    [Senate Hearing 119-74]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                             S. Hrg. 119-74

                     LEGISLATIVE HEARING TO REVIEW S. 1462,
                              FIX OUR FORESTS ACT

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

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                           COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
                            NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                  May 6, 2025

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

                     [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                      Available on http://www.govinfo.gov/

                                   ______

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    60-341 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2025

               COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

                        JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas, Chairman

    MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky            AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
    JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota            MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
    JONI ERNST, Iowa                     TINA SMITH, Minnesota
    CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi        RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
    ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas               CORY BOOKER, New Jersey
    TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama            BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
    JAMES C. JUSTICE, West Virginia      RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia
    CHARLES GRASSLEY, Iowa               PETER WELCH, Vermont
    JOHN THUNE, South Dakota             JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania
    DEB FISCHER, Nebraska                ADAM SCHIFF, California
    JERRY MORAN, Kansas                  ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan

                   Fitzhugh Elder IV, Majority Staff Director
                        Jessica L. Williams, Chief Clerk
                    Lauren Santabar, Minority Staff Director
                     Chu-Yuan Hwang, Minority Chief Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                              Tuesday, May 6, 2025

                                                                       Page

    Hearing:

    Legislative Hearing to Review S. 1462, Fix Our Forests Act.......     1

                                  ----------

                        STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS

    Klobuchar, Hon. Amy, U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota....     1
    Boozman, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Arkansas......     4

                                    WITNESS

    French, Chris, Acting Associate Chief, U.S. Department of
      Agriculture Forest Service, USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC     3
                                  ----------

                                    APPENDIX

    Prepared Statements:
        French, Chris................................................    26

    Document(s) Submitted for the Record:
    Boozman, Hon. John:
        American Property Casualty Insurance Association, letter of
          support....................................................    32
        Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, letter of support......    34

    Question and Answer:
    French, Chris:
        Written response to questions from Hon. John Boozman.........    38
        Written response to questions from Hon. Ben Ray Lujan........    41
        Written response to questions from Hon. Peter Welch..........    44
        Written response to questions from Hon. Adam Schiff..........    45

                     LEGISLATIVE HEARING TO REVIEW S. 1462,
                              FIX OUR FORESTS ACT

                                  ----------

                              TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2025

                                            U.S. Senate
              Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:02 p.m., in
    Room 328A, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John Boozman,
    Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Boozman [presiding], McConnell, Hoeven,
    Marshall, Justice, Klobuchar, Bennet, Smith, Welch, and Schiff.

      STATEMENT OF HON. KLOBUCHAR, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
       MINNESOTA, U.S. COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND
                                FORESTRY

        Senator Klobuchar. [Presiding.] I am going to call the
    hearing to order, and Senator Boozman is on his way. He was
    just voting.
        I want to thank our witness, Mr. French, for being here. I
    know we will be introducing you shortly as Acting Associate
    Chief French. That is a long title. Thank you. Thirty-four
    years of service at the Department of Agriculture, thank you
    for appearing before our Committee.
        The Fix Our Forests Act that we are going to be considering
    here today is the first major standalone forestry bill Congress
    has debated in more than two decades, and that is why we look
    forward to hearing your testimony. We also appreciate the
    bipartisan work of Senators Hickenlooper, Padilla, Curtis, and
    Sheehy to introduce a Senate version of the bill.
        As everyone knows, in the country earlier this year,
    wildfires raged across Los Angeles, killing dozens of people,
    devastating homes and businesses. This spring, wildfires
    threatened homes and communities in the Carolinas and Georgia.
    Rising temperatures, drier summers, longer wildfire seasons,
    and earlier snowmelt are driving these fires as forests depart
    from their historical conditions. There are growing threats
    across the Nation.
        We have seen threats to forests in other ways, and in the
    last farm bill, I supported improvements to the Good Neighbor
    Authority, a bipartisan effort, and the execution of vegetation
    management projects to reduce wildfire risk. Now the size and
    scope of these fires and the level of need for forest
    restoration make it clear that we must do more to improve
    current tools, like the Good Neighbor Authority, and we must
    invest more in wildfire prevention.
        In recent years, I have supported additional permitting
    flexibilities and investments in wildfire risk prevention. As a
    result of these laws, a record-breaking 4.28 million acres were
    treated for wildfire last year alone. Unfortunately, we are
    seeing from this Administration cuts to the Forest Service. The
    recently released budget proposes deep reductions in National
    Forest system funding, popular programs that strengthen state
    and private capacity for managing forests, and forestry
    research.
        Eliminating the successful bipartisan collaborative Forest
    Landscape Restoration Program is something that the Fix Our
    Forests Act seeks to improve, and the budget sadly recommends
    moving wildfire operations out of the USDA's Forest Service.
    These are concerning proposals that have an impact on lives and
    livelihoods.
        Equally concerning, the Forest Service has reportedly lost
    more than 4,000 employees since January, and while many
    wildland firefighters have been exempted from workforce
    reduction initiatives, I am concerned that many Forest Service
    employees with so-called red cards have departed the agencies.
    These employees are crucial.
        Funding is another important consideration as the Committee
    discusses this important bill, the Fix Our Forests Act. In its
    latest update on the Wildfire Crisis Strategy's implementation,
    the Forest Service reported that in some areas there is more
    work to do than workforce capacity. Regardless of what the USDA
    calls its wildfire strategy, what remains the same is the need
    for tree thinning and prescribed fire to occur on some acres.
        The new wildfire intelligence center, fireshed assessments,
    increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration work, and
    reforestation, all of these new authorities demand resources.
    We can all agree that more active forest management is needed,
    but we must make sure we have the resources to do it and we
    keep the employees to do it.
        I just want to thank you, Mr. French, for being here.
    Again, we are really pleased that there has been such good work
    done on a bipartisan basis, and I am sure some of our
    colleagues will be here soon.
        Now I am going to introduce you, Mr. French, or should we
    wait?
        Okay. Mr. French serves as the Acting Associate Chief for
    the U.S. Forest Service at USDA. Prior to this assignment, he
    served as the Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, where
    he was responsible for policy oversight and direction for
    natural resource management and public service delivery
    programs across the 193 million acres of national forests and
    grasslands in the National Forest System. He has spent a 34-
    year career, as I mentioned, at USDA, working in a number of
    positions within the Forest Service, and his testimony today
    will be invaluable.
        Again, thank you for being here this afternoon, Mr. French,
    and you are recognized for your statement. Then I know we will
    look forward to hearing from Chairman Boozman. Thank you, Mr.
    French.

        STATEMENT OF CHRIS FRENCH, ACTING ASSOCIATE CHIEF, U.S.
    DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREST SERVICE, USDA FOREST SERVICE,
                            WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Mr. French. Thank you, Ranking Member Klobuchar and Members
    of the Committee. My name is Chris French, and I am the
    Associate Chief of the Forest Service, and I appreciate the
    opportunity to provide the perspective of the USDA Forest
    Service on the Senate draft of the Fix Our Forests Act.
        Our national forests are facing great challenges:
    uncharacter-istically severe wildfires, insect and disease
    outbreaks, invasive species, and many other stressors. Although
    the Forest Service has been working diligently with resources
    and authorities it has been given, there is still much to be
    done to improve the health and productivity of our Nation's
    forests.
        President Trump's Executive Order 14225 and Secretary
    Rollins' Secretarial Memo 1078-006 help the agency take
    immediate action to mitigate risk, protect public health and
    safety and critical infrastructure, support local and rural
    economies, and mitigate threats to natural resources on the
    National Forest System lands.
        The Senate draft of Fix Our Forests Act works to address
    these issues, as well as a variety of other new programs and
    amendments to existing authorities. The bill compiles several
    separate bills related to wildfire breaks, forest health,
    forest management, and other provisions. USDA supports the bill
    and would like to continue to work with the Subcommittee on
    technical changes. I will highlight a few areas.
        USDA strongly supports streamlining NEPA procedures under
    the National Environmental Policy Act and expanding existing
    categorical exclusions to reduce wildfire risk and improve
    forest health. In order to expedite the implementation of the
    categorical exclusion for high-priority hazard trees proposed
    in Section 213, we would encourage the Committee to establish
    the categorical exclusion statutorily rather than directing the
    Secretary to do so within a year.
        USDA also supports the proposed fix to the problematic
    Cottonwood decision and would like to work with the Committee
    and our federal partners on technical changes to address the
    issue once and for all.
        USDA supports provisions of the collaborative tools in
    Title I(b). We support the changes to Good Neighbor Authority
    and would support adding a provision that would allow retained
    timber receipts to be used for the construction of roads, as we
    saw in the House draft.
        In addition, we support extending the maximum length of
    stewardship and result contracting projects from 10 to 20
    years, as we see in Section 112.
        Further, we support raising the threshold at which timber
    sales must be advertised and would encourage the Committee to
    add a provision to make annual increases to the threshold to
    account for inflation.
        USDA sees prescribed fire as a critically important tool to
    support wildfire risk reduction and forest management. We
    support the subtitle on prescribed fire as it would support our
    work to reduce the risk that wildfires pose to our communities
    and resources. Specifically, this subtitle would strengthen our
    fire workforce by streamlining certification requirements and
    increasing their interoperability with our non-federal
    partners, as well as offering our prescribed fire managers more
    liability protections. We will be able to strengthen our
    partnerships with a variety of entities through the new
    cooperative agreements and contracts authorized by this
    section.
        We would like to work with the Committee to clarify a few
    sections, including on the use of pile burning and the nexus to
    prescribe fire has with regulatory compliance.
        Last, though USDA is largely supportive of our Fix Our
    Forests Act, USDA does not support the incorporation of
    containerized systems into our suppression response under
    Section 306 given firefighter safety and other operational
    concerns.
        Chairman Boozman, Ranking Member Klobuchar, Members of this
    Committee, thank you for the opportunity to present USDA's
    views on this proposed legislation, and I look forward to
    answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. French can be found on page
    26 in the appendix.]
        Chairman Boozman. [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr. French. Thank
    you, Senator Klobuchar, for getting us off to a good start.

       STATEMENT OF HON. BOOZMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
     ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, U.S. COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION,
                              AND FORESTRY

        Chairman Boozman. We are here to review S. 1462, the Fix
    Our Forests Act, commonly referred to as FOFA. I welcome our
    witness, Mr. Chris French, Acting Associate Chief for the U.S.
    Forest Service, for being here today. I know you are a busy
    guy, but we appreciate you coming and sharing your insight.
        Members and staff on both sides of the aisle and both
    chambers of Congress have invested significant time and efforts
    to bring this legislation in front of our Committee today. I
    want to thank my colleagues, Senator Curtis, Hickenlooper,
    Padilla, and Sheehy for their tireless efforts in developing
    and introducing this bipartisan Senate bill.
        I also want to thank Senator Marshall and Senator Bennet
    for your work as Chair and Ranking Member at the Subcommittee
    regarding the hearing you convened in March on H.R. 471, the
    House-Passed Fix Our Forests bill.
        Finally, I want to thank my friend and fellow Arkansan
    House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman,
    who, along with Congressman Scott Peters of California, led an
    exhaustive bipartisan effort to construct and pass H.R. 471 on
    the House floor with 279 votes in January of this year.
        As we all know, wildfires are indifferent to federal,
    state, tribal, and private property lines or political
    subdivisions. The Fix Our Forests Act provides us with a unique
    bipartisan opportunity to modernize and right-size some of the
    tools and processes our federal land management agencies,
    states, counties, tribes, rural and urban communities, and
    private partners across the country need to mitigate the
    frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfire while helping
    to keep our forests healthy and working for generations to
    come.
        Similar to the House-Passed legislation, S. 1462 identifies
    and prioritizes the most fire-prone landscapes and provides
    federal land-grant management agencies with improved
    authorities and technologies to mitigate those risks as
    exponentially as possible. It enhances the Federal Government's
    public-private partnership authorities to increase the pace and
    scale of the work needed on the ground.
        S. 1462 rectifies certain processes to mitigate frivolous
    litigation and remove duplicative review processes to
    facilitate the Forest Service's ability to proceed with its
    statutorily required environmental review process for projects
    on the National Forest System lands.
        This legislation also elevates the critical need to
    incentivize innovation and resilience in our Nation's forests
    by prioritizing initiatives such as biochar, nursery capacity,
    and white oak restoration.
        This legislation reflects the bipartisan efforts and ideas
    to mitigate the frequency and intensity of catastrophic
    wildfire, and I am pleased Members of the Committee will have
    this opportunity to further explore FOFA and hear from the
    Forest Service on how the legislation will reduce catastrophic
    wildfires and improve forest health.
        I am grateful for the work our colleagues have done on both
    sides of the Capitol and the aisle that brings us to this
    point. I look forward to working with my colleagues through the
    Committee process before the end of this work period to deliver
    these essential improvements and modernized tools to our
    federal land management agencies.
        With that, we will start with our questions, if I can find
    them. Okay. I need all the help I can get here.
        Mr. French, can you please help the Committee gain a full
    understanding of the agency's use of categorical exclusions and
    what actions must still be taken in order to use them,
    regardless of size?
        How will the categorical exclusions in S. 1462 help advance
    the pace and the scale of forest management, and should
    Congress consider additional or even increasing categorical
    exclusions?
        Mr. French. Sure. Okay, thank you, Senator. A categorical
    exclusion is one of the ways that you comply with the National
    Environmental Policy Act. It does not exempt you from the
    National Environmental Policy Act. It is an approach for
    documenting and being transparent to the public about what the
    effects are of the project you are going to do. It is for
    projects that we have found to be, or Congress has found to be,
    routinely non significant. For a project that may be considered
    significant under NEPA, we may look at an environmental
    assessment, or we may look at an environmental impact
    statement.
        A CE is a project that has been found to be non
    significant, and we are disclosing the effects of that project
    to the public through the categorical exclusion process. You
    have to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act, the
    Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species
    Act, and you have to be regulated and go through the processes
    with those agencies on any of those projects.
        Chairman Boozman. Very good. Mr. French, can you explain
    how frivolous litigation has slowed down the Forest Service's
    ability to conduct proper forest management to reduce fuels and
    how this legislation would help alleviate these delays?
        Mr. French. Litigation, especially in certain parts of the
    country, add a lot of additional process and analysis to the
    projects that we do. I will give you a few examples of this.
    The most litigated areas that we have in the National Forest
    System are up in Montana, Idaho, Region One, California,
    Oregon, Washington. In these areas, what we generally find is
    that the level of analysis and disclosure we do through NEPA is
    considerably longer and more extensive than we do in other
    places because we are defending ourselves from litigation that
    we often will get on vegetation management fuels reduction
    projects.
        This will add about $100,000 to $125,000 onto the cost of
    every project. It generally doubles the cost it takes us to
    deliver, let's say, a board foot from an area that is not
    litigated than it does to an area that does. It adds
    considerable burden in terms of timeframe. For a community that
    is looking for us to perform a hazardous fuels reduction
    project in and around their community, we may propose it and be
    ready to implement it within about a year and a half, but if it
    goes under litigation, we may not actually be able to implement
    it for three to four years or longer.
        Chairman Boozman. Very good. Mr. French, can you help the
    Committee understand why, despite limited emergency authorities
    provided in prior legislation, enactment of FOFA and greater
    certainty at the agency is necessary?
        Mr. French. Well, I think FOFA does a few things for us.
    One, it recognizes the size of the problem that we have across
    the National Forest System in terms of fire and forest health
    and appropriately sizes the projects and authorities we have to
    the problem at hand. We are having fires that are impacting
    sometimes a million acres. We have fires that are 100,000 acres
    that are no longer considered exceptional.
        The work that we have to do both to prevent those and to
    respond after is no longer something that is 250 acres or even
    3,000 acres but is much grander and much larger than that if we
    are going to be effective. FOFA recognizes that and puts
    together the set of tools for both us to plan where we need to
    do our work and how to do it more quickly, and it puts it in
    statute so it is not as susceptible to litigation.
        Chairman Boozman. Very good. Senator Klobuchar.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. French, the Fix Our Forests Act improves the Good
    Neighbor and stewardship contracting authorities that leverage
    state, tribal, county, and industry partners to achieve more
    forest restoration. I have long helped champion improvements to
    these tools, which are a priority for my state and Senator
    Smith's state, same state, where active forest management is
    needed to enhance the health of Minnesota. Yes, I did not mean
    Wisconsin. They often confuse Senator Baldwin and Senator
    Smith, whole other story--to enhance the health of Minnesota's
    forests.
        Mr. French, how will changes to Good Neighbor Authority and
    stewardship contracting provide more long-term certainty to the
    Forest Service partners and assist forest restoration efforts?
    Understanding that you may want some changes to the bill, there
    may be other changes proposed here, but talk about that issue.
        Mr. French. Yes, I mean, forest management across this
    country is a very collaborative effort between local, state,
    and federal agencies, and especially for us. We found the Good
    Neighbor tool to be exceptionally helpful, working with state
    agencies to implement forest management work on National Forest
    System lands. It allows us to essentially do a lot more and
    more efficiently and effectively given the staffing that we
    have.
        The changes that are being proposed here recognizes the
    costs that go with the state so they can use the receipts to
    actually fund the program they are doing to help manage federal
    lands, and that is appropriate and helpful. Otherwise, they are
    just getting limited resources.
        Senator Klobuchar. Okay. As I noted, the President's
    budget--and I do not expect you to be the commentator on that--
    proposes cuts to National Forest System management, staffing,
    and facilities, state, private, tribal forestry assistance,
    forestry research. This includes eliminating a program that has
    reduced wildfire risk across five million acres.
        Then part of the budget notes that there will be a shift to
    the state. Has the USDA evaluated if states have the capacity
    and resources to assume a greater role in forest management?
        Mr. French. We are in constant discussions and
    collaboration with state foresters across this country. In
    fact, we just sat down last week and talked through them about
    better ways for us to work together to share capacity. It is
    mixed. From state to state, they have different capacity. I
    think some of the changes that are associated with FOFA
    actually gives them the tools they need to bring that up.
        For us, we found the work that we do with counties, tribes,
    and states through Good Neighbor to be exceptionally helpful,
    especially when we may have limited capacity on our own.
        Senator Klobuchar. Last month, Senator Heinrich and I sent
    a letter to the USDA expressing concerns and raising questions
    about potential workforce reductions at the Forest Service. We
    recently received a response, but I am looking forward to more
    information on workforce reduction efforts and the funding and
    hiring freezes at the Forest Service. I think we all know these
    workers are critical.
        Mr. French, how are you planning around the potential
    staffing cuts to ensure all these major responses continue to
    be met? Are you concerned about losing employees who hold so-
    called red cards that allow them to respond to fires?
        Mr. French. Yes, thank you for the question. Our highest
    priority right now--and we just sat down with our leadership
    team and assessed the changes that have happened in our
    workforce and the changes that we have seen or the losses we
    have had for people that were red-carded to help with fire.
    Fire is incredibly integrated across the Forest Service. It is
    not just primary firefighters, but it is thousands of employees
    across the Forest Service that contribute and help, especially
    during that season.
        We have assessed what that looks like. We have prioritized
    response to wildfire across the agency to be the number one
    priority for all employees so that as we are going into this
    season, we are able to activate, whether that is in support of
    a camp and the logistics associated with a fire, or delivering
    the preparedness we need to do on the line. We are working
    closely with interagency partners. We are actually providing
    for how we would fill in spaces that we need, but it is going
    to take an all-hands approach until we rebuild some of those
    skillsets.
        Senator Klobuchar. How would additional resources for
    programs like Watershed Condition Framework or Water Source
    Protection Program help the Forest Service meet the goals that
    it has, especially with changes under the Fix Our Forests Act?
        Mr. French. I mean, I think everyone knows that the Forest
    Service was founded primarily around the ability to deliver
    clean water to America and a sustainable flow of timber. The
    focus that we have on delivering healthy watersheds, funding
    that goes there helps us expand and maintain that. We know that
    right now when we have a wildfire that is, like I said, of
    hundreds of thousands of acres or a million acres, the
    consequences of sediment flow, the consequences of water
    delivery to systems downstream are so consequential----
        Senator Klobuchar. Okay.
        Mr. French [continuing]. so anything we can do to fix that
    is helpful.
        Senator Klobuchar. All right. Just very quick last
    question, will the Forest Service be able to continue treating
    more acres once the additional funding provided in recent years
    is no longer available?
        Mr. French. You are specifically referring to the
    supplemental funds we got through IIJA and IRA?
        Senator Klobuchar. I am talking about treating the acres
    against wildfire.
        Mr. French. Yes. We have invested a lot of those funds so
    that they will be able to provide work over time with a lot of
    partners right now, so we should see that continue for a little
    while. Essentially, we are going to have to change our business
    model for how we are doing some of that work if we are going to
    maintain the acres that we are doing right now. We are going to
    have to depend more heavily on private partnerships, on states
    to do some of that work because the funding levels will not be
    the same.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
        Chairman Boozman. Senator Marshall.
        Senator Marshall. Well, thank you, Chairman, and welcome,
    Mr. French, to the Agriculture Committee. I think you are going
    to find that is not only brighter but much friendlier than the
    E&R Committee.
        I want to talk about our RNGR Support Act, if you are
    familiar with it. It is a legislation that Senator Hickenlooper
    and I introduced before. Our bill included a dedicated funding
    mechanism through the Reforestation Trust Fund to ensure we
    would not be diverting resources from other essential programs.
        Given your leadership on national forestry priorities,
    would you agree that using the Reforestation Trust Fund offers
    a sustainable path to implementing the bill without impacting
    other critical programs?
        Mr. French. As what I have read thus far and understand it,
    yes.
        Senator Marshall. Okay. Next, has the U.S. Forest Service
    provided technical assistance on how to implement RNGR without
    pulling from existing state, private, and tribal forestry
    funding?
        Mr. French. I believe we have. We will have to get back
    with you on that one.
        Senator Marshall. Okay, thank you.
        Mr. French. Yep.
        Senator Marshall. Is the agency open to state
    representation on the Wildfire Intelligence Center Board, as is
    the case with other interagency entities in the fire management
    system, such as the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group
    and the National Wildfire Coordinating Group?
        Mr. French. Absolutely. I mean, wildfire is an interagency,
    it is a local county, it is a state, it is a federal response,
    and the only way to do this effectively is with that
    representation within the Intelligence Center.
        Senator Marshall. Okay. Just kind of a general question,
    has it been your experience, or do they have the potential--I
    am referring to mills, whether it be a paper mill or a lumber
    mill--do they have the potential to contribute to the proper
    management of forests?
        Mr. French. Absolutely. I mean, having a thriving forest
    product sector is essential for us to be able to reduce
    wildland fire risk across this country and to provide jobs to
    local economies.
        You know, essentially what is happening, especially through
    most of the West, is that when we have been putting out our
    fires and removing fires, we just have lots more trees than we
    ever had. Those trees are competing for water, resources. They
    are dying. They are affected by insect and disease. Thinning
    those forests are incredibly important for their health, but it
    is also incredibly important to reduce wildfire. Low-level
    wildfires we can manage. High, catastrophic, 100,000, million-
    acre wildfires, they are devastating.
        The forest products industry, a diversifying industry, an
    integrated industry allows us to treat those lands so that they
    are healthier, they reduce risk, and at a level that is much
    more reasonable to the American taxpayer because you are able
    to produce a product to do that work where you are not having
    to pay as much per acre.
        Senator Marshall. If we do not have any paper mills or
    timber mills in Kansas, so I am not familiar with the industry,
    do they rent the part of the forest and then you are able to
    take those monies and do good things with it, I would suppose?
        Mr. French. We essentially offer timber or biomass to
    forest products industry, whether they are making dimensional
    lumber or they are burning it for energy production. We will
    offer it through sales, timber sales. The revenues from that go
    back to things such as reforestation. They go back to doing
    other work on the landscape like habitat improvement and to the
    Treasury and to counties for their school funds.
        Senator Marshall. Okay.
        Mr. French. We also offer it through what are called
    stewardship agreements where we trade the value of that timber
    for other work that can be done. We do it through what are
    called Good Neighbor Agreements where we allow the states to
    implement that work on our behalf or tribes or a local county.
    We have a variety of mechanisms that we use in order to
    essentially remove that material and put it to market.
        Senator Marshall. Have the number of mills in the country
    decreased? Are they staying the same? What has led to that
    stability or instability?
        Mr. French. The forest products industry has significantly
    constricted since my time of working with the agency. It is
    based on a number of things, market conditions, housing
    markets. It can be based on softwood lumber that is coming in
    from other places like Canada. It can be based on not having
    local supply. That is usually the issue that can be associated
    with us.
        We generally supply somewhere around six percent of the
    softwood in the United States. For some mills, they have a very
    diversified area. They draw from private lands, state lands,
    from federal lands. Other areas are very dependent on federal
    lands. When there is a decrease in what we offer, it affects
    their ability to stay open.
        Senator Marshall. Okay. Thank you so much. I yield back.
        Chairman Boozman. Thank you. Senator Smith.
        Senator Smith. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. French, for being
    with the Committee today. Thank you, Chair Boozman, and also
    our Ranking Member for holding this hearing.
        Before I get to my questions, what I would like to do is to
    highlight two small forestry and lands issues that are really
    important in Minnesota that I am working on. The first is my
    bipartisan Thye-Blatnik Act. This is a law which ensures that
    these counties in far northern Minnesota--Lake and Cook and St.
    Louis Counties--receive a source of revenue for hosting federal
    forests. They have done this for decades. This is a small bill
    with a technical fix that would make a huge difference to these
    counties. It passed through the Senate last year, and we need
    to move it again this year.
        The second bill is a House bill, also bipartisan, passed
    the House earlier this year, which would just basically
    facilitate a land exchange between Chippewa National Forest and
    land held by this family lodge, Bowen Lodge. The exchange is
    supported by the local community, supported by the local tribal
    nation, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Since it has passed the
    House, it also needs a path here in the Senate.
        Now, I raise this because I think that it would be smart
    for us to figure out if we can work together with the Forest
    Service on a lands package in this Committee before too long. I
    think it would just make sense that if we are working on this
    forest management legislation, that we find a way to move some
    of these noncontroversial and non-expensive bills at the same
    time. I wanted to raise that and appreciate your attention.
        Chairman Boozman. No, we appreciate that. I understand
    totally. I think every Member of Congress understands these
    things are much more difficult than they should be, so we will
    help you where we can.
        Senator Smith. Thank you very much. I appreciate your
    attention to that, Mr. Chair.
        Let me turn to my questions, Mr. French. I want to ask you
    about an issue, a Minnesota issue. I have heard from our folks
    in Minnesota that the Department of Government Efficiency is
    blocking contracts to distribute seedlings for reforestation in
    the Chippewa and Superior National Forests in Minnesota. As I
    am sure you know, these seedlings are harvested and planted to
    grow into the next generation of trees that support our timber
    industry. The work is time-sensitive, especially in places like
    Minnesota, where the planning window depends on a lot of
    extraneous factors like weather and snowpack and so forth.
        Mr. French, can you tell me now or could you respond to me
    when you can, what does the Forest Service plan to do to
    address these delays and to make sure that seedling plantings
    can occur on a schedule that will preserve forest health?
        Mr. French. Thank you, Senator. For all the contracts and
    other mechanisms that are being reviewed through the Office of
    Government Efficiency, we are batching those and the priority
    things such as disaster response, those things that are time-
    sensitive, such as reforestation, seedlings, and working very
    closely with them to get them moving and through the review
    process.
        Senator Smith. Could we follow-up and see about the
    specific issue and what we can do to make sure that this
    happens?
        Mr. French. Of course.
        Senator Smith. Thank you very much. The second issue is
    related to the spongy moth.
        Mr. French. Okay.
        Senator Smith. Okay? Just last month, the Minnesota
    Department of Agriculture had to cancel plans to treat our
    forests against this invasive species because federal funding
    did not come through. Spongy moths cause millions of dollars in
    damage to forests across the eastern United States, and now
    they are moving westward. As you may well know, these moths eat
    all of the leaves off the trees. That kills the trees and then,
    of course, it increases the likelihood of wildfire as a result.
    We are about, sadly, to miss the small window of time where we
    can effectively treat our forests while the caterpillars are
    still small. This is a problem. It puts livelihoods and our
    entire forests at risk. My question is, how does the Forest
    Service plan to address forest health and wildfire risk for
    invasive species like this when we are seeing these funds being
    cut and personnel being cut?
        Mr. French. I think, you know, in terms of the funds you
    are talking about, which essentially become assistance for
    states for dealing with forest health issues, we are
    advocating, as are state foresters across the country, for the
    importance of addressing forest health issues and the role that
    these funds play.
        Senator Smith. That advocacy is useful, of course, but
    advocacy without the funds to accomplish the work will not
    accomplish the work. I am not going to put you on the spot
    because I understand the position----
        Mr. French. That is fine.
        Senator Smith [continuing]. that you are in, but, I mean,
    would you agree that we need to be able to figure out how to
    pay for this stuff?
        Mr. French. I would say is that in the 2026 budget that the
    President has released, they have made the policy oversight
    about how they want to see those funds very clear. In the
    current set of funds, they are going through reviews through
    the Office of Government Efficiency. We continue to deliver on
    those that we have already made commitments on and advocate for
    why they are important for broader forest health.
        Senator Smith. Well, this will be a conversation that will
    continue. This to me is an example of something that is very
    economically sensible to make this investment in order to
    protect forests so that we can then get the economic benefit
    from these forests down the road.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Chairman Boozman. Thank you. Senator Hoeven.
        Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I do not want to spend too much of my time on it, but I did
    want to tell the Senator from West Virginia that Roger Marshall
    did just take off on his scooter, so in case his staff wanted
    to get out there and commandeer it. Yes. I tried to stop him,
    but he pushed me down.
        First off, Mr. French, thanks for being here. Thanks for
    the work that you do. You have been out to our state a number
    of times. You have been responsive, you have taken action, and
    I want you to know we appreciate it very much.
        Though in regard to this issue, wildfires, you know, we
    always think of those as forest fires, you know, Smokey Bear
    and all that stuff. We had over 100,000 acres burned in North
    Dakota on the grasslands. It not only killed cattle, but two
    people were killed in those fires. These grassland fires are a
    real thing. They move, you know, lightning quick----
        Mr. French. Very fast.
        Senator Hoeven [continuing]. and we have dry conditions. I
    know you know about it. That leads to my first question, which
    is in the Fix Our Forests Act, it primarily, you know, focuses
    on forest fires, but talk to me about what it is going to do to
    prevent and reduce fires in our grasslands.
        Mr. French. Okay. You know, there is not really the
    statutory authorities in Fix Our Forests that would be helpful
    for streamlining, let's say, the NEPA side of things there, but
    it does provide us mechanisms working with the state and GNA to
    help. It has some very specific pieces around prescribed fire
    that would be very helpful. The Intelligence Center would help
    us be more responsive to fires across the country so that we
    are able to move resources into those areas, pre-stage them
    more quickly.
        Senator Hoeven. The Chairman asked you right off the jump
    there about categorical exclusion. Does that help us at all? Is
    there any CE authority that would help us in terms of some of
    the flexibilities and things that we are looking for in the
    grasslands?
        Mr. French. In the grasslands? If we are going to do
    pretreatment of those areas, it can.
        Senator Hoeven. Okay. Well, that would be good. Back then
    on the forest side, how about, you know, if you are going to
    get in and, you know, cut trees out of there to try to mitigate
    fires, is there a place for that wood to go? Is that part of
    the plan? Because, you know, as you cut those trees down, that
    wood has got to have a home.
        Mr. French. Yep. In some places, we have a pretty robust
    forest products industry that we can move trees to. In other
    places, we are pretty challenged because we have lost that
    industry.
        There are programs that we administer right now that help
    subsidize transportation, especially of low-value products that
    is very helpful. We offer loans that can help retool mills so
    that they can handle more variety of wood products. I would say
    that investments in the wood products industry and creating
    predictable supply for them is probably the most critical thing
    to keep them sustainable and thriving.
        Senator Hoeven. Okay. Then, have you done any cost
    estimates? Wildfire suppression costs have increased about 80
    percent over the past decade. Obviously, we are getting more of
    these fires all the time. Have you done any anticipated cost
    savings with the Fix Our Forests Act?
        Mr. French. I am not familiar with what those would be, and
    we could certainly get back with you.
        Senator Hoeven. Okay. Then both President Trump and
    actually Governor Newsom out in California have taken emergency
    action on, you know, permitting some of this wildfire
    mitigation work to go forward. Are those orders something that
    is also covered on a permanent basis by this legislation so we
    would see some of those things on a permanent basis?
        Mr. French. Yes, that is one of the strengths of this bill
    is it actually takes some of the things that we do for
    emergencies that allow us to move more quickly and codifies
    them, and that is very helpful for us.
        Senator Hoeven. Is there anything else that is not in this
    bill that you want to bring up or would recommend that should
    be included or considered for this legislation?
        Mr. French. Well, I could talk your ear off on a set of
    things that would make us more effective and efficient on any
    bills. I would say the one thing here is I do think that the
    hazard tree removal CE that the Senate has laid out for us here
    would be more effective if it was statutorily given to us by
    Congress rather than having us promulgated through regulation.
        Senator Hoeven. Okay. Thank you very much. Again, thanks
    for being here, and thanks for the good work that you do.
        Mr. French. Thanks.
        Chairman Boozman. The Ranking Member on Forestry----
        Senator Bennet. Thank you.
        Chairman Boozman [continuing]. Senator Bennet.
        Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. and I am glad I
    was here for Senator Hoeven's questions.
        Mr. French, thank you for joining us here today. I know how
    experienced you are, and I am grateful that you are in the role
    that you are in.
        Protecting our forest, our watersheds, and our communities
    from increasingly severe wildfires in the West is getting more
    critical every single day. I really commend the hard work of
    the sponsors of this bill, including my friend and my fellow
    Senator from Colorado, John Hickenlooper. I think this bill is
    a meaningful attempt to put forward solutions and find a path
    forward on addressing wildfires that put communities like
    Colorado at risk.
        I want to say to the Chairman, though, and I would have
    said this in front of my friend, John Hickenlooper, I think it
    is very important for this Committee to be exercising the
    jurisdiction that we are over this bill. I think this is a
    place where we can bring the voice of Senator Hoeven and others
    to make sure that in the end this is a product that we can all
    be proud of, and I look forward to working with you on that. I
    am grateful that you are having this hearing.
        I know for most people here, we are familiar with the role
    of the Forest Service when it comes to reducing the risk of
    wildfires in the West and also fighting fires themselves, but
    could you talk a little bit about the importance of that, Mr.
    French?
        My next question is going to be about the reductions we
    have seen in forests on the Western Slope of Colorado and
    throughout the Rocky Mountain West and the deep concern that
    communities have in my state and throughout the Rocky Mountains
    that we may not have the personnel that we need as this fire
    season starts.
        Mr. French. Thank you, Senator. Wildfire, as I said
    earlier, is completely integrated across our entire agency. I
    started my career in southern Arizona and spent 10 years in my
    first permanent position in wildfire, and you learn when you
    are in a position like that that when you are running a local
    engine or you are part of a shot crew, that those communities
    really depend on you to know the land, to respond quickly, and
    to be able to essentially take care of things in a way that are
    thoughtful about the community and neighbors that you are a
    part of.
        As we have seen wildfire grow across the agency, the
    interagency approaches and the role that we play in
    coordinating those have become incredibly important. Forest
    Service manages 75 percent of the wildfire resources in this
    country. Almost all the aerial contracts that we have that
    states and other federal agencies depend on.
        More importantly, when you look at that system, we are the
    people that, in most of your forest communities where we have
    large fires, they are the ones staffing along with folks like
    CAL FIRE and others, that local station that is providing a
    response that people have come to depend on.
        I will kind of get to your second question maybe
    preemptively is that during the workforce reshaping that we
    have been asked to do, we have made it a priority to exempt our
    primary firefighters, and we have made it a priority to
    essentially look at other skillsets in the agency that are
    being left as people are taking some of the programs right now
    of prioritizing our workforce as the most important piece that
    we need to do is provide adequate fire suppression response.
        Senator Bennet. I appreciate that. It has been deeply,
    deeply disappointing to us to see the numbers of Forest Service
    personnel with red cards who have been separated from the
    agency at this moment. I think I heard you use the word primary
    when you described the firefighters who were being protected.
    My view is that those red card holders are the backbone of our
    fire suppression efforts, and they are going to be hard to
    replace. We are already counting on local communities, as you
    know, in partnerships in places like the White River and other
    forests in Colorado, and now more of the burden is actually
    going to fall on us, I think, and that is going to be a real
    challenge for local communities.
        That brings me to my second question if the Chairman will
    let me ask it. I see the leader is here. Just one more.
        As you were saying, I think it is important to have local
    knowledge and important to have regional knowledge. Colorado
    communities really know the risk of wildfire well. We have been
    devastated in recent years by the Cameron Peak, these
    troublesome--and Pine Gulch fires, but we also have a long
    track record of working successfully to establish the kind of
    partnerships that I was just talking about between state,
    local, and federal partners to reduce wildfire risk. It is in
    that connection that I have heard from 30 local officials just
    last week in my state that provisions of the Fix Our Forests
    Act might undermine their ability to meaningfully engage with
    their federal partners in the development of forest projects.
        I am worried that the decisions are going to be made by the
    bureaucracy in Washington, DC, without the input of people on
    the ground in Colorado and in these communities that have been
    engaged with these incredible partnerships with the U.S. Forest
    Service all these years.
        I would ask you, Mr. French, whether you believe that, as
    we consider this, the Forest Service can guarantee that this
    bill is not going to limit opportunities for local communities
    to continue to engage--the contribution of local communities in
    these decisions that are, of course, most important to them
    than anyone else.
        Mr. French. Yep, I can. I mean, that is not who we are. We
    are a part of these communities, and when we are designing
    projects and when we are advocating for projects, we have got
    to do that in concert with the community that we are a part of.
    I do not see anything in Fix Our Forests that would change that
    commitment of working collaboratively with our local
    governments and with the people that are there. I get it
    changes some of the fixed processes, but that does not change
    sitting down in a town meeting, talking about what needs to be
    done up the canyon, and taking care of it.
        That is who we are as an agency. We are a very local,
    decision-made-type approach with our districts and our forests.
    These lands will persist when they are relevant to the
    communities they are a part of. If we do not make sure that we
    are doing that, then anything we do is out of step.
        I would also just say on the firefighter piece, we are
    very, very, very cognizant of the experience and skillsets that
    have walked out the door. We are very focused on how to adapt
    and manage through that, especially with our state and other
    federal partners. I am not going to say it is easy----
        Senator Bennet. Yes.
        Mr. French [continuing]. but we are prepared.
        Senator Bennet. Okay. Well, thank you for your testimony,
    and thank you for your long service as well.
        Mr. French. You are welcome.
        Senator Bennet. I look forward to our work together.
        Mr. French. Thanks.
        Chairman Boozman. Senator Justice.
        Senator Justice. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you, Mr. French. Thank you for coming.
        I normally start off, you know, have hopefully a good
    statement, and then I ask a question. I am going to lead off
    with just this question because it is going to lead me to where
    I think we should go, and that is just this. In regard to all
    the aspect of our forests today, especially our fires, you
    know, because we are looking at a Fix Our Forests Act. If we
    are deeply considering the fire component and then considering
    our forest component, are we winning the battle?
        Mr. French. I think we are making a good try but not yet.
        Senator Justice. I know you are brutally honest, but I
    would think if we were all brutally honest, we would say, no
    way, we are not winning this war.
        If I could just tell you that I am the most impatient guy
    in the room, I mean, really and truly. I rolled in up here with
    white hair, and I am not here for any reason that would be
    anything to do with me. I can tell you we have got a big
    problem. That is all there is to it. You know, when I was the
    Governor of West Virginia, I was the Governor for eight years.
    It was a big-time honor and everything. A lot of times people
    would say to me, they would say, what is the biggest
    responsibility you have? I would say the same is true right now
    for this. Get the economics right because the economics drives
    a lot of this boat, and we are missing it in a lot of ways.
        You see, we have got all kinds of forest problems. I am an
    outdoor guy. I am a wildlife guy. I can absolutely sit and talk
    that with anybody because I have done it over and over and
    over. With all that being said, if you are the most impatient
    guy and you do not want anything, and you are a real believer
    in economics being upside down, in this country today we have
    lost our flooring, cabinetry. We have lost our furniture
    business. All of this stuff is going on in every country of the
    world, but it is not going on here.
        Right here, right in this right here, all this carbon is
    frozen. If everybody is worried about the carbon and
    everything, think about what happens with a forest fire. All
    this is frozen. We have all kinds of issues with the health of
    our forest today, and they are affecting our wildlife, and they
    are affecting so many different things, our waters and on and
    on and on. Yet in West Virginia, we are cutting 1/3 of our
    growth, 1/3 of our annual growth, you know? The trees are
    growing three times faster than we are cutting them. They are
    falling on the ground. They are causing all kinds of issues. As
    soon as a small fire goes through, all the carbon is released
    right into the sky when it could be frozen right here. We could
    have industry right here, and we could have jobs right here,
    and we could have healthy forests right here. We have got to
    get the economics right. I will promise you, at the end of the
    day, the economics are upside down, and I will promise you we
    are losing the battle.
        Now, how do we get the economics right? There is all kinds
    of different ways, but our forests in West Virginia alone
    cleanup an equivalency of 21 coal-fired power plants a year. It
    is unbelievable what they do. That is our hardwoods. You know,
    there are issues all across this country with all kinds of
    different things, but our forests should be applauded every day
    for what they do. Our forests are doing so much for all of us,
    it is off the chart. I am a real believer in this. Play to your
    strengths. For God's sakes, you have a winning team. You have
    the most winning team on the planet.
        The last thing I would tell you is just this. Now, think
    about it. Think about West Virginia for just one second. Think
    about Jim Justice in West Virginia. I am a basketball coach.
    West Virginia has great, great, great people, unbelievable
    natural resources, four of the greatest seasons on the planet,
    and it is located within a rocks throw of 2/3 of the population
    of the country. It really is. Yet, we continually struggled
    with being dead last. How could it be? You have got the same
    kind of team.
        Now, we have got to do something about it. We have got to
    come up with an idea, an idea to drive the economics right, to
    make the forest healthy again. We have got to come up with an
    idea. You know, just to say, well, we need to do this about the
    fire or this about--we are not going anywhere. We have to come
    up with a real, live idea and an idea that would be something
    along the lines of, if we could find a way to create some level
    of--and God forbid this is a taboo, bad name--but a subsidy to
    credit our forest, to credit what our forest are giving us that
    would bridge us to absolutely doing something that would bring
    health to our forest.
        We have got to come up with something, and at the end of
    the day, it is all going to be one thing, absolutely, period.
    You wait and see. It will be driven by the economics. Get the
    economics right.
        Thank you so much, sir.
        Chairman Boozman. Thank you. Senator Schiff.
        Senator Schiff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I appreciate your being here. I represent California, and
    in particular two areas that have been very recently devastated
    by fire, so this is an issue that is near and dear to my
    constituents. I am trying to figure out a way to phrase this
    question in a way that you can answer it.
        Mr. French. Okay.
        Senator Schiff. Let me just posit both my interest and my
    concern. My interest is in making sure that we can better
    manage our forests so that we can reduce the incidence of fire
    and how devastating those fires are. I appreciate all the
    important work that has been done to improve the Fix Our
    Forests Act since it left the House.
        My concern is that we are laying off federal firefighters.
    We are clawing back grants that are used for brush clearance. A
    lot of the laudable things that are established in the Fix Our
    Forests Act are not funded with any additional money, so there
    are laudable collaborative agencies established but nothing to
    provide them resources.
        My concern is that the bill is used to accelerate the
    timber industry without a particular focus on reducing fire.
    Now, some of the timber that will be harvested will be useful
    to be harvested in terms of making our forests more resilient,
    but of course there will be interest in the timber industry to
    go beyond that and harvest timber having nothing to do with
    fire mitigation. That is not my priority. It is the priority
    set out in some of the executive orders, but that is not my
    priority.
        I guess my question to you is, are there any safeguards in
    this legislation? What would a safeguard look like to make sure
    that this is really about fire mitigation and not just about
    timber harvesting? That is my question, and I know there are
    some pitfalls in how you can answer that, but to whatever
    degree you can answer it, I would welcome your answer.
        Mr. French. Yes, I appreciate the question, Senator. You
    know, as stated before, I have worked for the agency for 34
    years. I have worked in multiple places in the agency. I was
    trained as a biologist. I have worked in forestry and fire,
    recreation, wilderness, the whole gamut. I know our system. I
    am also acutely aware of the issues in California and the
    situation of the health of our forests and the way our
    communities right now are at risk.
        There are so many safeguards in our system right now,
    whether it is the forest plan that limits what you can do or
    not do on the ground, regardless of what Fix Our Forests says.
    Any project we put out there has to follow the safeguards and
    the parameters that are established in that forest plan. What
    does that mean? That means there are certain areas you cannot
    treat. There are buffers that you have to put around creeks.
    There are species that you have to thin in different ways in
    order to meet the outcomes, like the California spotted owl. It
    is a broad safeguard for any project we are doing.
        We are still, under this bill, on any project we do, we
    have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service. We have to
    consult with NOAA fisheries. We have to consult with the EPA
    for the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act with our state and
    local regulatory agencies. All of that still stays. Like I
    said, there are multiple, multiple requirements that we have to
    meet in here in order to do any one of these projects.
        In the last years, if you look at the number of acres that
    we have treated, it has greatly increased, and that is
    addressing fire. That is under multiple Administrations. Yet
    the number of sawlogs we produce have actually gone down.
    Because the focus of most of our work is on restoration, if you
    are reducing wildland fire risk or you are trying to restore
    forests for healthy forests, you are removing a vast amount of
    material that is not actually commercial. We do need
    investments in the forest products industry in biomass and low-
    value wood in order to utilize that.
        If you look at the amount of material that we remove
    through timber sales, we harvest less than 1/10 of 1 percent of
    our national forests on any given year. It is somewhere between
    200,000 and 250,000 acres. That is such a low number when you
    look at what our forest plans actually would allow.
        I tell you this as a lifelong career person, as an advocate
    for our forests, for the habitat within our forests. We do
    things well and right, and there are just a litany of
    safeguards that are in place. Most of the arguments that I see
    around our work is where is it occurring, is it happening fast
    enough, and whether we philosophically agree that removing
    material or timber harvest is appropriate on a national forest.
        Senator Schiff. Thank you. If there is time later, I would
    love to ask another question. Thank you.
        Chairman Boozman. Senator McConnell.
        Senator McConnell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        If people around the world have heard of Kentucky, it is
    usually for two reasons, the Kentucky Derby, which was last
    Saturday, and bourbon. Bourbon has a lot of challenges right
    now because of the tariff wars. For example, up in Canada, they
    have taken bourbon off the shelves, so I think it is safe to
    say people in that iconic Kentucky industry are not happy about
    the tariff wars and hope that it will be over soon.
        I want to raise something I am sure no one has heard of.
    Our iconic bourbon industry is critical to us. Ninety-five
    percent of the bourbon in the world is made in Kentucky. The $9
    billion industry supports agriculture, forestry, manufacturing,
    distilling, bottling, construction, and transportation jobs,
    just to name a few.
        Kentucky bourbon is synonymous with the white oak tree,
    which is used to age our state's signature spirit in wooden
    barrels. Unfortunately, 75 percent of the Nation's white oak
    population is rated as mature, meaning that there will be a
    shortage of white oaks within 30 years.
        Congress must act to ensure the preservation of this
    invaluable resource, so in February, I introduced the White Oak
    Resiliency Act with Senator Warner. The bill requires the
    Department of Interior, USDA, and the Forest Service to
    coordinate research and conservation efforts, ensuring the
    white oak a stable supply and a viable future. I am pleased to
    see, Mr. Chairman, that my bill is included in the underlying
    act.
        Mr. French, in your written testimony, you stated that USDA
    was supportive of the White Oak Resilience subtitle but would
    like to work with the Committee on minor technical adjustments.
    What changes would USDA like to see regarding white oak
    provisions?
        Mr. French. Thank you, Senator. We are very supportive,
    especially with the loss that we are seeing across the country.
    It is minor stuff in the way it is written that would make it
    more effective within the context of the laws we have right
    now. What I mean by that is the National Forest Management Act
    and some other pieces, it is pretty minor, but it does not
    change any of the broader intent of what we are asking.
        Senator McConnell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Boozman. Thank you. Senator Welch.
        Senator Welch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you very much for the good work you do.
        I am hoping we get this bill to a place where I can vote on
    it. One of the changes that is made is the 10,000-acre
    designation.
        Mr. French. Sure.
        Senator Welch. In Vermont where we do not have the vast
    expanses of these forests that are so typical in the western
    States, that would mean that literally all but one of our
    projects would be in the exemption. We are not 10,000 acres. Is
    there a way that you could suggest where it would not be a one-
    size-fits-all? I mean, a lower number, I think, would be
    appropriate for Vermont, but I would not want Vermont to
    interfere with what would be good for California or good for
    Colorado. A couple of our sponsors are from there. Could you
    speak to that? We would like to have public participation but
    not have it get in the way also of a legitimate desire to move
    ahead.
        Mr. French. Yes, thank you, Senator. I know that forest
    well. I spent time in Manchester as the district ranger there.
        Senator Welch. Yes. Beautiful.
        Mr. French. I think that if you look at how these CEs are
    set up, the context of how they would be used will vary from
    each geographic place. If I am a forester up in Vermont and I
    am looking at something, one, I may not even be able to fit
    within these categories because of the way they are set up for
    wildfire risk and some of the other pieces. It does not mean
    that you have to do 10,000 acres. What it essentially means is
    it is not that it is excluded from NEPA. It just means that it
    fits within a category that is not considered significant.----
        Senator Welch. This is what I do not understand. It is not
    significant if less than 10,000 acres is excluded from the
    inquiry about significance, right?
        Mr. French. Right.
        Senator Welch. What I am saying is that that would mean
    that basically any project in Vermont would be in that
    category.
        Mr. French. If it qualifies for the parameters of what that
    category is. My knowledge of projects up there, many of them
    would not. In fact, probably most would not.
        The other thing about this is that from----
        Senator Welch. Can you elaborate a little bit on that so I
    understand?
        Mr. French. Yes. I mean, so if you look at the way these
    are set up, they are specifically for things like hazard tree
    removal or they are specifically if you are reducing wildland
    fire risk within these parameters while maintaining certain
    size classes and things like that. That would not be applicable
    in most places on the Green Mountain National Forest.
        The other thing to recognize here, too, is that, you know--
    and we will get into a little bit of the NEPA side of things--
    most of the projects that are done--in fact, all of the
    projects, I think, that are done on the Green Mountain use
    environmental assessments. They are from, you know, thousands
    of acres. Every one of those environmental assessments come to
    a singular conclusion, a finding of no significant impact,
    okay? That is essentially what a categorical exclusion is
    saying, is that projects up to a certain size under certain
    conditions will not be significant if you meet ESA, if you meet
    Clean Water Act, and you go through a set of tests called
    extraordinary circumstances that look to see what are the
    effects on floodplains, what are the effects on wilderness
    areas. It goes through an entire series to make sure that it is
    actually routinely not significant.
        Senator Welch. Okay. Let me get to just two other things.
    Thank you for that.
        Mr. French. Yes, you are welcome.
        Senator Welch. Along the lines of Senator Schiff, I am
    having a hard time dealing with the conflict of 5,200 Forest
    Service folks having left their jobs or been fired or whatever
    term it is we want to use. We have got about 5,200 fewer
    people, so the work that needs to be done, we do not have the
    people to do it. I would also respect that you cannot
    necessarily answer that question, but it seems pretty obvious.
    If you do not have the personnel, the work's not going to get
    done.
        Mr. French. Well, right now, we have seen a decline of
    about 25 percent of our non-fire workforce across the agency
    for folks that have voluntarily taken the deferred resignation
    and other programs. It is not the same in all places. We have
    some places where we have lost considerable staff and other
    places----
        Senator Welch. Well, as we proceed, I mean, at some point
    we are going to want to get an assessment of how this is
    affecting the functionality----
        Mr. French. Of course.
        Senator Welch [continuing]. of the work that you do, and
    that is not your decision.
        The third thing is going from 6 years to 150 days----
        Mr. French. Say that again, 6 years to 150 days?
        Senator Welch. Well, this is on the judicial review.
        Mr. French. Okay.
        Senator Welch. This bill, as I understand it, used to be
    six years. It will go down to 150 days. I am flexible on that.
    There is no magic in the number, but that is a big drop, and
    that is a period of time within which affected groups can bring
    their case forward. Do you have any experience or examples of
    how that reduction from 6 years to 150 days will be helpful or
    harmful?
        Mr. French. I mean, I cannot give you anything
    specifically, but I can generally tell you that for projects
    that are forest management, veg management, and honestly,
    recreation as well--let me put it to you this way. We win about
    80 percent of our cases, but----
        Senator Welch. You what?
        Mr. French. We win about 80 percent of the litigation that
    is brought against us on our projects. That is a pretty good
    record. The consequences that we see is that often those
    projects will take anywhere from four, five, or six years to be
    implemented once they have gone through their analysis as they
    get through the court system. I think that is really a question
    for Congress and communities of whether that timeframe,
    especially if you are trying to do wildland fuels risk
    reduction to a community that is at risk is acceptable.
        Senator Welch. Thank you.
        Mr. French. You are welcome.
        Senator Welch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Boozman. Senator Schiff.
        Senator Schiff. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the
    opportunity, and really following up on Senator Welch's
    questions, which are largely what I wanted to explore further.
    Did I understand you to say there was a 25 percent reduction in
    the workforce?
        Mr. French. Non-fire workforce. The agency has about 35,000
    employees. We have exempted all of the wildland primary
    firefighters from the workforce reshaping. That workforce is in
    place. It is the non-fire workforce that can also help support
    the fire workforce where there has been a little over 5,000
    positions that are people that have taken the voluntary outs.
        Senator Schiff. That is really striking. One-fourth of the
    non-fire workforce----
        Mr. French. Non-fire workforce.
        Senator Schiff [continuing]. have taken advantage of the
    fork in the road to leave the Forest Service?
        Mr. French. That is currently what we are seeing?
        Senator Schiff. Then you have got the additional people
    that got the probationary letter, or have they been rehired?
        Mr. French. All the probationary employees have been
    rehired if they chose to come back.
        Senator Schiff. I think the budget includes another cut to
    the Forest Service, does it not?
        Mr. French. It cuts us down about 63 percent.
        Senator Schiff. About 63 percent.
        Mr. French. I believe so, on the current budget.
        Senator Schiff. How would it be possible to do anything
    other than timber harvesting contemplated on this bill with
    those kind of reductions?
        Mr. French. We are going to need a lot of help from our
    state partners, our community partners, and others in the work
    that we do.
        Senator Schiff. I mean, do your state partners do the kind
    of other mitigation work that we are talking about in the
    national forests?
        Mr. French. Through Good Neighbor, they do, yes.
        Senator Schiff. Wow, that is just staggering.
        One last question to follow-up on Senator Welch's question
    because I had the same concern about going from 6 years to 150
    days. Generally, how soon after there is a decision is
    litigation initiated? That is, it may take a long time to get
    through the suits that are brought, but generally how soon
    after decision is litigation brought? Is the problem more how
    long it takes to get to the end of the litigation than the
    length of period after which you can file suit?
        Mr. French. I do not have that data, but we can follow-up
    with you with the specifics on that. What I can tell you is,
    you know, there are three general effects that we see. The
    first is it increases our costs considerably in areas that are
    highly litigious in terms of the price per unit of what we are
    trying to deliver like a fuels reduction, a trail, or a timber
    volume. It increases the time considerably in those areas for
    the amount of work you have to do to get yourself prepared for
    a project to hit litigation, so you are doing a higher level
    analysis with more analysis so that you do better within the
    court system. The cost per project is generally going to be
    $100,000 or so more than a place that we do not have a
    litigation.
        Then generally what we are going to see is that for those
    areas where we have high litigation, like I think there is
    about 360 million board feet of timber product that is held up
    in Region One right now under litigation, generally with
    injunctions, those might last, you know, three to six years. It
    is that period of time and the unpredictability it can create
    to the forest products industry but also to the communities
    that are looking for that work.
        Senator Schiff. Let me ask you one other thing. I was in
    the far north of the state and visited one of the dead forests
    where there was aerial seeding. The forest--I think it was
    mostly spruce that grew up--was so dense, light could not get
    to the forest floor, and it is essentially a dead forest. There
    are a lot of trees still standing in that dead forest that have
    no limbs that are crowding out the rebirth of redwoods. What
    has impeded the ability to log those trees? Why are they still
    standing? Is it just not lucrative enough for the timber
    industry?
        Mr. French. Well, I mean, no. I mean, this is a huge issue
    for us. You know, and I talked earlier about areas that we have
    fires--and you have seen this--from northern California to
    southern California. Like, look at those fires up the Feather
    River Canyon that go up to Quincy and places like that. We
    cannot get in there effectively and salvage that timber.
        The importance of doing that, by the way, is not just about
    driving economic value for what is left in those logs, but it
    is about going in there and reforesting. It is about removing
    hazard trees where people cannot drive on roads. Like, I cannot
    put a crew in there to plant trees because of the risk of those
    trees falling on them, so you have to use aerial seeding.
        We cannot go in and effectively salvage those trees because
    we generally get sued. Those trees lose their value about a
    year to two years after the fire has gone through. If I put all
    the effort into doing an EA or an EIS that is going to take us
    somewhere between a year and a year and a half, and then we get
    sued, which is pretty common on salvage sales, all the value is
    lost, and we have put all that effort in and hundreds of
    thousands of dollars to get that thing cleared, and then nobody
    will buy it because all the wood's deteriorated. You have to
    move quickly to salvage timber.
        What you saw, if you look at like what Sierra Pacific and
    some of the other local entities do in California, they will be
    in there within six months to a year to remove that timber. We
    have even tried to take some of that timber and move it out of
    state to mills that need wood because there was so much left
    over from fires.
        Honestly, the issue is the amount of time it takes it to
    get through the clearance process for NEPA and all the other
    regulatory pieces we have, and then litigation that keeps us
    from actually doing it at scale. It is one of the biggest
    criticisms that industry has on us is all that standing dead
    timber.
        Senator Schiff. Thank you.
        Mr. French. You are welcome.
        Senator Schiff. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the added
    time.
        Chairman Boozman. Thank you. Senator Klobuchar?
        Senator Klobuchar. No, I do not have anything to add. I
    just wanted to, Senator Schiff, thank you for your questions.
    We know how personal all this is in your state, and just thank
    our Committee Members for working well on this issue with your
    Committee Members as well, Senator Boozman, so thank you.
        Senator Schiff. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Boozman. Thank you again, Mr. French, for your
    time and insights, to our Committee Members for your
    participation in today's important hearing.
        I request unanimous consent to submit letters of support
    for FOFA to the Committee record. Without objection, so moved.
        [The letters can be found on pages 32-35 in the appendix.]
        Chairman Boozman. Questions for the record are due
    Thursday, May 8th, by close of business, and the hearing record
    will remain open for five business days.
        Again, thanks to you, and thanks to the Committee for, I
    think, a really thoughtful, really good hearing today.
        With that, we are adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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                                A P P E N D I X

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                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

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