[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 120 (Sunday, August 21, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
   A PRESCRIPTION FOR FOREST HEALTH: THE NATIONAL FOREST STEWARDSHIP 
                        CONTRACTING ACT OF 1994

                                 ______


                           HON. LARRY LaROCCO

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                        Sunday, August 21, 1994

  Mr. LaROCCO. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the National Forest 
Stewardship Contracting Act of 1994.
  In the last Congress I introduced the National Forest Health Act of 
1992. With the bipartisan cosponsorship of 30 Members of the House of 
Representatives, the bill progressed through the Agriculture Committee. 
My forest health bill (H.R. 229) has been reintroduced in this 
Congress, where it is pending in the House Agriculture and Natural 
Resources Committees.
  With today's legislation, I intend to expand on my original 
legislation by providing a tool for the Forest Service to focus on 
forest health through the use of land stewardship contracts. Using a 
stewardship contract, the Forest Service will be able to accomplish 
needed watershed and forest restoration activities while providing 
merchantable timber and additional employment in local communities--all 
in one project.
  Currently, the Forest Service relies heavily on timber sales--both 
salvage sales of dead trees and green sales--as the principal means for 
silvicultural treatment. The Forest Service has no program support or 
direct source of funds for restoration.
  The Interior appropriations bills for fiscal years 1992 and 1993 
directed the Forest Service to test the land stewardship approach to 
Federal timber sale contracting on several western national forests, 
including the Kaibab and Coconino in Arizona, the Dixie and Lake Tahoe 
in Nevada, and the Idaho Panhandle.
  In these bills, Congress directed the Forest Service to ``apply a 
reasonable portion of the value of timber removed * * * as an offset 
against the cost of stewardship services received, including but not 
limited to site preparation, replanting, silvicultural programs, 
recreation, and wildlife habitat enhancements.'' The intent of Congress 
was to ``help the private sector promote the Forest Service ecosystem 
management initiative * * * to give contractors an incentive to become 
as concerned with sustaining ecosystems as with sustaining trees.''
  The National Forest Stewardship Contracting Act builds on the 
experience gained from these pilot projects and includes provisions to 
assure efficiency and accountability.
  My bill would allow the Forest Service to contract for an array of 
ecosystem management and ecological restoration services as part of a 
total land management package with a single contractor. The contractor 
would be compensated for these services by receiving credit toward the 
amount owed to the Forest Service for timber harvested as part of the 
contract. This approach is essentially the same as the purchaser credit 
system used for many years to compensate timber purchasers for road 
construction and maintenance associated with a timber sale.
  Much of the restoration work needed on national forests could be 
accomplished under stewardship contracts. Contract activities could 
include removal of salvageable dead timber; thinning of green stands 
where needed; pruning of dead or lower limbs to reduce the risk of 
ground fires climbing these ladder fuels into tree crowns; prescribed 
burning to reduce excessive fuels; removal or treatment of forest roads 
to reduce runoff, erosion, and sedimentation of streams; the 
restoration of ecosystem structure in riparian zones; and tree planting 
in unregenerated or understocked stands.
  The stewardship program is structured to be self-funding. Funds for 
projects would be derived initially from the value of the mostly small-
diameter timber removed in overcrowded areas or urban and wildland 
interfaces which need immediate treatment to avoid catastrophic fires. 
Those revenues will be placed in a stewardship account. The Secretary 
of Agriculture would be authorized to supplement that account with 
appropriate funds to allow the projects to be integrated with other 
forest management programs.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe stewardship contracts hold much promise for 
addressing forest health problems. The wildfires raging in the Western 
States offer ample evidence for a long-term approach to forest health.
  Many coniferous forests east of the Cascades and in the Sierra region 
of California are in serious need of immediate and effective forest 
restoration. These forests show significant stress because of unnatural 
species balance and overpopulation of trees per acre. Nearly a decade 
of drought has exacerbated moisture and nutrient stress in these 
overcrowded stands. Opportunistic insect and disease populations have 
soared, and large areas of dead and dying trees have resulted. Allowed 
to accumulate, this dead timber becomes a huge fuel load which, when 
ignited results in the uncontrollable wildfires of historic proportions 
now burning across Idaho and the West.
  Mr. Speaker, scientists and forest managers have recommended the 
implementation of new and innovative processes to improve forest 
resource conditions.
  But, the current authority granted to land managers does not provide 
for the distribution of receipts of revenues from timber and other 
forest products to accomplish ecosystem restoration work under a single 
contract.
  With the advent of ecosystem management, recent reductions in Forest 
Service and Bureau of Land Management budgets and personnel, and the 
loss of a reliable Federal timber supply, stewardship contracts hold 
promise for helping to resolve forest health problems and the economic 
crises occurring in many timber-dependent communities across the West.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in support of legislation to address 
forest health problems of our national forests, including the 
authorization of stewardship contracts, with the passage of the 
National Forest Stewardship Contracting Act of 1994.

                          ____________________