testimony on the wildland
fire and forest management bills being discussed today.
This legislation provides important tools and authorities
that support the Department of the Interior's ongoing
collaborative efforts to reduce wildfire risk, support wildland
firefighters, and improve the resiliency of our nation's lands.
We appreciate the Subcommittee's interest in making meaningful
progress towards addressing these issues and providing the
support necessary to protect communities, the public, and
wildland firefighters.
Climate change and drought continue to intensify wildfire
activity across the country. This past year, local impacts from
wildfires were devastating. The Maui Fire destroyed the entire
town of Lahaina, with 99 confirmed deaths as of last week. The
Northwest and Southwest also experienced broad regional impacts
and wildfires that destroyed structures, caused mass
evacuations, and disrupted people's lives. Canada experienced
the worst wildfires in its history, and smoke from those
Canadian fires had a substantial impact on our air quality in
the United States for most of the summer.
With the support of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law we
are tackling the climate crisis, working to reduce wildfire
risk, and improving wildfire resiliency in our national lands.
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding supported efforts this
past year to complete over 2.5 million acres of hazardous fuels
treatment on interior lands, a nearly 30 percent increase over
last year. So far this year, BIL funding has also made possible
supplemental pay benefits for more than 4,500 Interior
firefighters.
However, Interior has reached the firefighting pay cliff
that we had hoped to avoid, making supplemental payments using
interim funding and interim authority that is provided in the
current continuing resolution. We need Congress to take action
to permanently fix wildland firefighter pay, otherwise we
anticipate that a significant number of Federal wildland
firefighters will look for work elsewhere. This will leave the
interagency wildland fire community with reduced capacity to
respond to wildfires, and will undermine the progress we have
started to make with increasing fuels reduction work.
Notably, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Wildland Fire
Mitigation and Management Commission submitted its final report
and recommendations to Congress. The Commission recognized the
urgency of addressing wildfire risk by being proactive across
all areas of wildland fire management. Key to the Commission's
work is reducing wildfire risk through collaborative efforts
between tribal, Federal, state, local, and private partners.
H.R. 4235, the Wildfire Technology Demonstration,
Evaluation, Modernization, and Optimization Act, establishes a
wildfire technology test bed, to pilot a program to improve
wildfire prevention, detection, communication, and mitigation
technologies. The Department supports H.R. 4235, and would like
to work with the sponsor on technical changes to broaden the
participants and technologies identified in the bill.
H.R. 4353, the Civilian Conservation Center Enhancement
Act, establishes centers to train youth in forest and rangeland
management, wildland fire management, and other mission areas.
The bill also establishes a wildland firefighter housing
program. The Department supports the goals of the legislation,
and would like to work with the sponsor on technical changes to
ensure that the interests of the Interior are addressed in the
training and workforce development provisions of the bill.
H.R. 4717, Locally Led Restoration Act of 2023, amends HFRA
to provide public and private entities the opportunity to
propose vegetation removal stewardship contracts. The
Department supports the bill with modifications to clarify the
contract awarding processes.
H.R. 5282, the White Oak Resilience Act, requires
assessment of white oak presence and restoration potential, and
creates white oak regeneration pilot projects on DOI lands. The
Department supports the goals of H.R. 5582, and would like to
work with the sponsor on technical changes.
The Department also recognizes the potential value of
biochar as a tool to help reduce wildfire risk. We look forward
to working with the bill's sponsor on this topic and future
biochar legislation, including the Biochar Innovations
Opportunity for Conservation, Health, and Advancement Research
Act.
Finally, the Bureau of Land Management has submitted a
statement for the record on H.R. 5665, the Promoting
Accessibility on Federal Lands Act. If you have any questions
on that bill, I would be happy to take them back to BLM for a
response.
Thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony on
these bills, and the Department looks forward to continuing to
work with sponsors and this Committee.
That concludes my statement. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rupert follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jeffery Rupert, Director, Office of Wildland
Fire, U.S. Department of the Interior
on H.R. 4235, H.R. 4353, H.R. 4717, H.R. 5582, and Discussion Draft
of H.R. ____, BIOCHAR Act
Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on the
wildland fire management and forest management bills being considered
today. Collectively, this legislation provides important tools,
authorities, and resources that support the Department of the
Interior's (Department) on-going collaborative efforts to reduce
wildfire risk, support wildland firefighters, and improve the
resiliency of our nation's forests, rangelands, and grasslands. We
appreciate the Subcommittee's interest in making meaningful progress
towards addressing these issues and providing the support necessary to
protect communities, the public, and wildland firefighters from the
devastation of wildfires.
Climate change, drought, and invasive weeds continue to intensify
wildfire activity. According to the National Interagency Coordination
Center, during this past year more than 50,000 wildfires burned over
2.5 million acres. While the total number of wildfires exceeded the 10-
year average of 49,830 wildfires, the total number of acres burned was
well below. Nevertheless, we saw significant wildfire activity in
several geographic areas of the country, including the Southern and
Southwest Geographic Areas, that was more consistent with the 10-year
average trends. The peak deployment of federal wildland firefighting
personnel totaled more than 20,400 personnel in late August, and
overall resource availability continued to be a challenge, including
firefighters and aerial assets during peak periods.
The Federal interagency wildland fire management community
supported our Canadian partners who experienced their worst wildfire
season on record. A total of 45.7 million acres of land burned
throughout their country, which is more than six times the 10-year
average of acres burned in the United States. Under our mutual wildfire
assistance agreement with Canada, the United States deployed nearly
2,500 wildland fire fighting personnel to Canada, which was in
Preparedness Level 5 consecutively from early May to September.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provides a once-in-a-
generation investment in wildland fire management that is helping to
tackle the climate crisis and improve the wildfire resiliency of our
nation's lands. To date, the Department has allocated a total of more
than $640 million in BIL funding to address wildfire risk on Federal
lands. These investments support our efforts to increase the pace and
scale of fuels management projects. This past year, the Department
completed a total 2.5 million acres of treatments, which is a 30
percent increase over last year's treatment level. Maintaining these
accomplishments will require a commitment to a long-term, sustained
investment.
Additionally, BIL funding supported $126 million in supplemental
pay for wildland firefighters. In fiscal year 2023, a total of 4,550
Department wildland firefighters have benefited from these payments.
However, the Department has reached the firefighter ``pay cliff'' and
is now funding the supplemental payments using authority and funding
provided for in the current Continuing Resolution, which runs through
November 17. The Administration supports a long-term solution to
firefighter pay and the legislative proposals that were submitted to
Congress with the Fiscal Year 2024 President's Budget to permanently
address this issue. Unless Congress takes action, we anticipate that a
significant number of federal wildland firefighters will leave the
workforce and look for work elsewhere.
Finally, the BIL authorized Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management
Commission recently finalized and submitted its report to Congress. The
report includes a total of 148 recommendations that are intended to
foster collaborative efforts to improve all facets of wildland fire
management and solutions relevant to all levels of government,
including local, state, Federal, and Tribal and other public and
private entities. The Commission's recommendations recognize the
urgency of addressing wildfire risk through partnerships and cross-
boundary actions; being proactive in pre- and post-fire activities;
expanding the use of prescribed fire and cultural burning; addressing
wildland firefighting workforce reforms; and investing in training,
research, development, and technology. A number of the bills being
considered today help advance several of the key recommendations that
are included in the Commission's report.
H.R. 4235, Wildfire Technology Demonstration, Evaluation,
Modernization, and Optimization Act
H.R. 4235, the Wildfire Technology Demonstration, Evaluation,
Modernization, and Optimization Act, requires the Secretaries of the
Interior and Agriculture to establish a wildfire technology testbed
pilot program to improve wildfire prevention, detection, communication,
and mitigation technologies. We appreciate the sponsors' support for
real-time technology application testing and recognition of the
important role that federal agencies and existing interagency wildland
fire coordinating groups play in facilitating the use and advancement
of new technologies.
The Department supports the goals of H.R. 4235 but would like to
work with the sponsors on technical modifications to the bill. These
include expanding the list of ``covered agencies'' identified in
Section 2(a)(1) to include other science-based organizations. For
example, the U.S. Geological Survey is actively engaged in a number of
technological areas that are referenced in the bill, including advanced
computing; analytics; artificial intelligence; remote sensing;
processing and sensor technologies; and dashboard and other advanced
decision-support technologies.
Additionally, the Department recommends adding pre- and post-
wildfire activities, such as environmental and fuels treatment
monitoring and post-wildfire assessments and monitoring to the list of
key technology priorities that are included in section 2(c)(2). Also,
the priority for testing emerging technologies should not be
unnecessarily restricted to those entities identified in Section 2(e).
Finally, the Department recommends providing additional time to
complete the initial report considering the staffing requirements and
the time necessary to consider various technological needs and to
solicit proposals from partners.
H.R. 4353, Civilian Conservation Center Enhancement Act of 2023
H.R. 4353, the Civilian Conservation Center Enhancement Act, would
authorize the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to establish
Civilian Conservation Centers in alignment with the Job Corps
provisions of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The centers
would train disadvantaged youth in forest and rangeland management,
wildland fire management, and other mission specific areas. Each agency
would be required to hire 300 graduates annually to contribute to
wildland firefighter and other workforce needs, provide for a signing
bonus, and authorize direct hire authority for program graduates. H.R.
4353 would also establish a housing pilot program for wildland
firefighters and other employees.
The Department supports the goals of H.R. 4353 but would like to
work with the sponsor of the legislation on technical changes to the
bill. These include modifications to section 303 to ensure that the
pilots specifically advance the mission of the Department of the
Interior and that the Department maintains involvement in the
development of the curricula and course offerings that are the focus of
the experimental research and demonstration pilots. The Department also
recommends that pre- and post-wildfire activities be included in the
list of curricula and courses. This is critical to ensuring that the
workforce and program needs that are unique and essential to the
Department are integrated into the pilots.
In addition, the Department would welcome the opportunity to work
with the sponsor on provisions regarding signing bonuses, pay setting,
and recruitment goals. Finally, the Department recognizes the important
role that youth have in developing the next generation of federal
employees and works collaboratively with the Office of Personnel
Management to assess the needs for tools like direct hire authority
that promote efficient hiring for wildland fire management.
H.R. 4717, Locally Led Restoration Act of 2023
H.R. 4717 amends the Healthy Forests Restoration Act to provide a
private person, or other public or private entity, with the opportunity
to propose stewardship contracts to remove vegetation and requires that
10 percent of the timber covered by the contract is salvage--including
wildfire kill, beetle kill, and dead or dying organic material. Under
the bill, the BLM and the Forest Service are required to solicit
proposals annually for the salvage-related stewardship contracts and
have the authority to either accept or deny proposals within 120 days.
Further, contracts must conform to resource management plans and forest
plans and may not be carried out within National Wilderness
Preservation System lands, inventoried roadless areas, or any area
where removal of vegetation is prohibited by Federal statute. The BLM
defers to the USDA regarding the bill's provisions affecting the
management of lands under their jurisdiction.
Generally, the BLM either advertises a solicitation for stewardship
contracts or publishes a Notice of Funding Opportunity for stewardship
agreements. H.R. 4717 would provide an additional path to stewardship
contracting proposals. The Department supports the goal of the bill to
promote broader use of the stewardship contracting authority and would
like the opportunity to work with the sponsor on modifications. For
example, we recommend modifications to define the term ``best value,''
clarify whether the Department is intended to award the contract only
to the proposing entity and extend the exclusion of contracts to lands
in the National Landscape Conservation System.
H.R. 5582, White Oak Resilience Act
H.R. 5582, the White Oak Resilience Act, would require the
Secretary of the Interior to assess the presence of white oak on land
under the Department's jurisdiction and the potential to restore white
oak forests on such land. The bill would also require the Secretary to
conduct five pilot projects on DOI lands to restore and regenerate
white oak. The Department defers to the Department of Agriculture with
respect to land under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service.
White oaks provide ecological benefits as part of complex,
functioning ecosystems, and the Department supports the goals of H.R.
5582, but would like to work with the sponsor of the legislation on
technical amendments to the bill. The Department recommends the
addition of Tribal representation to the White Oak Restoration
Initiative Coalition established in Section 2 of the bill and revision
of Section 5 of the legislation to broaden funding availability to
include the Department of the Interior. The Department also recommends
extending the authority contained in Section 6 to authorize Civilian
Conservation Centers to provide assistance in carrying out
reforestation work on Department of the Interior lands. Additionally,
the Department recommends that the sponsor consider addressing factors
that may be impacting the health and resiliency of white oak
ecosystems, such as invasive species, disease, changing climate
conditions, and fragmentation of forest land, and avoid creating white
oak monocultures which could negatively impact biodiversity. The
Department also notes there are several species of white oak. There may
be a benefit to clarifying which species of white oak the bill is
intended to cover so that the Department can prepare to take the
appropriate restoration actions.
Discussion Draft of H.R. ____, Biochar Innovations and Opportunities
for Conservation, Health, and Advancements in Research Act
(BIOCHAR Act)
The Department notes its strong preference to testify on bills
after they have been introduced. We are providing the following
preliminary comments on the bill, but the Department would like to
preserve the opportunity to submit additional technical input on the
bill after it is introduced, if necessary.
The BIOCHAR Act discussion draft directs USDA and DOI to establish
demonstration projects on Forest Service and BLM-managed public lands
to support the development and commercialization of biochar. It also
authorizes a competitive grant program to carry out research and
development.
Biochar is created when plant materials--such as wood, bark,
switchgrass and the like--generally referred to as ``biomass''--are
heated in a low or no oxygen atmosphere. Biomass resulting from fuels
reduction treatments or logging activities can be used to produce
biochar which can then be used to enrich soil and sequester carbon that
would otherwise be released into the atmosphere if biomass were left
aboveground to decompose, or if it were burned.
The BLM has explored uses for biochar as early as 2012 through an
agreement with Utah State University, Utah Biomass Resources Group.
More recently, in 2023, the BLM and Forest Service generated biochar
from otherwise unusable biomass resulting from the 2020 Holiday Farm
Fire in Oregon, and continue to study how biochar can be used to
benefit soil as well as the cost of generating biochar relative to
other biomass use alternatives. The Department is open to further
research regarding developments of biochar technology and efforts to
improve cost efficiency of its use.
Conclusion
Thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony on these
important bills. The Department looks forward to continuing to work
with the sponsors and the Committee on these important wildland fire
management and forest management bills.
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Director Rupert. I now recognize
Ms. Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Deputy Chief of State, Private, and
Tribal Forestry at the U.S. Forest Service.
Deputy Chief Hall-Rivera, you have 5 minutes. Welcome back.
STATEMENT OF JAELITH HALL-RIVERA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STATE,
PRIVATE, AND TRIBAL FORESTRY, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPT. OF
AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you, sir. Chairman Tiffany, Ranking
Member Neguse, members of the Subcommittee and Full Committee,
thank you for this opportunity to provide the perspective of
the USDA Forest Service on six of the public lands bills under
consideration today. I am Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Deputy Chief of
State, Private, and Tribal Forestry in the USDA Forest Service.
The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of land for
multiple uses and benefits, provides technical and financial
assistance to state and private forestry agencies, and is the
largest forestry research organization in the world. The bills
that I am here to testify on today vary in specifics, but are
trying to help the Forest Service tackle natural resource
challenges, strengthen work with communities and partners, and
equitably serve all people of America. I look forward to
discussing these bills with you today.
H.R. 5582, the White Oak Resilience Act, would establish
activities to provide for white oak restoration coordinated by
a coalition of public, state, private, and non-governmental
organizations. USDA has been heavily involved in white oak
restoration work with many partners over the years, and
supports the establishment of this coalition, as well as the
intent of this bill to promote white oak restoration. We look
forward to working with the Subcommittee and bill sponsors on
technical assistance to accomplish the goals of the bill.
H.R. 4353, the Civilian Conservation Center Enhancement Act
of 2023, supports specialized training programs focused on
forestry and rangeland management, wildland firefighting, and
topics related to our mission. The provisions in this bill
support the Administration's priorities in wildland fire
management and workforce development. It would significantly
expand our capacity to train crews and interns engaged through
partnerships, as well as Job Corps participants in support of
workforce development efforts and hiring. USDA looks forward to
working with Congress on some technical changes to further
support our workforce capacity and development.
H.R. 5665, Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act of
2023, would require USDA to complete a comprehensive assessment
of various outdoor recreation facilities that we manage to
determine the accessibility of such facilities for individuals
with disabilities. USDA strongly supports the intent of H.R.
5665, and would like to work with the bill's sponsor and the
Subcommittee on technical improvements to clarify the scope of
the bill and address our concerns with the timelines it sets
for completing the assessment.
H.R. 4235, the Wildfire Technology DEMO Act, would require
USDA and the Department of the Interior to establish a pilot
program for new and innovative wildfire prevention, detection,
communication, and mitigation technologies within 60 days after
the date of enactment. Much of what is directed in this bill is
already in the works at the Forest Service, another Federal
agency. USDA supports the intent of this bill, and looks
forward to working with the Subcommittee and bill sponsors on
technical assistance to accomplish the goals of the bill.
H.R. 4717, Locally Led Restoration Act of 2023, amends the
Healthy Forest Restoration Act to allow private persons or
other public or private entities to propose stewardship
contracting projects under the Stewardship End Result
Contracting program.
This bill also adjusts the threshold above which the
Secretary must advertise timber sales. For low value material
without good markets, raising the sale threshold enables the
agency to do more direct sales and have more tools in our
toolbox to complete forest health and fire risk reduction
treatments, and we look forward to working with the
Subcommittee to address some concerns in the bill that are
noted in our testimony so that we can meet our shared goals to
expand the use of stewardship contracting and increase the pace
and scale of our forest health treatments.
We appreciate the Subcommittee's efforts to expand and
enhance our authorities and work to reduce wildfire risk. We
look forward to working with you, and I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hall-Rivera follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Deputy Chief, State, Private
and Tribal Forestry, U.S. Department Of Agriculture--Forest Service
on H.R. 4235, H.R. 4353, H.R. 4717, H.R. 5582, H.R. 5665, and
Discussion Draft of H.R. ____, ``BIOCHAR Act''
Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to present the views of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, regarding
various Federal land management bills. USDA defers to the U.S.
Department of the Interior (DOI) as to the effects of these bills on
any DOI bureaus and the Federal lands under their jurisdiction.
H.R. 5665, ``Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act of 2023''
The Forest Service is committed to equitable access for the
complete range of recreation opportunities for all Americans, in
alignment with Executive Order 13950, ``Advancing Racial Equity and
Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.''
This work includes integrating accessibility into the complete range of
recreation opportunities it offers while protecting natural resources
and settings so that all people, including people who have disabilities
have the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors. Those with permanent
disabilities are eligible for a free, lifetime pass to National Public
Recreational Lands, which covers entrance fees to more than 2,000
sites, including national forests and grasslands. The Forest Service
provides an Interactive Visitor Map which is a searchable resource for
accessible sites throughout the National Forest System, including more
than 4,500 miles of trails on national forests that comply with the
Forest Service Trail Accessibility Guidelines. With guidance from its
National Accessibility Program, the Forest Service implements national
recreation accessiblity law, policy standards, and procedures,
including implementation of the Architectural Barriers Act, Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act, 7 CFR 15, and other related laws and
regulations. Through Recreation.gov, visitors can more easily identify
locations and amenities that meet their accessibility needs. Our team
actively engages with disability advocacy groups to understand the
needs of the disability community and get their feedback. We are
putting what we have learned to work through better online reservation
site design, contact center improvements, and more accessibility
information available about recreation opportunities on Federal lands.
H.R. 5665, ``Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act of
2023,'' requires a comprehensive assessment by USDA (with respect to
national forests and grasslands) and DOI (with respect to DOI-
administered public lands) of certain Federal trails, campsites, boat
docks, and outdoor recreation facilities to determine the accessibility
of such facilities for individuals with disabilities. The bill makes
this assessment subject to appropriations, specifying that it must be
carried out not later than 180 days after the date on which
appropriations are first made available to carry out this provision.
Existing assessments of trails, campsites, boat docks, and outdoor
recreation facilities may be utilized to meet the bill's requirement.
Additionally, USDA and DOI must make the completed assessment publicly
available on their respective websites.
USDA strongly supports the intent of H.R. 5665 and would like to
work with the bill sponsor and the Subcommittee on technical
improvements to the bill. USDA recommends providing definitions for the
term ``comprehensive assessment'' to further clarify the scope of the
deliverable as well as for ``recreation facilities'' to clarify the
scope of the assessment. USDA has concerns with the 180-day requirement
in which to complete an assessment of this magnitude given that we
manage more than 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands.
We would like to work with the bill sponsor and Subcommittee on a
reasonable completion target once the scope and scale of the assessment
are better defined.
H.R. 5582, ``White Oak Resilience Act''
The White Oak Resilience Act would establish activities to provide
for white oak restoration.
Section 2 of this bill would establish the White Oak Restoration
Initiative Coalition, a voluntary collaborative group of public, State,
private and non-governmental organizations to coordinate white oak
restoration in accordance with the White Oak Initiative Coalition
Charter adopted by the White Oak Initiative Board of Directors.
Restoration activities would include: making program and policy
recommendations with respect to policy changes at the Federal and State
levels to remove impediments to activities designed to improve the
health, resiliency, and natural regeneration of white oak; adopting or
modifying Federal and State policies to increase the pace and scale of
white oak regeneration and resiliency of white oak; enhancing
communication, coordination, and collaboration between forest
landowners to improve the health, resiliency, and natural regeneration
of white oak; addressing research gaps to improve the best available
science on white oak; outreach to forest landowners with white oak or
white oak regeneration potential; and improving the quality and
quantity of white oak tree nurseries.
In addition, the Federal Advisory Committee Act would not apply to
this Coalition, and the Secretary of Agriculture may make funds
available to the White Oak Restoration Initiative Coalition to carry
out this section from the account established pursuant to section
1241(f) of the Food Security Act of 1985 (16 U.S.C. 3841(f)).
The USDA supports the establishment of this coalition. American
white oak is a cornerstone species occupying more than 104 million
acres of public and private forestland across much of the eastern and
central United States. White oak significantly impacts our Nation
economically, culturally, and environmentally. White oak provides
critical habitat and food sources to numerous wildlife and is essential
for industries making forest products such as furniture, flooring,
cabinetry, and barrels for wine and spirits,
USDA has been heavily involved in white oak restoration work with
many partners over the years. With most upland oak acreage in private
ownership spanning across 20 States, one of the unique attributes of
white oak restoration is the active cross boundary collaboration and
participation. This collaboration not only exists with partner
agencies, but with Tribal representatives, industry, and private
landowners as well. Currently, 34+ entities financially contribute to
the long-term sustainability of America's white oak consisting of
dependent industries, trade associations, conservation organizations,
agencies, universities, and nonprofits.
This coalition would add to the tremendous collaborative work
already in place. Of note, USDA is not specifically mentioned as a part
of this coalition. We would welcome the opportunity to participate as a
member of this coalition, and we look forward to working with the
Subcommittee on this legislation.
Section 3 requires the establishment of five pilot projects in
national forests to restore white oak, with at least three to be
carried out on national forests reserved or withdrawn from the public
domain. These pilot projects can be carried out through cooperative
agreements. USDA supports the concept of pilot projects, but we would
like to clarify the intent of requiring three pilots on ``national
forests reserved or withdrawn from the public domain,'' since National
Forest System lands are public lands.
Section 4 requires DOI to carry out an assessment of their land;
USDA defers to DOI on this section.
Section 5 amends the National Forest Foundation Act (16 U.S.C.
583j-7) adding the White Oak Restoration Fund, allowing for funding to
be used on white oak restoration activities, beginning one year after
date of enactment. Section 6 amends the Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act (29 U.S.C. 3197(d)) to include white oak reforestation
activities, authorizing Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center students
to assist in reforestation projects. USDA supports work-based learning
assignments for Civilian Conservation Center students as a component of
trade training. Under current authorities, Job Corps students
participate in the full range of forest conservation work within the
limits of appropriations and capacity.
Section 7 requires the Forest Service to develop and implement a
national strategy to increase the capacity of Federal, State, Tribal,
and private tree nurseries to address the nationwide shortage of tree
seedlings. The Forest Service recently developed a National
Reforestation Strategy that includes modernization of Forest Service
nurseries to increase production of genetically and climatically
appropriate tree seedlings for reforestation. The Forest Service is
developing national and regional 10-year implementation plans that
include the next steps the agency will take to successfully increase
the pace and scale of reforestation, address existing needs including
nursery resources, and anticipate future disturbance events. State,
Tribal, and private tree nurseries are also included in this effort. We
support the intent to increase the capacity of tree nurseries to grow
white oak seedlings, but we want to work with the Subcommittee to
ensure the bill language complements existing efforts.
Section 8 authorizes USDA to enter a memorandum of understanding
with a covered land grant college, in consultation with States,
nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education, and other
scientific bodies, to conduct research on various aspects of white oak
resiliency. We would recommend broadening the list of potential
partners for this research, including federally recognized Tribes.
There is a range of research on white oaks that would be of interest to
the Forest Service and others, including research related to white oak
regeneration and resilience under climate change and how to retain and
increase abundance of white oaks on all lands. There are several
research topics that would be important to this effort, and we look
forward to working with the Subcommittee and bill sponsors on technical
assistance to accomplish the goals of this section.
Section 9 requires the Natural Resources Conservation Service
(NRCS) to establish a formal initiative on white oak. The Forest
Service has some of these authorities outlined in the bill through the
Forest Stewardship Program and would welcome the opportunity to support
NRCS in developing this program.
Section 10 provides for additional authorities to be used in
conjunction with this bill, including good neighbor agreements under
section 8206 of the 2014 Farm Bill (16 U.S.C. 2113a) and stewardship
contracting projects under section 604 of the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act of 2003 (16 U.S.C. 6591c). We support broad use of
these authorities and look forward to using these authorities in any
efforts to increase white oak restoration.
USDA supports the intent of this bill and looks forward to working
with the Subcommittee and bill sponsors on technical assistance to
accomplish the goals of the bill.
H.R. 4235, ``Wildfire Technology Demonstration, Evaluation,
Modernization, and optimization Act'' or the ``Wildfire
Technology DEMO Act''
The Wildfire Technology DEMO Act would establish a wildfire
technology Testbed Pilot Program. This Act requires USDA and DOI to
establish a Pilot Program for new and innovative wildfire prevention,
detection, communication, and mitigation technologies within 60 days
after the date of the enactment. The Departments must incorporate the
pilot program into an existing interagency coordinating group on
wildfires; identify key technology priority areas with respect to the
deployment of wildfire prevention, detection, communication, and
mitigation technologies; and partner each covered entity either with
the Federal agencies identified as a covered agency to coordinate real-
time and on-the-ground testing of technology during wildland fire
mitigation activities and training. The bill requires both agencies
give priority to certain emerging technologies and requires a report
detailing the Pilot Program no later than one year after date of
enactment. The authorization for the Pilot Program expires four years
after the date of establishment.
Much of what is directed in this bill is already a component of the
program of work across multiple agencies, including within various
Forest Service programs and through interagency partnerships. For
example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has the
Interagency Council for Advancing Meteorological Services group,
chartered to advance meteorological services including establishing a
fire weather test bed which received funding through the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act. The Dingell Act, Wildland Fire Mitigation and
Management Commission Report, and the President's Council of Advisors
on Science and Technology report, along with the Forest Service's
Wildfire Crisis Strategy, all share portions of what is in the proposed
legislation. Providing a governing group and leadership direction to
coordinate these activities would assist in the prioritization and
implementation of new technologies.
USDA would like to work with the bill sponsor on some technical
adjustments in the bill, such as including the Department of Defense in
the list of covered agencies and replacing the ``existing interagency
coordinating group on wildfires'' with the named existing group, the
National Wildfire Coordinating Group. USDA notes that since this bill
does not provide an appropriation of funding for these additional
activities, the agency would need to identify funding from existing
programs to support these activities. Finally, USDA has concerns with
the 60-day timeframe required to establish this Pilot Program. For a
joint program with DOI, this timeframe is too short. We would
appreciate the opportunity to work with the bill sponsor and
Subcommittee to address these concerns.
USDA supports the intent of this bill and looks forward to working
with the Subcommittee and bill sponsors on technical assistance to
accomplish the goals of the bill.
H.R. ____ (Discussion Draft), Biochar Innovations and Opportunities for
Conservation, Health, and Advancements in Research Act'' or the
``BIOCHAR Act''
The BIOCHAR Act would establish demonstration projects to support
the development and commercialization of biochar and a competitive
grant program to carry out research and development activities with
respect to biochar.
The bill directs the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the
Interior, and the Secretary of Energy to fund biochar demonstration
projects through partnerships with State, Tribal, or local governments;
land-grant colleges or universities; or private, nonprofit, or
cooperative entities; and to establish at least one biochar
demonstration project in each Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) region. The bill prioritizes projects that maximize
carbon sequestration and creation of new jobs, demonstrate the benefits
of biochar in creating new innovative uses and viable markets, restore
forest health and resilience, and are in local markets with great need
for biochar production.
The Forest Service is currently working with many partners to
support research, development, and commercialization of biochar. This
bill would formalize these partnerships through demonstration projects,
strengthening engagement and expanding the authorities for Forest
Service Research and Development, State, Private, and Tribal Forestry,
and the National Forest System. To the maximum extent practicable, the
bill requires demonstration projects to derive at least 50 percent of
feedstock from activities conducted on National Forest System land or
public lands. As we prioritize demonstration project selection, we
believe it would be important to identify projects that have the
greatest potential to turn the demonstration into long term sustainable
market growth. We request discretion in the percentage of feedstock
that comes from Federal lands. While we support a demonstration project
that uses biomass removed to support wildfire risk reduction, this
level may limit our ability for high impact projects where there may
not be adequate processing or production capacity, or where
transportation costs to haul biomass or hazardous fuels to areas with
adequate processing or production capacity may be cost-prohibitive.
Existing State, Private, and Tribal Forestry programs such as Wood
Innovations or Community Wood grants may be used to fund the
development of new biochar facilities, but they cannot be used for
research. Competitive joint venture agreements with the Forest Products
Laboratory and research stations and Forest Service partners can be
used for research associated with the development of new markets.
USDA supports this bill as an effort to contribute to the
commercialization of a forest product with a great potential role in
forest conservation and ecosystem restoration while contributing to
local economies and markets and decreasing the risk of wildland fires
to rural communities. USDA would like to work with the Subcommittee and
sponsors of this bill to ensure Forest Service coordination among
programs that are engaged in biomass research, technology development,
and market expansion and address technical concerns. USDA notes that
since this bill does not provide an appropriation of funding for these
additional activities, the agency would have to make trade-offs with
existing programs using current appropriations. USDA would like to work
with the bill sponsor and Subcommittee to address the concerns noted
here.
H.R. 4353, Civilian Conservation Center Enhancement Act of 2023
H.R. 4353 would amend Public Law 91-378 to authorize activities
relating to ``Civilian Conservation Centers,'' as that term would be
defined in the bill. ``Civilian Conservation Centers'' would be defined
to include residential workforce development or training facilities for
underserved youth that are operated by USDA. This bill would direct
USDA and DOI in coordination with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to
offer specialized training programs focused on forestry and rangeland
management, wildland firefighting, and other topics relating to Agency
missions or the public interest. The bill would authorize USDA, in
coordination with DOL, to conduct experimental, research, or
demonstration pilot programs at Civilian Conservation Centers to
provide career and technical education curricula and course offerings
to advance the missions of DOI and USDA. In addition, the bill would
provide direct hire authority for Civilian Conservation Center
graduates and authority to hire and pay Civilian Conservation Center
students for their work. Finally, the bill would require USDA and DOI
to establish a pilot program to employ covered students to improve and
expand the housing stock owned by the Federal Government for the
purpose of housing wildland firefighters and other Federal employees.
While the provisions in this bill would support the
Administration's overall priorities in wildland fire management and
workforce development, further policy and technical reviews are needed.
As written, the bill would significantly expand Forest Service's
capacity to train work crews and interns through partnerships, as well
as existing authority under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act (29 U.S.C. 3191-3212) to train students at Job Corps Civilian
Conservation Centers through workforce development and hiring. The bill
would permit the new Civilian Conservation Centers to become bases of
operations for training underserved youth in firefighting, home
construction, and conservation trades. Authority to hire and pay
existing Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center students are priorities
of USDA, and the bill would significantly enhance USDA's youth
workforce development efforts. In addition, the pilot programs for
addressing training and housing for firefighters outlined in the bill
would address key needs in achieving the Forest Service's 10-year
strategy to confront the wildfire crisis.
The applicability of the bill to Job Corps Civilian Conservation
Centers authorized under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
is complex and would require coordination with DOL. This bill would
apply to ``Civilian Conservation Centers,'' but that term is used in
the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act at 29 U.S.C. 3197(d)(1) to
apply to Civilian Conservation Centers operated by the Forest Service
and funded by DOL under the Job Corps Program pursuant to an agreement
between DOL and USDA. No Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers are
operated by any Federal agency other than the Forest Service. The
proposed definition in Section 301 of this bill encompasses existing
Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers and potentially other USDA or
DOI programs. The expansion to other programs would increase
opportunities for marginalized youth beyond Job Corps Civilian
Conservation Centers but would require inter-departmental cooperation
regarding jurisdiction and student eligibility.
Section 301 defines ``covered student'' and ``covered graduate'' in
ways that would encompass existing students enrolled by DOL at Job
Corps Civilian Conservation Centers. However, the term ``underserved
youth'' is not defined in the bill and could also encompass youth not
meeting eligibility criteria for the Job Corps Program. In addition,
Section 301 defines ``Secretaries'' for the purposes of this bill to
include the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture, but not the
Secretary of Labor. We would like to work with the Subcommittee and
bill sponsors to clarify the scope of this section and its relationship
to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Section 302(b) of the bill would apply specifically to existing Job
Corps Civilian Conservation Centers operated under the Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act. This bill would direct the Secretaries
of the Interior and Agriculture to prioritize conservation and
firefighting training at existing Job Corps Civilian Conservation
Centers. However, DOI does not operate any Job Corps Civilian
Conservation Centers. The Forest Service already prioritizes
conservation and firefighting training at Job Corps Civilian
Conservation Centers, to the extent feasible under DOL Job Corps policy
and funding. We would like to work with the Subcommittee and bill
sponsors to clarify the scope of this section and its relationship to
the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Section 304 would authorize recruitment goals and investments for
covered graduates. These programs could significantly increase the
Forest Service's ability to train and recruit disadvantaged youth for
wildland firefighting work. Section 304(b) would allow covered
graduates to be appointed as Federal employees under special hiring
rules. Section 304(d) would provide authority to ``employ or otherwise
contract with'' covered students (who have not yet graduated) and
compensate them for necessary hours of work at ``regular rates of
pay.'' This authority would address a significant current barrier to
engaging existing Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center students in
conservation work. We welcome the opportunity to work with Congress to
clarify the Federal employment status of the covered students who would
become employed under this new authority. Section 304(e) would direct
the Secretary of Agriculture to encourage the use of covered students
to fulfill obligations under contracts, grants, and agreements in
nearby national forests. We need to discuss with the bill sponsors the
implications of employing versus contracting with covered students from
safety and liability standpoints. Section 305 would authorize a pilot
program to employ covered students in improving and expanding Federal
Government housing for wildland firefighters, which would address
another significant Forest Service challenge in expanding wildland fire
response and hazardous fuels reduction. USDA recommends expanding
section 305(b)(1) to cover improvement and expansion of housing for
volunteers, partners' crews, and interns while working on Forest
Service projects.
USDA strongly supports the intent of the Civilian Conservation
Center Enhancement Act of 2022 and looks forward to working with the
Subcommittee and bill sponsors on technical changes to the bill to
further support important workforce capacity needs.
H.R. 4717, ``Locally Led Restoration Act of 2023''
H.R. 4717 amends the Healthy Forest Restoration Act to allow
private persons or other public or private entities to propose
stewardship contracting projects under the Stewardship End Result
Contracting program so long as removing vegetation is one of the
project's land management goals and at least 10percent of the of the
vegetation proposed to be removed is salvage. The agency would have
discretion to move forward with or deny a proposal, but a response
would be required within 120 days of receiving a proposal.
This bill also requires a report to Congress after five years on
the number of project proposals under this section, the number of
contracts and agreements entered under this section, and the number of
acres on which forest thinning and non-commercial hazardous fuels
reduction were carried out pursuant to such contracts and agreements.
The Forest Service supports broader use of the stewardship
contracting authority, and we welcome the chance to work with Congress
to expand our tool set for forest health treatments. While we support
broader, science-based usage of our existing suite of forest health
authorities, we do have concerns with many of the specifics of this
legislation.
The Stewardship End Result Contracting program was designed to
foster broad local stakeholder input and collaboration. We are
concerned about how the bill, as currently written, may result in
challenges in meeting requirements of that authority.
Though this bill does not appear to directly conflict with current
contracting law, we also have concerns about ensuring the full and open
competition for National Forest System timber that is required by the
National Forest Management Act and the requirements for service
contract competition in the case of Integrated Resource Service
Contracts.
As written, the bill has potential to add significant amounts of
Forest Service Stewardship End Result Contracting work. At minimum, it
requires the agency to annually prepare and publicly notice an
opportunity to submit proposals for stewardship contracting projects,
and to respond to each such proposal within 120 days. In the case of
denials, the bill language suggests that the agency provide detailed
responses, including specific factors that led to the denial as well as
potential courses of action for overcoming those factors. Providing
that level of specific feedback would require technical review by
program experts. Requiring agencies to not only publicly request such
proposals but also review and respond to proposals within 120 days
could foreseeably overwhelm agency acquisition and program resources.
This potential adverse impact appears to directly contradict the long-
standing purposes of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 and
its amendments.
As the Agency continues to increase the scale of project work to
better address the wildfire crisis, we have concerns that this bill may
result in numerous small-scale requests that could detract from a
landscape approach. USDA also notes that our standard business practice
is for local units to collaborate directly with local industry and
other partners for current and future management plans. Thus, calling
for project proposals may have limited additive benefit.
H.R. 4717 also adjusts the threshold above which the Secretary of
Agriculture shall advertise timber sales. The threshold currently is
$10,000, but under this bill would be adjusted to $55,000 in the first
year and then adjusted annually based on the Consumer Price Index. For
low value material without good markets, raising the threshold enables
the agency to do more direct sales and have more tools to complete
forest health and fire risk reduction treatments.
In summary, we thank the bill sponsor and the Subcommittee for
continued support and interest of the stewardship contracting authority
and for proposing to increase the minimum threshold for advertising
timber sales. We look forward to working with the Subcommittee to
address our concerns, to best meet our shared goals to expand use of
the stewardship contracting authority and increase the pace and scale
of forest health treatments.
Conclusion
That concludes my testimony. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify. I am happy to answer any questions the Subcommittee may have
for me.
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Ms. Hall-Rivera, for your
testimony, and now we will turn to Members' questions.
First of all, Representative Westerman, if you want to
start questioning, you have 5 minutes.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany. And again,
thank you to the witnesses.
Deputy Chief Hall-Rivera, USDA has undertaken the Longleaf
Restoration Initiative back, I believe, in 2010. It has been
very successful, 3 million acres up to 5 million acres. Can you
maybe explain how the white oak initiative might be patterned
after that, and what kind of successes you think we could see
with white oaks?
And also the fact that with longleaf, it required a lot of
planting, but with white oak the seed stock is there, we just
need to be able to regenerate the young saplings.
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, thank you for that question, Mr.
Westerman. And I think you probably know we are getting ready
to celebrate with all of our partners the longleaf restoration
partnership here coming up tomorrow, actually, at USDA.
And you are right, there are a lot of parallels, I think,
not the least of which is that it takes a number of partners
working together across landscapes to have a success in
restoring a species to its range and expanding it like we want
to do with white oak and have been able to do with longleaf
and, in fact, I think are going to be celebrating the planting
of the billionth longleaf seedling here tomorrow, so that is a
really great model for us to pattern our continued work with
partners in terms of white oak restoration.
I think another parallel that is pretty important is a lot
of the critical work we have to do is on private lands, and
that means we need to bring private landowners to the table,
get them engaged, and help them see the value of having these
species on their land, and that takes work not only from the
Forest Service and partners, but our sister agency, the Natural
Resource Conservation Service, as well. And I know they are
front and center in the bill.
So, thank you for that question.
Mr. Westerman. I believe a lot of that longleaf restoration
was done on private land, as well, so it is nice to have a good
model like that.
We have consistently heard in this Committee that one of
the primary problems with good forest management is dealing
with the low-value material, the pace and scale of getting into
the forests and doing the management work. Can you describe how
a product like biochar could help with the pace and scale, and
how it could be used widely across the country?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, you are absolutely right, sir, that
one of our biggest challenges is what do we do with the low-
value material that comes off of our forest now, especially our
heavily-stocked forests that many of you mentioned in your
opening statements.
Biochar is one of those innovative forest products that
helps us find markets for material that normally we would pile
and/or pile and burn. So, it has a lot of really novel uses.
You mentioned a number of them in your statement, as well as
for us we are also looking at partnerships in abandoned mine
lands remediation. It even has some uses in, say, packaging.
So, it really has a lot of potential to offer, like I said,
innovative markets that would give us a place for the material
to go, it would create jobs, and it would create revenue for
entrepreneurial businesses.
Mr. Westerman. And Director Rupert, I saw you shaking your
head a little bit as she was talking.
I actually have some biochar samples up here, and it is
amazing. You mentioned mine reclamation. There are certain
grades of this that can be used in very high-value products.
Some of it you can make carbon black out of it to substitute
into petroleum-based plastics.
But on the mine reclamation, Director Rupert, have you seen
any research, or do you think there is opportunity in mine
reclamation to use biochar there?
Mr. Rupert. Yes, thank you, Mr. Westerman, for the
question. Yes, and I was shaking my head as Jaelith was really
describing tools in the toolbox, and the opportunity that
biochar represents, again, sort of that innovation.
I think soil supplement, looking at abandoned mine lands,
and the kind of issues and challenges that are present there,
innovation like biochar and soil supplement, I think, has great
potential. I am probably not the best person to talk to in
terms of really laying out that sort of scientific foundation,
but certainly from that broad ecological perspective, there is
real opportunity there.
Mr. Westerman. And we have a tremendous research mechanism
in our country through our land grant universities for
agriculture. So, one of the things in the BIOCHAR Act is to get
our land grant universities with the cooperative extension
services involved so that they can work with farmers and figure
out the right application rates so that, once the products are
made, the farmers can know how much to apply to their soil in
their particular region.
My time is up, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Chairman Westerman.
Representative Neguse, you have 5 minutes for questioning.
Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all the
witnesses.
Ms. Hall-Rivera, it is great to see you again today, and
thank you for joining us in the Federal Lands Subcommittee.
As you may know, I have long been a champion of expanding
and reinvigorating the Civilian Conservation Corps through a
21st-century CCC. When I was chair of the Subcommittee last
Congress, we hosted a hearing on the topic. I introduced a
variety of different bills calling for those investments, and I
was very heartened to see the Biden administration's recent
announcement launching the American Climate Corps using
investments that we had secured in the last Congress as part of
the Inflation Reduction Act which were modeled in part on the
legislation that I introduced and referenced earlier.
I wonder if you might just be able to expound a bit on how
the Forest Service is currently expanding the use of the Corps
programs, including the Indian Youth Service Corps and the
newly-established Forest Corps and American Climate Corps, to
address wildfire risk and ecosystem needs, especially in areas
of high risk.
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that
question, Mr. Neguse.
And let me first say about the legislation before you, to
date, for us to have direct hire authority from our Job Corps
centers would be a really great addition and change for us. We
can bring these young people directly into the agency after
they have trained not only in trades, but in work like
restoration and wildfire.
In terms of your question, sir, we have begun to invest
from the Inflation Reduction Act in the recently reinvigorated
Civilian Climate Corps that the President recently released an
EO on. And we are looking forward to being able to expand our
partnership with such organizations as Student Conservation
Association and Public Land Corps.
We absolutely need to be able to bring more young people
into the work that we do in the woods in restoration and in
firefighting, and it can be a challenge to attract people into
that workforce now. So, something like the Civilian Climate
Corps and the Civilian Conservation Corps that really touches
people where they are concerned--many young people are
concerned with issues around the environment and climate
change, and that helps us make those connections and meet them
where they are, and then bring them into the workforce. So, it
is a really important tool, and we look forward to continuing
to expand those partnerships.
Mr. Neguse. Well, we thank you again for your testimony,
and I think it underscores the importance of making sure that
we get this bill across the finish line, given the ways in
which it can ultimately help you and your agency address these
workforce challenges that serve this shared purpose that I
think we all agree on.
One, I guess, last issue that I wanted to note for the
Committee. In addition to championing the Civilian Conservation
Corps, the Civilian Climate Corps, I have also introduced a
bill to reauthorize the Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration Program, which is a critical initiative that
promotes shared stewardship and advances critical cross-
boundary restoration objectives. This is a program that has
been supported on a bipartisan basis. It has been deployed
effectively in Colorado, of course, as you know, in a variety
of other states, perhaps Wisconsin, perhaps Arkansas. So, I
would just underscore my hope that we could consider this bill
in due course within this Subcommittee, perhaps at a future
hearing.
With that, I will yield back the balance of my time and
again thank the witnesses for testifying.
Mr. Tiffany. The Ranking Member yields. Now I would like to
recognize Mr. Lamborn for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Hall-Rivera, I have a couple questions for you. Can you
explain the difference between timber contracting and
stewardship contracting?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, thank you for that question, sir.
Timber contracting is essentially just a basic transaction
between a vendor and the Forest Service. It is generally
looking at commercially viable timber. And, of course, the
folks that bid on those timber contracts are looking to make a
profit. That is part of their business, harvesting timber.
Stewardship contracting is a tool in the toolbox. It has a
few different purposes, and it is based on this model of what
we call goods for services. So, folks who bid on the contracts
get goods, timber, right, that is worth something for them and
for the products that they can create. But they also, as part
of that same contract, provide services. And generally, those
are around restoration-type services, hazardous fuels
treatment. They may be related to, say, water quality or
wildlife projects, as well. So, it is a broader tool, and it
helps us.
Both of them are important. Stewardship contracting, we
have really increased the use of that over the last few years
and has really enabled us to develop deeper collaborations and
partnerships, as well.
Mr. Lamborn. OK, very good. Why do timber companies opt to
leave hand piles in the forest? And do these piles create fire
risk?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, under a timber contract, a company
is going to do what we write in the contract, sir. At times we
ask them to remove those piles as part of the contract, and
they do that. And, of course, they bid that into their price.
At times, depending on the land and resource management
plan or the goals that the silviculturist may have for that
sale, we may ask the contractors to leave the piles, and they
generally pay into a brush disposal fund that then we use to
dispose of the piles maybe when it is more seasonally
appropriate, let's say. We do that mainly to reduce fire risk.
But burning piles, as you are probably aware, can pose its own
risk, not to mention the fact that, like we just talked about
with Mr. Westerman, we can probably make better use of that
material if we can convert it into more of a productive forest
product.
Mr. Lamborn. OK. And in a typical forest, how is the
salvage material spread throughout the healthy portions of the
forest? And what relationship does that have with the technique
of clear-cutting?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. If we have a disturbance event, it kind of
depends on what that is. Say if it is a windthrow or a
hurricane, you will see salvaged material kind of laying down
in piles as a result of the wind. A fire, of course, you will
see it more dispersed throughout the forest, depending on the
severity of the fire.
So, in a natural disturbance, you will see what we would
refer to as salvaged material arranged differently depending on
the slope, the aspect, and the type of disturbance. In terms of
a timber sale, which maybe is what you are asking about, sir,
again you may see salvage left on the ground in a pile, limbs,
tops, things like that, depending again on how the contract was
written.
I am not completely sure I understand your question
regarding the relationship to clear-cutting, though.
Mr. Lamborn. What I am trying to get at is, how can you
thin a forest without clear-cutting?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. OK. Yes, thank you for clarifying that for
me.
I think you would find that a majority of the treatments
that take place in the forest around thinning, especially if it
has to do with hazardous fuels reduction, really are not clear
cuts at all. And what we are doing especially in western
forests, is taking overly-stocked, dense forests and reducing
them back to where you would see a more natural range of
variability.
So, the operator is generally going to be taking out
smaller diameter trees, again, those trees that we need to find
markets for, and they are leaving a lot of other large trees
behind that can then flourish because they are not competing
with those small trees. So, it is generally not what you would
see in a clear cut, where you would remove all the standing
biomass.
Mr. Lamborn. Are there factors holding back contractors
from being involved in more contracts?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, I would say that a big challenge
that we have both in the Forest Service and in our contracting
community is capacity, just getting people interested in this
work, getting them out to do this work in the woods. We have a
lot of people leaving that workforce and retiring from that
workforce, as you are probably pretty aware in your state.
I would say some of the other challenges, again, is a lot
of the material that is coming off our forest to reduce fire
risk is not particularly marketable and doesn't really have a
use for industry now. That is why we need those critical
partnerships, together with industry and researchers, to help
us develop these innovative markets for this small-diameter
material.
Mr. Lamborn. OK, thank you, and I am hopeful my legislation
is one piece of the puzzle to help accomplish that.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields. I would now like to
recognize Mr. Fulcher from Idaho for 5 minutes.
Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to the panel,
thank you for being here.
Just listening to the comments from Mr. Rupert and Ms.
Hall-Rivera, I think we probably are going to have some very
significant differences of opinion when it comes to climate and
impact on that, on environmental management, because my
experience living in a state where we have about two-thirds of
the land mass that is federally controlled, it all comes down
to management, and the climate doesn't make any distinction
whatsoever when it comes to federally controlled land or
privately-controlled land. But the results of how that is
managed absolutely, positively does.
So, I will just leave that as a statement, but I do have a
question or two for you all.
In a place where we have Interior and Agriculture that are
back to back--and we have a lot of that in our state--there are
often difficulties with communication, and how that gets
managed, and how the various departments communicate with one
another. I would like to get input from both of you, but Mr.
Rupert, I will start with you.
How do you cooperate with your colleague next to you on
your left, more importantly, on the ground, when there are
issues between Interior and Agriculture? How do you
communicate, how do you cooperate, how do you make this
successful?
Mr. Rupert. Thank you for the question.
Well, certainly at a national program level, quite frankly,
and in particular on wildland fire issues, I think of Interior
and USDA Forest Services, quite frankly, being joined at the
hip. We use the same standards and spend a tremendous amount of
time coordinating on issues.
As you get to the ground where management decisions are
being made and actual management is occurring, especially in
the wildland fire space, I would point to coordination that has
occurred under, like, the national cohesive strategy, the
Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy that really
identifies that. To address the fire risk that we are currently
experiencing, we have to have a cross-programmatic, multi-
jurisdictional approach, because fire does not respect land
jurisdictions.
You look at the work in September, the Wildfire Mitigation
and Management Commission, which was established under the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, released its report and
recommendations. That was a congressionally-established
commission, 50-member commission that developed an excess of
300-page report----
Mr. Fulcher. Mr. Rupert, I only have limited time. I would
like to give Ms. Hall-Rivera an opportunity to address that,
too. Sorry to interrupt.
Ms. Hall-Rivera?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you for the question, sir. And I
would echo what Mr. Rupert said about being joined at the hip
when it comes to wildland fire coordination between Forest
Service and DOI.
I think the point you are making, though, is that when you
get out on the ground sometimes we maybe aren't communicating
as much as we should be. And what we really don't want is
Americans experiencing us differently, right? Have them go to a
Forest Service office and have one experience, go to a DOI
office and have another experience. We don't want that. We want
people to sort of have one shared experience when they are
dealing with their natural resource managers in the Federal
Government. So, I think we do have some work to do there.
We have a lot of places in the country where we plan
together across our landscapes: land management planning,
forest planning. We share map products, we share technology.
But I think we can always do better about that. Sometimes we
make decisions that are right for that particular landscape,
but we don't necessarily look across the hill and make that
connection with our Interior colleagues. So, it is something
that we are always striving to do better with.
Mr. Fulcher. Thank you for that. And I have one more
question. I would like to get to Mr. Oshiba before my time is
out.
Mr. Oshiba, when I think about the Air Force and training
ranges and environmental concerns, that is not a natural
synchronized set of topics. Can you briefly touch on what is
important to you for a training range when it comes to
environmental service?
Mr. Oshiba. Thank you for the question.
From an environmental perspective on the range, it is
extremely important for us to continue to be good stewards of
the environment. Being good stewards allows us access to do our
training that is necessary. So, preservation of the environment
is as important to us as the training that occurs above it.
Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields, and I would like to turn
to Representative Hoyle for your questioning for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hoyle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am really glad to be
here as we discuss bills on forest management, wildfire, and
related workforce issues. These topics couldn't be more
important to my district, 83 percent of which is forest land
with a patchwork set of ownership and forest management
strategies that is unique to Oregon, as my colleague, Mr.
Bentz, could tell you.
And I am proud to co-lead two of the bills that we are
discussing today.
First, I would like to thank Chair Westerman for the
opportunity to work with him on his BIOCHAR Act. We need to
invest in new markets to help get low-value biomass out of the
woods and reduce wildfire risk. Biochar could be an important
tool to do that, and I look forward to working with Chair
Westerman and my colleagues to get towards that goal, to get it
done, and signed into law.
I am also a co-lead of the Civilian Conservation Center
Enhancement Act, a bill sponsored by Representative Salinas,
also of Oregon. We have a lot going on in Oregon. I hear all
the time from people back home who tell me they desperately
need more trained people in the woods. We should absolutely use
the existing Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers to support
workforce development and forest management and wildland
firefighting like this bill would do. And if we could have
continuity so we employ people throughout the year, that would
be even better.
I am especially glad this bill makes it easier for the
Forest Service to hire CCC graduates by reducing bureaucracy.
We shouldn't lose qualified job candidates to months and months
of red tape, which is what is happening now. I strongly support
the CCC Enhancement Act and the BIOCHAR Act, and I urge my
colleagues to support them, as well.
Thank you for your time. I yield my time.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentlelady yields. Next, I would like to
recognize Representative Stauber for questioning.
Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Deputy Chief Hall-Rivera, in your view, what is the state
of our Federal lands for disabled veterans?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you for that question, sir. And I
don't know that I am qualified to speak on that specifically,
but what I can tell you is that we want our public lands to be
accessible to all Americans. They are a birthright for every
American and, of course, our veterans help us protect that
birthright with their service.
There are still many places on National Forest System lands
where we can improve our accessibility, be it widening trails,
making them paved so that they are wheelchair accessible,
ensuring that our bathrooms are ADA-compliant are just a few
examples of the work I know that we do need to do out there so
that our disabled veterans can enjoy the experience on public
lands that is inclusive.
Mr. Stauber. So, by and large, are the recreational areas
within Forest Service jurisdiction fully capable of supporting
disabled veterans and Americans?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. I don't believe they are fully capable of
that, sir. And we can certainly get back to you and your office
with some more details on that. But there is more work to do,
no doubt.
Mr. Stauber. Yes, and I really appreciate your comment that
they have to be accessible to all Americans, those with
disabilities, as well. Our public lands are meant to serve all
the American people, including those with disabilities, as you
just said.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, the district I represent in
northeastern Minnesota includes great tracts of Federal lands
such as the Superior and Chippewa National Forests. In
northeast Minnesota and across rural America we see the
incredible value that these public spaces provide for our
communities.
Through a public-private partnership in northeast
Minnesota, Veterans on the Lake in Ely, Minnesota provides the
opportunity for our veterans and their families, including
those who are disabled, to enjoy and recreate in the Superior
National Forest in northeast Minnesota. Thanks to the work of
this organization, hundreds of veterans and their families are
able to boat, fish, swim, ski, and snowmobile. Veterans on the
Lake ensures that all individuals, no matter their physical
abilities, are able to participate in these activities.
I want to thank my colleague from New Mexico,
Representative Stansbury, for introducing--perfect timing, by
the way, Representative--for introducing and promoting the
Accessibility on Federal Lands Act of 2023. It is important
that we look to expand these opportunities throughout the
country and ensure our public lands are serving all Americans.
I support this legislation and, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields. I would like to
recognize the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Bentz, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am curious which one, or maybe all three of you, may have
been involved in the report on the Wildland Fire Mitigation and
Management Commission. Are you all familiar with that?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, sir. I was on the Commission as a
representative for USDA.
Mr. Bentz. That is excellent. I met with one of the
Oregonians, John O'Keefe, and briefly talked with him about it,
it is kind of a thick report, so I have not read through it,
but I am curious if his take on it is the same as yours, and
that was that beneficial fire was going to be the answer
primarily to our current circumstance.
Of course, through the western United States, about 90
million acres of forest of one kind or another, 90 million
acres. So, am I correct, was his take that it was going to be
beneficial fire that is going to be the answer?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, sir, I would certainly say that
beneficial fire is a critical tool in the toolbox, as is
grazing, that I am sure Mr. O'Keefe talked to you about, as
well, given his role on the Commission.
Certainly, we know that our forests are fire-adapted. They
need fire, but they need it in the right place and at the right
time. And one of those really critical tools is prescribed
fire. And the Commission report does have numerous
recommendations related to prescribed fire, as well as cultural
burning and Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge around
fire.
Mr. Bentz. It always seems that the breakdown in these
kinds of conversations is a proper sense of scale. That is why
I mentioned the 90 million acres. And also to suggest that
beneficial fire or fire in general is going to be targeted
seems to be wishful thinking in much of our forests. Too late
for that without some sort of mechanical thinning, which brings
us nicely to H.R. 4717.
But the problem in these get-back-in-the-woods bills always
is how you are going to pay for it. And that takes me to a
question to you. And you mentioned it earlier. We are going to
be taking out the small stuff because we want to leave the
large. That is kind of contraindicated when it comes to
actually paying for anything. Did your Commission discuss this
unfortunate approach to how we are going to pay for that 90
million acres of work we need to do?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, we did spend time in the Commission,
of course, talking about the enormous expense that we are
facing in terms of the wildfire crisis in this country. And
there are some recommendations that do look at that, again,
around innovative forest markets. In particular, there are, I
believe, a handful of recommendations in the Commission report
related to that.
And I just want to go back and put a finer point on what
you said about mechanical treatment. In much of our western
forests, we absolutely need mechanical treatment before we can
apply beneficial fire through prescribed fire, in particular.
So, we need to conduct both of those treatments in many places,
and I think that comes out in the Commission report, as well.
Mr. Bentz. Yes, and thank you so much for bringing that
point up and sharing the recognition of that unfortunate fact,
because that brings us right back to not having enough people
to go do all the work and, again, that impending sense of doom
each year as these forests grow, what, 15 percent compounded.
So, pretty challenging.
Can you tell us today that you actually think that we can
do any of this on a scale that will actually help?
And I recall several years ago in this same room that we
were debating, I think, your forest plan, which hoped to do 20
million acres over 10 years. Perhaps right at this point you
could tell us where we are on that admirable goal.
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, I really appreciate your series of
questions there, Congressman.
It is an enormous scale. The scale of the challenge that we
are facing in this country when it comes to wildfire is
enormous, and it is pretty daunting. I can tell you, as a
person who has worked in it for 15-plus years, I do think we
can get there, but it is going to take an all-of-the-above
approach. It is not just about Federal agencies. It is about
those robust partnerships with communities, community
organizations, tribes. And now, as we saw in the Commission, a
lot of additional folks coming to the table who care about this
problem: the insurance industry, for example, homeowners
associations, just the wide scope and scale of people who have
to invest in this challenge to help us get out on the other
side of it.
So, it is absolutely going to take a lot of resources in
the Forest Service. Our Wildfire Crisis Strategy did name the
need to treat 20 million acres on our lands over a decade. We
were resourced for a portion of that, which we greatly
appreciate, through IRA and BIL. And in 2023, we treated about
4.3 million acres of hazardous fuels, which is an all-time high
for us. But we need to continue to have a focus on that,
together with our partners.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you for your candor. I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields. I would like to
recognize the gentlelady from Alaska for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mrs. Peltola. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany. Good afternoon.
I represent Alaska, and my questions are really kind of focused
on some of the cost differential for firefighting in Alaska and
things like that. And I think I want to ask Ms. Hall-Rivera.
If you could answer, I think to date we have 369 fires are
being tracked right now as of 1 p.m. yesterday, like, currently
going at this time. And over the last year, 3 million acres of
our land, both trees and tundra, have experienced wildfires.
And that is actually the size of the state of Connecticut. And
I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about some of
the challenges in training and some of the challenges in
getting commodities there to do the firefighting work. Thank
you.
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Sure. Thank you for that question,
Congresswoman.
The first thing that I want to say about fighting fire in
Alaska is that it is truly an interagency effort. We work very
closely with the Department of the Interior and the state of
Alaska, who really have the lead for firefighting in the state.
But it is an all-hands-on-deck situation when there are fires
in Alaska.
One of the things that you are well aware of is that the
fire season in Alaska does differ a little bit from that in the
Lower 48, and so we are often able to provide resources from
the Lower 48 both the Department of the Interior, the Forest
Service, as well as states, to be able to bring that capacity
to your state that is needed.
I think your point about unique challenges that exist in
Alaska in terms of recruiting and retaining firefighters and
expenses related to fighting fire, they are important to
consider. Of course, we have challenges recruiting and
retaining firefighters across this nation right now as we look
for a solution to ensure that they have a permanent pay
increase. But I think there are unique challenges in Alaska,
just looking at the population and how many people we have to
draw from, and then bring them into this career field. Again,
that is why we really emphasize that interjurisdictional nature
and bringing folks from the Lower 48 to support your fire
efforts.
Mrs. Peltola. Mr. Rupert, do you want to follow up?
Mr. Rupert. Well, maybe just a point or two about Alaska.
I think, in terms of the actual sort of cost and expense of
fires in Alaska, I don't necessarily have numbers at my
fingertips now to share. But there are differences,
particularly, much of Alaska is undeveloped, remote. Wildfire
response in Alaska in remote areas is essentially not a
suppression response, it is really a monitoring response. That
is very different than in the Lower 48. The focus in Alaska in
terms of active response is on communities that are on the
highway system or Native communities. And much of that work is
sort of pre-fire risk reduction work to protect those
communities before a fire occurs.
There is increasing work and assessment around wildfire in
Alaska, like, to protect permafrost. I mean, we have increasing
insight in terms of what the impact of fires might look like in
the future. We have seen active impacts in very similar
environments and systems in Canada this year with the boreal
forest. So, there is some emerging work, particularly at places
like Yukon Flats, looking at potential strategies to protect
permafrost, at least for the mid-term, so that other broader
climate mitigation activities can hopefully catch up because of
the concerns that are related to when permafrost goes and
methane is released, and just the broad effect of that.
So, Alaska is different, I think, in terms of fire
response, for sure. The interagency partnership that Jaelith
hit on, the state of Alaska, Interior, USDA, Native
communities, there is a strong Alaska Fire Service organization
in place that really is quite progressive, and impactful, and
effective.
Mrs. Peltola. I had a follow-up question about the Forest
Service estimating that by 2050 the cost could go up between 24
to 169 percent. But in the interest of time, Chairman Tiffany,
I will follow up with you later. Thank you.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentlelady yields.
Deputy Chief Hall-Rivera, as you heard in my opening
statement, there is a direct correlation between wildfire and
the reduction in harvest on our national forest lands. I have
raised this with Chief Moore. And recently the Forest Service
reported a 20 million board feet decline in timber harvested
for Quarter 3 of this year. Do you have an update as far as are
you going to hit the targets?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
We are very close to finalizing our end-of-year reporting
from the end of the Fiscal Year, so I don't want to misspeak
and give you an incorrect number here, but we would be very
happy to get back with you and your staff about our final
number for our timber harvest this year. I believe we are very
close, if not right at the goal, but we can get back with you
on that to confirm, for sure.
Mr. Tiffany. Because the goal was 3.4 billion board feet,
right?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, correct.
Mr. Tiffany. Do you think you are going to hit it?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. I think we are very close, sir. But we
will need to get back to you.
Mr. Tiffany. How do you define close?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. I think we were, I want to say maybe 3 to
3.2, but we will confirm that for you.
Mr. Tiffany. Is it possible to exceed?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, we certainly set ambitious goals for
ourselves. In an ideal situation, yes, we would like to exceed
those goals when it comes to timber harvest. We were able to
exceed our hazardous fuels goal this year, for example.
Mr. Tiffany. Was the Forest Service allocated additional
dollars over the last couple of years with the various mega-
spending bills that went through Congress?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, sir. Under the IRA and the BIL, we
were given significant resources for hazardous fuels treatment,
as well as other critical work that we are doing to include
timber harvest work in our watersheds, culverts, et cetera. And
we are putting those dollars to good work, and very
appreciative of them.
Mr. Tiffany. So, if you are getting additional dollars, why
is there any question that you are not going to hit the 3.4
billion board feet? What is the problem?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Well, in terms of our timber target, I
would say there are a couple of different things at work.
We have talked today about the challenge we have with small
diameter wood coming--that is primarily what we are focused on
in the wildfire crisis strategy, is reducing fire risk. And
that is usually taking out smaller diameter trees that don't
tend to be worth a lot. So, that makes it difficult for us to
meet all of our goals.
We know that we partner with the timber industry, and we
know that they are having their own struggles when it comes to
capacity and labor, as well. You mentioned the number of mills
that have closed. That creates a challenge in terms of
transportation costs that I am sure that you are pretty
familiar with.
We have been using some innovative projects like biomass
timber transport projects to see if we can explore some
different ways of overcoming some of those transportation
challenges. So, a lot of those kinds of things are in our
system.
And then we also have our own capacity challenges, as well.
And we are continuing to work on remedying that and bringing
more people on board who have those skills that we need to
harvest timber.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, you were talking about, I think you
mentioned the enormous scale of managing lands like this. Is it
time to turn over more management to the states, like with Good
Neighbor Authority which has had some success? Is it time to do
that?
It sounds like you have huge challenges in terms of
personnel and all the rest. I know in the state of Wisconsin we
have had some successes there going back a decade. Is it time
to turn over more management to the states? It seems they are
more nimble, and they are able to get these things done.
Ms. Hall-Rivera. We really value our partnership with our
states and our state foresters, and Wisconsin is a really great
example of Good Neighbor Authority. We use Good Neighbor
Authority very frequently. We are continuing to increase the
use of that, and it does help us to partner with our states.
They do have easier contracting processes in many cases. They
might have different innovations than we have.
So, I don't know that I would say turning it over, but
certainly increasing partnerships and being more creative in
how we use the tools that we have. And all the tools that you
all are looking to give us and bills such as before you today
are things that we need to continue to look to and invest in
and continue to increase our use of.
Mr. Tiffany. So, you are supportive of expansion of the
Good Neighbor Authority?
Ms. Hall-Rivera. Yes, absolutely. And I would also name the
Tribal Forest Protection Act, as well.
Mr. Tiffany. And for you Members that were not here earlier
in the hearing, I mentioned in my opening statement 1,900 mills
have closed in the western United States since 2000. In a
little over 20 years, 1,900 mills. You wonder why they have a
problem. We ran them out. We ran them out of America here over
the last 20-plus years. Spotted owl, all these other fake
crises, that is what has created this problem here in the
United States of America.
Mr. Oshiba, I am going to use a little more time than I
should. What is more important, environmental protection or
military readiness?
Mr. Oshiba. Mr. Chairman, I think those two can co-exist
together, and they are equal priorities because one certainly
supports the other.
I mentioned earlier that our ability to preserve the
environment where we train allows us to conduct training, so we
believe that those two things can co-exist together.
Mr. Tiffany. OK. Well, I would like to thank the panel for
joining us today. Next, we are going to go to our third panel.
While the Clerk resets our witness table, I will remind the
witnesses that, under Committee Rules, they must limit their
oral statements to 5 minutes, but their entire statement will
appear in the hearing record.
I would also like to remind our witnesses of the timing
lights which will turn red at the end of your 5-minute
statement, and to please remember to turn on your microphone.
As with the second panel, I will allow all witnesses to
testify before Member questioning.
[Pause.]
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you all for joining us. We are going to
get started here. First, I would like to introduce Mr. Pat
Sherren, Director of New Product Development and Sales at
Meltzer Forest Products. Mr. Sherren, you have 5 minutes for
your testimony. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF PAT SHERREN, DIRECTOR, NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND
SALES, METZLER FOREST PRODUCTS, REEDSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Sherren. Good afternoon, legislators, staff, and fellow
attendees. As has already been said, I am the Director of New
Product Development at Metzler Forest Products. I have been
asked by the U.S. Biochar Coalition to make a statement
representing myself, Metzler, and the Pennsylvania Forest
Products Association in support of Chairman Westerman's BIOCHAR
Act.
I graduated from West Virginia University in 1986 with a
Bachelor of Science degree in forest resource management as an
unlikely forester who secured a coveted forestry job at
Westvaco's Luke, Maryland paper mill, where I navigated five
mergers and buyouts to develop new fiber supply areas, new
fiber supply sources to work on special projects critical to
the mill's operation, and finally being the last chip buyer
before the mill's closure in 2019.
A large part of the new fiber supply areas and sources were
developed through my relationship with Alan Metzler. Alan and
Jill Metzler started our two-generation family-run business
with one cable skidder and one pickup truck in 1987. We are now
90 strong, operating all over the Mid-Atlantic region,
providing timber harvesting and forestry services, land
clearing and grubbing, custom chipping and grinding, amended
soils, mulches, composts, and biochar products.
A quick search on the Google machine may cause you to think
biochar will save the world. It may not be the end-all be-all,
but it will be part of the solution to improve our lives
through enhanced soil health, improved livestock and poultry
production, improved stormwater management and water
filtration, with emerging uses in building products, asphalt,
concrete, and steel production, and the oil and gas industry.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lists
biochar as one of only a few shovel-ready and scalable ways to
quickly and efficiently sequester carbon. The science and art
of good forest management has been developing in the United
States for over 100 years. No matter what your environmental
and political view of timber harvesting or climate change, we
can always do better.
[Slide.]
Mr. Sherren. Science proves that forest management
efficiently captures and sequesters carbon and timely forest
management harvest cycles, as shown in the graphic you can see
from the National Clean Air and Streams Institute, by
regenerating young forests that aggressively capture carbon,
letting those forests mature and sequester carbon, harvesting
them at their economic and carbon sequester peak, while
controlling invasive species and starting again with new young
forests.
Good and timely forest management also reduces forest fire
fuel. Both of these benefits to society also drive economic
development through the production of forest products that
touch our lives every day, and particularly in rural areas.
Many thousands, tens of thousands, and maybe the Forest
Service and BLM representatives would say millions and tens of
millions, of acres of poor forest sites need to be managed to
improve forest health and productivity, but there are not
enough markets to support that forest management. That means
there is a lot of fiber in the U.S. forests that could be
converted to many valuable products like biochar.
The Metzler Biochar Adventure has been a $2 million
research and development project that is producing useful
product, excess heat to displace 350,000 gallons of propane per
year, and our fire wood drying kilns, and a path to enter the
carbon credit market early next year through collaboration with
a major national carbon project developer and a yet-to-be-
determined biochar carbon credit registry.
We have also been a strong supporter of the USDA-funded
mass bio project to investigate new markets for our biochar
products. It is clear that biochar is part of the solution to
many global problems when produced by the trainload, but we
have to first start with truckloads. The BIOCHAR Act will be a
springboard for scaling biochar carbon projects leading to the
normalization of the production and use of biochar that will
remove carbon from the atmosphere, create good jobs, improve
forest management, and create products that change our lives
and make our lives better.
Thank you for the invitation to speak and hearing my
thoughts.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sherren follows:]
Prepared Statement of Patrick Sherren, representing Metzler Forest
Products LLC
on Discussion Draft of H.R. ____, BIOCHAR Act
Good afternoon legislators, staff and fellow attendees. I'm Pat
Sherren, the Director of New Product Development at Metzler Forest
Products; and I've been asked by the US Biochar Coalition to make a
statement representing myself and Metzler.
I graduated from West Virginia University in 1986 with a Bachelor
of Science degree in Forest Resource Management as an unlikely forester
who secured a coveted forester job at Westvaco's Luke Maryland
papermill, where I navigated 5 mergers and buyouts to develop new fiber
supply areas, new fiber supply sources, to work on special projects
critical to the mill's operation, and finally being the last chip buyer
before the mill's closure June 2019. A large part of the new fiber
supply areas and sources were developed through my relationship with
Alan Metzler.
Alan and Jill Metzler started our 2-generation run family business
with one cable skidder and one pickup truck in 1987. We are now 90
strong operating all over the Mid-Atlantic region providing timber
harvesting and forestry services, land clearing and grubbing, custom
chipping and grinding, soils, mulches, composts and biochar products.
In August 2019, Alan said he and others at Metzler had crazy ideas
and no time to chase them down, and asked if I was interested in
chasing down those ideas. I said absolutely, and the great biochar
adventure started!
A quick search on the Google machine may cause you to think biochar
will save the world. It may not be the end all be all, but it will be
part of the solution to improve our lives through enhanced soil health,
improved livestock and poultry production, improved stormwater
management and water filtration; with emerging uses in building
products, asphalt, concrete and steel production, and the oil and
natural gas industry.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lists biochar as
one of only a few shovel-ready and scalable ways to quickly and
efficiently sequester carbon. The science and art of good forest
management has been developing in the US for over 100 years. No matter
what your environmental and political view for timber harvesting or
climate change, we can always do better.
Science proves that forest management efficiently captures and
sequesters carbon in timely forest management harvest cycles; by
regenerating young forests that aggressively capture carbon, letting
those forests mature and sequester carbon, harvesting them at their
economic and carbon sequester peak while controlling invasive species,
and starting again with new young forest. Good and timely forest
management also reduces forest fire fuel. Both of these benefits to
society also drive economic development through the production of
forest products that touch our lives every day, particularly in rural
areas.
Many thousands and maybe tens of thousands of acres of poor forest
sites in the US need to be managed to improve forest health and
productivity, but there are not enough markets to support that forest
management. That means there is A LOT of fiber in US forests that could
be converted to many valuable products like biochar.
The Metzler biochar adventure has been a VERY expensive lab
experiment that is producing a useful product, excess process heat to
displace 350,000 gallons of propane per year in our firewood drying
kilns, and a path to enter the carbon credit market early next year
through collaboration with a major national carbon project developer
and a yet to be determined biochar carbon credit registry. We've also
been a strong supporter of the USDA funded MASBio project to
investigate new markets for our biochar products.
It is clear that biochar is part of the solution to many global
problems when produced by the train load, but we have to first start
with truckloads. The BIOCHAR Act will be a spring board for scaling
biochar carbon projects that will lead to the normalization of the
production and use of biochar.
Thank you for the invitation to speak and hearing my thoughts!
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, sir. I would now like to recognize
Representative Lamborn to introduce our next witness.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am about to
have to go to another hearing. But before I do, it is my honor
to introduce Dwayne McFall, a Fremont County Commissioner in
Colorado. For 16 years, I had the honor of representing Fremont
County here in Congress.
Mr. McFall was first elected to be the Commissioner for
District 3 in 2016. Duane has been involved in agriculture all
his life, and knows the importance of land conservation. After
attending West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, where he
earned a BS degree in agriculture business and economics,
Dwayne moved to Fremont County in 1992 with his family. He and
his wife, Kendra, have a family of five children and five
grandchildren. He is a lifetime member of many outdoor and
conservation organizations, being a huge supporter of
conservation efforts for wildlife and livestock, and is an avid
sportsman.
It is my pleasure to welcome Commissioner McFall to our
hearing today.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DWAYNE McFALL, COMMISSIONER, DISTRICT 3,
FREMONT COUNTY, COLORADO
Mr. McFall. Thank you, Congressman Lamborn. Chairman
Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify in
support of H.R. 4717, the Locally Led Restoration Act. My name
is Dwayne McFall. I am a Fremont County, Colorado Commissioner,
where I have been a resident for over 30 years. I offer my
testimony on behalf of the National Association of Counties
today.
We have a population of 48,000, and serve as a gateway to
two national forests and wilderness areas. With 46 percent of
our county owned by the Federal Government, decisions made in
DC impact the well-being of our communities. We need a strong
intergovernmental relationship with our Federal partners to
thrive.
We have seen an increase in wildfire over the past few
decades because of reduced management in our nation's forests.
The additional spike in recreational visitors, while good for
our economy, leads to a heightened wildfire risk both from
illegal and legal campfires. Proactively managing vegetation
and hazardous fuels in the forest is critical for lowering the
risk. Unfortunately, we have taken a passive approach to
managing our national forests, leaving them overcrowded and
unhealthy while restraining our ability to grow our local
economies.
Healthy forests generally contain 50 to 80 trees per acre.
Colorado's overcrowded national forests have between 250 and
300 trees per acre, serving as kindling for the next big mega-
fire. Despite the threat, we have not taken the necessary steps
to reduce it. In the 1980s, the United States produced around
20 times the board foot of timber we produce today. As we
reduce the amount of timber harvested, the number of wildfires
and acres burning increased exponentially. We must do better.
In 2016, the Hayden Creek wildfire in western Fremont
County burned over 16,000 acres, mostly on U.S. forest land.
The large amount of beetle kill served as ready fuel for the
wildfire caused by lightning. Today, the landscape is littered
with fallen, no-value wood, which pollutes our watershed and
threatens livelihoods.
In 2020, Colorado experienced two of the worst fires ever.
The Cameron Peak Fire burned over 208,000 acres and the East
Troublesome fire burned over 130,000 acres, destroying or
damaging over 800 homes. Like the Hayden Creek Fire, these two
were also fueled by beetle kill trees. Proactive removal of
this fuel source is no longer an option, it is an absolute
necessity.
By improving relationships and intergovernmental patterns
outside the organization, we can re-establish healthy forests.
In recent years stewardship contracts have been used by the
Federal agencies to improve forest health. Stewardship
contracts mandate the contractor to complete other tasks such
as infrastructure repairs to which timber harvest is secondary.
However, the agencies do not have flexibility to utilize
stewardship contracts in the way to truly impact overall
Federal forest health. H.R. 4717 would improve the
implementation of stewardship contracts to better support
restoration projects and create good-paying jobs. We appreciate
Congressman Lamborn in sponsoring this bill.
The bill allows third-party contractors to propose their
own stewardship contract to the U.S. Forest Service or the
Bureau of Land Management, and at least 10 percent of the
vegetation is to be removed as salvage, defined as beetle kill,
dead or dying trees, wildfire kill. Allowing a third party to
propose a stewardship contract would better inform the agencies
as to what specific timber is most valuable to the mills.
The provision would not impose new responsibilities or
authorizations, as tribes are currently allowed to propose
their own stewardship contracts to the Federal Government.
The bill ensures agencies can reject or amend proposed
contracts, and will not force them to accept insufficient
contracts.
The bill does not change the process for the Federal timber
harvest. It only makes the necessary improvements to the
stewardship contracting.
Additionally, the bill would raise the $10,000 cap where
agencies are not required to advertise timber sales to $55,000.
The cap was established in 1976, and has never been adjusted
for inflation. This will give agencies the ability to expedite
timber sales.
For western counties, new stewardship contract authorities
can help kick start new forest product industries. And unlike
in the northwest, for example, our forest predominantly
consists of small diameter pine not suitable for major lumber
mills. The bill would help facilitate their removal in a cost
effective manner, which will improve the landscape and provide
fiber for emerging industries.
Thank you for the invitation to testify, and Counties urge
Congress to adopt H.R. 4717 promptly. I look forward to your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McFall follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Dwayne McFall, Commissioner,
Fremont County, Colorado
on H.R. 4717
Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse and members of the
Subcommittee on Federal Lands, thank you for the invitation to testify
at today's hearing in support of H.R. 4717, the Locally Led Restoration
Act.
My name is Dwayne McFall, and I am in my second term as a Fremont
County, Colorado Commissioner. I was born and raised across the state
line in New Mexico, but I have been a resident of Fremont County for
over thirty years, where I raised my family. I am an avid outdoorsman
and sportsman with a passion for wildlife and livestock conservation. I
offer my testimony today on behalf of the National Association of
Counties (NACo).
Fremont County has a population of approximately 48,000 people and
serves as a gateway to the San Isabel and Pike National Forests, along
with the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness Area. With more than 46 percent of
our landscape owned by the federal government, the decisions made by
Congress and federal lands agencies directly impact the well-being of
residents and visitors, landscape resiliency and our county's economic
prospects. We need a strong, cooperative intergovernmental relationship
with our federal partners to thrive.
Like many parts of the West, Fremont County has seen an increase in
wildfire over the past few decades because of reduced management
activities in our national forests. The recent additional spike in
recreational visitors to our federal lands by recreators, while
generally good for the local economy, leads to heightened wildfire
risks from both legal and illegal campfires. Proactively reducing and
managing the vegetation and hazardous fuels in the forests is critical
for lowering this risk to our communities and environment.
Lack of Timber Harvests and the Increased Threat of Wildfire
Catastrophic wildfires disproportionately threaten western
communities and pollute our environment. In 2023, we have been
fortunate to see only 2.5 million acres have burned nationwide,
compared to the 7 million acres burned on average annually over the
past two decades. The forest health and wildfire crisis will only be
solved if federal agencies forge strong partnerships with state, local
and Tribal governments, as well as private industry.
Unfortunately, agencies and Congress took a passive approach to
managing our national forests over the past three decades. This left
our forests overcrowded and unhealthy, while restraining our ability to
grow our local forest products economies. Healthy forests generally
contain 50-80 trees per acre, depending on the type of forest and
surrounding environment. Colorado's national forests have between 250-
300 trees per acre. Some national forests in other parts of the country
contain 600-800 per acre, serving as kindling for the next devastating
blaze.
In spite of this obvious, looming threat, agencies and Congress
still have not taken all the necessary steps to reduce it. In the
1980s, the United States produced around 20-times the board foot of
timber we produce today. As we reduced the amount of timber harvested,
the number of wildfires and acres burned increased exponentially,
resulting in the calamity the West faces today. We must do better for
our environment and communities.
In 2016, the Hayden Creek wildfire in western Fremont County burned
over 16,000 acres, mostly on US Forest Service land. Like in many parts
of the west, the large amount of beetle kill served as ready fuel for a
wildfire caused by lightning. Today the landscape is littered with
fallen, no value trees, which pollute the watershed and threaten
livelihoods.
More recently, in 2020, Colorado experienced two of the worst fires
in our state's history. The Cameron Peak fire burned 208,663 acres, and
the East Troublesome fire burned 130,000 acres. These fires damaged or
destroyed over 800 homes. Like the Hayden Creek fire, these two were
also fueled by beetle kill trees. Proactive removal of these fuel
sources is no longer an option--it's an absolute necessity to protect
people and the environment.
H.R. 4717, Locally Led Restoration Act
By improving relationships with intergovernmental partners and
outside organizations, especially the private sector, we can
reestablish healthy and resilient federal forests. In recent years,
stewardship contracts have been one of the most effective tools used by
federal agencies to improve forest health and local economic prospects.
A stewardship contract is one in which the contractor is mandated to
complete another task, such as repairing infrastructure on federal
lands, that is secondary to timber harvesting.
However, federal lands agencies and private sector partners do not
have the needed flexibility under current law to utilize stewardship
contracts in a way that will truly impact overall federal forest
health. H.R. 4717, the Locally Led Restoration Act, would improve the
implementation of stewardship contracts to better support landscape
restoration projects and create good paying jobs within our
communities. We appreciate Congressman Doug Lamborn for sponsoring this
legislation. H.R. 4717 improves the stewardship contract system in
several important ways.
First, it allows third party contractors such as an
intergovernmental partner, private industry or even a conservation
group to propose their own stewardship contract to the U.S. Forest
Service or Bureau of Land Management if at least 10% of the vegetation
to be removed is salvage. The bill defines salvage as beetle kill, dead
or dying trees or wildfire kill. Allowing a third party to propose a
stewardship contract will better inform the agencies of what specific
timber in most valuable to mills.
This provision would not impose new responsibilities or authorities
on federal lands agencies. Under the Tribal Forest Protection Act,
tribes are allowed to propose their own stewardship contracts to the
federal government. The bill ensures agencies have the authority to
reject or amend any proposed stewardship contracts from third parties
and will not force them into accepting an insufficient proposal. To be
clear, this legislation does not change the established process for
timber harvests on federal lands--it only makes necessary improvements
to stewardship contracting.
Additionally, the bill raises the $10,000 cap where agencies are
not required to advertise timber sales to $55,000. This cap was
established in 1976 but has never been adjusted for inflation. Raising
it to $55,000 reflects the change in currency value over the past five
decades. This will give agencies the ability to approve smaller timber
sales expeditiously.
For Colorado counties and others in the West, new stewardship
contracting authorities can help kickstart new forest products
industries in our communities. Unlike in the Pacific Northwest, for
example, our forests predominantly consist of small diameter pine trees
that are typically not suitable for major lumber mills. By improving
the stewardship contract program, federal agencies can facilitate the
removal of small diameter trees in a cost-effective manner, which will
improve the landscape and provide the needed fiber for emerging forest
products industries, such as the manufacture of wood pellets for energy
generation.
Conclusion
Chairman Tiffany and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
invitation to testify. Counties urge Congress to enact forest health
legislation that facilitates economic growth in the rural west. The
Locally Led Restoration Act will create a better, more sustainable
mechanism to implement stewardship contracts on federal lands to
benefit the environment and create jobs in our communities. We urge
Congress to adopt H.R. 4717 promptly.
I look forward to your questions.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to the Hon. Dwayne McFall,
Commissioner--District 3, Fremont County, CO
Questions Submitted by Representative Lamborn
Question 1. Mr. McFall, can you talk about forestry in Colorado and
across the West in general? What unique challenges do you face? What
problems would you like to see fixed?
Answer. Forests in Colorado and the West face many challenges.
Drought, insect and disease infestation, and lack of proper management
over the past three decades have left our wildland-urban interface and
watersheds littered with no-value trees, which are fuel for the next
mega fire. Thinning of forest to remove fuels will make a healthy
forest and watershed. However, our forests in Colorado do not contain
the merchantable timber you see in the Pacific Northwest. We need the
federal government to partner with the private sector to remove these
wildfire fuel sources and create jobs in our communities. H.R. 4717
will help achieve those outcomes.
Question 2. What makes fulfilling contracts so difficult?
Answer. Federal lands agencies have decreased the availability of
timber for harvests, which makes private industry increasingly
skeptical that federal lands will provide a reliable supply of fiber.
This leads to fewer mills being constructed near federal lands, which
means that timber removed from a federal forest must be hauled a much
longer distance, thus reducing profitability for the private sector.
Question 3. What makes western timber unique from timber that you
may find on the west coast?
Answer. Timber in places like Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona is
smaller in diameter compared to the Northwest. It is not suitable for
larger mills and therefore requires smaller contractors and different
equipment within the mills to process it. Additionally, much of the
fiber from our forests is best utilized for innovative products, like
wood pellets to produce energy.
Question 4. Mills around the country are disappearing and have been
in decline since the 90s. What prevents contractors from harvesting
enough timber to be financially viable?
Answer. In addition to the unreliable fiber supply from our federal
forests, the ability to acquire a contract and federal agencies'
unwillingness to sign a contract for a profitable period of time hinder
our ability to grow this sector of our economy. Additionally, for
stewardship contracts, there is no room to negotiate--if a contract's
terms are not profitable for a company, they may not counter-offer.
Private industry knows what works for companies and should have room to
work with the federal government in developing contracts.
Question 5. How will the Locally Led Restoration Act help
communities like yours?
Answer. The Locally Led Restoration Act will give contractors the
ability to negotiate a contract, kickstarting new forest products
industries while cleaning the dead and falling trees from our
watersheds. Improving the landscape and allowing new industries to
emerge is not only good for forest health but for the economy in rural
areas that have been struggling for many years.
Questions Submitted by Representative Fulcher
Question 1. Mr. McFall, highlighted in your written testimony,
Congress has taken an approach to managing our forests that has not
yielded results in the best interest of our state, local, and tribal
entities. As I have stated before in this Committee, 63% of our land in
the State of Idaho is federally controlled, and we are far too familiar
in knowing just how devasting dry vegetation can be during the fire
season. Earlier this year, I sponsored legislation out of this
Committee, H.R. 1450, Treating Tribes and Counties as Good Neighbors
Act, which requires Tribes and Counties to retain revenue generated
from tinder sales under the good neighbor agreement.
I am curious if you could expand on how such flexibility in H.R.
4717 for interagency work is first implemented at the local level. What
do those initial steps look like, and what support do local communities
need going beyond those initial steps?
______
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. McFall, thank you very much for your
testimony. Now I would like to introduce Mr. Jason Meyer, the
Executive Director of the White Oak Initiative.
Mr. Meyer, you have 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JASON MEYER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WHITE OAK
INITIATIVE, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
Mr. Meyer. Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse, and
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
speak with you today on H.R. 5582, the White Oak Resilience
Act.
I would also like to thank Chairman Westerman for his work
on white oak, and Representative Andy Barr and Representative
Ami Bera for their leadership on this critical issue.
My name is Jason Meyer, and I am the Executive Director of
the White Oak Initiative. This initiative is a coalition made
up of conservation non-profits, forestry associations,
universities, state and Federal forestry partners, forest
industries, landowners, and the distilled spirits industry. We
are all concerned about the future of white oak and upland
hardwood forests where they currently exist.
My career in the natural resources has led me to do
multiple things, including working for the Forest Service in
Idaho, working for a non-profit partner of the Forest Service
in Southern California, and running two nature centers focused
on educating urban youth about our natural world, including the
resources that we extract and that we must steward well to
ensure that they are there for future generations.
For several years, I served as a forester with the
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, today
known as Cal Fire, and I understand and appreciate all that
this Committee does to address forest and fire management in
the West. While that is a topic that is often discussed before
this Subcommittee, today I would like to discuss forest
management in the central and eastern United States.
Namely, I am here to speak with you today about the
American white oak. The white oak is what we refer to as a
keystone species, meaning that its health is an indicator of
the entire ecosystem's health. This tree species is truly one
of the most important for wildlife, biodiversity, and the
economy.
White oak has abundant and nutritious acorns that feed a
broad variety of wildlife, from bears to mice, deer to turkey,
and it is an important host to literally hundreds of beneficial
pollinator insects.
Economically, white oak is used for almost every type of
forest product on the market, from high quality flooring,
furniture, railroad ties, cabinetry, as well as lumber and a
multitude of other uses. The use that has recently gained the
most attention, however, is that white oak is the preferred
wood to make the barrels in which spirits are aged, including
America's native spirit, bourbon.
The Code of Federal Regulations requires bourbon to be aged
in a new oak barrel. To be clear, it doesn't have to be a white
oak barrel, but white oak not only has a tighter grain, which
allows less evaporation as distilled spirits are aged, but it
also contains the sugars and other chemicals that give bourbon
its unique color and flavor. This is truly a remarkable treat.
There is a looming crisis for the white oak, though, and we
are uniquely positioned to be proactive rather than reactive,
which works much better for sound upland oak forest
stewardship, given how long it takes for management actions to
effect change in future forests.
The FIA data, or Forest Inventory Analysis data, clearly
shows that while there are plenty of mature white oak trees in
our forest today, there are relatively few seedlings and
saplings that will make up tomorrow's mature forest. This is
not a bright future for white oak.
This is a species that thrives when forests are disturbed.
And while there was a great deal of disturbance in the forests
of the past in recent years, this is less the case. There has
been less active management and less fire on the landscape.
Invasive species such as kudzu are overtaking and outcompeting
white oak seedlings. But it isn't just these invasive species.
White oak is slow growing, and it likes partial sunlight. So,
without that disturbance that creates openings in the forest
canopy, shade tolerant trees such as maple, beech, and poplar
are easily outcompeting white oak seedlings, too.
This FIA data shows that in just 10 to 20 years, we will
begin to see a decline in the number of mature white oaks on
the landscape, with an even more precipitous decline after that
unless we take immediate action today on several fronts.
Starting now, we must help landowners and forest managers,
both public and private, actively manage our white oak forest
to restore their health by removing competing species,
preventing diseases and further spread of invasive species, and
creating openings for this tree to flourish.
We must work to develop markets for the smaller diameter
trees that must be removed to make space for our oaks, as this
is a significant barrier for landowners who must invest capital
in management practices that they may never see the financial
return on in their lifetimes.
We must continue to support research that will improve the
vigor of this species to allow it to better withstand the
obstacles that it must overcome to mature, including climate
change.
And we must invest in the infrastructure necessary, such as
nurseries, to augment the natural regeneration that we are
trying to lift up.
And, of course, we must continue to collaborate and work
together across boundaries, disciplines, and sometimes
competing interests to face this challenge head on.
H.R. 5582 supports these efforts and outcomes as it seeks
to directly reverse the decline of white oak regeneration in
our forests. The White Oak Initiative worked closely with
Representatives Barr and Bera, and with the House Natural
Resources and Agriculture Committees to craft the language in
the bill. I am happy to report that the bill is bipartisan and
budget conscious, as it doesn't authorize any new funding or
programs, but instead works within the existing programs at the
USDA Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation
Service.
I would like to urge every member of this Committee to
support H.R. 5582. Thank you for the opportunity to testify
today, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Meyer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jason Meyer, Executive Director, White Oak
Initiative
on H.R. 5582
Chairman Tiffany, Ranking Member Neguse and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on H.R.
5582, the White Oak Resilience Act. I would also like to thank Chairman
Westerman for his work on white oak and Representatives Andy Barr and
Ami Bera for their leadership on this important issue.
I am the executive director of the White Oak Initiative and a
forester by training. The White Oak Initiative is a diverse coalition
of non-profits, trade associations, universities, state and federal
forestry partners, forest industry representatives, landowners, and the
distilled spirits industry. All of these are concerned about the future
of white oak populations and the upland hardwood forests they are found
in. We are committed to the long-term sustainability of America's white
oak forests as well as the economic, social, and environmental benefits
they provide.
American white oak (Quercus alba) is a tree species currently
occupying more than 104 million acres of public and private forestland
across much of the eastern and central United States. American white
oak has a strong presence in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia
and Wisconsin. Not only do white oak forests support extensive plant
and animal biodiversity, but white oak is also the most commercially
important timber oak, generating billions of dollars annually, boosting
rural economies, and supplying necessary material to industries such as
furniture, flooring, cabinetry, railroad ties, and wine and spirits.
The Challenge
Today's white oak forests are dominated by older mature oak trees.
Younger trees and seedlings are not regenerating at historic levels and
without action now, the population of white oak in our forests will
decline significantly in the next 20-50 years. This will have a
profound negative impact not just on the numerous forest products
industries reliant on white oak, but also on wildlife, including game
species such as deer, turkey, and ruffed grouse (hunting licenses are
an important source of revenue for states). As a keystone species in
the ecosystem, the impact goes beyond our favorite game species,
though, and will negatively impact over 500 other species of birds,
bats, and pollinating insects that depend on this species for their
survival. Clearly this is an ecological dilemma as well as a commercial
one.
To protect and enhance American white oak populations, we need to
work together--thinking, planning, and acting--to prevent a looming
crisis. The only way we will be successful at regenerating white oak
for the future is to set the stage for what this species needs to
survive and thrive--namely disturbance in the forest that creates
conditions for sunlight to reach the forest floor. Seventy years ago,
when today's mature trees were just seedlings, public and private
landowners were actively logging, fire was more prevalent on the
landscape, invasive species did not have the foothold that they have
today, and forests were not being converted to other land uses at the
current rate. As forest management activities slowed, fires began to be
suppressed, and invasive species moved in, white oak seedlings became
threatened by direct competitors that do much better in shaded forest
conditions.
In More Detail: The White Oak Assessment & Conservation Plan
To address this problem, the White Oak Initiative, with support
from USFS Region 8 and 9 Landscape Scale Restoration Grants (which
includes participation from 17 state agencies, as well as conservation
groups and key public and private partners), began developing a range-
wide, science-based report detailing the current state of America's
white oak forests. This report, ``Restoring Sustainability for White
Oak and Upland Oak Communities: An Assessment and Conservation Plan,''
recommends a practical plan of action to avoid upland oak decline.
According to the report, shifts in land management and ecological
changes throughout much of the white oak range are resulting in an
increase of competing species establishing themselves in white oak
forests. These competing species, most notably maples, beech, and
poplar, are shading out white oak seedlings, preventing them from
surviving to maturity. As a result, older white oak trees are not being
replaced by younger white oak trees at a pace that will support long-
term sustainability. The report also highlights the importance of other
challenges such as invasive insects and diseases, climate change and
behavior change.
The report demonstrates that to restore the long-term
sustainability of America's white oak forests, and maintain the
economic, social, and environmental benefits they provide, we need
active cross-boundary collaboration, participation, and support from
industry, resource professionals, policymakers, landowners, and others
who can align knowledge and resources behind the report's 10
recommended forest management practices before it's too late.
A full copy of the report has been submitted with this testimony
and may be found on the White Oak Initiative website at https://
www.whiteoakinitiative.org/assessment-conservation-plan.
H.R. 5582, The White Oak Resilience Act
Knowing that Federal action would be a key component of the
solution, the White Oak Initiative worked closely with the White Oak
Caucus in the House of Representatives (Chairs are Rep. Andy Barr, Rep.
Ami Bera, Rep. Steve Cohen, and Rep. Scott DesJarlais), the House
Natural Resources Committee, and the House Agriculture Committee to
draft H.R. 5582 to mitigate the white oak regeneration problem. Given
the long-lived life cycle of the white oak, we must actively manage our
upland oak forests now to ensure that today's seedlings can outcompete
the species that will crowd them out, and to do so means providing the
support necessary to remove barriers for landowners, agencies, and
conservation groups catalyzing on-the-ground action. Importantly, the
bill does not authorize any new funding, new programs, nor should it
carry a mandatory score from the Congressional Budget Office. Instead,
H.R. 5582 would work within existing USDA Forest Service and Natural
Resource Conservation Service programs to address the problem.
In summary, the bill:
Codifies the White Oak Restoration Initiative Coalition--
based on the current White Oak Initiative, this body of
state, private and federal partners would work together to
regenerate white oak across its range.
Creates pilot projects for the US Forest Service and the
Department of the Interior to reforest and regenerate white
oak where appropriate.
Creates a white oak restoration fund where private funding
could be used to fund white oak regeneration on national
forests through the National Forest Foundation.
Allows the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant white oak
and other associated hardwoods to re-establish native
hardwood forests.
Solves the tree nursery problem by requiring the Forest
Service to develop and implement a national strategy to
increase the capacity of Federal, State, Tribal and private
tree nurseries. This is not limited to white oak, but
instead includes all tree species and would help the Forest
Service meet its reforestation backlog goals.
Allows the Forest Service to enter Memorandums of
Understanding with land grant institutions, including
Historically Black Colleges, to conduct much-needed
research on white oak.
Prioritizes white oak projects by directing USDA's Natural
Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to create a formal
initiative on white oak (similar to the Longleaf Pine
Initiative and the Sage Grouse Initiative at USDA).
Encourages the use of existing authorities that foster
collaboration (the Good Neighbor and Stewardship
Contracting authorities).
Restoring the Long-Term Sustainability of White Oak is Possible
Starting today, we must help both public and private landowners and
forest managers actively manage our white oak forests to restore their
health by removing competing tree species, prevent diseases and further
spread of invasive species, and create openings for this sun-loving
tree to flourish. We must work to develop markets for the smaller
diameter trees that must be removed to make space for our oaks, as this
is a significant barrier for landowners who must invest capital in
management practices that they may never see the return on in their
lifetimes. We must continue to support research that will improve the
vigor of this species to allow it to better withstand the obstacles it
must overcome to mature, including climate change. We must invest in
the infrastructure necessary, such as nurseries, to augment the natural
regeneration that we are trying to lift up. And, we must continue to
collaborate and work together across boundaries, disciplines, and
sometimes competing interests to face this challenge head-on. H.R. 5582
supports these efforts and outcomes.
Ensuring the regeneration of our upland oak forests is possible,
but immediate action must be taken. The White Oak Initiative would like
to thank the Natural Resources Committee for highlighting this
incredibly important problem and we stand ready to assist in any
possible way.
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Next, I would like to
introduce Ms. Janessa Goldbeck, the CEO of the Vet Voice
Foundation.
Ms. Goldbeck, thank you for being here, and you have 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF JANESSA GOLDBECK, CEO, VET VOICE FOUNDATION,
PORTLAND, OREGON
Ms. Goldbeck. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Ranking
Member Neguse, members of the Committee and their staff. My
name is Janessa Goldbeck. I am a service-connected disabled
veteran who served just under 7 years in the United States
Marine Corps as a combat engineer officer. I am also the CEO of
Vet Voice Foundation, a national, non-partisan advocacy
organization that represents more than 1.5 million veterans,
military family members, and supporters. I appreciate being
invited to appear before you today.
At Vet Voice Foundation, we work to ensure veterans and
military families have their voices heard by decision makers
here in Washington and throughout the country. A major area of
our focus is on preserving and protecting our nation's public
lands, and ensuring all veterans and military families have
access to them.
Among all the communities that benefit from public spaces,
the military and veterans community maintain a unique
relationship with public lands. From the heights of Mount Baldy
to the deserts of Joshua Tree, our nation's public lands have
long provided the necessary refuge and respite from the demands
of military service. These are places of reflection, reunion,
and healing for veterans and our families, as long as they are
accessible to all.
It is with this point in mind that I appear before you
today in support of the bipartisan Promoting Accessibility on
Federal Lands Act, led by Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury of
New Mexico and Congressman Juan Ciscomani of Arizona.
This common-sense legislation directs the U.S. Secretaries
of Agriculture and Interior to conduct a comprehensive
assessment of accessibility options for trails, campsites, and
facilities on federally managed public lands. Such an
assessment will provide a screenshot of where we need to make
improvements to ensure all, veterans and non-veterans alike,
are able to enjoy our nation's public lands.
Before I joined the Marines, I spent much of my free time
outdoors. I think that is a trait shared by many who are drawn
to military service. Growing up in Southern California, I
served San Diego's coastline, section-hiked the Pacific Crest
Trail, and summited Mount Whitney. Throughout my time on active
duty, when I wasn't deployed, public lands were a place where I
could decompress and reconnect with friends and family. I have
incredible memories from the Wheeler Park Wilderness, on the
Colorado River, and traversing the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
But, of course, military service takes a toll on your body
and your mind, whether you served in combat or not. According
to the U.S. Census Bureau, post-9/11 veterans like myself have
a 43 percent chance of having a service-connected disability.
While disabilities range from minor to extreme, all veterans
stand to benefit from time spent with nature and on our public
lands.
No one should miss out or be left behind. These lands
should be accessible to all. I know that members of this
Committee agree with me, and you have taken steps to ensure
that. In fact, during the 117th Congress, the Accelerating
Veterans Recovery Outdoors Act as part of the COMPACT Act was
passed with large bipartisan support and signed into law by
President Trump. This legislation, among other changes,
instructs the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a
task force to investigate the benefits of outdoor recreation
therapy for veterans.
Moreover, veterans joined with many of you mobilizing and
organizing in communities across the nation for years to ensure
that the Land and Water Conservation Fund was permanently and
fully funded, an effort that was finally achieved with the
passage of the Great American Outdoors Act.
In addition to public lands being part of the toolbox
veterans turn to in the wake of their service, public lands
have also been paramount in preserving our nation's military
history. I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to thank
those of you on the Committee who have worked particularly over
the past year alongside the Biden administration to safeguard
military heritage sites like Camp Hale, Castner Range, and the
ongoing efforts to see the proposed Chuckwalla National
Monument made a reality.
In closing, veterans and military families have long been
central in efforts to expand, create, safeguard, and use our
nation's greatest treasures: our public lands and waters. From
fellow veteran, President Teddy Roosevelt, who used the
Antiquities Act to protect millions of acres during his
presidency, to World War II veteran Earl Shaffer, who became
the first person to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail following
his service in order to walk off the war, today veterans of all
eras can be found enjoying and advocating for our public lands
in all corners of the country. Wherever you find yourself
enjoying public lands, you will find a veteran close by doing
the same. But we must ensure these lands and waters are open
and accessible to all.
Again, I thank the Subcommittee for inviting me to
participate today, and I am hopeful you will support H.R. 5665,
the bipartisan Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Goldbeck follows:]
Prepared Statement of Janessa Goldbeck, CEO, Vet Voice Foundation
on H.R. 5665
Good afternoon. My name is Janessa Goldbeck. I'm a service-
connected disabled veteran who served just under seven years in the
United States Marine Corps as a Combat Engineer Officer. I'm also the
CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, a national advocacy organization that
represents more than 1.5 million veterans, military family members and
supporters. I appreciate being invited to appear before you today.
At Vet Voice Foundation, we work to ensure veterans and military
families have their voices heard by decision-makers--here in Washington
and throughout the country. A major area of our focus is on preserving
and protecting our nation's public lands--and ensuring all veterans and
military families have access to them.
Among all the communities that benefit from public spaces, the
military and veterans communities maintain a unique relationship with
public lands. From the heights of Mount Katahdin to the deserts of
Joshua Tree, our nation's public lands have long provided the necessary
refuge and respite from the demands of military service. These are
places of reflection, reunion, and healing for veterans and our
families.
As long as they're accessible to all.
It's with this point in mind that I appear before you today in
support of the bipartisan Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act,
led by Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico and Congressman
Juan Ciscomani of Arizona. This commonsense legislation directs the
U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to conduct a comprehensive
assessment of accessibility options for trails, campsites, and
facilities on federally managed public lands. Such an assessment will
provide a screenshot of where we need to make improvements to ensure
all--veterans and non-veterans alike--are able to enjoy our nation's
public lands.
Before I joined the Marines, I spent much of my free time outdoors.
I think that's a trait shared by many who are drawn to military
service. Growing up in Southern California, I surfed San Diego's
coastline, section-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, and summitted Mount
Whitney. Throughout my time on active duty, when I wasn't deployed,
public lands were a place I could decompress and reconnect with friends
and family--I have incredible memories from the Wheeler Park
Wilderness, on the Colorado River, and traversing the Alpine Lakes
Wilderness.
But of course, military service takes a toll on your body and mind,
whether you served in combat or not. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, post-9/11 veterans like me, have a 43% chance of having a
service-connected disability. While disabilities range from minor to
extreme, all Veterans stand to benefit from time spent with nature and
on our public lands. No one should miss out or be left behind--these
lands should be accessible to all.
I know many of you agree with me, and you've taken steps to ensure
that. In fact, during the 117th Congress, the Accelerating Veterans
Recovery Outdoors Act, as part of the COMPACT Act, was passed with
large bipartisan support and signed into law by President Trump. This
legislation, among other charges, instructs the Department of Veterans
Affairs to establish a taskforce to investigate the benefits of outdoor
recreation therapy for veterans. Moreover, veterans joined with many of
you--mobilizing and organizing in communities across the nation for
years to ensure that the Land and Water Conservation Fund was
permanently and fully funded, an effort that was finally achieved with
passage of the Great American Outdoors Act.
In addition to public lands being part of the toolbox veterans turn
to in the wake of their service, public lands have also been paramount
in preserving our nation's military history. I would be remiss if I
didn't take a moment to thank those of you on the committee who've
worked, particularly over the past year, alongside the Biden
administration to safeguard military heritage sites like Camp Hale,
Castner Range, and the ongoing efforts to see the proposed Chuckwalla
National Monument made a reality.
In closing, veterans and military families have long been central
figures in efforts to create, expand, safeguard, and use our nation's
greatest treasures--our public lands and waters. From fellow veteran
President Teddy Roosevelt, who used the Antiquities Act to protect
millions of acres during his presidency to World War II veteran Earl
Shaffer, who became the first person to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail
following his service to ``walk off the war'' to veterans of today who
are found utilizing and enjoying public lands in all corners of the
country.
Wherever one finds oneself enjoying public lands one will find a
veteran close by doing the same. But we must ensure these lands and
waters are open and accessible to all. Again, I thank the Subcommittee
for inviting me to participate today and I'm hopeful you'll support
H.R. 5665, the bipartisan Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act.
Thank you.
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Ms. Goldbeck. Next, I will
recognize Ms. Linda Goodman, a retired Regional Forester and
Forest Service Job Corps National Director at the National Job
Corps Association.
Ms. Goodman, welcome. You have 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF LINDA GOODMAN, FORMER REGIONAL FORESTER AND FOREST
SERVICE JOB CORPS NATIONAL DIRECTOR, NATIONAL JOB CORPS
ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Goodman. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany and members of the
Subcommittee, for inviting me to speak about the important work
being conducted by the students and staff of the nation's Job
Corps Civilian Conservation Centers, and the opportunity to
further leverage those Job Corps CCCs through the CCC
Enhancement Act.
As a 22-year-old, I took a job as a receptionist in the
Forest Service in a small rural town in the state of
Washington, where there weren't many job opportunities
available. I took a job, but over time I learned that I was
working with people who took on a mission. They loved the land,
enjoyed their work, and their passion was infectious, helping
me to develop the same sense of purpose: a dedication to the
land and our mission to conserve and protect it.
Over the course of my 34-year career in the Forest Service,
including stints as a Regional Forester and Forest Service
Chief of Staff, my time directing the work of the Job Corps
CCCs was among the most challenging and the most rewarding--
challenging because students who enroll in Job Corps often come
from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, many homeless or aging
out of foster care, and their stories when they arrive at our
doors can be heartbreaking, but rewarding because I saw these
young people ultimately change their stories for the better.
Each year, the thousands of disadvantaged young people
enrolled in Job Corps CCCs make significant contributions to
our Federal lands mission. This year, Job Corps CCC students
have provided 425,000 hours of support to the Federal land and
rural development projects, including more than 280,000 hours
of support to Federal wildland firefighting efforts at a time
when maintaining the firefighting workforce is one of the
agency's greatest challenges.
Through service learning, Job Corps CCCs teach students
skills, but also how to be a reliable member of a team. Wages
earned as wildland firefighters enable them to afford the
deposit on their first apartment or car and successfully
transition into independence. Students frequently cite the
prestige and earnings from service as motivation to behave,
focus, and earn the opportunity to go out on the land and work.
The Bipartisan CCC Enhancement Act would further leverage
Job Corps CCCs to address some of the agency's most pressing
priorities by providing the Forest Service with new
flexibilities, not new funding, just new opportunities and new
options.
First, it would enable the Forest Service to extend job
offers to Job Corps CCC graduates that the agency has trained
in high-demand skills such as wildland firefighting and
emergency dispatch. We invest in training these young people
and even temporarily hire them as firefighters, but struggle to
hire them because of the lengthy Federal hiring process. This
bill would correct that.
It would also allow the Forest Service to utilize existing
funding for service learning projects, and to pay Job Corps
workers. If during my time as a regional forester I could have
bypassed the drawn-out Federal procurement process to bring in
skilled Job Corps students to immediately address our highest-
priority deferred maintenance projects such as buildings that
were literally falling down, Job Corps would have been my go-
to.
Among the service learning projects encouraged by the bill
is addressing homelessness among the heroes who serve as
wildland firefighters by utilizing Job Corps students trained
in carpentry, electrical repair, plumbing, or other building
trades to rehabilitate the Forest Service's own stock of
housing that has fallen into disrepair. One such project is
already underway in the Gila National Forest.
Finally, the bill would encourage the Forest Service and
land management agencies to develop more career pathways, like
the one I traveled, starting from entry level positions.
Creating additional pathways into Federal service for Job Corps
students and others who may not graduate college will broaden
economic opportunity and potential for Federal officials to be
more reflective of the constituents they serve, particularly in
rural communities.
The mission and work of the Job Corps CCCs is more vital
than ever. I invite each of you to visit a Job Corps CCC campus
to meet the students and learn about the incredible work they
are doing on Federal lands. I know the National Job Corps
Association would eagerly facilitate those visits.
I hope you will support the passage of the CCC Enhancement
Act, and I look forward to answering any questions you may
have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Goodman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Linda Goodman, Regional Forester and Forest
Service Job Corps National Director (Ret.)
on H.R. 4353
Thank you, Chairmen Westerman and Tiffany and Ranking Members
Grijalva and Neguse, for inviting me to speak about the important work
being conducted by the students and staff of the nation's Job Corps
Civilian Conservation Centers. More specifically, I am here to speak in
support of the Civilian Conservation Center (CCC) Enhancement Act which
would allow our nation to better leverage the Job Corps CCCs to advance
our federal land management mission.
I came to the Forest Service not by design but by opportunity. As a
22-year-old, I took a job as a receptionist in the Forest Service in a
small rural town in the state of Washington where there weren't many
job opportunities available. I took a job but, over time, I learned
that I was working with people who took on a mission. They loved the
land, enjoyed their work, and were deeply invested in the mission of
the Forest Service. It was infectious and they helped me to develop
that same sense of purpose: dedication to the land and our mission to
conserve and protect it.
Eventually my career path within the Forest Service brought me to
the Siuslaw National Forest where I served as an Administrative Officer
and later Deputy Forest Supervisor. There I had the chance to become
involved with the Angell Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center. The
students of Angell Job Corps CCCs, all of whom were 16 to 24 and
economically disadvantaged, often worked alongside our employees and on
behalf of the National Forest maintaining campgrounds, rehabilitating
visitor and education facilities, clearing illegal camps, and even
serving as wildland firefighters. I saw young people at the start of
adulthood and their careers finding purpose in service and working on
the land, just as I had many years earlier. When I was offered the
chance to lead and help create a national management infrastructure for
the Job Corps CCCs, I jumped at the opportunity.
Over the course of my 34-year career in the Forest Service,
including stints as a Regional Forester and Chief of Staff for the
Forest Service, overseeing and directing the Job Corps Civilian
Conservation Centers was among the most challenging and most rewarding
work. Challenging because the students who enroll in Job Corps often
come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and their stories when
they arrived at our doors could be heartbreaking. But it was the most
rewarding work because we helped thousands of these young Americans
find purpose and change their stories for the better.
Job Corps' mission has always been aligned with that of the Forest
Service and other land management agencies. In fact, Job Corps emerged
partly from a desire to continue the work of the Civilian Conservation
Corps that, during the Great Depression, put millions of unemployed
young men at the cusp of adulthood to work on federal lands. As such,
the Forest Service was deeply involved in the conception and design of
the program. It was western and rural members of this body that enabled
the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created Job
Corps, based on a desire to extend economic opportunity to their own
communities through the Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers (CCCs).
The Job Corps CCCs continue to pay dividends on that investment.
Each year, thousands of young men and women enroll in Job Corps CCCs,
many of whom were homeless or aging out of foster care, and all of whom
were struggling to secure employment and transition into a financially
independent adulthood. But Job Corps isn't just a boon for these young
Americans. Continuing the mission of the original CCCs, these young
people annually contribute hundreds of thousands of hours of service on
federal lands. This year, Job Corps CCCs students have so far provided
425,000 hours of support to federal land and rural development
projects, including more than 280,000 hours of support to federal
wildland firefighting efforts. At the height of the 2023 fire season, 1
of every 8 Job Corps CCC students was out supporting national fire
efforts, including actively fighting fires. These young workers are an
invaluable resource at a time when the Forest Service and other federal
and state agencies are struggling to hire and retain wildland
firefighters.
Job Corps CCC students' contributions to our federal lands mission
is significant and calculable. The value of giving young people a sense
of purpose and belonging is immeasurable. Young adults continue to
report increasing rates of reported anxiety, depression, and loneliness
tied to feeling ``unmoored, directionless . . . and find[ing] little
meaning in either school or work.''\1\ These challenges are even more
acute in rural communities where opportunity is often more limited and
social isolation easier.
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\1\ Making Caring Common. (2023). On Edge: Understanding and
Preventing Young Adults' Mental Health Challenges. https://
mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/on-edge
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Job Corps offers socially and economically disconnected young
people an opportunity to reengage with education, career development,
and a community. Through service-learning on federal lands Job Corps
CCC students gain not only skills but perspective on what they have to
offer and how to be a reliable member of a team. The money they earn as
wildland firefighters sets them up for success in transitioning to
independent living by enabling them to save enough to afford the
deposit on their first apartment and buy their first car. Job Corps CCC
students frequently cite the prestige and wages earned from these
service-learning projects as motivation to behave, focus, and earn the
opportunity to go out on the lands and work.
The bipartisan CCC Enhancement Act introduced in the House by
Representatives Salinas, Edwards, Guthrie, and Hoyle and in the Senate
by Senators Merkley, Daines, King, and Rounds aims to leverage the Job
Corps CCCs further by creating additional service-learning and career
opportunities for Job Corps students. It would simply provide the
Forest Service with new flexibilities to address some of the agency's
most pressing priorities.
For years, federal land management agencies have struggled to hire
and retain wildland firefighters. In response to these needs, the
Forest Service expanded the wildland firefighting and related offerings
at its Job Corps CCC campuses across the country. As a result, every
year the Forest Service is able to temporarily employ skilled Job Corps
firefighters using an emergency authority. Unfortunately, once these
firefighters graduate Job Corps, the Forest Service struggles to
permanently employ them due to the cumbersome federal hiring process.
More often than not, these economically disadvantaged Job Corps
graduates lack the financial means to endure the lengthy federal hiring
process. So they take other work and move on with their lives, denying
the Forest Service the opportunity to hire firefighters it has
specifically trained. The CCC Enhancement Act would correct this by
creating a special hiring authority that enables the Forest Service to
immediately extend employment offers to skilled Job Corps CCC
graduates. It would assist the Forest Service in meeting Chief Moore's
goal to hire hundreds of Job Corps graduates and firefighters in the
coming years.\2\
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\2\ Moore, R. Hiring Job Corps Graduates--Leader's Intent. U.S.
Forest Service. February 11, 2022.
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Over the last few years, Congress made historic new federal
investments in the Forest Service and land management agencies through
the Great American Outdoors Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and
the Inflation Reduction Act. These investments are intended to address
the growing backlog of deferred maintenance, forest restoration, fuels
reduction, and wildfire management projects nationwide. By legally
authorizing the Forest Service to temporarily employ Job Corps
students, the CCC Enhancement Act would enable Job Corps CCCs to be an
additional tool, outside the often drawn-out Federal procurement
process, that the Forest Service and Regional Foresters could use to
rapidly execute these projects.
During my time as Regional Forester, one of our most pressing needs
was deferred maintenance of our Forest Service compounds. We had
buildings that were literally falling down and in need of immediate
repairs. If I could have had the opportunity to bring in Job Corps CCC
students with their instructors to work on some of our highest priority
projects, at a lower cost and on a faster timeline, I would have
counted myself lucky. In fact, the Job Corps CCCs would have become my
go-to solution for many deferred maintenance projects and it would have
been a win-win-win for students, local constituents, and taxpayers.
With this in mind, another Forest Service priority the bill
encourages tackling with Job Corps CCC service-learning is the
significant challenge wildland firefighters face in securing housing.
As rents and home prices have risen, many heroes in one of our nation's
most dangerous jobs have found themselves homeless and living out of
their vehicles. The CCC Enhancement Act proposes utilizes Job Corps CCC
students trained in carpentry, electrical repair, plumbing, facilities
maintenance, or other building trades to rehabilitate the Forest
Service's own stock of housing that has fallen into disrepair. These
barracks could be used to house wildland firefighters and ensure our
first responders have a roof over their heads. This is not just an
idea, Job Corps CCCs students are currently refurbishing bunk houses in
the Gila National Forest that will be used by wildland firefighters.
This bill would amplify those efforts.
Finally, building off the Forest Service's success in building out
training programs tailored towards the agency's key workforce needs,
the bill encourages the land management agencies to identify and
develop new career pathways for Job Corps students into federal land
management careers. To my students, my career path was a testament that
they could start at an entry-level job and, with hard work, move up
through the ranks to become an organizational leader. Creating
additional pathways for those who may not graduate college into federal
service, particularly in rural communities, will broaden economic
opportunity and the potential for federal officials to be more
reflective of the constituents they serve.
Importantly, the proposals in the CCC Enhancement Act advance
bipartisan federal land management priorities not just in Congress but
across administrations. The bill has received endorsements from across
the spectrum of federal land management stakeholders including the
Wildland Firefighter Foundation, the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters,
the Western Fire Chiefs Association, the Forest Resources Association,
the National Job Corps Association, the National Federation of Federal
Employees, the Corps Network, and the Nature Conservancy.
I know some of you on the committee have visited your Job Corps
campuses and may have even participated in a graduation ceremony.
Watching a graduation of Job Corps students was a game changer for me.
Seeing firsthand disadvantaged young Americans, who arrived at our
doors unsure of themselves and their future, embark on their careers
with confidence and purpose as well as the skills they'd need to
succeed, broadened my perspective on what we could achieve within our
mission to protect America's most valuable resources.
The mission and work of the Job Corps CCCs is more vital than ever.
I invite each of you to visit a Job Corps CCC campus to meet the
students and learn about the incredible work they're doing on federal
lands. I know the National Job Corps Association would be eager to
facilitate those visits. And I hope you'll support the passage of the
CCC Enhancement Act. I look forward to answering any question you may
have.
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Ms. Goodman. Finally, last but not
least, the Division Chief for Air and Wildland Division, San
Bernardino County Fire Department, Mr. Jim Topoleski.
Sir, you have 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JIM TOPOLESKI, DIVISION CHIEF FOR AIR AND WILDLAND
DIVISION, SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT, REDLANDS,
CALIFORNIA
Mr. Topoleski. Thank you, Mr. Tiffany and Committee
members. As mentioned, my name is Jim Topoleski.
I have approximately 40 years in the fire service, all at
the ground level, eventually promoting all the way through the
ranks within the fire service. During this time, I have spent
25 years on Federal and state incident Type 1 management teams
as an Operations Section Chief, and have traveled across the
country in suppression of fires or disasters as we are
responded to.
The basis of my testimony today is my experience,
knowledge, and skills related to technology and fire
suppression management. I am honored and proud to be here today
representing the San Bernardino County Fire Protection
District, where we serve a population of approximately 2.1
million over a land mass of almost 20,000 square miles.
We are the largest county in the continental United States.
San Bernardino County is a diverse geographical region with
large coastal valleys, mountainous terrains, and expansive
desert areas. San Bernardino County is home to one of the most
populated and recreated national forests, with approximately 75
percent of the county's land mass comprising Federal lands.
San Bernardino County has a history of profound, large-
scale, destructive wildland fires and natural disasters that
pose significant challenges for our responders. The recent York
fire, which occurred this past July in the Mojave National
Preserve in eastern reaches of San Bernardino County, was one
such fire. The fire consumed 93,000 acres of critical natural
habitat, destroyed and damaged several residences, and
threatened electrical distribution to Southern California and
the Las Vegas regions.
Beyond this, the fire crews were challenged due to lack of
communication capacity, where cellular phone data service and
connectivity could have been improved.
Another routine encounter that we must overcome is
coordination of unified operations between our Federal, state,
and local partners that operate on different technology
platforms.
Another major challenge is inadequate radio communication
systems. The 93,000-acre York Fire was one such incident in not
only having cellular and data connectivity issues throughout a
large majority of the fire area, but placed our firefighters'
safety both in the air and on the ground in jeopardy. Fire
personnel had to and continue to establish workarounds to
communicate effectively.
This has become a standard practice to work around the
ineffectiveness of our radio system shortfalls, and should not
be accepted in modern communication technology. This Act will
provide the needed test bed program and mechanism to facilitate
fire agency interoperability across multiple agency platforms.
This interoperability is critical to San Bernardino County; our
Wildland Fire Response Force is comprised of the U.S. Forest
Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
It would also provide for the safety and welfare of our
firefighters identified in the Dingell Act Resource Tracking,
commonly known as DART. DART intends to track the location of
our resources and display those resources remotely.
For us in San Bernardino County, the absence of technology
deployment, maintaining accountability of resources, personnel,
and fire locations presents further challenges in keeping fires
small. Deploying engaging assets in rugged terrain with
accessibility challenges, low light, and smoky conditions is
often done on a trial-and-error basis.
Utilizing automatic vehicle location, AVL, tracking and
personnel tracking provides for safe and rapid deployment by
having a real-time view, which is critical to keeping fires
small. More importantly, provides for the safety and
accountability of our firefighting personnel.
Finally, it will help provide real-time information to
emergency managers, law enforcement, policy-makers, and the
public in an easy-to-digest format that can be agnostically
viewed across a spectrum of platforms.
Federal, state, and local fire agencies and private
partnerships must seek to develop and further refine these
critical technologies to reduce the risk to our communities,
infrastructure, and environment that our personnel face. It is
with this that I would ask you to support H.R. 4235, and if
there are any questions I may be able to answer, please ask.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Topoleski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mr. Jim Topoleski, Division Chief for Air and
Wildland Division, San Bernardino County Fire Department
on H.R. 4235
Good afternoon, my name is Jim Topoleski. I am the Division Chief
of the Wildland and Aviation Division for San Bernardino County Fire. I
am here today in response to the Committee's invitation to testify in
support of H.R. 4235. I have nearly 40 years of experience in the fire
service, where I have served in almost every rank, from firefighter/
paramedic to executive chief officer. As an Operations Section Chief, I
have served on the State of California (CalFire) and Federal Type I
Incident Management Teams for twenty-five years. I have responded
nationwide to complex and dynamic wildfire incidents that would have
benefited from new wildfire technologies and communication
capabilities.
I am honored and proud to be here today representing the San
Bernardino County Fire Protection District, where we serve a population
of nearly 2.1 million over a land mass of almost 20,000 square miles. I
want to thank our Congresswoman, Young Kim, for her leadership on this
issue. We are the largest county in the continental United States with
a land mass larger than New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode
Island put together. San Bernardino County is a diverse geographical
region with large coastal valleys, mountainous terrain, and expansive
desert areas. San Bernardino County is home to one most populated and
recreated national forests and where approximately 75% of the county's
land mass is made up of federal lands.
San Bernardino County has a history of profound large-scale
destructive wildfires and natural disasters that pose significant
challenges for our responders. For example, the York Fire this past
July in the Mojave National Preserve and the eastern reaches of San
Bernardino County consumed 93,000 acres of critical natural habitat,
destroyed, and damaged several residences, and threatened electrical
distribution networks to Southern California and Las Vegas. During the
response fire crews lacked basic communication capabilities such
cellular phone, data service, and even radio communication. This
challenge put our firefighters, both in the air and on the ground, in
jeopardy. Fire personnel had to establish work arounds to communicate
during the response. In the era of modern communication technology this
should not be the case. Another challenge was the coordination of
unified operations between our federal and state partners that operate
on different technology platforms that do not share a common operating
picture.
We believe that this Act will provide the needed testbed program
and a mechanism to bring about fire agency interoperability across
platforms. This interoperability is critical to San Bernardino County,
where most of our wildland fire response capacity is comprised of our
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management firefighting partners.
It will also provide for the safety all our firefighters and
support ``Dingell Act Resource Tracking,'' commonly known as DART. The
intent of DART is to track remotely the location of active resources
and display each fire resource on real-time maps. While the technology
to accomplish the objective of DART exists, it has yet to be
operationally deployed in a widescale manner. Without a common
operating picture incident commanders have a difficult time maintaining
accountability of resources, which puts our firefighters in danger. The
use of automatic vehicle location (AVL) tracking and personal tracking
technologies will provide for safe and rapid deployment of our
firefighters.
As we learned from the York Fire federal and local government
firefighting agencies must have access to emerging technologies to
communicate with each other and coordinate resources. We must have a
common operating picture to better understand the wildfire environment,
conduct risk assessment, and maximize risk reduction. Understanding the
fire ground (battlefield) is critical to our ability to deploy
resources quickly and allow for more informed and safer decision
making. Combined with the use of fire prediction spread modeling and
live dynamic fire line mapping incident commanders will be able to
accomplish the objective of keeping fires small. It may also be worth
noting that the same technology would have also greatly assisted in the
managing of resources and minimizing impacts during this past February
snowstorm that crippled the mountain communities in San Bernardino
County for several weeks.
Federal, state, and local government fire agencies along with
private partnerships must collaboratively develop and refine these
critical technologies. In the past, development was often done in a
vacuum where interoperability was significantly lacking. Consequently,
underdeveloped technology was placed into operation and didn't work as
expected. Product developers often design their products based on what
they believe is needed rather than what our firefighters require. Thus,
the need for public-private partnerships that mitigate the cost and
risk through pilot programs that H.R. 4235 makes possible.
It begins with private sector engagement where firefighters can
evaluate and provide feedback to private sector companies through
``Pilot studies'' and ``Beta-Testing''. My agency, for example, has
been involved in envisioning and planning for the next generation of
equipment and personnel tracking technology where we also consider
product life cycle refinement loops. This limited approach, however,
does not maximize our local resources with investments at the state and
federal level. We need to develop these technologies and implement them
together (at the federal, state, and local levels) to optimize those
resources.
We have taken the first step in sharing Automatic Vehicle Location
(AVL) tracking systems, and communication equipment with our federal
partners. San Bernardino County Fire Protection District at our own
cost provided the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests with
access to our mapping and data system that displays AVL information of
fire response units to create a common operating picture. This data
sharing has been invaluable. For instance, a two weeks ago, during a
wildland fire in an adjacent county fire managers were able to track
and account for resources in real-time. Because of this, managers were
able to select and deploy the closest and most appropriate resources at
a critical time when the fire was rapidly approaching homes. While this
example illustrates the possibilities we must do more. The ability to
display information must be further developed and the federal
government must look to form these public-private partnerships to
increase effectiveness and reduce costs. Technology integration, UAVs,
artificial intelligence will be integral in combatting all types of
disasters. Federal government engagement and investment in this type of
partnership with the private sector is a smart use of tax-payer
dollars.
In closing, San Bernardino County Fire envisions a forward-leaning
Federal wildland fire partner that continues to develop and utilize
cutting-edge technology. The proposed bill accomplishes this by:
Establishing programs,
Identifying and prioritizing emerging technologies,
Communicating tech needs to the private industry, and
Evaluating and sharing recommendations.
I encourage the Committee to act favorably on H.R. 4235. Thank you
for your time and consideration.
I am available to answer any questions you may have.
______
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you for your testimony.
And I would like to ask unanimous consent for a statement
from Representative Barr, the lead author of H.R. 5582, the
White Oak Resilience Act, to be added to the record for today's
hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Barr follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Andy Barr, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Kentucky
Dear Chairman Tiffany and Ranking Member Neguse, thank you for
hosting today's hearing which includes my legislation, H.R. 5582, the
White Oak Resilience Act. This bipartisan bill addresses the critical
shortages faced by the white oak population, underlining its vital
importance to the environment, the economy, and the Commonwealth of
Kentucky's signature bourbon industry. The bill's key provisions range
from authorizing the Department of Interior (DOI) and the Forest
Service to actively participate in white oak restoration projects to
harnessing private investment and establishing a white oak restoration
fund to support white oak regeneration.
Without intervention today, the American white oak population will
begin to decline significantly within the next 10 to 15 years, with
more extreme declines over the next several decades. Due to shifts in
land management and ecological changes, older white oak trees are not
being replaced by younger white oak trees at a pace that will support
long-term sustainability.
In order to restore the long-term viability of America's white oak
forests, and maintain the economic, social and environmental benefits
they provide, we need active, cross-boundary collaboration,
participation and support from industry, resource professionals,
policymakers and others. The White Oak Resilience Act is a result of
that collaborative approach, and I am proud of the efforts we are
pushing on this very important issue.
Thank you to our witnesses before the Committee today for their
expert testimony and I look forward to continuing to work with the
Natural Resources Committee on this legislation.
______
Mr. Tiffany. With that, Representative Peltola, would you
like to ask any questions of our witnesses?
Mrs. Peltola. Thank you, Chairman Tiffany. I actually was
very interested to hear the report of Mr. Meyer on the white
oak issue.
And it is very encouraging that you are here offering
partnerships, and not necessarily asking for a big-price-tag
program. I was wondering if you could talk about some of the
pilot programs that are maybe on the horizon if we can keep
forward progress, and then how many years do you think it might
be before we can see some relief for white oaks?
Mr. Meyer. Yes, thank you for that question. I think I will
start with the second one first.
The data trajectory shows that we will have a pinch in the
white oak supply in the next 20 to 50 years, and that is simply
because you can't grow an 80-year-old tree in that time frame.
So, if we start our active management today, we will have that
pinch, and then we will come back out of it in the future.
Back to the pilot projects, one of the wonderful things
about the White Oak Initiative and all the collaborations that
we bring to the table are that we are working in multiple
states on different projects. We have some state partners that
are doing demonstration areas on their land, where landowners
can come and see what oak management looks like so that they
know what to expect.
We are working with the Tennessee Forestry Association, for
example, on landowner trainings, logger trainings, and forester
trainings because, believe it or not, you go to forestry school
in one place, and you don't know how to manage oaks in another.
So, we are helping with those educational pieces.
We are partnering with the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation on some of those pilot projects, as well, and we are
talking about using those pilot projects as the basis of doing
something a little bit bigger, where perhaps the White Oak
Initiative has some staff in different states that help
coordinate from one state to the next. If folks are doing
something really good in Missouri, perhaps we can talk to folks
in Kentucky about those management practices, and start to
learn from each other, as well.
So, there is a lot of good work going on out there. It is
critical that it starts to really pick up speed now so that we
can get through that pinch and get back to our healthy white
oak forests.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentlelady yields back. I have so many
questions and so little time.
Ms. Goodman, I have had a chance a couple of times to go to
the Blackwell Job Corps in Forest County in far northern
Wisconsin, and some of the----
Ms. Goodman. A great center.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, it really is, and I really enjoyed going
there, and with some of the youth that, some of them troubled,
but were getting a skill and were getting a shot at having a
good life. So, we really appreciate the work that you did
there.
Commissioner McFall, do you have Good Neighbor Authority
available to you in Colorado?
Mr. McFall. Yes, sir, we do.
Mr. Tiffany. Is the state using it?
Mr. McFall. In places, yes. In our county, no. But in other
places in the state, yes, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. Would you like to see it expanded?
Mr. McFall. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. How do we get mills to come back? You heard me
previously, 1,900 mills across the West closed over the last 23
years. Can some of those mills come back?
Mr. McFall. Thank you for that question. I believe they
can. They just have to have the ability to make it profitable
for them to come back, whether it is a stewardship or any other
kind of contract. Stewardship is, obviously, better because
they are helping with the infrastructure.
But I think that right now the reason, it is so far to haul
timber if they do pull it out of there, there are no mills
anywhere close. The value of wood is not so good in these
places because it stood dead so long, whether it be beetle kill
or by fire kill. So, I think prompt action after a fire makes a
difference. Prompt action after beetle kill, Colorado is just
terrible with beetle kill forests, and they are just falling
over.
So, I think they can come back, but it has to be done
correctly and with some incentives for those guys to make it
profitable for them to move in there.
Mr. Tiffany. And would you also say that some certainty
would be important, that this isn't going to be just a
turnaround in forest management for a couple of years, that it
is going to take a sustained change in that forest management,
no different than what you see in this chart where we went in
the wrong direction?
[Chart.]
Mr. McFall. I absolutely do, and I think 10 years is not
long enough. It probably has to be more like 20 years. We are
30 or 40 years behind, so it is going to take a while to
recoup.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Sherren, I have been introduced to so much
technology over the last couple of years. Being a Midwesterner,
we don't have the fire problem, occasionally we do, but nothing
like the West. But being introduced to what is happening out in
the West, it really seems like the technology is there to be
able to almost eliminate the need or that wildfires happen. Is
that accurate?
Mr. Sherren. There are certainly a lot of technologies.
They are small, but scaling. And with right incentives for
markets for biochar, then people will take the risk to build
larger and larger facilities to process the feedstock that will
come from the forest. So, there is still a long way to go.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Topoleski, same question. It really seems
to me like the technology has improved so much in just some of
the stuff that I have seen come on the marketplace in the last
decade, and including the last couple of years that it seems
like we should be able to get control of many more of these
fires, first of all, before they become massive wildfires. Do
you agree with that?
Mr. Topoleski. It is a yes-and-no answer from me on that.
Yes, we should be able to do more in suppression as the
technology gets us there, from early detection to initial
attack engagement.
In regards to being able to treat the lands, the vast
majority of the lands, though I don't represent the USDA or the
DOI, those lands are highly inaccessible, and it is still going
to require significant staff workforce to pull that material
down to an area where it can be either chipped, ground, put
into a biochar machine, or pile burned. It does still require a
significant staffing equation.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Meyer, you talked about all the various
entities that are involved with the White Oak Initiative. It
scares the hell out of me when you mention the Federal
Government, because they are pre-eminent, they oftentimes call
the tune. Why should I not be fearful of that? Why should I
vote for this when I have such great fear when the Federal
Government gets involved with something like this, that they
are actually going to make things better?
Mr. Meyer. Thank you for that question, Chairman.
First of all, I will mention that we have several Forest
Service folks who hang out with us around our board meetings,
and they are doing nothing but being supportive of us, helping
us find our way forward, helping us build those partnerships
that are going to help us meet our mission better. But at the
end of the day, across much of the white oak range,
landownership is in the hands of private landowners.
So, part of this bill is actually getting to the nitty
gritty of supporting those landowners and the work that they
need to do on their lands. And that is why I think that having
this group support of the bill will ensure that white oak
continues to thrive well into the future.
Mr. Tiffany. I appreciate the comment that you made in your
testimony when you talked about less active management. You
listed a number of things that have happened here that are
causing the concern as we look into the future, and less active
management of our forests was one of them.
It seems like, Mr. Chairman, that there is a recurring
theme that goes through this Committee constantly in regards to
less management leading to poorer outcomes. Mr. Chairman, would
you like 5 minutes for questioning?
Mr. Westerman. I could actually take 10, but I will try to
stick to that.
Mr. Tiffany. Who am I to argue?
Mr. Westerman. So many good, good topics to talk about
today. And I will start with Ms. Goodman.
I had a Forest Service Job Corps Center close in my
district not too long after I got into Congress. I still have a
Forest Service Job Corps center in my district, as well. But I
did a deep dive into the reason for the closure, and what I
found was that DOL was the one that evaluated the performance
of the job centers, and the data that they used seemed to be
skewed very unfavorably towards the Forest Service Job Corps.
And I would just like to ask you if you think the evaluation of
Forest Service Job Corps Centers is done impartially and fairly
by the Department of Labor.
Ms. Goodman. Thank you for that question, Chairman. I think
that it is hard to evaluate the differences between a contract
center and a CCC center. I think the CCC centers provide
additional support to the national forest and to rural
communities that sometimes doesn't happen in the more urban
areas where a lot of our contract centers are.
So, I think sometimes it is hard to evaluate equally, so I
would like to see a few changes. And they have been working on
some of those changes.
Mr. Westerman. Do you think it would be beneficial to get
the Forest Service Job Corps out of the Department of Labor?
Ms. Goodman. I would have to defer that question.
Mr. Westerman. Well, I think it would be, but we will work
on that, save that for another day.
Talk about white oaks a little bit, Mr. Meyer. White oaks
are best known for their use in barrels, especially for wine
and spirits and bourbon, but they are also a premier hardwood
tree species that is vital to ecosystem health in many forests.
They have a wide range throughout the United States. Can you
talk about the important role that white oaks play outside of
the market for barrels, for cooperage?
Mr. Meyer. Thank you, Chairman Westerman, for that
question. Your answer to the questions that don't get asked is
the trees are the answer. I would say that at least 70 percent
of the time white oak is the answer, right?
From a forest products perspective, white oak is widely
used, but this is also the tree out in nature that creates the
magic with its broad canopies. It helps to clean our air with
its deep roots. It helps to clean our water. The wildlife
habitat, food, shelter in all of the different stages of its
growth provide those ecosystem benefits that only a white oak
can provide. Other trees can provide one or two of those
things, but the white oak is the shining example of the tree
that can do it all.
Mr. Westerman. Right, and we have, in effect, lost the
chestnut due to the chestnut blight. And I think when you read
history about the benefits that chestnuts provided, the amount
of mass crop that came from chestnuts, it is hard for us to
even imagine that today. It would be a real shame to have the
same fate happen for white oaks.
With my remaining time, I will move on to biochar. Mr.
Sherren, we know there is a lot of promise for biochar. We know
biochar has been around for a long time. But the technology,
really, is kind of in the early stages of commercialization
when you talk about large-scale biochar production.
Mr. Tiffany mentioned when we were in the South Pacific, we
were in, was it Micronesia or Palau? Palau. And there was a
USDA employee there making biochar in a 55-gallon drum. But we
are talking about making it on a much larger scale. Can you
share some of the challenges that you see as biochar continues
to develop, and how the BIOCHAR Act can address some of those
issues?
Mr. Sherren. Well, when you start to think about the
production of biochar, the systems are, in some way, basic and
been around a while. And you can scale those, right? It is the
issue of somebody being willing to spend the money to put a
large system in, because the market for the char is uncertain
at this point.
So, I feel like the BIOCHAR Act will help us find markets
for biochar and give some certainty there that people will take
the risk to spend the money, because we already know the
product is great, right? It is just a matter of not being risk-
averse to take the chance.
Mr. Westerman. And as somebody who has spent time in
forestry and forest products, you understand the need for more
markets and the challenges for those markets. I think your
testimony talked about wastewater treatment. Can you talk about
some of the other potential markets for biochar, how they could
be beneficial, and how biochar itself can be beneficial to
forest management and forest products companies?
Mr. Sherren. Yes. Can you say the first part of the
question again. I was thinking about the second part.
Mr. Westerman. Yes, how different potential markets for
biochar----
Mr. Sherren. Right, right, developing, right? So, we know,
as a soil amendment, that is kind of a huge benefit there.
And stormwater management is absolutely on the rise. People
are understanding more the benefit. The Chesapeake Bay
Consortium's Science Technology Advisory Committee just spent 2
days in May talking about that, because they have been thinking
about it for 3 years, and they need to understand better how to
give credit for stormwater management. But then emerging
things, crazy things like capping orphan wells.
I also know that the FDA is studying the allowance of the
use of biochar as a feed amendment here in the United States
that has been going on for decades in Europe and Asia.
So, I think those are some really big opportunities to find
markets for biochar.
Mr. Westerman. And even the market for a quantifiable and
measurable carbon sequestration product, I think there are big
markets for that. There is a lot of money to invest in, but
there is not a measurable, large-scale product out there for
carbon sequestration.
And then the benefits of a product like biochar to forest
health, can you describe that a little bit?
Mr. Sherren. Say the first part again.
Mr. Westerman. A product like biochar that comes from
either mill residuals or from low-value material that needs to
be thinned out of the forest, how can that benefit forest
products in the long run and the forest health?
Mr. Sherren. Oh my. So, in the Luke Mill area, we were
buying 1.5 million tons of fiber a year. When the mill closed,
that market went away. There was no home for low-grade material
or forest residuals. That is all just stagnant in the forest
right now. So, if there is a market, that material will find
it.
Mr. Westerman. We are over time, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
your indulgence and yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields back.
The Natural Resources Committee went to the South Pacific
this past year to have a hearing in Guam. We have jurisdiction
over the islands there. And the Chairman, we were in Guam, we
were in Palau, we were in the Marshall Islands. The thing he
was most excited about was the biochar demonstration project in
Palau.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Tiffany. Well, I want to thank all of you for your
testimony, and we appreciate it very much.
The members of the Subcommittee may have some additional
questions for our witnesses today, and we will ask that they
respond to these in writing. Under Committee Rule 3, members of
the Subcommittee must submit questions to the Subcommittee
Clerk by 5 p.m. on Friday, November 17, 2023. The hearing
record will be held open for 10 business days for those
responses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee on Federal Lands stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]
Statement for the Record
U.S. Department of the Interior
Bureau of Land Management
H.R. 5665, Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act
H.R. 5665, the Promoting Accessibility on Federal Lands Act,
directs the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture
to carry out a comprehensive assessment of trails, campsites, boat
docks, and outdoor recreation facilities on Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) and U.S. Forest Service lands to determine their accessibility
for individuals with disabilities. The bill requires the Secretaries to
conduct the assessment and publish it online within 180 days of the
date on which appropriations are first made available for the effort.
The bill also allows the Secretaries to use previous assessments as
part of the comprehensive process.
Analysis
The Biden Administration is committed to achieving a more
inclusive, accessible, and equitable country for people with
disabilities. The BLM is also dedicated to ensuring that all Americans
have an equitable opportunity to access their public lands by providing
access to facilities, programs, services, and activities for people
with disabilities. As part of its multiple-use mission, the BLM
conducts systematic accessibility evaluations of developed recreation
sites and creates plans for corrective actions on assessed sites. The
BLM also provides accessibility training and education for field staff
and managers, so they are prepared to help meet the needs of visitors
with disabilities.
Recently, the BLM launched a new accessibility map for facilities
across multiple states on its website as part of Disability Awareness
Month. This website is the first phase of an effort that the BLM plans
to build upon in future stages as part of a larger project aimed at
enhancing access and experiences for people with disabilities. In
initiating the project, the BLM collaborated with accessibility
specialists from other Department of the Interior bureaus, including
the National Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation. The team also
distributed a survey to colleagues in the field to evaluate existing
data about accessible features and services at BLM facilities and
sites.
These efforts and this bill also advance the goals embodied by
President Biden's Executive Order 14096, Revitalizing Our Nation's
Commitment to Environmental Justice for All, signed in April, including
ensuring that all people--regardless of race, background, income,
ability, Tribal affiliation, or zip code--can benefit from the vital
safeguards enshrined in our nation's foundational environmental laws,
including better access to green space.
The BLM supports the goals of H.R. 5665 and looks forward to
working with the Sponsor on some technical aspects of the bill,
including the timeframe and resources needed for implementation, and
the scope of the sites to be assessed under the measure.
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