[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 160 (Thursday, November 6, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14086-S14087]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HEALTHY FORESTS LEGISLATION

  Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I rise to speak about the Healthy Forests 
legislation which we recently passed on the Senate floor. Since we 
passed it--I remind everyone it was a strong bipartisan effort which 
resulted in 80 votes out of 100 votes in the Senate supporting this 
effort--we have now run into further procedural snags. As I was sitting 
here listening to the Senator from Nevada talk about the snag we have 
run into with regard to trying to get votes on judges, I was reminded 
of the similarity.
  It took us a long time to get this bill to the Senate floor, the 
Healthy Forests legislation. The process we went through was one in 
which I believe we showed America how we should be working together in 
a bipartisan fashion to cross party lines, cross regional lines, and 
build broad support for meaningful legislation to solve a serious 
problem.
  We did that. We had a bipartisan coalition that came forward with a 
strong bill. I will talk a little bit about what the bill would mean to 
America. We passed it in the Senate with 80 votes. Yet today we are 
stalled in being able to move forward and appoint conferees to get 
together with the House and work out the differences between the two 
bills and come forward with strong legislation.
  Unfortunately, this procedural maneuver of stopping us from being 
able to move forward into a conference with the House is simply another 
mechanism similar to a filibuster. In fact, it might ultimately be 
backed up by a filibuster to stop us from procedurally being able to 
move forward on important legislation. In effect, it allows anybody who 
wants to to vote for the bill, knowing it is going to be stalled and 
that we will not allow it to then go to conference and keep moving 
forward.
  The Healthy Forests legislation is critically needed. I just received 
the most recent analysis of the statistics. When we debated the bill, 
we talked a lot about the damage going on in California with the 
wildfires then burning there. Just to remind everybody about what those 
fires meant, a study I have in front of me evaluates just 4 of the 13 
fires that were burning in California last week as we considered the 
legislation.

  The estimated cost to date--which is not finished--of fighting just 
those 4 fires is $65.8 million. That is 4 of the 13 fires in 
California. When you look at the rest of the country, as I discussed in 
the debate last week, we have burned 3.8 million acres in America this 
year. Last year it was nearly 7 million acres. The year before, it was 
over 3 million, and the year before that, it was over 7 million acres. 
The running 9-year average for the number of acres we have burned in 
our forests is 4.9 million acres per year.
  The Forest Service estimates over 100 million acres of forest lands 
are at unnaturally high risk of catastrophic wildfires and large 
insect-disease outbreaks because of unhealthy forest conditions. Again, 
just looking at those 4 fires in California, $65.8 million worth of 
cost to fight them so far, 1,622 structures lost. We all know there 
were many lives lost in those fires. There were lives lost in Idaho 
this year fighting fires, my State. I am sure if other Senators from 
the States in which these fires are burning could be here right now, 
they would point out the damage in their States, not only from the cost 
of fighting the fires but in terms of the loss of life and the loss of 
property.
  It is important we move ahead with this legislation. I am here to 
call on my colleagues from the Democratic side of the aisle to work 
with us again, as we worked in bringing forward the bill, to go into 
conference and work to achieve the objectives of this legislation.
  Some have said: Let's just send our bill to the House and tell the 
House it must accept our bill. It is our bill or no bill.

[[Page S14087]]

  Frankly, our constitutional Framers set up a system of government in 
which there are two Houses of Congress: the Senate and the House of 
Representatives. I don't think it is realistic for the Senate to simply 
say to the House you have to take our bill, and not only do you have to 
take our bill, but we are not going to conference with you if you won't 
take our bill as is.
  I understand the desire by those who negotiated with us to reach the 
compromise, to build a bipartisan solution, to try to keep the bill we 
negotiated here intact to the maximum extent possible. In fact, in our 
negotiations, I committed to them that is what my objective would be if 
I am able to be on the conference committee. I believe each one of our 
Senate conferees will fight to the best of their ability to make sure 
we keep intact the Senate version of this bill. It was a good bill. It 
had a strong vote. But we must recognize the reality that in order to 
achieve legislation in this country, both Houses of Congress are 
entitled to work on the final product.
  The refusal to go into conference until there is an agreement in 
advance that the House will take the Senate bill is a position which 
could be taken on every bill. If you think about it, every piece of 
legislation that goes through the Senate, one would think the Senators 
would prefer over the House. People in the Senate could simply take the 
position we will not go into conference with the House unless they will 
take our version of the bill.
  If you think about it a little further, it becomes immediately 
apparent the House could do the same thing. The House could say to the 
Senate: We are not going to go into conference with you unless you take 
our bill.
  The reality of the way our constitutional system operates is, we have 
a conference committee between the House and Senate. We work out our 
differences. We try to come forward with a bill that brings forward the 
maximum strengths of both systems. Then we come back to both bodies. 
The Senators in the Senate, the Congressmen in the House, will each 
then have another chance to register their opinion. If they believe 
they didn't get a sufficient amount of what they were hoping to see in 
the legislation, they, again, in the Senate, have the opportunity for a 
filibuster or to simply vote no on the legislation if they don't want 
to support it. But to stop us from even being able to take the next 
procedural step to go to the House and go into conference and try to 
see what kind of legislation we can come up with to address these 
critical issues is, in my opinion, inappropriate.
  Again, I call on all my colleagues to step forward and allow us to 
move to the next procedural step to go into conference with the House 
and work on this critical legislation.
  What does it do? This legislation reflects a comprehensive effort to 
focus on forest health. As I indicated, we have over 100 million acres 
in America today that are at an unnaturally high level of risk for fire 
or insect infestation.
  The average loss of acres to fires alone is 5.4 million acres per 
year. In this bill, we put together a comprehensive effort to improve 
the health of our forests in terms of both the risk of fire and insect 
infestation. We will lower the number of catastrophic fires. We will 
establish new conservation programs to improve water quality and 
regenerate declining forest ecosystems. We will protect the health of 
the forests by establishing an accelerated plan to promote information 
on forest-damaging insects and related diseases. Endangered species, 
community and homes of Americans will be safeguarded through the 
stewardship of these forest lands.
  We are going to establish a new predecisional administrative review 
process and allow for additional analysis under NEPA. We are going to 
improve the management tools available to our forest managers so they 
can get scientifically supported management practices implemented on 
our forest lands.
  We will direct the Secretary of Agriculture to give priority to 
communities and watersheds in hazardous fuel reduction projects. We are 
going to have language in there for the first time ever in this country 
that specifically protects old-growth forests. We have language to 
expedite the judicial review process so that we end the litigation 
paralysis that is probably the most significant thing that is stopping 
us from effective forest management implementation.
  Finally, we are going to significantly increase the resources we are 
putting into healthy forest management. I just told the number of 
dollars we are spending on fighting fires--on the fires in California. 
That was approximately $66 million. We are going to put in $760 million 
annually to help us manage our forests nationwide and preserve these 
incredible environmental gems for our future while maintaining our 
ability to have the kind of natural-resource-based economies that grow 
up around our forests.
  Madam President, this is a critical issue; it is critical whether one 
is concerned about environmental aspects, health and safety aspects, 
loss of life, loss of property, or simply the loss of our incredibly 
wonderful Federal forests.
  Again, I call on my colleagues to stop the procedural maneuvers that 
are prohibiting us from proceeding to a conference with the House. At 
this point, I will conclude my remarks and yield the remainder of my 
time to the Senator from Missouri.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 13 minutes remaining.

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