[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1707]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    AN ACT TO SAVE AMERICA'S FORESTS

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                            HON. JOHN BRYANT

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 25, 1996

  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, for years I have sought to protect 
native biodiversity in our forests by ending clearcutting and other 
forms of even-age logging, and allowing only selection management of 
Federal forest lands where logging is permitted. Since the 101st 
Congress, I have sponsored forest biodiversity legislation, and over 
the years, support for my legislation has grown steadily. In the 103d 
Congress, 107 Representatives cosponsored my bill, and 142 voted for a 
version of it as a floor amendment.
  Scientists, however, tell us that banning clearcutting alone is not 
enough to guarantee the protection of forest biodiversity on our public 
lands. It is clear that core areas of pristine forests must be left 
unlogged altogether, and that these wellsprings of nature should be 
surrounded by areas where only the most environmentally responsible 
logging is permitted. In order to direct our forest management agencies 
to follow these scientific recommendations to protect core areas of 
biodiversity, I am adding a new title to my bill which will prohibit 
logging in three categories of Federal forest lands: Northwest ancient 
forests, roadless areas, and designated special areas.
  By adding these new provisions, I believe that my legislation now 
represents the most complete solution to the deforestation crisis 
facing our public lands. With this in mind, I have retitled this 
measure the act to save America's forests.
  The Forest Service and other Federal agencies are primarily using the 
logging techniques of clearcutting and other forms of even-age 
forestry, despite overwhelming evidence that selection management--
cutting individual trees, leaving the canopy and undergrowth relatively 
undisturbed--is more cost-efficient and is more ecologically sound.
  Selection logging is more labor intensive, and therefore creates more 
jobs for timber workers. It also avoids the high up-front costs of site 
preparation and replanting required by even-age timber management.
  The result of selection logging is a permanent, sustainable supply of 
high quality timber, and the protection of native biodiversity in the 
forests. This contrasts with clearcutting's indiscriminate destruction 
of huge stands of trees, leaving only shrubs and bare ground, leading 
to erosion, the demineralization of the soil, and allowing the creation 
of artificial tree farms and extinction of the original native forest 
in its wake. Wherever we allow logging to occur on our Federal forests, 
only the selection logging technique should be permitted.
  if current plans are followed, the remaining native biodiversity in 
the approximately 60 million acres available for commercial logging on 
Federal land will be eliminated and each of those acres transformed 
into monoculture timber plantations within the next 15 to 20 years.
  The legacy of the Forest Service and other Federal agencies' 
unrestrained use of commercial logging based on even-age logging 
techniques has left our Federal forests devastated, and has brought 
countless plant and animal species to the brink of extinction.
  The new logging prohibitions contained in my bill are a necessary 
response to the extraordinarily destructive antienvironmental laws 
passed by this 104th Congress, especially the timber salvage rider to 
the fiscal year 1995 rescissions legislation. Under this salvage rider, 
environmental protection has been suspended. Many northwest ancient 
forests with trees up to 1,000 years old are being logged, and 
pristine, roadless, and perfectly healthy forests are now fraudulently 
being logged as salvage. The salvage rider targeted for clearcutting 
the very forests that scientists tell us are most urgently in need of 
protection.
  As long as northwest ancient forests and roadless areas remain in the 
timber base of the Forest Service, and other Federal agencies, these 
irreplaceable areas are perpetually at risk of being logged and 
destroyed. It is time to make these magnificent remnants of America's 
original untouched forests permanently off-limits to logging, 
protecting them forever from the devastation of any future timber 
salvage rider, or similarly destructive legislation. My new bill would 
achieve this.
  In the development of a plan for the northwest ancient forests, 
Forest Service experts and other Federal scientists mapped the ancient 
forests of the region. These scientists determined no logging should be 
allowed in many of these ancient forest areas in order to give the 
ancient forests and their dependent species the highest possibility of 
survival and recovery. My bill prohibits commercial logging in these 
northwest ancient forests.
  The bill also prohibits commercial logging in roadless areas. Federal 
roadless areas contain many of the largest unfragmented forests in 
America and are important reservoirs of our Nation's remaining native 
biodiversity. I have used the Forest Service's definition of roadless 
areas in my revised legislation.
  My bill also identifies certain Federal forests, call special areas, 
which may not be roadless areas or northwest ancient forests, but are 
deserving of protection from commercial logging because of important 
ecological reasons. Many of these areas also have important cultural, 
scenic, or recreational qualities, which deserve as much protection as 
trees and wildlife.
  Passage of this legislation will usher in a new era of forest 
management on our Federal lands, with long-term ecological integrity as 
the guiding principle.
  The public supports environmental protection as never before, and 
opinion polls express the public's demand that Congress prevent the 
permanent loss of our Nation's native forests.
  I invite every Member to join me in seeking this badly needed forest 
reform.

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