[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 40 (Friday, March 3, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2645-H2646]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   HARVEST OF TREES ON FEDERAL LANDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  (Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House Committee on 
Appropriations took very dramatic action to deal with a very serious 
environmental problem in our country. Yesterday the House Committee on 
Appropriations directed the Forest Service to double their salvage 
program from approximately 1.5 billion board feet up to 3 billion board 
feet over the next 2 years. What that will do in essence will be to 
expand this program that is used to go out and take down dead, dying, 
diseased, bug-infested, and burnt trees that are going to rot and will 
be of no use to us over the next 2\1/2\ years.
  What we said is, this is an emergency. We need to go out and do a 
good 
[[Page H2646]] job for the American people, allow our foresters to go 
out and gather in those burnt, bug-infested trees. And that we could, 
if we did this, probably bring in about a billion dollars over the next 
2 years in additional revenues to the treasury.
  Also we would be protecting the forest health. It is clear in my mind 
and all the experts say this, if we do not get rid of these dead and 
dying trees, then we are going to be faced with the problem of 
increased forest fires.
  Last year we spent in fighting forest fires in the west $1 billion. 
So we passed this emergency program yesterday and in it we created 
expedited procedures. We said that for the next 2 years, every sale 
will have to have an environmental assessment. There will have to be a 
biological opinion done, in which you look at the effect on endangered 
species, and if an agency, the Forest Service or the BLM are arbitrary 
and capricious, you can go into Federal court and stop that sale, that 
there will also be a period of time for administrative review. So we 
have created expedited judicial procedures and expedited environmental 
review, because if we do not act, if we do not get those trees while we 
can, we are going to lose this potential revenue to the Federal 
taxpayers.
  Now, how much salvage is out there in the entire country? The Forest 
Service estimates that there is somewhere between 18- and 21-billion-
board feet of this salvage that is out there. And today our lumber 
mills need saw logs. Our pulp and paper mills need chips. We have seen 
a dramatic reduction in harvesting of our Federal forest lands. And 
because of that, our mills are going out of business, particularly in 
the Pacific Northwest.
  So I hope that the American taxpayers and the American people will 
support the Committee on Appropriations, will support the Taylor-Dicks 
amendment, which will allow this to happen.
  I am glad that we had a bipartisan approach to this. The gentleman 
from North Carolina, Congressman Taylor, is a forester. He knows a lot 
about these matters. I have been working on these issues and trying to 
urge additional salvage for many, many years.
  I think this is a win-win. We can protect the forest health by 
getting rid of these dead and dying trees, because if we do not do it, 
if we leave it out there, then we will have increased forest fires next 
year and we will have to spend billions more fighting the fires out in 
the west.
  We also, by the way, the home builders of our country support this, 
because the cost of lumber in an ordinary $135,000 has gone up by 
$5,000 a house, because of the shortage of lumber.
  This will give additional lumber supply and hopefully will reduce 
those prices. So it has a positive effect on housing as well.
  I regret that we have to take this emergency step. I regret that we 
had to do this in the Committee on Appropriations. But I want you to 
know that the chairman of the Committee on Resources and the chairman 
of the Committee on Agriculture, the two committees with authorizing 
jurisdiction, approved this measure, because they recognize the 
emergency.
  In my own State of Washington, we have seen a dramatic reduction in 
timber harvesting of our Federal lands over the last several years. 
Many of the people who I grew up with, went to school with, have lost 
their jobs, have gone into bankruptcy because they used to depend on 
logs off our Federal lands and they cannot get them any longer.
  And they come to me and say, ``Norm, can't we please have those dead 
and dying trees, the ones that are burnt, that are going to rot and we 
can't use them after two or three years? Can't we go out there and get 
them?''
  So this amendment will allow that to happen, and I hope when it comes 
to the floor that we will have unanimous support, as we did in the 
Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.


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