[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 153 (Thursday, September 28, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    THE FOREST BIODIVERSITY AND CLEARCUTTING PROHIBITION ACT OF 1995

                                 ______


                            HON. JOHN BRYANT

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 27, 1995

  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, with my colleague Christopher 
Shays, I am reintroducing today the Forest Biodiversity and 
Clearcutting Prohibition Act of 1995.
  For years I have sought to protect native forest biodiversity by 
ending clearcutting and other forms of even-age logging and allowing 
only selection management of federal lands that are logged. This is the 
moderate approach toward forest protection. It does not reduce timber 
production.
  This year's legislative agenda, particularly the timber salvage 
rider, makes this forest management approach all the more appropriate 
and necessary.
  Forests are under assault from expanded salvage logging and the 
weakening of environmental protections. The Forest Biodiversity Act we 
are introducing is a moderate reform that allows logging while avoiding 
the wasteful destruction of forest resources.
  Most Americans who are aware of them are appalled by clearcuts. But 
many of our citizens have the same misconception that I once did--that 
federally owned forests are protected from such devastation. They don't 
realize that the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies do not stand 
watch to protect our publicly owned forests, but are timber brokers. 
These agencies arrange for the cutting of timber and its sale--often 
below the cost to U.S. tax payers and they are using even-age variants 
of clearcutting--such as seedtree, shelterwood, and heavy salvage--as 
the predominant logging practices in Federal forests. Most people don't 
know that these Government agencies then bulldoze and replant, 
resulting in even-age timber plantations of only one species or two.
  If current plans are followed, the remaining diversity in the 60 
million acres available for commercial logging on Federal land will be 
eliminated and each of those acres transformed into timber plantation 
within the next 15 to 20 years.
  The Forest Service and other agencies are using even-age logging in 
spite of substantial evidence that selection management--cutting 
individual trees, leaving the canopy and undergrowth relatively 
undisturbed--is more cost-efficient and has a higher benefit-cost 
ratio.
  Selection logging is more labor intensive, creating more jobs for 
timber workers, but it avoids the high up-front costs of site 
preparation and planting. The result is productive logging operation 
without the elimination of native biodiversity diversity in the forest, 
without the indiscriminate mowing down of huge stands of trees, leaving 
only shrubs and bare ground.
  The Forest Biodiversity and Clearcutting Prohibition Act would ban 
clearcutting in its various forms. It would require that Federal land 
managers maintain the native mixture of tree species, would create a 
Committee of Scientists to provide independent scientific advice to 
Federal agencies regarding logging, and would ban logging in roadless 
areas, in order to save them intact so Congress may decide their 
permanent status.
  My proposal is aimed at protecting the diversity of our nation's 
forests, and the habitats they provide to wildlife, while demanding 
sound, proven forest management activities. Mr. Shays and I invite 
every Member to joint us in seeking this badly-needed reform.

                          ____________________