[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 101 (Tuesday, September 5, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7967-S7974]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FOREST FIRES
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I asked for time in our schedule today so
that I might be joined with other Western Senators and those Senators
concerned about the catastrophic fires that have been sweeping across
public lands in the West for the last month and a half.
Coincidentally, today is the first day of school across our Nation.
Many of our children in elementary schools are going to be asked by
their teachers: What did you do during your summer vacation? For the
next few moments, I will suggest to you that this is my opening speech
following my summer vacation. Let me tell you what I did during my
summer vacation.
I went home to my beautiful State of Idaho and watched it burn--
hundreds of thousands of acres of timberland, grassland, wild habitat,
and environmentally sensitive land burned with catastrophic fires that
were too dangerous, too hot, and too powerful to put firefighters in
the face of to try to stop them and protect these beautiful natural
resources.
In fact, I never thought I would return to Washington, DC, in search
of clean air. But it is true. The air is cleaner over our Nation's
Capital today than it is in my beautiful State of Idaho, or Montana, or
those Great Basin States of the West that are known for spaciousness,
vistas, and clean air.
This year's fire season may well prove to be the worst in half a
century. All of our 11 Western States, as well as Kansas, Arkansas,
Oklahoma, and Texas, are reporting very high and extreme fire danger
levels today.
As I speak, large fires are actively burning in California, Colorado,
Florida--a little less so in Idaho today because it rained during the
night, and it rained over the weekend. But it is true in Louisiana and
Mississippi--a little less true in Montana because of that same
rainstorm--Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South
Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
The map I have to my left demonstrates the character and the
widespread nature of these fires. It isn't coincidental, nor is it
unique, that most of these fires would be found on public lands--land
managed by Federal land management agencies of this Government.
As of last week, the National Interagency Fire Center reports that 81
large fires are burning presently, covering nearly 1.7 million acres of
land. The acres burned year to date exceed 6.5 million acres
nationwide. That is over twice the 10-year average to date.
The reason I keep using the word ``to date'' is because we are now in
the early days of September, and normal fire seasons will run late into
September--and even later into October in California and other places
down toward and including the Southwest. The total number of fires on
public lands has surpassed 74,000. Let me repeat that: 74,000 fires on
public lands. That is almost 13,000 fires higher than the 10-year
average.
Nationally, wildfires this year have burned an area larger than our
neighboring State to the District, Maryland. In other words, envision
the entire State of Maryland charred by fire. That is how many acres
have been consumed by fire in our Nation this year.
There are roughly 26,000 firefighters battling wildfires. We have run
out of trained firefighters and are preparing 550 new Army troops to
assist fire crews. This is in addition to over 2,000 soldiers already
deployed to fire crews nationwide, as well as firefighters from 3
different foreign countries--Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. All of
the personnel fighting fires deserve our heartfelt thanks for their
efforts and their dedication. And yes, we have also lost lives of
firefighters.
Current estimates suggest that nearly $120 million was spent in
August alone fighting wildfires. The National Interagency Fire Center
in Boise reports it is spending $18 million a day on fire suppression
and related efforts. Last week, the Federal Government reported that it
has spent $626 million so
[[Page S7968]]
far on suppression costs this year. The Forest Service budget director
estimates that wildfire costs this year will exceed $1 billion in
total. This estimate assumes that the fire season ends in the normal
framework I have discussed. However, the fires that are currently
burning probably will not be extinguishable by man. They will have to
wait for the snow to fall this winter or late fall or for major storms
to move in the normal winter cycle.
It is hard to believe that to be a true statement, but it is a true
statement that in the heartlands of our wilderness, our public lands
where these fires will continue to smolder, to flare up during the hot
days of the late fall, it will take a snowstorm in the heart of Idaho
to put out these kinds of fires.
On Wednesday, August 30, President Clinton granted Montana Governor
Marc Racicot's request that Montana be declared a Federal disaster
area. On Thursday of last week, my Governor, Dirk Kempthorne, asked
President Clinton to declare Idaho a disaster area, and he has. And I
expect likely declarations coming soon from others.
In a fire season as bad as the one we are now experiencing, it is
undeniable we would be seeing a significant area burn. Indeed, the
General Accounting Office has warned in a series of reports that there
are 39 million acres of Federal lands at risk right now of uncontrolled
catastrophic wildfire. Therefore, the severity of this season should
not have been a surprise to anyone, nor should we have stood by saying
this is a natural situation.
Ten years ago, a group of foresters and renowned national
silviculturists met in Sun Valley, ID, to study the character of the
forests of the Great Basin of the West. They said at that time that
those forests were in severe need of active management because they
were nearly dead or dying from disease and bug kill and that if we
didn't pursue an active management policy, these forests would be at
risk of catastrophic fire.
That was 10 years ago. Since that time, I and others have asked the
General Accounting Office to study the state of our forests, only to be
reminded that what has happened this year would happen if we were not
actively involved. However, over the last 3 weeks we have heard a
series of news stories that call into question whether the Federal
firefighting agencies have been adequately funded, staffed, and
prepared to deal with the fire risk that we all knew existed and that
will still exist after this year. Notwithstanding differences in land
management policy--and there are differences between this
administration and me and other Members of the Congress--there is no
disagreement that the Federal land management agencies should be
prepared to deal with fires when they occur.
Nevertheless, 3 weeks ago, USA Today reported that the Bureau of Land
Management fire preparedness budget request was reduced first by the
Department of the Interior and then by the Office of Management and
Budget. Current and former Bureau of Land Management employees
complained in writing that the effect of these budget reductions would
be to reduce fire preparedness dramatically.
That story was followed by a Washington Times investigative piece
that reported that the money taken from the fire preparedness budget
was used to acquire new Federal lands as a part of this
administration's current land legacy initiative. I am sure that at the
time the President had money taken from these fire budgets he didn't
understand that his land legacy would be millions of acres of charred
trees and lost wildlife habitat. Mr. President, that is the permanent
flame that you may well have as your legacy.
At the same time, United Press International filed a story that the
Forest Service fire preparedness budget was similarly reduced either at
the Department of Agriculture or the Office of Management and Budget,
or both. United Press International quoted representatives of the
Forest Service Employees Union complaining that, in downsizing, the
administration disproportionately reduced the number of lower grade GS
5's and 9's and put the money with GS 14's. What does that equate to?
It said that it reduces people on the ground and puts them in the
Washington, DC, office. Folks on the ground fight fires. People in the
Washington office do not. Yet that is the kind of transition about
which even the Forest Service Employees Union was talking. Those are
amongst a lot of things that this Congress will have to deal with in
the coming days.
Last week, I had a good conversation with Forest Service Chief Mike
Dombeck. We agreed on a series of steps for the agency and the Congress
to take over the next few weeks to address the situation currently at
hand. We are not going to see major policy shifts this year, but we
clearly ought to outline in the Congressional Record why we are where
we are today and why 6.5 or 7 million acres of our public lands have
been charred.
Clearly, it is important that we develop an emergency budget not only
to pay the bills of firefighting that we have incurred, but also the
kind of environmental restoration that is critical now so we will not
see continued catastrophic events occurring as a result of these fires,
the kind that could destroy wildlife habitat and watersheds, because we
were not able to move quickly in the kind of environmental restoration
that is very necessary. We also have private lands at risk and private
property owners who deserve to be compensated because of the way the
Forest Service managed these fires in certain instances, or the
character in which these fires burned.
I will be working with my colleagues in the coming days to do just
that. First, we will hold hearings in the coming weeks regarding: Was
the Forest Service prepared this season to fight these fires? If they
were not, why were they not? Then we will begin to examine the current
policy and its impact on these 30-plus million acres at risk. I hope to
take colleagues with me, as chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee, to
my State of Idaho and into Montana and the Great Basin area of the West
in the next few weeks as we talk to the citizens on the ground who have
experienced firsthand the risk of losing their homes, their property,
and, yes, even their communities.
We have already dealt with the urban wildland interface as a result
of the catastrophic fires in Los Alamos. But even with that, we have
not yet done enough. I hope the administration will bring forth a
package in the coming days to work with us to develop a program of
active management to try to save these environmentally sensitive areas,
to improve the ability of these areas to deal with fire, and, most
importantly, to improve the ability of our Federal lands management
agencies to deal with fire in coming years. If we are truly in the kind
of environment that I believe we are in, or if we are at a time and
place of La Nina versus El Nino and ocean oscillations and seasonal
changes in the environment, then next year could be every bit as great
a fire year as this year. It is clearly important that we prepare now
to do so.
I have had several of my colleagues join me on the floor who wish to
speak to this issue. Madam President, I ask how much time is left of
the hour that I requested?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 46 minutes remaining.
Mr. CRAIG. At this time I yield to Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming
for such time as he may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Idaho, who has
been a leader for a very long time in this area--not only on fires, of
course, but the management of forests, which is really the issue we
will finally have to get to here. I thank him for what he is doing and
certainly for the hearings he will have in his committee, which I think
will be extremely important and are now extremely appropriate.
Wildfires are a very serious thing. They are very scary. They are
damaging. They threaten not only the forest itself but, of course,
facilities and homes in the forests. I grew up right next to the
Shoshone forest next to Cody, WY, between Cody and Yellowstone and, as
a matter of fact, participated on two occasions in fighting forest
fires. It really is something you can hardly imagine, particularly if
you are on a steep mountainside and the forest fire itself releases
boulders that roll down. There are lots of scary things about it.
As my colleague and most of us know now, wildfires in the West of the
United States have ravaged literally
[[Page S7969]]
thousands of acres this year, the worst experience we have had in
forest fires for a very long time. Hopefully, that is now under
control. There has been some change in the weather--snow, as a matter
of fact, in some places. There has been some change also in the climate
itself. We have had a very dry year in the West which has made it even
more difficult.
In my home State of Wyoming, we have had thousands of acres
devastated. Let me share some of the actual numbers that I think are
fairly startling. This is from the National Fire News. The National
Interagency Fire Center puts this out from Boise, ID. They have a 13-
year comparison of the losses that have taken place as of September 4,
for the year 2000.
The loss has been 6,566,000 acres this year. This year, of course, is
not completed. There are always losses. Last year, in 1999, there were
4.4 million acres burned; the year before, 2 million, and 1 to 2
million has been the more common amount, although in 1996 it was 5.7
million acres that were destroyed.
I guess the message is that we know there is going to be some burn.
The burn, of course, is the natural way. There are those who argue: Let
nature take its course. However, things are not the way they were 300
years ago or 200 years ago. There has to be some kind of different
approach.
In the States, of course: California, 214,000 acres; in Florida--
Florida which is outside the West--183,000; Idaho, being the hardest
hit at this point, 1.2 million acres burned in Montana, nearly a
million--900,000 acres. New Mexico had almost half a million acres
burned. So it has been very devastating. Certainly our first obligation
is to fund and do what we can now to stop the fires and to repair the
immediate damages.
I think it is interesting that in the long term, the total this year
is 6.5 million acres burned, and burned for the last 10 years, 2.9
million--less than half. So we have had a very difficult experience
this year.
I ask unanimous consent a complete table of wildfire statistics be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record as follows:
THIRTEEN-YEAR WILDLAND FIRE COMPARISON STATISTICS YEAR-TO-DATE FOR THE
UNITED STATES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Number of
As of September 4 wildland fires acres
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2000.................................... 74,571 6,566,520
1999.................................... 70,609 4,403,438
1998.................................... 60,872 2,037,629
1997.................................... 49,644 2,720,690
1996.................................... 86,533 5,787,767
1995.................................... 63,170 1,661,679
1994.................................... 58,638 3,238,065
1993.................................... 46,625 1,613,843
1992.................................... 70,444 1,478,661
1991.................................... 57,583 2,020,184
1990.................................... 55,630 4,386,528
1989.................................... 45,015 1,448,639
1988.................................... 67,945 3,623,613
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NUMBER OF WILDLAND FIRES AND ACRES AFFECTED IN 2000 BY STATE UPDATED
SEPTEMBER 4, 2000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Number of
State fires acres
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AK...................................... 351 751,233
AL...................................... 4,377 65,477
AR...................................... 2,019 26,226
AZ...................................... 3,260 94,144
CA...................................... 5,693 214,735
CO...................................... 1,921 126,005
CT...................................... 55 183
DC...................................... 2 2
DE...................................... 12 165
FL...................................... 5,604 183,304
GA...................................... 6,883 50,735
IA...................................... 0 0
ID...................................... 1,413 1,234,818
IL...................................... 22 386
IN...................................... 875 3,005
KS...................................... 14 689
KY...................................... 1,163 49,287
LA...................................... 3,473 53,724
MA...................................... 1,854 2,735
MD...................................... 253 506
ME...................................... 208 283
MI...................................... 555 9,635
MN...................................... 2,448 55,738
MO...................................... 162 11,692
MS...................................... 3,758 55,355
MT...................................... 2,289 921,608
NC...................................... 2,814 16,818
ND...................................... 934 40,996
NE...................................... 19 434
NH...................................... 246 160
NJ...................................... 521 1,432
NM...................................... 2,222 453,519
NV...................................... 1,000 634,478
NY...................................... 104 452
OH...................................... 737 3,950
OK...................................... 1,100 46,481
OR...................................... 1,583 427,617
PA...................................... 113 954
PR...................................... 1 1
RI...................................... 81 75
SC...................................... 3,738 18,301
SD...................................... 507 14,704
TN...................................... 1,476 18,984
TX...................................... 2,468 176,194
UT...................................... 1,613 235,186
VA...................................... 687 8,234
VT...................................... 28 67
WA...................................... 942 256,706
WI...................................... 1,435 4,509
WV...................................... 920 18,917
WY...................................... 621 276,061
-------------------------------
Total............................. 74,571 6,566,520
Ten-Year Average........................ 61,975 2,934,848
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. THOMAS. I think we need to recognize and thank the people on the
ground, the agencies, the firefighters, for all they did. This is tough
work. This is dangerous work. So I am very grateful for what has been
done.
I was out in the midst of it, out in Yellowstone during this last
August. Certainly some of the problems were that there were not enough
facilities; there were not enough airplanes; there were not enough
firefighters; there was not enough equipment to deal with all these
things that happened. Again, I am not blaming anyone for that, but it
did make it much more difficult.
In the appropriations bill with which we are now dealing, I have
requested some additional funds for wildlife and fire management this
fiscal year. I am very concerned, as the Senator from Idaho pointed
out, that in many of these cases--not only firefighters but also
maintenance and other kinds of things--this administration has put more
emphasis on acquisition and purchase than they have on the management
of the resources we have now. I think we need to take a look at that. I
am chairman of the parks subcommittee. All of us know there are $4
billion or $5 billion in infrastructure repairs and maintenance needed.
But that is not where this administration put the money.
This land legacy thing was the one that had the emphasis. So there
are some tough questions, I think, certainly not of motives but tough
questions in terms of management, as to what our responsibility ought
to be. I really am looking forward to the Energy and Natural Resources
Committee's oversight hearings when we can take a real, honest look at
what we ought to do.
What do the roadless areas we are talking about have to do with the
ability to control fires? I think it has something to do with it. We
have wilderness areas and parks, of course, that are managed
differently. It is true that in a wilderness area you are not going to
have roads. You have to deal with it another way. Most of these fires
are not in the wilderness. If we had access to the fires early on, I
think it would be helpful. Certainly harvesting, clearing out the
underbrush, clearing out the fuel as it builds up, as it naturally does
around mature trees--I have been in some places that are very nearly
wilderness, again up around Cody, WY. When selective timbering is done,
you go through and you hardly notice it having been harvested. But I
tell you, there is much less likelihood of an uncontrollable fire in
that area than in the condition in which it had been.
Of course, the administration is quick to say it has properly managed
the fires. This may not be the case, both from the standpoint of being
as prepared financially as we should have been, and, of course, having
some management techniques which many of the forest people, many of the
people who are actually on the ground, recommend. They know there are
things that can be done.
I think this is an area we need to talk about. We need to talk about
it now. Our focus, of course, has to be on the future and what we can
do to limit the kinds of losses in our resources we had this year. I am
very pleased to be able to work with my colleagues here, particularly
the Senator from Idaho. I am looking forward to doing what we can to be
prepared so in the future we will have less of a tragedy than we had
this year.
I yield the floor.
Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague from Wyoming. Let me especially echo
the point he made well just a few moments ago. We have had thousands of
men and women out there on the fire lines risking their lives over the
last month and a half. Clearly, a special thanks is needed to them for
the work they have done. I think that is most appropriate as we assess
now where we are and what we might be able to do, both short term and
long term, in the packages that are put together and the policy changes
that are made. The administration has said they will be coming forth
with some proposals. We will take a very serious look at them as they
come, to work with them in the immediate sense as we look at long term.
Now, let me yield 10 minutes to the other Senator from Wyoming, Mr.
[[Page S7970]]
Mike Enzi. I am pleased he joins us today to discuss this critical
situation in the West.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I rise to join in this elaboration on the
damage and devastation that is going on in the West. It has been a
tradition in the Senate that when disasters happen, Senators come to
the floor and they ask emergency measures be taken, both to stop what
is happening and to make up for some of the economic loss that is a
result of the emergency.
That is what we are doing today. Just as importantly, we are here
today suggesting that there are changes the Federal Government can make
so that we do not have these problems again. Prevention is better than
pain. Prevention is better than the pain that is caused by the forest
fires that devastate homes, jobs, and recreation.
Senator Thomas and I have been traveling around Wyoming. We are
downwind from Idaho. We are downwind from Washington. We are downwind
from Montana. In the daytime, one cannot see the mountains or the fires
for the smoke. At night, you can see the fires as you drive down the
roads, and people prepare their evacuation plans to get out of their
homes, to abandon their homes to flames. It is a terrible situation.
It can be prevented, but we are going down the wrong road right now.
I rise to express my deep concerns over the mismanagement of the
National Forest System that has led to one of the worst fire seasons in
the history of the United States of America.
There is no question that fire is a part of the natural world. No one
knows this better than the men and women in the Western United States
who have risked their lives during the last 4 months to protect and
save homes, lives, property, and the environment from the terrible
threat of the catastrophic wildfires.
As of September 4, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, ID,
reports that 6.6 million acres of Federal public lands have been burned
this year alone. In comparison, in 1996, we suffered what was up until
then the worst year on record for fires in the continental United
States. At that time, we lost 5.8 million acres. We have already
exceeded that loss by almost 800,000 acres, and it is growing.
What makes this tragedy so terrible is that most of this threat could
have been prevented had our Federal land management agencies not been
stymied by the Washington, DC, one-size-fits-all-based policies that
sacrificed forest health for political gain. Rather than implement
policies that would have made our forests more fire resilient and would
have made forest communities safer from the threat of catastrophic
wildfires, these agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau
of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the Fish and
Wildlife Service, have adopted practices from Washington that have
allowed our forests to grow denser and denser without establishing the
proper safeguards, such as defensible fuel profile zones and
mechanically thinned forests that can incorporate fires into the
natural management.
For more than 60 years, our Nation has placed an emphasis on
aggressive fire suppression programs which have removed fire as a
mitigating factor in maintaining forest health. As a result of these
well-meaning efforts, many of our forests now suffer from an unnatural
accumulation of vegetation on the forest floors. Dense undergrowth,
combined with increasing taller layers of intermediate vegetation, has
turned Western forests into deadly time bombs.
Unlike healthy fires of the past that thinned out the underbrush and
left the large trees to grow larger, modern wildfire quickly claims the
dense vegetation like a ladder until it tops out at the uppermost, or
crown, level of the forest and races out of control as a catastrophic
fire. Because of their high speed and intense heat, these crown fires
leave an almost sterile environment in their wake. After a crown fire,
nothing is left behind--no trees, no wildlife, and no habitat--with few
micro-organisms left to rebuild the soil.
Vegetation manipulation, including timber harvests, is therefore
necessary to restore our forests, particularly in the West, to
conditions that are most resistant to catastrophic disturbance and that
are within acceptable ranges of variability. Good stewardship,
scientific studies, including the Sierra Nevada ecosystem project
report, state that timber harvest is a tool that can be used to enhance
overall forest resilience to disturbance. The SNEP report states, for
example, that ``logging can serve as a tool to help reduce fire hazard
when slash is treated and treatments are maintained.'' If conducted on
a large enough scale and in a controlled manner, timber harvests can
restore our national forests to a point where large catastrophic fires
are much less likely. In other words, we can harvest the trees instead
of burning them down. We can make them into boards that will keep that
CO2 they have absorbed over a lifetime intact in a home
instead of going up in smoke as CO2.
The Forest Service has recognized this threat and in April of this
year stated that ``Without increased restoration treatments . . .
wildfire suppression costs, natural resources losses, private property
losses, and environmental damage are certain to escalate as fuels
continue to accumulate and more acres become high risk.''
The Clinton-Gore administration, however, has chosen to ignore its
own experts and has proposed new programs that would combine with
current planning efforts, such as the Sierra Nevada framework, Interior
Columbia Basin ecosystem management project, the roadless initiative,
and the Federal monument proclamations, will only make the situation
worse by removing our access to forests and by taking away some of our
most effective forest management tools. Instead, the administration
wants to rely on the extensive use of prescribed fire which will
further exacerbate the risk of catastrophic wildfires on the Federal
land throughout the West and proposes to prohibit all forms of
commercial timber harvest, regardless of the objective.
Those prescribed fires get out of control, as I am sure the Senator
from New Mexico will point out in a little while, in one of those
damaging winds. In Wyoming, prescribed burns get out of control, and if
you cannot get to the fire, you cannot put out the fire. We are talking
about a roadless initiative in the United States right know.
This is a map that shows the forest system in Wyoming--not the
grasslands, not the Bureau of Land Management-controlled lands--the
forest system. Wyoming has about 400 miles on a border. If we take away
the roads in any of those colored areas, how do we get in to fight the
forest fire while it is still a small fire? That is when we want to
take them on. That is when we need to be able to get to them. If we
wipe out the roads--and they are referred to sometimes as ghost roads
because they are not roads one takes a normal car over, but they are
roads from which fires can be fought.
Madam President, I draw your attention to another sign that has
appeared in Montana. This is actually addressed to all of us, but it is
a little more pointed than that:
To the firefighters: Thank you for all your efforts.
To the U.S. Forest Service: Everything that we love is gone
. . . up in smoke. The mismanagement of our forests has
turned our beautiful valley into an ash heap.
To Bill Clinton and Al Gore: Because of your environmental
policies, the jobs are gone, the way of life is gone, and now
the beauty is gone. What's next? Shame on you.
If we do not do anything about it, shame on us.
In the interest of protecting the integrity and posterity of our
forest and wild lands, wildlife habitat, watershed--if there is a
forest fire and it wipes out all the trees, next year North Dakota will
have more floods because more water will make it into the stream--air
quality, human health and safety, and private property, the U.S. Forest
Service and other Federal land management agencies must immediately
enact a cohesive strategy to reduce the overabundance of forest fuels
which place these resources at high risk of catastrophic wildfire.
While this strategy must include increased timber sales, however,
there is no reason these sales cannot be structured to improve forest
health by including in the terms of the contracts a requirement to thin
out the underbrush and leave our forests in a healthier, more
sustainable condition.
[[Page S7971]]
I have concentrated on forest fires. There are grassland fires
happening on BLM lands, private lands, and there are some lessons to be
learned on taking care of those, too. It is not as dramatic to talk
about a grass fire as a timber fire, but on those lands where there is
good stewardship, the fires will stop. Where there is bad stewardship,
the fires will blow across at a rate animals cannot even run.
The catastrophic wildfires not only cause damage to forest and other
lands but place the lives of firefighters at risk, pose threats to
human health, personal property, sustainable ecosystems, and air and
water quality.
We must call to task the failed policies and move forward with better
proactive policies that protect the West and the United States from the
overriding threat of catastrophic wildfire.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his
comments. He has made a very critical statement as it relates to some
of the initiatives that are before us today, as it relates to roadless
initiatives, roadless areas, accessibility to these areas, and the risk
of catastrophic fire.
Last week, I sent to the President a letter indicating we had
discovered that the administration, in their roadless area initiative,
was not using the current reports on catastrophic fire as it related to
their initiative. We would ask them to go back and review that before
they attempted, by regulation, to lock up another 10, 15, 20, 30
million acres of land. It ought to be examined against the current
fuel-loading on that land and the risk of catastrophic fire.
Now I will yield to the Senator from New Mexico who has just gone
through a catastrophic fire in his State that nearly wiped out one of
our great National Laboratories. It certainly wiped out a beautiful
area in the mountains of New Mexico near Los Alamos where it took
hundreds of homes and may well end up costing the taxpayers of this
country over $1 billion to repair bad policy and bad decisionmaking
coming together that created the Los Alamos fire.
I yield to my colleague from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I recall coming to the floor when we
considered the military construction appropriations bill. My friend,
the Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, recalls that. The military
construction bill came to the floor and we told the Senate how we
worked for over a month, in a bipartisan manner, to provide the
administration with tools to improve fuel reduction in the wildland and
urban interface; that is, urban interface areas for communities that
are at risk.
I understand the distinguished Senator, Mr. Kyl from Arizona, has
some very excellent portrayals of what happens to forests that are
attended to and cleared as compared with those we leave unattended and
then have a fire. Unfortunately, the administration threatened to veto
the legislation we worked on because they found some of the suggestions
too hot to handle. However, my colleagues found the suggestions very
prudent, and later accepted my amendment to the Interior appropriations
bill, which is where we finally were able to offer it. It was offered
there as an emergency measure and received huge bipartisan support.
Throughout the United States, there is an increasing amount of land
in what natural resource scientists and firefighting experts call
wildland-urban interface. This is very important because if that burns,
not only do we lose forests, but we lose communities, we lose villages,
we lose watersheds right close to cities which have a propensity to
destroy the water supply as the trees in the watershed burn.
Many millions of acres--according to the General Accounting Office
estimate, 39 million acres or more--of national forests are at high
risk of wildfires.
Over August--it was not a luxury; normally visiting my State is a
privilege and a luxury--I had to go there to visit fire-devastated
communities, and in particular one, Los Alamos, but also some smaller
ones. One of the communities is named Weed, where a couple hundred
people came with their concerns because they are so frightened about
what is happening to the forests on which they live, work, and from
which they used to make a living.
As of today, there are over 52 fires burning over 1,000 acres each
across this country.
The total number of acres burned this year is 223 percent of the 10-
year-to-date average.
On Labor Day, almost 17,000 acres burned--on that one day.
Close to half a million acres have burned in my State this year; many
more in other States, including the States of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming,
Montana, and others.
When we first started working on this measure, the administration
believed there was too much national environmental special interest
group opposition to my mild fuel-reduction amendment. But I wanted to
ensure that we did not just throw money at the problem and say we
solved the threat to our communities.
We gave them, in that amendment, $240 million in emergency funding to
work on hazardous fuel reduction. Actually, since that amendment, which
will be in conference under the chairmanship of Senator Gorton, there
have been many more fires that have occurred. Much more evidence has
been discerned with reference to communities that are right up next to
forests that are loaded with kindling on the ground, ready to make a
small fire into a monstrous fire.
The language in that amendment provides the land management agencies
additional authority that they now lack to do some of this fuel
reduction work. We asked them, at their sole discretion, to do this
work in a way that would provide jobs to local people, opportunities to
private, nonprofit, or cooperating entities, such as youth conservation
corps, and opportunities for small and micro businesses.
We asked the two Secretaries involved to identify those communities
where hazard reduction activities were already underway or could be
commenced by the end of the calendar year. We further asked the
Secretaries to describe, by May of the coming year, the roadblocks to
beginning hazardous fuel reduction work in the remaining communities at
risk.
I can tell you about some of the communities in my State because our
State forester had no hesitation to find out this information. He went
out to find it. We have an excellent State forestry department and an
excellent State forester.
They found the Ruidoso area, an area many people visit, has a very
serious threat in terms of heavy pine scattered throughout the areas
and residue on the ground of a very high kindling nature.
In Santa Fe, the water supply is in immediate jeopardy.
The growing East Mountain communities of Albuquerque are facing
significant fire hazards.
The Middle Rio Grande Bosque--a green area, a greenbelt along our
river, the Rio Grande--and the Espanola area, increasingly face the
threat of out-of-control fire; that is, federal forests that are not
cleaned up, forests that have not been paid any attention to in terms
of management.
Los Alamos was deeply impacted by the Cerro Grande fire and will have
the continued threat in unburned canyons.
We have all seen on television the terrible pictures of personal
devastation from that area where more than 400 people were left without
residences. Some were in duplexes that were burned to the ground. We
have to pay for those because that fire was started by a Park Service
employee who made a very serious mistake. I think we are all aware of
that. That actually happened.
I want to summarize my remarks by suggesting that it is still very
interesting to me how the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Babbitt, can
come out to the West and say some of the things he does. President
Clinton's Interior Department has been in charge of many federal
lands--along with Agriculture Department, in charge of the forests for
as long as Clinton has been President. I say to my friend from the
State of Arizona, soon that will be 8 years. They have been in control
of: How should we manage? What should we cut? What should we do with
these forests? It is interesting that Mr Babbitt
[[Page S7972]]
would come out West and say: This administration is not responsible for
any of this; it comes from administrations before this one.
Frankly, how many years would it take this administration to fix the
problems in the management of the forests? I have listened to my good
friend, the chairman of the subcommittee that handles this issue in the
Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I heard him talk about what the
Federal Government has done and not done.
I have not heard anything about a major effort to clean up the
forests. In fact, I think it has been to the contrary. I think there
has been a fear that if you clean this up, you are logging. If you
clean up the stuff on the ground so it will not burn, you are putting
people to work in rural areas; and you are supporting this idea that
there are many uses for forests, you are making it a reality--where
this administration wants to push more to only public use rather than
any private use.
I say to the Secretary of the Interior--and I certainly have not
heard Secretary Glickman say this--but for him to come out West and say
this didn't happen on their watch seems to me to be skating on very
thin ice in terms of the reality of things.
What do we have now? What we have now is a Presidential election.
Vice President Gore is running, and many of us think most of these
policies were run through his staff for their ``environmental''
validity.
I think it would be nice to know, since the Secretary of the Interior
denies that this administration and our Vice President, who many know
was in charge of a lot of environmental policies--where was he on all
these fire danger issues? More importantly, where will he be if he is
elected? I cannot believe that if a set of questions were put to him--
and we can't do that--he will answer them only if he wants to and only
if they write them up a certain way. What did you do during your 8
years with reference to this problem, and if you are elected, what will
you do during the next 4 years? Be very specific. Wouldn't it be
something if you asked: Do you support a policy saying you can not put
a road in the forest, even to stop the fire? I don't know if he would
answer that.
The policy in this country now appears to be not to put any roads in.
In my State they have told me that in the overgrown Santa Fe watershed,
they don't believe they are allowed to put a road a half mile up--even
a temporary one--to thin a rather steep slope, which you cannot get to
from the main road. There are many frustrating stories like that. We
hear stories about the federal land management agencies concerned with
``protecting'' certain things on the ground before you use a
Caterpillar to stop a fire.
Frankly, to me, the results make that policy an adversity, because in
order to save some resources, the result is ironically thousands and
thousands of acres of burned forests and damaged resources. So which is
the more prudent policy? To try to stop the fire early on at a quarter
of its entirety using mechanized equipment, or let the whole thing burn
and look back on it and say we didn't touch any of the ground with a
tractor or any equipment, but we sure burned the forest down? These are
very important issues. Where do we go next?
I submit that Congress is going to see--even in the few days it has--
that that $240 million as an emergency comes out of that conference. I
think some Senators are getting some estimates about the environmental
restoration cost for some of these forests that burned in the State of
Senator Kyl, and certainly in the distinguished chairman's State, and
in the State of Montana and others. What will it cost to go back and
rehabilitate and make them grow again? That surely is a great American
emergency.
Do we want to leave these millions of acres with only the stark
reality of a fire? Millions of trees are standing that are burned. Do
we want to leave them all there until they rot away? Don't we want to
say that as part of a rehabilitation plan, we ought to remove some of
them?
Frankly, I will give you one example. We have a little community in
Otero County called Alamogordo. It had one nice lumber mill, which just
closed. Do you know what is around it? A very big fire that we reported
here on the floor. Around the small town of Weed, near that closed
sawmill, stands millions of burned trees with about 25 percent of their
utility gone. We have not yet decided to remove one of those trees and
to put somebody back to work in that lumber mill because of the
policies the Senator from Idaho was speaking of.
We need plans. I agree. But we also need to put the money up so the
plans and the work be done quickly, in my opinion. One of the biggest
and most important things we can do in the coming weeks is to provide
this to the administration and say, ``Get started.'' Clearly, they
won't accomplish a great deal, but the sooner we get started the
better.
I understand Senator Kyl has an expert in his State who has worked on
the issue of how much good can we do in cleaning up the forests, so
that we have some fire prevention, instead waiting around and then
trying to put out a devastating fire.
I yield the floor.
Mr. CRAIG. Before I yield to the Senator from Arizona, I thank the
Senator from New Mexico for his most appropriate statement. He
experienced this firsthand earlier in the year before Idaho and Montana
experienced it--the kind and the character of truly intensive and
catastrophic fires, burning thousands of degrees hotter than a normal
fire in a normal forest setting.
He is right. Over the course of the next several weeks, as chairman
of the authorizing subcommittee, I am going to work very hard to come
up with figures and amounts that we can build into an emergency package
and hopefully include it in the Interior appropriations bill, which
would fit the kind of environmental restoration necessary on the acres
that have already burned, but also the kind of urban interface
stewardship programs that will bring about the fuel reduction that our
colleague from Arizona will speak to in a moment. He and people in his
State have done some very interesting and extremely valuable pioneering
work on the Ponderosa Forest of northern Arizona, which is important
for this Congress, and hopefully this administration, to take into
consideration as a part of the way we deal with these forest lands that
now have literally tens of thousands of gallons of gasoline-equivalent
fuel on the ground, which burns explosively under the right
circumstances, as we have just experienced.
Let me yield to my colleague from Arizona, Senator John Kyl, to speak
to this issue and the experiments going on in his State.
(Mr. ENZI assumed the chair.)
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Idaho for bringing
the attention to this issue to the Senate floor, to our colleagues
here, as well as to people around the country. To my colleague from New
Mexico with whom I have been visiting about this matter for 5 or 6
years now, a real thanks for his efforts to bring a $240 million
supplemental appropriation which will only begin to scratch the surface
of the needs we have. Half of that money goes to the Department of
Agriculture's U.S. Forest Service and the other half goes to the
Department of the Interior for the BLM because in our public forests
today we have them spread both in the National Forest System, as well
as the Department of the Interior-administered lands of the BLM.
Arizona and New Mexico have the largest pine forests in the world.
Senator Craig pointed out that we have done some pioneering here. For
the last decade or so, Northern Arizona University's School of Forestry
has been working on techniques to return the forest to the rather
parklike, very natural condition that it was in at the turn of the
century, 100 years ago, when you had very broad stretches of grassland
with few trees per acre--maybe 100 trees per acre. Big beautiful trees,
ponderosa pines, are a little bit reminiscent of a sequoia, for
example--very large, yellow bark, a beautiful huge tree. When they are
spaced out a fairly large distance from each other in a rather parklike
condition, I don't think there is anything prettier.
More to the point, there is nothing more beneficial for the flora and
fauna in the area. Lush grass feeds the deer and elk and other
browsers. We have a healthy environment for birds and other species
and, frankly, the entire ecological situation is the way that God
created it to be.
[[Page S7973]]
Then along came man, and through a series of mistakes we mismanaged
the forests to the point that today most of the forest is clogged and
gnarled into what they call a ``dog hair trimmer,'' meaning that a dog
can't run through it without leaving half of his hair behind on the
underbrush that has been growing up.
What happens is that, first of all, all of this underbrush competes
for the nutrients and the water in the soil so none of the trees grow
to be the big, beautiful trees we all love, and none of the grass can
grow so that the browsers--the deer, elk, and animals such as that--
don't come into the area. And because every bit of nature depends on
something else, most of the species simply vanish. Nothing can really
survive there.
You create two other conditions: disease-prone because they are weak;
secondly, fire-prone, where a spark of fire here is like setting off
tinder with a larger box around it to burn. Because of the undergrowth
and fuel on the ground, as soon as the fire starts, it quickly spreads
to the lower branches and then the upper branches of the trees, and
that is why you see this almost explosion of fire as it crowns out; it
goes right up through the top of these huge, magnificent trees and
explodes the trees in the process. What happens is that the soil is
baked to a temperature that is unhealthy for regeneration. Ordinarily,
nature-caused fire will burn along the ground and burn a little bit of
the underbrush that is there but never crown out. As a result, it is
not the timber fire that you get here. This literally sterilizes the
soil. For years, nothing can regenerate. Perhaps devastatingly, erosion
results very quickly--destroying streams, rivers, and lakes. It takes
the topsoil that has taken millions of years to be created so things
can grow, and wipes that out. It drains all of it right down into the
rivers and streams and clogs them up.
What is the environment for the flora and fauna? There is nothing. We
talk about endangered species. Goodbye species.
We had a fire around Four Peaks in Arizona which destroyed about
75,000 acres. I learned that this was the heaviest concentration of
black bear habitat in the country and perhaps the world. What happened
to all of these black bears? Many of them did not survive. Many of the
other animals did not survive. The trees are gone. We have a very large
bird population in Arizona. Amazingly enough, many of those birds had
nowhere else to go.
The point is that when you have this kind of catastrophe, you are not
aiding nature; you are destroying it. All of the environment is
destroyed in the process--not to mention the waste and the cost. We
have now spent about $1 billion this year to fight these fires. That
money could have gone a long way toward managing the forests and
preventing the fires in the first place. You are not simply saving
timber; you are not simply preserving a nice view for people. You are
saving the environment for the flora and fauna--preventing erosion,
preventing the sterilization of the soil, and all of the rest.
As I started to say, work has been done around the country, but most
importantly in Northern Arizona University, pioneered by Dean Garrett,
and most recently by Dr. Wally Covington at Northern Arizona
University. Secretary Bruce Babbitt is a friend of Wally Covington and
fully supports the work that he has been doing at Northern Arizona
University. In some small projects in northern Arizona, we have been
able to acquire funding to do this forest restoration and demonstrate
the efficacy of the treatment.
The problem is the administration has not carried that on to a larger
treatment area. I don't know why because science proves it out.
Secretary Babbitt understands that it is the right thing to do. But I
think, frankly, it is a fear that the radical environmentalists, which
this administration relies upon for a great deal of its support, will
object. Indeed, after putting together a wonderful program with the
support of Secretary Babbitt, Dr. Covington, the Grand Canyon Trust,
and other environmental groups, all of whom were working together to
make the area around Flagstaff, AZ, safer, to improve the environment,
and to restore the forests to a healthy condition, radical
environmental groups sued to stop the process and delayed it for an
entire year--to no effect because the project will go on. But it will
be delayed a year.
The GAO reports that we have 39 million acres to treat in this
country. Strike that. With 6 million acres having burned this year, we
are now down to 33 million acres. We have to do this within a 20-year
period if we are going to save these forests. That is going to require
a commitment of the next administration. If the current administration
can't do the job, maybe the next one can.
Finally, I am holding a document put out by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture Forest Service, Southwestern Region, called ``Arizona's
Wild Land Urban Interface.'' To summarize what is in this document, you
see areas that haven't been treated that are severely burned. Then you
see what happens when they treat the areas. You find, for example, in
the Coronado National Forest a before-and-after picture where you see
this clogged-up condition of undergrowth. It is not pretty, it is not
environmentally sound, and the number of trees per acre are reduced to
about 300. Whereas they had about 1,500 before, they are trying to get
it down to about 150 per acre. When you do that, you have a beautiful
park-like condition that is healthy.
I can tell you, having visited the treatment areas around Flagstaff,
that after about 3 years you see the pitch content of the trees
significantly improved. That prevents the bark beetles from attacking
the trees. The protein content of the grass is an order of magnitude
higher. All of the elk, deer, and other animals are coming in to
browse. Everything about the forest is healthier when you can go in and
thin out this underbrush and hopefully follow up with a prescribed burn
which simply burns along the ground and burns any of the residue. It
doesn't crown out. After that, you can let nature take its course
because then you have a healthy forest with larger diameter trees. If
lightning strikes, not one of those trees catches fire. It starts with
the grass on fire around it. It may burn the grass for several acres.
That is all right. That will regenerate in just 1 year. That is
acceptable. But it doesn't crown out and destroy the rest of the
forest. That is what we have to commit to do in all of our Nation's
forests.
I commend the small first step that Senator Domenici has taken here
with appropriations. I commend the administration to create a budget
that will begin to spend, frankly, billions of dollars that are
necessary to treat the forests of our country, not just in the
southwest but all over the western United States which so desperately
needs this new forest management to save our Nation's forest.
I appreciate the fact that Senator Craig has offered me the
opportunity to speak to this today, and I look forward to continuing to
talk about this issue because, unfortunately, like some of the other
things, it takes a catastrophe to finally bring out what has to be
done. While all of us lament the catastrophe, at least perhaps it will
jolt us into doing what is right to save our wonderful forests in the
U.S.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kyl for what I think is a
very clear explanation of what happens when you have this massive fuel-
loading that has occurred on the floors of our public land forests in
the Nation. When he talks about active management, he is not talking
about wilderness areas. He is not talking about wildlife preserves. He
is talking about the millions and millions of acres of land that we
call multiple-use lands or lands that are classified within this
roadless area that this administration is currently examining and is
considering keeping roadless and undisturbed.
The question becomes very clear. Can you do this kind of active
management by righting the wrongs of past actions we have taken on our
public lands to restore forest health and to allow fire then to be a
participant in the ecosystem in a way that is not catastrophic or stand
altering or wildlife destroying? Those are very real changes with which
all of us have to grapple. We ought to start. I will start with
hearings in the next few days that will deal with that. Some of
our environmental friends recognize this. One of them happens to be
from New Mexico. The Forest Guardian Group is
[[Page S7974]]
quoted as saying that wildfires are getting bigger, burning hotter, and
the effects are more devastating.
It is clear that we will have to take mechanical steps to thin
forests before we can use fire to restore these forests to their
natural regimes.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will the Senator allow me a question?
Mr. CRAIG. I am happy to yield to the Senator from New York.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I hope he will make available more of the research that
has been described so carefully by himself and the Senator from
Arizona. This is new to an easterner but not too new. Two-thirds of the
State of New York is covered by hardwood forests and some cedar and
pine. But these are important propositions that should be listened to
intensively. I surely wish to be one who will do so, and I look forward
to supporting the efforts that are indicated.
Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator from New York for saying so. Yes, it
is true that some of these ideas are new. Some of them have been
building over the last decades as we have recognized the current state
of the health of our forests. My time is up.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am sure the chairman would wish us to
yield such time as the Senator from Idaho needs to conclude.
Mr. CRAIG. Let me conclude because the chairman of the Finance
Committee has just brought a very critical issue to the floor. I
appreciate the opportunity to kind of sandwich ourselves in between the
opening remarks of the chairman and the opening remarks of the ranking
member of the Finance Committee as it relates to China and PNTR, which
is the most important issue before this Senate. But it is important
that Senators be given an opportunity to hear the concerns that are now
out there about our public lands and some remedial action that we can
take in the short term as we look at long-term policies working with
this administration and future administrations to resolve this kind of
critical issue.
I thank you very much for the time and the time my colleagues have
used in joining me to bring out some of the necessary and important
facts about the events that are occurring out there as we go through
this most devastating fire season.
Let me conclude once again with this thought. Six and one-half
million acres of public land have now burned. For those who might be
listening and who do not understand what 1 acre of land represents, or
1 square mile of land, let me suggest that it is the entire State of
Maryland charred to the ground, with piles of ash, with snags of
timber, standing dead trees, nothing left, with the risk of siltation
and soot and ash moving into the watershed, into the streams, and into
the valuable aquatic habitat. No wildlife can live there. Much of the
wildlife having been destroyed, no trees can provide the productiveness
to build a home and provide fiber for our country except in charred
snags. An area the size of the State of Maryland has now
burned. Thousands and thousands of acres continue to burn. I believe
that is a national crisis. It is a crisis on which all Members must
focus. If it had been a hurricane that just wiped out the State of
Maryland, we would all be rushing to save that State.
Fire, too, is a part of Mother Nature's disaster or catastrophic
scheme. I hope our colleagues will work with us and that the Nation
will begin to understand that active management on these timbered
public lands in the appropriate and designated areas is not only
critical; it is necessary to save our forests.
I yield the floor.
____________________