[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 160 (Thursday, November 6, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2267-E2268]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 269, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED 
                   AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. PETER A. DeFAZIO

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 30, 2003

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the Fiscal Year 2004 
Interior appropriations bill conference report for a number of reasons.
  I applaud the committee for approving $400 million to reimburse 
accounts that the Forest Service borrowed from to fight this past 
Summer's forest fires. Unfortunately, the Forest Service borrowed $695 
million this year to fight fires. This appropriations bill leaves the 
public land management accounts that were borrowed from in the hole by 
nearly $300 million--and most of these accounts were underfunded to 
begin with.
  Accounts that the Forest Service borrowed from this fire season 
include the fuel reduction, law enforcement, forest research, 
recreation, forest jobs programs, fish habitat enhancement, and road 
and trail maintenance, among many others. These accounts represent some 
of the most important public lands management programs the federal 
government funds, and they will be reimbursed at just 57 cents on the 
dollar.
  One of the most important is the fuel reduction account. Even if 
Congress fully reimburses the fuel reduction account, fuel reduction 
projects get delayed and pushed to the next year when the accounts are 
once again robbed. For the safety of our communities and the health of 
our forests, this cycle cannot continue.
  This cycle of robbing other accounts is perpetuated every year by not 
adequately funding wildland fire suppression. The Forest Service 
borrowed almost $700 million this year, in what was a below average 
fire year. This appropriations bill has a $289 million increase over 
last year, but it's not near enough. Regardless of how severe next 
year's fire season is, this bill guarantees that the Forest Service 
will have to borrow yet again because Congress is not stepping to the 
plate and sufficiently funding fire suppression.
  In addition to under-funding firefighting, this appropriations bill 
has a wholly inadequate increase for hazardous fuel reduction projects.
  The build-up of hazardous fuels in our national forests is a problem 
brought about by nearly a century of forest mismanagement. It is a 
problem with a multi-billion dollar price tag to fix, but so far the 
President and the Congress have been unwilling to put up the money. 
This appropriations bill does nothing to rectify the dismal record of 
under-funding fuel reduction.
  The project in the Metolius basin, the location President Bush 
originally planned to visit during his August trip to Oregon, is an 
excellent example why restoring forest health will require a 
substantial investment.
  The Metolius project is on relatively flat ground, with sufficient 
road access, and a substantial amount of large, commercial Ponderosa 
pine. The project will log more than 20 million boardfeet of timber. 
Yet, even with that commercial return, it will still cost the Forest 
Service $400 an acre to complete the project. It's clear that even 
under optimal conditions, with ample commercial timber, it is 
impossible to clear the large amounts of brush and small trees 
necessary in successful fuel reduction projects, without spending 
substantial sums of money.
  In contrast, the nearby area where the Davis Butte fire burned is 
more typical than the Metolius and provides a better picture of the 
real costs of fuel reduction. Visiting the Davis Butte fire one can see 
where dense stands of lodge-pole pine provided ladder-fuel for the fire 
to climb into the crowns of the ponderosa. It is essential that these 
types of trees be removed, unfortunately, they have little or no 
commercial value. They may have some value as pulp, mulch, or hog fuel, 
but most of the vegetation would have to be burned, or chipped and left 
on-site.
  This type of treatment would be in line with the Pacific Northwest 
Research Station study that was conducted on the Klamath National 
Forest that estimated cost of fuel reduction at $1,685 an acre. So not 
only can we pretend that fuel reduction won't cost anything--as the 
President has done thus far with his ``Healthy Forest Initiative''--we 
can't pretend that it will be cheap.
  There is a multi-billion forest health problem that needs a 
significant federal investment, but this bill does not make that 
funding commitment.
  Another glaring problem with this appropriations bill is that it 
includes a fifteen month extension of the Recreational Fee 
Demonstration program.
  This program was created by a rider to the 1996 Interior 
appropriations, and has been extended numerous times through 
appropriations riders, without ever having gone through the appropriate 
authorizing process. It is well past time to end these back-door 
extensions and allow the Resources Committee to do its job.
  Under this program, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, 
Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Parks Service can charge 
citizens fees to recreate on public land, including primitive trails 
and unimproved campgrounds. Charging citizens a stealth tax for hiking 
in the woods, walking on the beach, or picnicking with their family is 
unfair and punitive. It is appropriate to charge a modest fee for 
campgrounds or boat launches to pay for facilities and upkeep. But to 
charge a fee to park a car on the side of a logging road or at a trail 
head turns our public lands into the king's domain.
  Beyond my philosophical objections, the mismanagement of the program 
by the Forest Service is staggering. The program was created to address 
the maintenance backlog on public land facilities, but only 50 cents of 
every dollar collected goes toward maintaining or improving our public 
lands. The rest is eaten up by administrative and collection costs. 
Fifty percent overhead costs does not make an effective government 
program.
  And a recent investigation by the General Accounting Office (GAO) 
found that in 2001--the last year for which data is available--the 
Forest Service erroneously used $10 million in appropriated funds to 
bolster the program. The Forest Service did not report these additional 
costs to Congress in their annual report. Nor did they report $2.8 
million of other administrative and vendor costs. This kind of 
deceptive representation in the Forest Service's annual report on the 
effectiveness of the program is disgraceful.

[[Page E2268]]

  In addition, it is entirely unclear whether the program is actually 
fulfilling its purpose of reducing the maintenance backlog on forest 
system lands. The GAO states that ``the Forest Service does not have a 
process for measuring the impact of fee demonstration expenditures on 
reducing the deferred maintenance problem. In addition, the GAO found 
that the Forest Service has yet to reliably estimate its deferred 
maintenance needs. Why would Congress continue to renew a program 
through an appropriations rider when the beneficiaries of the program 
don't know to what extent it's working, or even to what extent it's 
needed?
  It is time to end the Forest Service's abuse of the Recreational Fee 
Demonstration program, but this appropriations bill perpetuates the 
abuse by again extending the program, this time by more than a year.
  Finally, this bill negates a federal court's decision that Native 
American tribes have a right to a full accounting of their own trust 
monies and assets. I find it hard to believe that this Congress would 
support an appropriations rider that amounts to an unjust taking of 
properly without just compensation or due process of law.
  Last year this House overwhelmingly voted to strip a similar 
provision that would have kept the Department of Interior from 
conducting a complete accounting of the Indian trust fund. Rectifying 
the historic mismanagement of the Indian trust fund is one of the most 
critical issues facing Native American tribes, and is simply a matter 
of justice. This appropriations bill will surely delay the resolution 
of the Indian trust fund accounting for years.
  This Interior appropriations bill conference report woefully under-
funds wildland firefighting and hazardous fuel reduction projects. In 
addition, it extends an unwarranted recreation tax on the American 
people, and denies Native Americans a full accounting of their trust 
accounts. For these reasons I urge my colleagues to oppose the report.

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