[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 17 (Friday, January 27, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1688-S1690]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WESTERN FOREST HEALTH INITIATIVE

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I want to bring up a situation that caught 
my eye.
  Day before yesterday I received a copy of an Associated Press article 
that exposed a previously unreleased 
[[Page S1689]] Forest Service document, now being referred to as 
``Phase I of The Western Forest Health Initiative.''
  This report was internally submitted September 30, 1994, about the 
time the agency said it would release its final report to the public. 
The final report, however, was not released until December, and it was 
watered down considerably. It is called phase 2.
  The difference between the two documents is remarkable and it appears 
to demonstrate the difference between how Forest Service scientists--in 
other words, the professional land managers, especially in the Forest 
Service--view forest health and how this administration sees it.
  The phase I report in every way was more aggressive and emphasizes a 
much greater sense of urgency than the report that was finally released 
to the public. Phase I contains about 70 different recommendations on 
overcoming impediments and barriers to achieving good forest health 
goals and lists scores of specific actions needed to address those 
concerns. It identified work to be done on almost 5 million acres of 
U.S. Forest Service lands. The new document, phase II, is more of a 
discussion document than a policy document. It recommended projects 
covering only half a million acres of land--projects that were already 
planned for and would have been done regardless of this initiative. So 
phase II proposes to remove barriers without clearly stating what they 
are and it disregards some very significant problems that the forests 
have completely.
  So, Mr. President, I think this action is flagrant. It undermines the 
honest and serious attempts of the land managers to deal with forest 
health problems by the Forest Service. It is of extreme concern to the 
people of my State and others in the West, who fought the 67,000 
wildfires last summer--that burned 4 million acres, and it cost 26 
lives. If we trail those back as to what caused the fires and how we 
could have controlled them, it goes back almost entirely to dealing 
with forest health issues.
  I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the original Western Forest 
Health Initiative, dated September 30, 1994, along with an Associated 
Press article, dated January 25, 1995, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                           Executive Summary

       Healthy resilient forests are important for sustaining 
     ecosystems, including the needs and values of humans.
       Currently, many of our national forested ecosystems are 
     under stress and are unhealthy, meaning they cannot sustain 
     their inherent complexity while providing for human needs. 
     The problem with forest health is not confined to any single 
     region of the country. Some eastern and southern forested 
     ecosystems are challenged with considerable and complex 
     forest health problems. However, the nation's attention is 
     focused on western forested ecosystems, where the scale and 
     magnitude of the problems are greatest, and where the loss of 
     life, property, and resources from catastrophic wildfires 
     have heightened the public's awareness.
       To address the western forest health problem, the Chief of 
     the Forest Service chartered an interdisciplinary team of 14 
     members from all organizational levels to identify Forest 
     Service priority activities that can move towards restoring 
     western forested ecosystem health across National Forest 
     System and contiguous other land ownerships. The Team was 
     asked to identify and recommend solutions to barriers and 
     impediments that block or impede the accomplishment of 
     restoration activities. The focus was on assessing the 
     problems in our western forests, and then charting an 
     ecosystem approach, emphasizing projects that restore, 
     protect, or enhance ecosystem health. The Team's task did not 
     include addressing burned area recovery and restoration. 
     Rather it looked at actions that would work towards restoring 
     forested systems, to reduce the risks of future catastrophic 
     losses.
       As part of this process, the Team did extensive outreach 
     and shareholder sensing, personally contacting over 40 
     members of Congress, 30 non-governmental organizations, other 
     federal agencies, tribes, the Western Council of State 
     Foresters, Washington, Regional, and Northeast Area staffs, 
     Forest Service Research Stations, and 92 western Forest 
     Supervisors.
       The data gathered in this intensive effort was compiled 
     into two automated electronic data bases: one for projects 
     and program level data from the National Forests and State 
     Foresters; the other containing over 1,100 comments on 
     barriers, impediments and proposed changes in management 
     direction, policy, or law. Content analysis and synthesis was 
     conducted by the Team. It resulted in an identification of 
     the magnitude of planned and needed work. Over 70 
     recommendations were developed for changes that are needed to 
     overcome impediments.
       Key findings estimate that over the next two years, there 
     are approximately 5 million acres of treatment opportunities 
     that restore forested ecosystem health. In addition, there is 
     a significant amount of ecosystem analysis needed in support 
     of future forest health projects.
       Not all forests are unhealthy, nor can we treat or restore 
     all forests that are unhealthy. To facilitate management 
     decisions and move towards implementation, the team developed 
     a framework for prioritizing projects and budget needs that 
     contains biological, physical and human components. In using 
     it, managers will both be able to identify high priorities 
     for management, as well as get a sense for the level of 
     public acceptance and likelihood for successful 
     implementation.
       Recommendations for changes that are needed centered into 
     the following key areas: changes to improve the effectiveness 
     and efficiency of the National Environmental Protection Act; 
     appeals, and consultation processes; increased budget and 
     funding flexibility, with a focus on increasing carryover and 
     multi-funding approaches to support multiple resource 
     projects; comprehensive review of legislation, regulations, 
     and policies to remove inconsistencies and conflicting 
     direction, new ways to get the job done on the ground, such 
     as land management services contracts and competitive inter-
     agency grants; a greater commitment to truly working in 
     partnerships with other federal agencies, States, tribes, and 
     neighboring landowners in addressing forest health problems 
     that cross our boundaries; and better frameworks, protocols 
     and education and training for tying integrated inventories, 
     assessments and planning into more holistic and integrated 
     systems.
       Forest health problems are national in scope. Lasting 
     solutions that can only be achieved by shared conservation 
     leadership toward common goals and land conditions. This will 
     require cooperative efforts and shared vision by the 
     Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the federal 
     government, as well as by our varied and many cooperators 
     from the private and public sectors. There are no easy or 
     short-term cures for forest health problems that have 
     developed over a span of the past century.
                                                                    ____

               [From the Associated Press, Jan. 25, 1995]

   Document Shows Clinton Forest-Health Plan addresses Only Part of 
                                Problem

                           (By Scott Sonner)

       Washington.--Agriculture Undersecretary Jim Lyons says the 
     administration's Western forest health plan tackles only a 
     portion of the acres needing treatment and will be fortified 
     with additional projects in coming years.
       ``This was not a one-shot deal,'' Lyons said in a telephone 
     interview Tuesday night.
       ``There is a lot of work to be done on the forests, a lot 
     of opportunities to improve on their health,'' he said.
       Lyons responded to criticism from the timber industry after 
     a Forest Service document disclosed Tuesday indicated the 
     Clinton administration's plan to reduce wildfire threats 
     addresses only about one-fifth of the 5 million acres a 
     Forest Service team identified as needing treatment.
       The Forest Service's Western Forest Health Initiative Team 
     advocated a broader, speedier effort to remove dead timber 
     and otherwise reduce the amount of fuel in national forests, 
     according to a copy of the team's report obtained by The 
     Associated Press.
       ``Based on field responses, work was identified for 
     completion over the two years covering approximately 5 
     million acres on national forests in the West,'' the team 
     wrote in its Sept. 30 report to Forest Service Chief Jack 
     Ward Thomas.
       ``In addition there is a significant amount of ecosystem 
     analysis needed in support of future forest health projects . 
     . . . Time is critical,'' the team said.
       Critics in the timber industry said the team's report 
     indicates the administration watered down the scientists' 
     recommendations before launching the new strategy last month.
       ``The difference between them is what the Forest Service 
     wanted and what the administration wanted,'' said Doug 
     Crandall, vice president for public forestry at the American 
     Forest & Paper Association.
       The team's report ``in every sense was more aggressive, 
     substantial, specific and urgent than the final report,'' he 
     said.
       The Agriculture Department's plan calls for 330 health-
     restoration projects on approximately 1 million acres of 
     national forests over the next two years.
       The projects include plans to obliterate some old logging 
     roads and restore fish habitat as well as remove dead, burned 
     wood and thin bug-infested forests where fuel loads pose a 
     threat.
       The salvage logging and thinning is controversial because 
     environmentalists and some forest scientists say the cutting 
     does more harm than good to a forest ecosystem.
       Conservationists also point to past cases where the Forest 
     Service used salvage logging as a guise to cut large, live 
     trees without jumping through the hoops of as many 
     environmental regulations.
       ``The team gave us a wide range of projects,'' Lyons said 
     Tuesday.
       [[Page S1690]] ``They instructed us in the first phase to 
     do those the team thought would have a high likelihood of 
     being implemented and that were less controversial and would 
     demonstrate we can get some of these projects done on the 
     ground,'' he said.
       ``There's nothing to hide. There was no scrubbing. It was 
     important to gain the confidence of both the industry and the
      environmental community that our forest health initiative 
     was intended to improve the health of forest ecosystems 
     and not simply to generate timber,'' Lyons said.
       Some lawmakers have proposed exempting some salvage logging 
     operations from the normal environmental requirements in an 
     effort to expedite the cutting before the dead wood loses its 
     market value.
       Senator Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate 
     Agriculture subcommittee on forestry, is preparing a forest 
     health bill that may adopt some of the team's 
     recommendations, his spokesman David Fish said Tuesday.
       The 5 million acres identified by the Forest Service team 
     includes 1.3 million acres in need of fuel reduction and 1 
     million acres in need of ``vegetation treatments,'' including 
     ``commercial harvest, salvage . . . commercial thinning, 
     commercial thinning . . . firewood.''
       The team also identified 1 million acres for soil and 
     watershed work, 400,000 acres of ``combination treatments,'' 
     which could include some prescribed burning, and another 1.1 
     million acres of other projects ranging from educational 
     projects to seeding and fertilization.
       In addition, the team addressed two other controversial 
     areas that did not show up in the final initiative--reform of 
     U.S. environmental laws and below-cost timber sales.
       In addition to coming up with ways to reform the National 
     Environmental Policy Act, the team recommended the Forest 
     Service return the agency's administrative appeals process to 
     exempt some salvage logging from the appeals that 
     environmentalists have used to block such harvests.
       The team warned that efforts to do away with so-called 
     ``below-cost timber sales''--logging operations that cost 
     more to offer than the revenue they return--could harm forest 
     health programs.
       Ann Bartuska, the Forest Service's director of forest pest 
     management who led the forest health team, said the USDA plan 
     ``was not intended to be a comprehensive look at forest 
     health; it was a snapshot.
       ``It was a subset of the total package,'' she said. ``We 
     thought it was important to get started on some of these.''
       Bartuska said the 5 million-acre estimate was based on 
     1,900 project sites that regional and forest supervisors 
     ``rapidly identified on the first go-round.'' The 330 
     projects in the USDA plan represent the supervisors' top 
     priorities and will cover an estimated 1 million acres, she 
     said.

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, for the benefit of any interested Senators, 
I have a copy of the entire Phase I initiative in my office. I would be 
happy to let them read it.
  I also thank the Senators and the managers of the unfunded mandates 
bill. It is a terrific day. I think it is a victory for not only the 
States but the people of America.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Kerrey] is 
recognized.

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