[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 124 (Friday, July 28, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10871-S10872]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        PROGRESS OF TIMBER SALVAGE IN IDAHO FROM 1994 WILDFIRES

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, it has been 1 year since the start of the 
terrible wildfires which burned through Idaho last summer. Lightning 
strikes ignited our forests, already suffering from poor forest health, 
and raged through Idaho, causing devastation to 738,000 acres, one-
fifth of the nationwide total acres burned in 1994.
  I am here to tell the story, as it has been written so far, of the 
1994 Idaho fires, and the slow progress of reforestation and timber 
salvage. The fires began in late July, and by early September, 14,000 
firefighters had been employed across the State. Early on, Dave 
Alexander, forest supervisor on the Payette National Forest, called to 
alert me that with the dry conditions and already-dead forests adding 
fuel, the fires could not be stopped short of 

[[Page S 10872]]
reaching the Salmon River after a run of 25 to 30 miles.
  Dave Alexander was right. The fires were stopped at the Salmon River 
and extinguished only when the snows arrived in October. By then, 
Idaho's fires had cost $150 million to fight and an estimated 2 billion 
board feet of timber had burned. And, of course, the habitat for the 
wildlife of the area was devastated.
  By Forest Service estimates, as much as 665 million board feet of the 
burned timber was salvageable, with a potential revenue of $325 
million. Remember, 25 percent of this revenue would be returned to 
local counties for schools and roads. In Idaho, Shoshone County 
officials have watched their budget drop sharply because of the lack of 
national forest timber sales. They are desperate for some solutions to 
their situation. They are among many who have pointed out the absurdity 
of no timber sales being offered while dead forests abound. Equally 
concerned are the 100 former employees of the Ida-Pine sawmill which 
closed for lack of timber supply, while watching the nearby forests 
burn up.
  Unfortunately the value of burned trees drops rapidly over time. Time 
is the primary factor in accomplishing timber salvage and replanting 
the burn. The consequences of leaving burned forests untreated are both 
environmental and financial. Not only is it a waste of potential 
revenue to the U.S. Treasury and the counties, it encourages future 
wildfire. If left standing, dead trees become conduits for lightning 
and may cause a re-burn, fueled by the ready supply of fallen trees 
never removed from the first fire. This scenario is no boon to fish and 
wildlife habitat, either.
  So, it made sense to mount an aggressive timber salvage program on 
the Boise and Payette National Forests. On the Boise alone, an 
estimated 2,600 jobs would be created by the salvage operations. These 
two forests have been moving as quickly as possible under current law. 
But the laws and regulations, prior to enactment of the fiscal year 
1995 rescissions bill with its salvage provisions, simply did not 
permit the Forest Service to act quickly enough. Rather, they 
constituted a formula for inaction and delay.
  Let me tell you why. First, both forests have been slogging their way 
through eight separate NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] 
documents, five of them environmental impact statements.
  Consider the fact that the Forest Service even finds it necessary to 
prepare five environmental impact statements. When NEPA was enacted in 
1969, EIS's were to be done only in the case of a major Federal action. 
Now, driven by the courts, the Forest Service is compelled to conduct 
an EIS just to sell dead, burned trees. You tell me how this makes 
sense.
  Consider also, that preservation groups have found a new method to 
delay and obstruct completion of these NEPA documents. They 
deliberately use the Freedom of Information Act as a harassment tool. 
The Boise National Forest has responded to 45 separate FOIA requests at 
a cost of more than $50,000. On the Payette, the number of FOIA 
requests has quadrupled, and a new, full-time position was created at a 
cost of $20,000 to handle the responses. One FOIA request was expected 
to take 670 hours of staff time to respond, thereby diverting staff 
away from salvage preparations.
  It is this type of delay and added expense which causes me and other 
Senators to argue the need for streamlining the current rules as we 
have done in the rescissions bill, which is now law. Without the help 
of the Congress to clear some of the procedural path, timber salvage 
would be nearly impossible to accomplish.
  The continuing story of the 1994 Idaho wildfires is a case in point. 
As of July 1, not one stick of burnt timber had yet been salvaged from 
the Boise or Payette National Forests. Not 1 acre of the burned forest 
has been replanted with trees, because the reforestation would be paid 
for by salvage receipts. The State forests had been salvaged. The 
adjoining private ownerships had been salvaged, but not the Federal 
lands.
  Now those decisions are finally being made on the EIS's, those 
decisions have been appealed and held up by proponents of gridlock. I 
intend to come to the floor again soon to continue this story. I will 
follow the story as it unfolds. It will demonstrate why it is 
imperative that Congress provide relief in some form to free salvage 
sales from the burden of the unnecessary and costly procedures in place 
now. Salvage provisions in the rescission law are only temporary. They 
will expire in December 1996. With that in mind, I will press forward 
with S. 391, the long-term forest health bill I introduced in February. 
More on that with the next chapter of this story.
  For now, please take note--665 million board feet awaits salvage; as 
of July 1, no timber salvage had done; no reforestation had been done; 
and 11 months had passed in preparing NEPA documents. Now those 
decisions are being appealed.
  Soon I will be back to talk about the fires of 1994, the devastation 
and the destruction, and ways this Congress and this country can move 
to a better procedure to manage our national forests.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.

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