[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 170 (Friday, November 21, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H12159-H12172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 1904, HEALTHY FORESTS RESTORATION ACT OF 2003

  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 457, I call 
up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 1904) to improve the 
capacity of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the 
Interior to plan and conduct hazardous fuels reduction projects on 
National Forest System lands and Bureau of Land Management lands aimed 
at protecting communities, watersheds, and certain other at-risk lands 
from catastrophic wildfire, to enhance efforts to protect watersheds 
and

[[Page H12160]]

address threats to forest and rangeland health, including catastrophic 
wildfire, across the landscape, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 457, the 
conference report is considered as having been read.
  (For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of 
November 20, 2003, at page H11686.)
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) 
and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) each will control 30 
minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I respectfully demand one-third of the time 
under clause 8 of rule XXII.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman from Texas opposed to the 
conference report?
  Mr. STENHOLM. No, Mr. Speaker, I am in favor of the conference 
report.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under clause 8(d) of rule XXII, the Chair 
will divide the hour of debate on the conference report as follows: the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm), and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) each will 
control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), chairman of the Committee on 
Resources, be recognized for 10 minutes for the purposes of controlling 
debate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Today, we are finally able to bring the Healthy Forests Restoration 
Act, H.R. 1904, for a vote. In spite of a severely flawed process to 
arrive at this point, we have driven a hard bargain, and we have got a 
bill that the President will sign. I believe it will make a difference 
on the ground, but it is only a first step towards fixing what is wrong 
with the management of our public lands.
  I worked with two other distinguished full committee chairmen, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) of the Committee on Resources and 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) of the Committee on 
the Judiciary, to craft a bipartisan bill that passed earlier this year 
by an overwhelming, and bipartisan, majority. I also want to note the 
outstanding efforts of my counterpart in the other Chamber, Agriculture 
Committee Chairman Cochran, and our distinguished ranking member, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), for their efforts.
  This bill seeks to address the issues that have tied the hands of our 
forest managers: National Environmental Policy Act analysis that drags 
on for months, administrative appeals that spring up at the last 
minute, and court actions that stall projects for so long that areas 
proposed for treatment frequently are destroyed by fires long before 
the judicial process concludes. The conference process has produced a 
bill that does not do as much as I would like to address on these 
issues. I understand there are many in both Chambers who would like to 
have seen a stronger product. But this bill creates the first real 
relief from bureaucratic gridlock after over 8 years of legislative 
effort. It sends a clear signal that the Congress favors results over 
process and that protecting our communities, our watersheds, and our 
people is more important than producing mountains of paperwork.
  There are over 190 million acres of forests and rangelands which 
remain at risk of catastrophic wildfires, insect and disease, a 
landmass larger than New England. Our bill takes the modest step of 
addressing the hazardous conditions on only 20 million acres of this 
total. This bill also takes an innovative approach to forest health on 
private lands, creating new nonregulatory, incentive-based approaches 
to promote conservation on private lands. In short, it takes a national 
approach to a national problem.
  H.R. 1904 has enjoyed broad support from groups such as the Society 
of American Foresters, the National Volunteer Fire Council, the 
International Association of Fire Chiefs and others. Professional 
wildlife managers, sportsmen, and serious conservation groups all 
support this bill.
  We as a Congress have more work to do to perfect our forest 
management laws. Forest fires are a symptom of a land management system 
that suffers from procedural, managerial, and practical gridlock. Our 
forest management laws, environmental laws, and procedural laws do not 
work well together. They create a process that only highly trained 
legal minds can comprehend; and while claiming to encourage citizen 
participation, they often achieve just the opposite. So we need to do 
more, but we should be proud of what we are doing today. We are taking 
a bipartisan step toward better management of our forests. We are 
saying that protecting our communities, our watersheds, and our people 
comes before protecting the dilatory tactics of those who oppose any 
type of sensible land management.
  I applaud President Bush for helping to bring this about. We would 
not be on the verge of passing this bill without his leadership. I hope 
he continues to exert leadership in this field to ensure that the 
Federal land managers act aggressively to implement this program as 
quickly as possible. I will do my utmost to ensure that bureaucratic 
inaction does not delay implementation. I urge my colleagues to support 
this conference report.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Healthy Forests 
Restoration Act conference report, and I am pleased to be here on the 
verge of completing legislation that will give us a chance to return 
America's cherished forests back to a healthy landscape. For the last 
century, public land managers have suppressed all forms of wildfire, 
including natural small-scale fires that restore forest ecosystems.
  The unintended result of this policy is a decades-long buildup of 
forest fuel, woody biomass, and dense underbrush that is as close as 
the next lightning strike or escaped campfire from exploding into a 
massive fire. In some areas, tree density has increased from 50 trees 
per acre to as many as 500 trees per acre, according to the Forest 
Service and fire ecologists. These unnaturally dense forests are a 
small-scale ignition away from a large-scale wildfire. These natural 
small-scale fires burn at the ground level and at relatively low 
temperatures, allowing some trees to survive and, in the process, 
renewing the forest.
  The suppression of these natural small-scale fires, however, has 
resulted in an accumulation of fuel that supports catastrophic 
wildfires of unnatural intensity that burn hotter, spread faster and 
cause long-term severe environmental damage, sometimes even sterilizing 
the soil. America's forest ecosystems are being decimated at an 
alarming rate by large-scale catastrophic wildfire and massive 
outbreaks of disease, insect infestation, and invasive species. Federal 
foresters estimate that an astounding 190 million acres of land managed 
by the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior are 
at unnatural risk to catastrophic wildfire. Of that, over 70 million 
acres are at extreme risk to catastrophic wildfire in the immediate 
future.
  During the second year of the National Fire Plan implementation, we 
witnessed the second largest fire season this Nation has seen in half a 
century. An early widespread drought, unparalleled since the Dust Bowl 
of the 1930s, affected 45 percent of the country. On June 21, 2002, the 
national level of readiness rose to the highest level possible, 5 weeks 
earlier than ever before, and remained at that level for a record-
setting 62 days. In fact, wildland fires burned 7.2 million acres, or 
nearly double the 10-year average. Colorado, Arizona and Oregon 
recently recorded their largest timber fires of the century. And then 
we saw the devastation in Southern California.
  Forest ecologists, professional land managers, and many environmental 
groups agree, the exploding incidence of catastrophic wildfire and 
disease and insect infestation pose a massive threat to the health, 
diversity, and sustainability of America's national forests. The Nature 
Conservancy, one of

[[Page H12161]]

the world's largest and most acclaimed environmental groups, has been a 
leader in the environmental community in building public awareness 
about the environmental calamities that catastrophic wildfires cause.
  Of the three factors that most influence wildland fire behavior, 
weather, topography and fuel, land managers can effectively affect only 
fuel. Unless we take a proactive approach to fuel reduction, the 
remaining components of the National Fire Plan, which include 
firefighting, rehabilitation, community assistance and research, will 
only continue to increase in cost. Local governments, volunteer 
firefighters, professional foresters, conservationists, and labor 
organizations agree, it is time to act to protect our forests.
  Fortunately, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act addresses these 
concerns by giving Federal land managers the opportunity to restore our 
forests to a more natural balance while maintaining important 
environmental requirements. The conference report before us allows for 
authorized hazardous fuel reduction projects on Federal lands, helps 
communities in the wildland-urban interface prepare for wildfires, 
improves the NEPA analysis process, and augments public involvement and 
review. Additionally, the report includes titles allowing grants to use 
biomass, providing watershed forestry assistance, addressing insect 
infestation research, and establishing private forest reserves.
  In closing, let me remind Members that this is not a new issue to 
come before the United States Congress. We have been talking about this 
issue for years. I remember the tremendous work done by former House 
Agriculture Committee chairman Bob Smith and his efforts to reach out 
and find a compromise, only to go down in flames because of the 
inability of extreme sides of this question to come together.
  I am disappointed that certain Members of the House were excluded 
from the process that got us here today. That certainly has not been 
the case with the House Committee on Agriculture. I commend Chairman 
Goodlatte for his bipartisanship and leadership on this important 
issue. We all have differing opinions about the various components of 
the legislation before us; but in passing this legislation, we will 
restore America's treasured landscapes by reducing the risks of 
catastrophic wildfires and insect and disease infestations.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, it is abundantly clear to all of us of all 
political persuasions and parts of the country that we need a vigorous, 
well-funded, well-prioritized hazardous fuels reduction program in our 
national forests.

                              {time}  1345

  The Nation needs that because of a ``perfect storm,'' if I may use 
that term, of enormous changes in our climate which have led to 
drought, particularly in the western United States, leaving the most 
explosive conditions due to the lack of moisture in over 100 years and 
because of our misguided and mutually ignorant policy over the last 
several decades, if not century, of suppressing all fire, thereby 
allowing certain additional density to increase. All of us know we need 
a well-prioritized, well-funded, well-defined hazardous fuels reduction 
program.
  But I, regretfully, cannot support this bill because it fails in 
several fundamental ways. It fails to prioritize the taxpayers' dollars 
where they ought to be prioritized which is the protect of human health 
and property first. It fails to protect our most treasured crown jewels 
in our Forest Service of our roadless areas, which I have to tell the 
Members in the part of the world where I come from, we treasure the 
roadless areas on our weekends and afternoons. It is part of our 
culture and our families, and they are unprotected in this bill. Third, 
it fails to adequately solve the problem as to why we cannot get these 
programs completed, which is money, and I will come back to that. We 
today change the law, but not the appropriations that we need to get 
this job done.
  Let me start with a failure to prioritize in this bill. If I may, 
this ought to be job one for the U.S. Congress when it comes to 
hazardous fuels reduction. Job one for the U.S. Congress ought to be 
protecting, with a protective buffer, the homes and towns and cabins 
and barns in our thousands of acres from voracious forest fire, and 
this bill does not follow a fundamental precept that when we have got 
job one and when we have got limited dollars, we prioritize. To govern 
is to choose, and this bill consciously chose not to give the majority 
of funds in this program to protect these areas with moats, if I may, 
to protect them from this horrendous fire. And we have seen what 
happens in California when that occurs. And it ought to be a totally 
unanimous agreement here that the majority of our funds in our program 
ought to be directed to the areas around our towns and cities rather 
than spent up in Timbuktu harvesting commercial lumber.
  We have seen that they split the baby 50/50, but spliting the baby 
50/50 is not always right nor is it fair, and I will tell my colleagues 
why. This conference report says 50 percent of this money will go to 
the Wildland-Urban Interface. It will not do to tell people in this 
community that we have saved half their houses, and we have sacrificed 
the other half to the demands of those who want to continue commercial 
logging in our roadless areas. We failed in our duty to prioritize our 
precious dollars where they belong, and we have offered a modest 
amendment to improve that in the conference committee which were 
rejected out of hand.
  And let me tell the Members why this prioritization is so important. 
Of the dollars we have spent next year, if we double the amount that 
has been appropriated by the majority party, whom I respect, and I 
respect their positions on this bill, but if we even double the amount 
that was spent in the last 3 years, we will still only do 2 to 3, maybe 
4 percent of the acreage of the millions of acres that need to be 
treated. We have to prioritize. This bill did not do it.
  The second thing this bill did not do, it did not protect our 
roadless areas. We have 58 million acres of roadless areas which are 
the crown jewels of our national forest, which are pristine, and 
everyone loves the trees in our roadless areas. The problem is some of 
them love them vertically and some of them like them horizontally. This 
bill does not protect our roadless areas from the ones who want to do 
commercial logging so that they will be horizontal. It does not protect 
them one wit in those roadless areas, and that is most discomforting, 
and I will tell the Members why. We should have been able to fashion a 
unanimous way to protect those roadless areas. Let me just suggest one 
way to do it. I offered an amendment in the conference committee that 
would simply say that if we have to, if there is some terrible disease-
ridden patch in the roadless area that we have to build a road to get 
to it, to do an emergency program that would be allowed under this 
bill, okay; but let us at least restore the road after the project is 
completed to its original topography. How can anyone object to that? 
How could anyone object to that precept? If we are building a road in a 
roadless area to do a hazardous fuels reduction program, when we are 
done with the program, why not put the road back in its natural 
topography. Who could object to it? I will tell the Members who does 
object to it. The timber industry who wants to use these roads to punch 
them into the heart of our most virginal forests and then make them 
available for commercial harvest, and we do not need to do that to 
accomplish our ends here, and it is regrettable we did not solve that 
problem.

  The third thing that this bill does not do, it does not cut to the 
heart of the problem. This bill, its whole fundamental idea is if we 
just cut off those pesky environmentalists, by gum there will not be 
any more forest fires. I will give the Members bad news. We can outlaw 
environmentalists if we want to, and I see some nods. My friend over on 
this side of the aisle would like to do that. I take a different view. 
They are my constituents. They are people who like to go up and have 
clean water out of the roadless areas. They are people who like to go 
on a picnic in the roadless areas, and they know, as I do, that if all 
we try to do to fix this program is to cut off citizen participation,

[[Page H12162]]

we will not solve the problem of getting these fuels reduction programs 
in line, and I will tell the Members why we will not. The reason we 
have we are not getting the job done and giving therapy to our forests 
is that we have not appropriated one tenth of the money that is 
necessary to get this job done. It is not appeals. Come on. The GAO, in 
their last study, after four rounds to make sure they got it right, 
said that 92 percent of all of these fuels reduction projects go 
lickity-split right through the process without any problems and only 3 
percent of them were litigated. Ninety-seven percent of these projects 
go through without litigation. So why have we not cut the mustard? Why 
have we not done enough therapy on these forests? It is because we have 
not invested the money to do it. We have only invested enough money to 
do 2 to 3 percent, and that is not going to significantly improve in 
this bill. Doubling does not even cut it, even if we got the 
appropriation. So we are united, I think, unanimously on this floor in 
the belief that we need to have a strong fuels reduction program, but 
we cannot say that this bill will provide what the American people need 
to get this job done in a reasonable fashion.
  The fourth, if I can, problem with this bill: It is clear that we 
have got to cut down a whole bunch of trees to solve this problem 
because they are dense, they have grown up because of our misguided 
fuels suppression program, and now we have got this cataclysmic fire 
situation. But the question is what do we cut and where? That is really 
the issue we need to resolve on the floor of this House. And here is a 
tree, a mature tree. I wish I could tell the age, marked for cutting in 
the fuels reduction program. There is no reason to cut that tree except 
for commercial purposes. We needed to develop a firm definition, so 
that the Forest Service can use it to determine what trees to cut, and 
it would have been easier if we provided them adequate money to do it, 
so they do not have an incentive to log bigger trees to generate money 
for this program. But we did not do it, because the appropriations 
process did not cut the mustard. So we have a problem that we have not 
given adequate definition of what to cut and where.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  I am glad that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) claimed the 
time in opposition to this because I think it is important for everyone 
to see just how difficult this bill has been to finally arrive at this 
point of developing a bill and a conference report that is so widely 
supported in both this Chamber and the Chamber across the Capitol, that 
we have brought together such divergent interests, so many people who 
may have initially opposed this bill that are now on board because of 
the great compromise that was reached to bring this bill to the floor.
  The history behind the Healthy Forests initiative, it has been, I 
think, 8 years now since the very first bill was introduced and the 
work began to finally get to this point, and we have gone through, I 
believe, close to 75 hearings in Committee on Resources alone on this 
legislation. There has been a countless number of people that have 
testified, and we have gone back and forth. And these past 3 years, we 
actually have to give a lot of credit to two of my colleagues in the 
House, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), subcommittee 
chairman, and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) for the work that 
they did in pulling together with all of the different interests to 
bring something together, the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller), former ranking member on the committee, and the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and others to put together a bill that was really 
a great balance between so many different interests. And I found with 
interest the gentleman from Washington's (Mr. Inslee) talk about a 
particular tree and saying that we need to resolve on the floor of the 
House whether or not that should be cut down. I have got to tell him, 
we do not know. That is the job of the professional foresters. The 
focus of this bill is to go out into the forests and let the 
professionals, the scientists, the people who really do understand what 
is going on out there, have them decide where the best place to do 
thinning projects is, not on the floor of the House. That is ridiculous 
to think that we on the floor of the House should be doing that.
  But this is a grand compromise. It is a great bill, and I urge my 
colleague to support it.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), chairman of the Department Operations, 
Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry Subcommittee of the House Committee 
on Agriculture.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this 
time.
  And I want to especially thank all those who have been involved, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Goodlatte), the gentleman from 
California (Chairman Pombo), and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm), ranking member, for all of their work on this legislation. 
And in addition, I think we should thank President Bush because of his 
leadership on this issue.
  Nearly half of the 190 million acres managed by the Secretaries of 
Agriculture and Interior are at extreme risk to wildfire. Millions of 
acres across the South, the East, and in my home State of Minnesota are 
facing disease and insect epidemics. And yet Federal land managers will 
treat only about 2.5 million of those acres each year because of the 
extraordinarily lengthy procedural and documentation requirements.
  Time and again, we have seen the destruction that forest 
mismanagement and drought can cause to our landscape and to our 
families. This year alone 4.3 million acre of our Nation's forests have 
burned and 29 firefighters have lost their lives. Recently, more than 
750,000 acres have been burned in southern California, and 22 
Californians died trying to escape those fires.
  Many see the fires on TV and think this is only an issue for ``out 
West.'' Unfortunately, poor forest health is a national problem. The 
lack of forest management of our national forests in States across our 
country, including my home State of Minnesota, has placed private 
forests and communities at risk of fires, insects, and disease. Almost 
3 million acres of the National Forest System lands in Minnesota are at 
high risk. Standing by and doing nothing to protect this precious 
resource is tantamount to criminal neglect. Congress has an obligation 
to ensure that we do not neglect our national forest lands and ensure 
that they are available for generations to come. Too often, excessive 
regulation and what I call ``paralysis by analysis'' has made even the 
simplest management project an ordeal of years instead of weeks. H.R. 
1904 is critical to begin to solve the problems of proper management of 
our forests.
  I urge all Members to support this important legislation.

                              {time}  1400

  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding me this time, and I thank all of the members of the Committee 
on Agriculture and the Committee on Resources who have put so much time 
and effort into this. Yes, it was a long process, but I believe that a 
good result is worth the work. I wish we had got it done a year ago; 
but, hey, we are now finally going to get something in place long ahead 
of next year's fire season.
  This bill, if properly implemented, will begin to carefully undo 100 
years of mismanagement of our national forests. It recognizes that this 
is going to be a long and expensive process. It recognizes that it 
cannot be done for nothing. This bill includes a $760 million-a-year 
authorization. I think we could even go higher. Mr. Speaker, $1 billion 
a year could be productively spent in the West, given the magnitude of 
the problem; but it is a significant increase over the commitments we 
are currently making.
  It will bring jobs to hard-hit rural areas in the forests. It sets a 
priority that half the funds should be spent in proximity to high-risk 
communities in the West, and it also sets priorities for protection of 
other high-value resources in high-risk areas.
  If properly implemented and fully funded, I believe that we can begin 
to step incrementally away from the catastrophic, or potentially 
catastrophic,

[[Page H12163]]

conditions that exist throughout the West today.
  It contains old-growth language that clearly reflects the intent of 
Congress that the objective is to return the forests to presettlement 
conditions, which means there will be large, fire-resistant trees more 
widely spaced, particularly in the inter-mountain areas; that we would 
leave native stands intact, but we would aggressively thin from below. 
We would remove ladder fuels, we would remove trees that are growing 
into the crowns of the larger trees.
  I mentioned earlier the Davis fire in Oregon and the lodgepole that 
carried the fire into the crowns of the Ponderosa, that would have 
survived the fire otherwise, had we gotten in there and removed those 
lodgepoles, which have little commercial value. That is why this 
program will be expensive. In many areas, what needs to be removed has 
little or no commercial value. Where it has commercial value, we will 
use that to offset the costs and to amplify the program.
  It does not unduly restrict the right of appeal. It does require that 
people participate meaningfully in the process if they are going to 
appeal, and that is the way it should be. I want people to be involved 
from the beginning in communities, meaningfully commenting on the plans 
and proposals of the Forest Service. It allows judicial review if the 
bill is misapplied by this or any future administration.
  But it will move the process along, and we will begin to chip away at 
the backlog. But make no mistake, even if we get the $760 million a 
year, this is going to take a long time to return our forests to their 
natural state.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Hinchey).
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, this is an example of not just an act that 
will destroy good policy, but it also destroys the language; and it is 
consistent with the kind of thing that has been happening here 
recently, particularly with regard to environmental policy.
  What is the name of this bill? The Healthy Forest Restoration Act. It 
reminds me very much of the Clear Skies Initiative that the President 
was pushing and the majority in this House was solidly behind. What did 
we get from the Clear Skies Initiative? Increased greenhouse gases, 
increased acid rain, a big gift to the polluters so that they do not 
have to upgrade their equipment. The same kind of thing occurs here.
  The rationale behind this legislation as it is stated is that we need 
this act in order to carry out thinning processes in places where fires 
are likely to occur. Now, one would have the idea, based upon that, 
that these thinning processes are being held up. That is what they want 
us to believe, these thinning processes are being held up by litigation 
and things of that nature.
  Well, what does the General Accounting Office say? The General 
Accounting Office has a lot of credibility around here. The General 
Accounting Office tells us that the appeals and litigation are not 
slowing thinning projects at all. In fact, 92 percent of the thinning 
projects are being completed without delay.
  Now, why, then, are we engaged in this?
  Well, the real reason is, just like under the Clear Skies Initiative, 
we were not interested in cleaning up the skies, and here we are not 
interested in healthy forests. What we are interested in is a big 
giveaway to the people who want to go out and cut down the trees that 
are on public land. That is what this is all about.
  Now, another interesting aspect of it to me is a lot of people in 
this House who are dead set against any activity by the Federal 
Government, they want the Federal Government out of everything. Now, 
however, under this piece of legislation it is, no problem, just give 
them this authority, trust the administration, trust the Federal 
Government. They will do everything right. Totally inconsistent, 
obviously.
  So what else does this bad bill do? It fails to focus on projects in 
communities that are actually in need of protection. It undercuts NEPA 
by eliminating the requirement to consider a full range of reasonable 
alternatives. It fails to treat or provide assistance to State, tribal, 
and private lands. It throws up unprecedented roadblocks to citizens 
across the country and their access to the courts, and it is a direct 
threat to the independence of the judiciary in this country on this 
specific issue. It curtails the rights to appeal bad projects and 
authorizes a new appeals process with no sideboards to be created by 
the Secretary.
  This is an example of a bad bill and specious arguments driving bad 
policy.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Lewis).
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time. While I am doing so, I want to express my deep 
appreciation to the leadership on both sides of the aisle who have gone 
about the compromises necessary to bring this bill to the floor in the 
first place.
  It is important to know that we have been mismanaging our forests for 
all too long now; and if there is a need for a demonstration project 
relative to that, all one has to do is look at the recent devastating 
fires in Southern California.
  My territory is directly impacted. We have lost thousands and 
thousands of homes. We have lost dozens of lives as a direct result of 
mismanagement of our forests. And as of this moment, the most pristine 
areas of Southern California are in jeopardy of total loss because of 
mismanagement by this body and by the Federal Government of their 
forestlands.
  This bill is a good step in the right direction. It is going to cost 
some money, but not nearly the billions and billions of losses that we 
have already suffered in Southern California.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Montana (Mr. Rehberg).
  Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my voice to the chorus 
of accolades thanking the various chairmen and subcommittee chairmen 
and Members who have worked so hard on this piece of legislation.
  It is ironic in this country when something like September 11 occurs, 
or a tornado or a flood that creates massive destruction quickly, we 
roll up our sleeves and we get to work rebuilding. Yet the cancer that 
is caused by drought and insect infestation, disease and such that is 
occurring within our forests somehow is treated differently.
  What have we seen over the years? In 1988 we burned a large area of 
Montana, the Yellowstone ecosystem. We assumed that something would be 
done, but it was not. It got stuck back in Washington, D.C., and what 
did they do? They talked and talked and talked. And over the years, 
while we talked about solutions, what have we done? We have talked our 
forests to death. And eventually we go to the corners, and then we sue 
our ways back out. It is stupid. It is ridiculous. That is not the way 
to present a better forest. This piece of legislation in fact will now 
manage the lawsuits.
  Please support this compromise. It is a good one.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Stupak).
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, as cosponsor of H.R. 1904, the Healthy 
Forest Restoration Act of 2003, I rise in support of this legislation 
because of the relief it provides to combat the challenges facing our 
forest system today. From hazardous fuel reduction to insect and 
disease infestation research, this bill gives our forest managers and 
our private citizens the money and the technical assistance they need 
to help bring our forests back to health.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1904 will work to alleviate the fire hazards that 
currently plague our forests. As evident by the rampant spread of the 
wildfires that recently ravaged Southern California, our Nation's 
forest system is overwhelmed with excess brush and foliage which could 
fuel catastrophic wildfires.
  This bill provides thinning programs for up to 20 million acres of 
at-risk lands near communities and their water supplies, at-risk lands 
that serve as habitat for threatened and endangered species, and at-
risk land that is particularly susceptible to disease or insect 
infestation.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1904 also provides money and technical assistance 
to stop the growing problem of insect and disease infestation. In 
southeastern Michigan, for example, Forest Service managers are 
battling the emerald ash

[[Page H12164]]

borer. This insect has decimated the population of ash trees located in 
a 6-county area. Luckily, officials have responded quickly, and we are 
in the process of containing this threat. H.R. 1904 will assist in our 
fight against invasive species like the emerald ash borer and others 
around our country by promoting new research and quick action to reduce 
the impacts on these forest pests.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to pass this conference agreement on 
H.R. 1904. I want to thank the ranking member, the chair, and all of 
the staff for their hard work on this. It is time we reduce the threat 
of wildfires to our communities and our environment. Support H.R. 1904.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the committee, my 
friend from California, and I thank him for yielding me this time. I 
rise in strong support of this conference report, which at once is an 
important first step and, at the same time, is long overdue.
  It has been interesting to listen to the conflicting philosophies on 
the floor. There is one point of view represented that true 
environmentalism means therapy for the forests.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the questions are accurate to be asked. Is it 
therapeutic to have such destruction in the forests that the number of 
particulates in the air eclipses rush hour in many of our major 
metropolitan areas? Is it therapeutic in the forests to see watersheds 
destroyed? Is it therapeutic in the forests to see land burned so badly 
that, as the gentleman from Texas pointed out, the land is sterilized?
  No, the sound environmental position is to have sound scientific 
principles embracing healthy forest management. And to the effort of 
protecting homes and property and people like the 20-plus who perished 
in California, this job is long overdue. We must pass this bill; and, 
quite frankly, we should do more, not only for rural America, but for 
suburbanites who perished in the recent fires in California.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Oregon (Ms. Hooley).
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
me this time and for all the hard work he has put in on this particular 
piece of legislation. I also want to especially thank my two 
colleagues, the gentlemen from Oregon (Mr. Walden) and (Mr. DeFazio), 
for their enormous work on this piece of legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that is very important to my home State 
and to my congressional district. Reduction of hazardous fuels. Oregon 
has been hit hard by wildfires in recent years, and I am very happy 
that we are finally taking steps in this House to make up for years of 
neglect of our Federal forests. Forests and timber are vitally 
important to the citizens of Oregon. The economic costs of forest fires 
in Oregon have been astronomical and the human costs have been even 
higher. It is essential we do something about it, and something sooner 
rather than later.
  Prior to coming to Congress, I served as a county commissioner in 
Clackamas County, which owned thousands of acres of forest land. I was 
responsible for management of those forests. I know from experience 
that it is possible to manage and protect a forest and that in many 
cases, it is necessary to manage a forest in order to protect it.
  This legislation before us will have a positive impact. Not only will 
it help save people's homes and people's lives, it will focus money on 
lands that need it most and provide environmental protections.

                              {time}  1415

  At the same time it allows local communities and citizens to remain 
involved in the process. What I am most pleased about, however, is that 
this legislation provides funding for fuel reduction. The $760 million 
authorized in this bill is a great start and will help protect our 
forest and our communities.
  The House and the Senate have reached an important compromise that is 
balanced, and provides money to get the job done. Mr. Speaker, I urge 
my colleagues to join with me in supporting this legislation that 
fosters a healthy management and protection of our national forests.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Mexico (Mr. Udall).
  (Mr. UDALL of New Mexico asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I compliment the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee) for his management of this bill. Let me just 
talk a little bit about the judicial review test here, because I think 
that we are embarking on new ground. When we put in a test that talks 
about short-term and long-term, really what we are ending up doing is 
saying that if you cut down the whole forest and it is okay in 100 
years, then that is all right. I mean, that is the kind of test that we 
are putting into this piece of legislation. We do not know what that 
means. And so we are encroaching into the judicial arena, trying to 
tell the courts what to do. This is a new test. It is a new standard. 
It has never been used before.
  And what is going to happen? We hear all the talk about lawsuits and 
litigation from this side of the aisle. Guess what, folks? This is 
going to be a lawyers employment bill. If there is anything that is 
going to come out of this, it is going to be more litigation, it is 
going to be more billable time, it is going to be more lawyers involved 
in this process. And I think what is going to happen further, if we 
allow this to happen, if we allow this to happen, we are going to see 
this appear across the board in other areas, workers' rights, OSHA, any 
place where Federal agency decision-making is going on, this is going 
to be imposed on the Federal courts. And I think that is why the 
committees that supervise in the Congress judicial review have such a 
hard time with this provision.
  With that, I would just urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.
  The recent firestorm in Southern California acted to once again 
remind us of the gravity of rampant wildfires in the west. However, 
this issue is of such great importance that I am extremely concerned 
about, and strongly object to, the manner that this legislation was 
brought before us today.
  You may recall that the Committee Print of the Healthy Forests 
Restoration Act was released to the members of the Resources Committee 
during a recess period, on the Friday afternoon before it was scheduled 
to be marked up in Resources committee, a few days later.
  Similarly, we are called upon today to vote on the Healthy Forests 
Conference Committee report. This report was just released yesterday. 
It is my understanding that the rules for the House call for a minimum 
of 3 days of review of a conference report before it is voted upon.
  So, in what now seems to be standard operating procedure of the 
House, we have barely had twenty-four hours, if that, to read and 
digest its contents. One day is hardly sufficient to allow all Members 
to carefully and thoughtfully consider this vital legislation.
  I would like to point out that H.R. 1904 was not the sole option 
available for our protection from wildfire devastation. Mr. Udall of 
Colorado and I introduced H.R. 1042, the Forest Restoration and Fire 
Risk Reduction Act.
  Had we had an opportunity to hold hearings on our bill, Mr. Udall and 
I would have been able to formally raise some of the issues that I view 
are not adequately addressed in H.R. 1904 or the conference report, but 
that are critically important to wildlife prevention and protection.
  Our bill would place greater emphasis on protection of the 
``wildland/urban interface'' without imposing the unprecedented 
deadlines and standards for injunctive relief on the Federal judiciary, 
and without emasculating our environmental laws that are present in 
both H.R. 1904 and the Report.
  While the results of the conference are better than the version 
passed by the House, the provisions that I view to be most 
controversial remain in the text. The agreement places a greater 
emphasis on thinning forests very close to communities, but, like the 
House bill, it significantly limits environmental reviews of forest 
thinning projects and insect infestation field research projects.
  I reemphasize that I believe that we must conduct thinning projects 
to help reduce the likelihood of unusually severe fires. However, I do 
not support the contention that to facilitate such projects we need to 
expunge our environmental laws and procedures for public comment and 
participation.
  The limits placed on fire-risk reduction projects from environmental 
review and administrative appeals, especially in the wildland

[[Page H12165]]

urban interface, in effect constrain the provisions of the National 
Environmental Policy Act. Furthermore, denying the public the full and 
fair opportunity to have viable alternatives to agency action 
considered circumvents established policy of public participation.

  Such participation is an important aspect of our democratic process 
for making decisions affecting public lands. Limiting public comment 
and ignoring the provisions of NEPA and other laws designed to protect 
our environment does not assist in developing sound forest management.
  I believe, however, that the conference report is a better bill than 
the version passed by the House. The Report contains specific 
provisions to protect the wildland urban interface. Furthermore, the 
report authorizes tribal watershed management programs for Indian 
tribes, an issue that I have strongly advocated for since we began 
working on this legislation in the 107th Congress.
  Nonetheless, I am afraid that this legislation is just another 
assault by the Bush Administration on our Nation's forests. Most of the 
attacks over the last year have been below the radar--in arcane rules, 
stealth riders and misnamed legislation. In this many-fronted assault, 
big timber is the winner.
  Under the guise of buzz words such as forest health, catastrophic-
wildfire prevention and streamlining, the Administration's initiatives 
transform forest policy in ways that are staggering in their scope as 
well as in their implications for democracy.
  The changes revamp laws fundamental to sound forest management, 
including the National Forest Management Act, the Appeals Reform Act 
and NEPA. The cumulative effect of these changes is to undermine or 
eliminate open decisionmaking, agency accountability, resource 
protection and recourse in the courts.
  It began in December 2002, when the Administration proposed a forest-
planning regulation that renders public involvement virtually 
meaningless. The rule ignores scientific involvement, eliminates fish 
and wildlife protection, and fails to protect roadless areas.
  It skews the planning process to favor logging, mining and off-road 
vehicle use. It renders plan standards more discretionary, further 
reducing agency accountability. Most shocking, the final rule, due out 
imminently, exempts forest plans from environmental analysis and 
eliminates the opportunity for the public to appeal the final plan.
  The Forest Service assured critics that it would undertake in-depth 
environmental studies when specific logging projects were proposed. Not 
so.
  In June 2003, the Administration abolished environmental review of 
logging done in the name of ``hazardous fuels reduction'' on up to 
1,000 acres of land as well as post-fire rehabilitation projects on up 
to 4,200 acres.
  One month later, the Administration carved out more loopholes for 
National Environmental Policy Act exemptions for commercial logging by 
setting acreage limits of 70 acres for timber sales and 250 acres for 
salvage sales. These projects have few, if any, meaningful constraints.

  For example, the projects must be ``consistent'' with local forest 
plans. Yet, under the soon-to-be final planning regulations, forest 
plans can be amended simply by changing the plan on an interim basis 
with no public notice.
  Under the banner of hazardous fuels reductions, large-scale, 
intensive commercial logging projects may take place virtually anywhere 
in our forests, regardless of forest type or tree size. In effect, the 
conference report allows logging and associated road building with 
limited environmental analysis, administrative appeals, judicial review 
and public involvement.
  The Appeals Reform Act of 1992 gave citizens a statutory right of 
appeal after the Forest Service tried to eliminate appeals on timber 
sales. Although billed as part of the ``Healthy Forests Initiative,'' 
changes to these regulations significantly curtail rights to appeal a 
broad range of timber sales and land management decisions--not just 
those pertaining to fire risk.
  H.R. 1904 sets no time frames for appeal, no required stay of action 
provision during the appeal, and no guaranteed right to appeal. 
Instead, the Forest Service would have 30 days after enactment of this 
legislation to develop the new administrative appeals process.
  This legislation also pushes citizens out of the picture. In addition 
to altering the intentions of the Appeals Reform Act, H.R. 1904 reduces 
environmental review on logging projects not already given a wholesale 
exemption and severely restricts opportunities for public involvement.
  Furthermore, it encroaches upon the courts' ability to review the 
legality of logging projects almost anywhere on our publicly owned 
forests, including roadless areas and old growth. If bug and disease-
control are the purported reasons for logging, projects up to 1,000 
acres will bypass all environmental review and appeals.
  With millions of dollars authorized in the act for any hazardous 
fuels project on public lands, logging without laws can proceed 
throughout the backcountry.
  The synergistic effects of these radical rollbacks are breathtaking. 
I predict that the assault will only foment more controversy and 
stimulate more distrust of the Forest Service for years to come.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge everyone if 
you want forests to be healthy and be managed, to support this bill. I 
have heard stated here that we have mismanaged, that the Forest Service 
and other agencies cannot manage forests under the current law. It is 
impossible to manage.
  In the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania, the finest hardwood 
forest in America, we just had 10,000 to 20,000 acres of blow-down in 
July. It has been assessed at somewhere between $50 to $100 million in 
value lying on the ground. The Forest Service chief there just 
determined that it would be at least 3 years before he could have 
people there harvesting trees on the ground. Tell me that the system 
season broke, that it makes sense to have $100 million worth of 
American assets to lie there and rot because in 3 years they are of 
little value at all.
  Folks, this system is broken. We do not want judges managing our 
forests. We want soil scientists, fish and wildlife biologists, and all 
the people that our Forest Service hires. They have every kind of 
scientist there is managing our forests. They should make those 
decisions.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Renzi), who brought a renewed vigor to this debate.
  Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for his 
leadership, and I especially want to thank the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. McInnis) for his fighting spirit and 3 years of perseverance that 
it took us to finally get to this point.
  I also maybe want to offer a little bit of a different view for those 
limousine environmentalists from the inner city, who do not necessarily 
live in the forests as we do. Coming from Flagstaff, Arizona, the 
largest Ponderosa pine forest in the world, where we suffered the likes 
of the Rodeo-Chedeski fire, a fire of 500 thousand acres.
  I want my colleagues to know there is a science that is being ignored 
here. We are taking half the money and putting it into wildland urban 
interface right on the boundaries of our communities. Yet the forest 
managers want to be able to attack fire in the outlands. What they 
understand is in the West we have canyons. While they may have concrete 
canyons in New York City, we have real canyons in Arizona. In those 
canyons, we have up-slope terrain. When up-slope terrain combines with 
wind and temperature, that fire burns so hot and so fast that wildland 
urban interface and limiting the money will not be able to give us 
fallback positions for our firemen. It is a compromise that we have 
proposed here. Vote in favor of the bill.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Burns).
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I want to join my colleagues in support of 
H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forest Initiatives. I want to thank the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Pombo), my distinguished colleague from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). We 
think about the healthy forests, we think about our homes, the 
wildlife, the lives of the men and women who live near and certainly 
the forest, and we want to protect those.
  In California, we saw the devastating fires of this year. I can think 
of no better way to ease the minds of those in the West than to pass 
the Healthy Forest Initiative.
  In Georgia, we do not have the wildfires and the large forest fires 
that we see in the West, but we have pests, and we have disease. We 
have millions of acres that are at risk in Georgia due to the southern 
pine beetle and other insects. We have seen a 278 percent in increase 
in pine beetle infestation last year alone. This Healthy Forest 
Restoration Act provides the Federal land managers with great 
flexibility to deal with the fire dangers in the West, but it also 
provides them with the authority to do innovative things in detection

[[Page H12166]]

and suppression of pests that really threaten eastern forests.
  Mr. Speaker, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act is a national 
solution to a national problem. I urge Congress to vote yes.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Walden), the coauthor of the legislation.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, this legislation provides for 
major improvements in how we will manage our forests. First of all, it 
reduces unneeded government analysis. Second, it provides for actually 
more public involvement, especially in the beginning, through better 
notice and better participation requirements. It requires and reforms 
the appeals process so we can end the costly delays that do keep our 
professional foresters from doing the work they need to do to make our 
forests more healthy.
  Finally, it does require the courts to more quickly move on appeals 
and, more importantly, consider the catastrophic affect on forest 
health of preventing these projects from going forward.
  Now, we have heard today about the problem with the General 
Accounting Office, but let us talk about what the General Accounting 
Office actually found. This is what the GAO report found: 58 percent of 
eligible thinning projects in the United States were appealed in fiscal 
year 2001 and fiscal year 2002. Fifty-two percent of the eligible 
forest thinning projects proposed near communities in the wildland 
urban interface were appealed. Half the projects, half the projects 
right around communities were appealed. The GAO found an overwhelming 
number of Forest Service appeals were found to be without merit. 
Seventy-three percent of the appeals were rejected.
  Ladies and gentlemen, we have to change the process. That is what we 
are doing today. We are going to fund the work that needs to be done. 
This year alone we are going to spend $420 million to go in and thin 
out our forests so we will not have catastrophic fires in the future. I 
would like to see this bill expanded beyond 11 percent of the forests 
that need this kind of treatment, but that is as far as we could get 
under this act. I want to see our communities protected.
  This legislation relies on the underlying National Forest management 
plans to protect old growth forests. My colleague, the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee) talks about protecting old growth. We do that 
in this bill because the underlying plans protect the old growth. And 
the alternative of defeating this bill is to have old growth forests 
that are blackened, burned and destroyed, and I will not stand for 
that. Vote for the bill.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave).
  Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer my gratitude to the 
chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, the gentleman from Virginia 
(Mr. Goodlatte), the ranking member, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm), the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), and especially to 
my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis).
  In the West we care very deeply about this legislation, particularly 
in Colorado. We have had the Buffalo Creek Fire, we have had the Hayman 
Fire in Colorado, we have had massive loss in acres of our beautiful 
forest land. We have had immeasurable damage to the environment, to our 
water quality.
  The Denver Water Board spent over $20 million cleaning up after the 
last fire. Habitat has been destroyed. Our tourism industry has been 
harmed greatly. And, more importantly, we have lost the lives of our 
brave firefighters in Colorado.
  We are in strong support, those of us that care about our national 
forests and our private forests, are in strong support of this 
conference committee report. And I commend all those who have worked so 
hard on this conference committee and this legislation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass). The Chair would like to announce 
that the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) has 3 minutes remaining, 
the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) has 1 minute remaining, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) has 7 minutes remaining, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has 5 minutes remaining.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Dreier).
  (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this conference 
report. And I was told that I had to spend my entire 2 minutes praising 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), but I am going to instead talk 
about the benefits of this bill. And I want to compliment my colleague, 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), and the chairman of the 
conference, our good friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Goodlatte), the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, the gentleman 
from Oregon (Mr. Walden), and others who have been so involved in this 
measure.
  I happen to represent the Los Angeles area in southern California. 
And the world knows that we have just suffered devastating fires in the 
southern California area. It impacted the districts of my colleague, 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) who represents the area in 
the Inland Empire to the east of Los Angeles, further east of the area 
I represent, and several others of our colleagues in San Diego. I know 
that my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), as we 
all know, lost his home. And this impacted the district of the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham). And I can go through the 
litany of our colleagues. Many members of the California delegation had 
their districts impacted by this. We lost lives, we lost a tremendous, 
tremendous amount of property. I lost in excess of 50 homes in the area 
that I represent.
  And I was very pleased when the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Goodlatte) was before the Committee on Rules yesterday and talked about 
the fact that within this measure we will be able to have resources to 
deal with things like the bark beetle which has played a role in 
creating a problem in southern California when these trees were not 
cleared. And that played a role in starting these fires.
  We know that some resources were provided through the Department of 
Agriculture to deal with this, but it was not handled appropriately 
from the reports that we had from the head of the Office of Emergency 
Services there. It is important for us to do everything that we can to 
ensure that the loss of life and property is diminished. I am convinced 
that passage of this conference report will go a long way towards doing 
just that. And I thank all my friends who played such an important role 
in making this happen.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass). The Chair will advise that the 
closing order will be the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) first, 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) second, the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee) third, and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Goodlatte) fourth.

                              {time}  1430

  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I have one additional speaker to close.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Smith).
  (Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, our Committee on Agriculture is a 
great committee in terms of Republicans and Democrats working together.
  Our forests in this country are one of our strong resources that not 
only help us economically but also help the environment, and conserving 
the environment is important. Our forests certainly are an important 
part of Michigan, but they are also a very important part of our 
economic strength in the United States.
  In the West, catastrophic wildfires recently have decimated those 
forests over the last several years. We have made a mistake over how we 
want to control forests. And sometimes in our overzealousness to 
protect from fires, we have increased the potential of additional 
damage. Two days ago, we

[[Page H12167]]

passed an energy bill. In this bill there is also language to utilize 
the natural renewable resources of our woodlands of America to also 
contribute to energy.
  Removing some of the bureaucratic red tape for performing fire 
prevention measures is not only environmentally friendly but also 
fiscally responsible, as fire prevention costs American taxpayers 
approximately one-fourth of what it costs to fight catastrophic forest 
fires. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act authorizes the Bureau of 
Land Management (BLM) to reduce the amount of underbrush and deadwood 
buildup in forests that serve as kindling and fuel for the hottest, 
most dangerous fires. It would regulate BLM's activities by putting 
limits on the tree removal and road construction that has provoked 
controversy at times in the past. This would give BLM the tools it 
needs to confront the increasing threat of destructive forest fires on 
federal lands that have had serious impacts both on people and 
wildlife.
  The bill takes additional measures to improve our forests. These 
include provisions to encourage energy production from renewable energy 
sources, protection of watersheds in forest areas and the creation of a 
forest reserve program aimed at preserving and rehabilitating up to one 
million acres of degraded and rare forest lands.
  Disease and insect infestations are not only detrimental to our 
woodlands, but also to our tree-lined streets and backyards. In 
southeast Michigan, we are combating an exotic beetle known as the 
Emerald Ash Borer. The bettles' larvae feed on the sapwood and 
eventually kill branches and entire trees. This invasive pest has 
resulted in the quarantine of all ash products in six counties and 
southeastern Michigan. There are 28 million ash trees in the six 
quarantined counties and an estimated 700 million ash trees in 
Michigan. We are not finding that the pest is spreading into Ohio. The 
magnitude of this problem is serious. Preliminary data from the Forest 
Service estimates that the potential national impact of the Emerald Ash 
Borer is a loss of ash trees up to 2 percent of total timber with a 
value loss of between $20-60 billion.
  Following discussions with Secretary Veneman and gaining the support 
of the Michigan delegation, Michigan Department of Agriculture, and DNR 
we were able to get the approval of substantial millions of dollars in 
emergency assistance from USDA to combat the Emerald Ash Borer. This 
federal funding will supplement resources provided by state and local 
authorities and will be used for pest surveillance, quarantine of 
infected areas, and some tree removal. In order to more efficiently 
combat destructive pests like the Emerald Ash Borer, the Healthy Forest 
Restoration Act puts in place measures that will allow accelerated 
information gathering on such insect infestations. By removing 
bureaucratic red tape and being more proactive in maintaining forest 
health, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act is a step in the right 
direction towards efficiently managing our forests, preventing 
catastrophic fires, controlling damaging insect infestations, and 
protecting our environment.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to give two of my 
remaining minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) for 
the purposes of closing.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass). Is there objection to the request 
of the gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) 
has 2 extra minutes.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), the subcommittee chairman and 
co-author of the legislation.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the yeoman's work of the 
chairman and the guidance of making sure that we could get this bill 
through. I also wish to acknowledge deeply the gentleman from 
Virginia's (Mr. Goodlatte) service and especially the service of the 
staff who have worked so hard in making sure that we could come 
together on this side of the aisle so that when we approached this side 
of the aisle we had a package that had common sense. We had a package 
that people like the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the gentleman 
from California (Mr. George Miller), and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. 
DeFazio) could come to the table and work with us on. And a lot of that 
was guided, a lot of the going back and forth was guided by someone who 
I consider an artist and that is the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. 
Walden), somebody who can negotiate between both the Republicans and 
the Democrats.
  It was about 99 years ago when Teddy Roosevelt used his State of the 
Union address to urge Congress to create a national forest system to 
ensure proper stewardship of these tremendous assets that we have in 
our huge public lands. And by the way, I live in a district that has 23 
million acres of public lands. It is fitting now that 99 years later, 
99 years later we have one of the most significant pieces of forest 
legislation that has come in since.
  What this piece of legislation does is over the 99 years we have seen 
the leadership, the guidance, the expertise and the science taken away 
from the Green Hats, who I complimentarily refer to as our Forest 
Service people, the people who understand the forests, the people who 
dream of running the forest, the people who have been educated in the 
forests. We have seen through some very tactical maneuvers their power 
and their authority taken by the Sierra Club-types and moved to the 
courts and moved to the Congress.
  What this bill does is this bill allows this authority to go back to 
those people on a commonsense approach, on a balanced approach which is 
demonstrated by the fact that this will pass with bipartisan support, 
to let it go back to the Green Hats, to let the Forest Service manage 
those forests.
  The passage of this legislation today means that the Congress, all of 
us are responding to the America forests health crisis, the crisis that 
was demonstrated recently in the State of California, the crisis which 
we have seen in the State of Oregon, the crisis through bug 
infestation, not just fires, but bug infestation down in the South. 
Storm King Mountain, the mountain that I grew up on, the mountain that 
I took bodies off of, we finally are responding and we are coming back. 
I am pleased that we are coming back and giving that authority where 
Theodore Roosevelt thought that authority ought to exist, and that is 
with the United States Forest Service.
  Once again I want to compliment my colleagues on the Democratic side 
that have worked with us. And I want to point out those who have not. 
It amazes me that one like the gentleman from New York City (Mr. 
Hinchey) would stand up and make the kind of statements that he made 
and speak from a wooden podium. A little ironic.
  This is a good bill. It is bipartisan, and it is going to make a big, 
big difference.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I will be closing, so when the appropriate 
order comes, I will take my turn.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The closing order will be the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), and, 
lastly, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I will yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) if he 
would like to engage in a colloquy on monitoring.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I will clarify a point that the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is interested in. Let me state that the 
projects authorized by title IV are primarily scientific efforts, and 
scientific methods should be the primary means of assessing them. While 
we encourage multiparty monitoring, it is not our intent to require it, 
particularly for projects conducted under title IV.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I will state I certainly agree with the 
chairman. I understand the benefit of multiparty monitoring. However, 
the chairman is correct in expressing that our intent with respect to 
projects conducted under title IV are to be scientifically conducted 
and multiparty monitoring is not a requirement of these projects.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude by thanking all who have worked 
so diligently for so long to bring us to this point to where we truly 
have a compromise that will move our forest policy in a desirable 
direction.
  I thank the staff, all who have worked on both sides on the aisle so 
diligently under somewhat trying conditions from time to time as we 
have had some of the internal strife that unfortunately finds its way 
into this House of Representatives. But that certainly has not been the 
case regarding

[[Page H12168]]

the House Committee on Agriculture, and the bipartisan support there is 
something that I have enjoyed and working with the chairman and the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and others as we have strived to 
put together what is basically a good bill.
  When you read the bill, much of the complaints about what we have 
heard today are not in the bill. If you are going to have sound 
forests, if you are going to have a sound forest policy, sound science, 
common sense has got to replace the opinions of many who have a 
difference of opinion regarding what is good conservation, what is good 
management, and how we do, in fact, manage our forests so that we do 
have lumber for housing and other projects.
  So all in all, this is a good sound compromise worthy of overwhelming 
support of this body. I thank all of those who have worked on it. It 
certainly has been something that I personally have worked on for many, 
many years. I am glad to see it is getting to this point. I urge a very 
strong vote in favor of the project.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
has 5 minutes remaining.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend all of the people who have worked on this 
bill. There are a lot of technical and difficult issues trying to 
fashion a hazardous fuels reduction program. And I am unable to support 
this and I hope my colleagues will join me and the Sierra Club and the 
League of Conservation Voters and other main-line commonsense groups 
who have committed their lives to protecting our national forests in 
defeating this bill and moving on to a better one, and I hope that my 
colleagues will join me.
  Underlying that position is the basic belief that the medicine that 
we are providing here is both inadequate and misguided. It is misguided 
because it is based on a myth; and that myth rising to an urban legend 
is that these fires have consumed thousands of acres because people 
have questioned what some government officials have done, and that is 
an abject falsehood.
  The GAO report shows that 92 percent of these projects go ahead 
unimpeded. In California, you know why the California projects did not 
get done? It was not environmental project appeals. In the last 3 
years, there has not been one hazardous fuel reduction program that 
held up national forests in Southern California the last 3 years. The 
reason some of this work did not get done is Uncle Sam, us, did not 
appropriate enough money for California to do the job. The State of 
California asked for $430 million last April to solve this problem. And 
what did Uncle Sam do in the Bush administration? They did not give it 
to them. And the fires occurred.
  This is a failure of appropriations, not a failure because certain 
citizens once in a blue moon have the temerity to stand up on their 
back legs and question decisions by the Forest Service to do disguised 
commercial logging which has on occasion happened, thankfully not very 
often. Maybe 2 percent of the time. We are not doing enough to really 
solve this problem.
  What we have done is in one of the most serious reductions of 
citizens' ability to question their government is reduce the ability to 
have their oversight of our Federal officials.
  Now, it is kind of a conservative position to be rightfully sometimes 
distrustful of our Federal officials. Now, I have got to say there have 
been occasions, thankfully few, where these projects have been 
disguised timber sales. And the reason is because we are not 
appropriating enough to the Forest Service to do their job. And when 
that has happened, less than three pearls of the time there has been a 
brief appeal of that decision, and most frequently these things get 
worked out. But until we increase tenfold our appropriations, we are 
not going to cut the mustard in this program.
  Now, let me mention something else, too. We have not talked about 
what the real debate is about here. The debate is as much about roads 
as it is about forests, because the real issue here is where we are 
going to build roads. We have 440,000 miles of Forest Service roads in 
our forests, 440,000 miles. They are falling apart, and we ought to be 
putting our money in and fixing those roads before we punch new roads 
into roadless areas.
  Let me put this into real-life perspective. Take a couple in 
northeast Washington who is not getting adequately protected by this 
bill. Their house is surrounded by pine trees in the national forest. 
We have not prioritized those pine forests around their home for 
treatment like we should have in this bill. We did not do it. Now, when 
that couple leaves their home to drive over to the Olympic Peninsula to 
the Jupiter Ridge Roadless Area, if they hike out to a nice little 
picnic spot, they will find two trees. They are about maybe 6, 7, 8 
feet in diameter, cedars, right next to each other. We call them 
Jefferson and Washington.
  In this bill, neither protects that couple in their home surrounded 
by the pine forest, nor the two trees they go to visit in the roadless 
area.
  Their home is not protected from fire adequately, and those two trees 
are not protected from chainsaws adequately in this bill.
  It is my hope that this bill will be defeated and we will come back 
and make some very modest but important improvements on it to solve 
both of those problems.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Let me start by thanking the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) for 
yielding me 2 additional minutes for this close, but more importantly 
for the very cooperative way in which the House Committee on 
Agriculture has produced this legislation. This is truly the example of 
why this bill will pass by an overwhelming margin here today.
  It passed out of the House Committee on Agriculture originally on a 
voice vote; and when it came to the floor, I believe, 19 of the 24 
Democrats on the committee, Members who represent rural areas, Members 
who represent areas that are forests, voted for this legislation, 
nearly 80 percent.
  Had we had that kind of support elsewhere in the Congress, this 
legislation would have been adopted a long time ago. It has been 8 
years that we have been working on it. And I would have to say to the 
gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Inslee) that if we were not to 
pass this conference report, not to send it to the President, we would 
be working on this for many more years. We would see more years like 
this year where 6\1/2\ million acres of forest land in this country 
were burned to the ground.

                              {time}  1445

  That is what we are faced with. That is why we need to begin this 
first step of solving this problem by giving the Forest Service the 
tools that it needs.
  It is absolutely incorrect that these forest fires are not related to 
the problems that the Forest Service is presented with. Certainly, 
money is a problem. Certainly, we are going to have to deal with that, 
but in addition, massive parts of the Western part of this country are 
tied up in legal cases, including the entire southern California area 
that is tied up over litigation related to the spotted owl. This is 
clearly, clearly needed to address the problems that we face across the 
country.
  I want to thank also the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo). He 
recognizes very clearly the nature of this problem, and the gentleman 
from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), I want to congratulate him on his 
leadership in bringing this bill to the floor as well. He is leaving 
the Congress at the end of this term, and this is his signature bill. 
This is his legacy in the Congress. So I commend him as well.
  I also commend Members who have fought against this process like the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio). They have seen the light. They understand what it 
takes. They understand that it is time to get about the business of 
solving the problem, rather than another 8 years of fighting, and I 
would say to those few remaining who do not understand, get on board, 
get this done.
  Yes, there is additional work that needs to be done. Yes, we will 
look forward to working with them in future

[[Page H12169]]

Congresses, but now is the time to give the President the ability to 
sign a bill that will put our Forest Service to work, to get this 
problem underway. We will come back for additional legislation because 
this problem is going to persist, and this is only a beginning.
  Support this conference report. It is a good one.
  Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, my home state of 
California has just been through a terrible series of wildfires. The 
fires burned more than 800,000 acres, destroyed over 3,300 homes, 
caused over $12 billion in property damage, and tragically took the 
lives of 22 people.
  What could have been done to prevent it? What should we do now to 
prevent such occurrences in the future?
  The answer, it seems to me, is active management and control of 
overgrown areas near development, usually referred to as the Woodland-
Urban Interface. This will go a long way to preventing fires from 
destroying homes and worse, killing our citizens.
  We have a bill in front of us today, H.R. 1904, The Health Forests 
Initiative, that its proponents tell us will help prevent the kind of 
devastation that we endured in California.
  This conference report is certainly better than the initial House 
version of the bill. In the House bill, money used for clearing would 
have had to come from nearby logging activities. In the chaparral of 
Southern California, there is no logging, and that means no removal of 
forest fuels would have occurred to protect our homes and our families.
  The House-Senate compromise that is before us today is a step in the 
right direction. Most importantly, it provides $760 million to fund 
clearing forest fuels to prevent catastrophic wildfires. Nevertheless, 
there remain some fundamental problems with the bill.
  First of all, the Healthy Forests Initiative is only effective for 
federal lands. Roughly two-thirds of the lands that burned in 
California was not federal land, and therefore would be unaffected by 
the healthy forests initiative.
  Second, only half of the $760 million is set aside for forest 
clearing within 1\1/2\ miles of structures--the Wildlife-Urban 
Interface. The other half will go toward thinning in other areas. 
Moreover, where in the initial bill the clearing was paid for by nearby 
profitable logging, now we are giving $365 million to commercial 
loggers for these thinning activities. So, instead of asking logging 
companies to contribute their fair share to forest management and fire 
mitigation, we are subsidizing them to do it.
  I am disappointed with this bill. We had an opportunity to craft a 
bipartisan bill, one that would have addressed the pressing issue of 
protecting lives and property in the Wildlife-Urban Interface. Instead, 
the Healthy Forests Initiative puts commercial logging interests ahead 
of protecting our vulnerable communities. Once again, the Republican-
controlled Congress has it priorities all wrong.
  While this bill does not sufficiently address this important 
priority, I am supporting an effort that does. I am working to provide 
more funding for community and individual-initiated and driven 
initiatives to clear fire fuels in their areas. We should be empowering 
local communities to clear these areas--they have the greatest 
knowledge of the environments in which they live, and the greatest 
personal stake in the success of these efforts. I am hopeful that this 
initiative will generate broad bipartisan support.
  In the meantime, I regret that I must oppose the Health Forests 
Initiatives, principally because it uses a great deal of resources, but 
it won't do very much to make our Southern Californian forests any 
healthier.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today the House of 
Representatives accepted the conference report for H.R. 1904, the 
Healthy Forests Restoration Act. I was appointed as a conferee, as was 
Representative Inslee of Washington and Representative Conyers of 
Michigan. Unfortunately, instead of using the conference process to 
reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of the 
legislation, certain members of the conference committee were included 
in bicameral meetings to craft a compromise acceptable to the group of 
negotiators. In short, the negotiating group picked people from the 
conference committee who would agree with them and did not invite 
others to participate. Official members of the conference committee 
were invited to a conference meeting to consider the product negotiated 
outside the conference process. The conference consideration did not 
provide for a real debate of amendments and the Chair moved to close 
the conference 30 minutes after it began. This does not contain the 
elements of a democracy but the elements of arrogance of power.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for this 
conference report.
   It has flaws. But if its provisions are properly implemented it can 
help reduce the risk of severe wildfire damage that now threatens lives 
and property in many communities in Colorado and other States--and for 
me that is the bottom line.
  I am convinced we need to act to protect our communities and their 
water supplies. For that, a variety of things must be done, including 
working to reduce the built-up fuels that can increase the severity of 
the wildland fires that will periodically occur nearby.
  That's why I have introduced legislation to expedite those thinning 
projects. It is also why last year I joined with my Colorado colleague, 
Representative McInnis, and other Members to develop a bill that was 
approved by the Resources Committee.
  I voted for that bill last year, and if H.R. 1904 as it came to the 
House floor earlier this year had been the same as that bill, I would 
have voted for it again. But it wasn't the same bill, which was why I 
voted against it.
  Instead of building on last year's work in the Resources Committee, 
the Resources and Agriculture Committees this year brought forth a 
quite different measure--one that added a long list of new provisions 
while omitting some of the key parts of last year's bill. As a result, 
it has taken much longer than I though it should have for us to reach 
the point of being ready to vote on a measure that has a good chance of 
clearing both chambers and being sent to the President for signing into 
law.
  Because H.R. 1904 as passed by the House rejected key compromises 
that we worked our last year, the bill encountered more resistance in 
the Senate than otherwise would have been the case, and it was that 
much harder to shape compromises on a number of difficult points.
  However, in the end the Senate passed a bill that made important 
improvements on the House version--and this conference report, while 
far from perfect, is itself a definite improvement over the legislation 
that I voted against earlier this year.
  Let me briefly outline some of the ways in which the conference 
report is enough of an improvement over the House bill that I can and 
will vote for it today:


                             funding focus

  Like the Senate bill, the conference report requires that at least 50 
percent of all thinning-project funds be spent in the interface areas. 
Last year's Resources Committee bill would have required 70 percent of 
the money to be spent in the interface, but H.R. 1904 as passed by the 
House did not include any such requirement. So, the conference report 
is an improvement over the House bill in this area.


                        wildland/urban interface

  I think the highest priority for fuel-reduction work needs to be on 
the forest lands where accumulated fuels present the most immediate 
risks to our communities--those within the wildland/urban interface, or 
the ``red zone,'' as it is called in Colorado--and to municipal water 
supplies. These are the places where forest conditions present the 
greatest risks to people's lives, health, and property, and so they 
should be where our finite resources--time, money, and people--are 
concentrated.

  To properly focus on these areas, we have to properly identify them. 
In that regard, I had no quarrel with the provisions of H.R. 1904 as 
passed by the House. By referring to lands within either an 
``interface'' or ``intermix'' community, it provided an appropriate 
limitation on the discretion of the agencies without drawing an 
arbitrary mileage line that would not appropriately reflect the reality 
that a community's exposure to the risk of wildfire depends on terrain, 
forest conditions, and other factors that can vary greatly from one 
place to another and over time.
  However, proper focus also requires assured priority status for funds 
to carry out projects to protect communities and their water supplies. 
The bill reported by the Resources Committee last year required that at 
least 70 percent of the funds provided a for fuel-reduction purposes 
would have to be used for such projects--but no similar provision is 
included in H.R. 1904. I offered an amendment to restore the provision, 
and its absence was a major reason I voted against the House bill.
  The Senate bill had a basic limit of one-half mile from a community's 
boundary, with some exceptions--if a larger area was identified in a 
community protection plan developed through a collaborative process; or 
if land near a community was steep; or if there was a geographical 
feature that would provide a firebreak within three-quarters of a mile, 
in which case the interface would go to that feature. The ``community 
protection plan'' provision was particularly good, in my opinion, 
because it did not require an arbitrary cutoff, and because it allowed 
both Federal and non-Federal land to be included. The rest of the 
definition was problematical.
  The conference report improves somewhat on the Senate bill. It (1) 
retains the ``community protection plan'' part of the definition; (2) 
keeps the basic one-half mile limit; but (3) allows the interface to go 
to 1\1/2\ mile, if the slopes are steep or if there is a firebreak-
feature within that distance and the lands are very susceptible to 
fire. Like the Senate bill, it

[[Page H12170]]

also defines the interface as including a route identified as necessary 
for escape from a threatened community.
  I think it is well established that reducing the fuels closest to 
structures pays big dividends in terms of reduced fire risks. However, 
I do into favor defining the interface in terms of arbitrary lines on 
the map, because fires do not respect those lines and because our 
experience in Colorado has shown that some of the high-priority ``red 
zone'' areas are extensive. A prime example is the Hayman fire--it was 
among the largest in our State's history, but all of the lands involved 
were within the ``red zone'' as defined by our State Forester (a 
definition that is included in my bill, H.R. 1042).
  Nonetheless, on balance, I think the conference report is acceptable 
on this point because of the emphasis that it puts on community-
protection plans. This should encourage at-risk communities, like those 
along the Front Range, to develop protection plans and to encourage 
owners of non-Federal lands to join in working to reduce fire risks.


                       COMMUNITY-PROTECTION PLANS

  I strongly support increased public involvement during the planning 
and other initial stages of fuel-reduction projects. That was the 
purpose of an amendment I offered during the markup of the House bill. 
The ideal is to make it less likely those projects will be delayed by 
controversies or lawsuits, by developing support at the front end for 
projects that are urgently needed, narrowly tailored and scientifically 
sound. I think the conference report's provisions related to community 
protection plans can foster such involvement and promote a 
collaborative approach that will do much more to reduce conflicts and 
delays than will the provisions related to NEPA analysis, 
administrative appeals, and judicial review.


         NEPA ANALYSIS AND JUDICIAL REVIEW OF THINNING PROJECTS

  On judicial review, the Senate bill is slightly better than the House 
bill, and the conference report follows the Senate bill.
  On NEPA analysis, the conference report is a compromise between the 
House and Senate bills. Under the House bill, no alternatives to a 
proposed action would have to be analyzed; under the Senate bill at 
least the ``no-action'' alternative would have to be analyzed, and so 
would a third if proposed during scoping. The conference report would 
follow the House bill for projects within the interface, but follow the 
Senate bill for projects outside the interface.
  As passed by the House, H.R. 1904 clearly reflected the premise that 
the land-managing agencies are laboring under procedural burdens that 
unnecessarily delay work on fuel-reduction projects--a premise that I 
think has not been proved beyond doubt.
  The Chief of the Forest Service has testified that the agency has 
been slow to act to reduce the risks of catastrophic wildfire because 
of ``analysis paralysis,'' meaning that the fear of appeals or 
litigation has made Forest Service personnel excessively cautious in 
the way they formulate and analyze fuel-reduction--and other--projects. 
The chief may be correct in that diagnosis--certainly he is in a better 
position that I am to evaluate the mental states of his subordinates. 
But it is important to remember that the Chief has also testified that 
he does not think revision of the environmental laws is required in 
order to treat this condition--and on that point I am in full 
agreement.
  Nonetheless, I supported some restrictions on NEPA analysis last 
year, and because the conference report does not go as far in that 
direction as the House bill I am prepared to reluctantly accept this 
part of the conference report as well as its provisions related to 
administrative appeals and judicial review even though I would have 
preferred the provisions of last year's Resources Committee bill or 
this year's Senate bill dealing with those topics.


                        OLD GROWTH AND BIG TREES

  The House bill had no specific protection for old-growth stands, and 
only weak language to require that thinning projects focus on removing 
small trees. The Senate bill had provisions intended to protect old-
growth stands and slightly stronger language to put emphasis on 
thinning out smaller trees. The conference report falls far short of 
ideal in these areas--in this respect it is weaker than either the 
Udall-Hefley bill of 2001 or H.R. 1042. However, it is an improvement 
over the House-passed bill.


                                FUNDING

  The House bill had no specific authorization for funding thinning 
projects; the Senate bill authorized $760 million per year, and the 
conference report follows the Senate bill.
  This part of the conference report is a definite improvement over the 
House bill, because the main obstacle to getting needed work done has 
been lack of funds, and lack of focus on red zone areas, not the 
environmental laws or the appeals process.
  Of course, an authorization alone will not assure appropriation of 
adequate amounts, and nothing in the conference report will protect the 
funding that is appropriated for thinning projects from being used to 
fight fires if Congress does not provide adequate funding for that 
essential purpose. However, the specific authorization may assist in 
both respects by demonstrating the importance that Congress attaches to 
thinning projects.


                           OMITTED PROVISIONS

  The conference report drops a number of provisions that the Senate 
added to the original House bill. I think some of those provisions 
should have been retained, such as those dealing with health monitoring 
of firefighters, monitoring of air quality, increases in the fines for 
violations of regulations related to fires on Federal lands, and the 
enforcement of animal fighting provisions of the Animal Welfare Act. I 
also would have preferred the deletion of some parts of the original 
House bill that have been retained in the conference report. On 
balance, however, neither the omission of some good Senate provisions 
nor the retention of some defective House provisions is enough to make 
the conference report unacceptable to me.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me say that while I am voting for 
this conference report, I do not expect this to be the last time 
Congress addresses the matters it addresses. I am under no illusions 
about the flaws in this legislation, and will be working to improve it. 
I will also do all I can to make sure that it is implemented in a way 
that is consistent with sound, balanced management of the Federal 
lands.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the problem of forest fires in the West 
that are aggravated, in some cases caused, by human mismanagement has 
been a problem as long as I have been in Congress. I am pleased that 
with the work of Oregonians Representative Peter DeFazio, Senator Ron 
Wyden and Representative Greg Walden, the bill that's moving forward is 
better than the bill I voted against in the past.
  I wish I could vote for H.R. 1904 in good conscience, but it still 
has three fundamental problems. First, the procedural fix far exceeds 
any procedural problem. This bill would undermine the National 
Environmental Protection Act, the judicial process, and the system of 
administrative appeals to fix a perceived problem of too many projects 
being tied up in environmental litigation. However, the Government 
Accounting Office estimates that only 1 percent of forest management 
projects have been tied up in litigation. This type of sweeping 
procedural change is unnecessary.
  Second, the bill opens up our forests to much broader timber harvest. 
This should be debated on its own merits and not under the guise of 
forest health and fire prevention. If we want to substantially increase 
timber harvest on Federal lands we ought to be clear and deal with it 
directly.
  Last, and most troubling of all for me, is that this bill does not 
adequately protect families whose lives and property are at risk 
because of forest fire hazard. This bill does not focus our resources 
on the interface between residential properties and forest land, in 
what we are coming to know as the ``flame zone.'' Focused hazardous 
fuel reduction around communities could substantially reduce the risk 
of fire damage by providing a buffer to help slow and stop advancing 
fires.
  This is a better bill than before but it is still a missed 
opportunity. To adequately protect families and businesses we need to 
take a few, simple, proactive steps. We need to strengthen building 
codes and insurance requirements for ``firewise'' construction and 
``defensible space'' landscaping. According to Forest Service 
scientists, these precautions can increase a home's ability to survive 
a wildfire by more than 90 percent. We need to educate homeowners of 
the dangers before wildfires start so they can adequately prepare, and 
make informed choices on where to live. We need to implement smart 
land-use planning that guides development away from fire-prone areas. 
And, we need to provide affordable, livable housing options for 
families away from danger.
  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the conference 
report. Others will come to the floor to discuss the threat of wild 
fire to the health and general welfare of segments of the American 
population.
  Others will come to the floor to discuss other elements of this 
legislation, such as its provisions concerning insect infestation which 
threatens some of our forests and forest industries.
  I am not unmindful of the need to address the issues raised by the 
bill, but in our view, we would do so in a more prudent and responsible 
manner.
  There is one issue in the pending legislation, however, which 
transcends the debate over forest fires and forest health: the 
independence of our judiciary and the right of Americans to seek 
redress from the courts when they believe they are aggrieved by a 
governmental action.
  Indeed, the judicial review provisions of this bill would set a 
dangerous precedent for anybody concerned with civil liberties, civil 
rights, workers' rights and any other issue that may come before our 
judiciary.

[[Page H12171]]

  Simply put, this legislation curtails access to the courts by 
American citizens by limiting where challenges can be brought, by whom, 
and on what issues.
  This legislation interferes with how judges run their courtrooms. It 
arbitrarily requires courts to lift injunctions and stays after 60 days 
unless affirmatively renewed by the court.
  A dangerous precedent and very bad policy. Our Constitution clearly 
delineates three branches of government. This conference report 
tramples on that tenant of our Constitution.
  Incredible. Simply incredible.
  This bill tells the court that litigation involving thinning trees is 
more important than prosecuting suspected Al Qaeda terrorists.
  To judge suits over forest thinning projects more important than all 
other civil cases, let alone criminal cases, is seriously misguided. To 
make this policy law is absurd.
  I have been here long enough to remember when conservatives did not 
trust the federal government and did not endorse expanded and unchecked 
federal powers.
  It is unfortunate, it really is, that the sponsors of this bill chose 
to inject this controversial attack on the independence of our 
judiciary in a measure of this nature.
  These provisions are a poison pill, and do a disservice to our 
addressing issues such as forest insect infestation and forest fires in 
a prudent and responsible fashion.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1904, the 
Healthy Forest Restoration Act. I would like to thank leadership for 
allowing this long overdue bill to come to the floor today, and most 
importantly, I would like to thank Forest Subcommittee Chairman Scott 
McInnis, whose hard work and dedication this bill has brought us to 
this point today.
  Mr. Speaker, there are many reasons to cut through the current 
procedural and bureaucratic thicket that has engulfed the U.S. Forest 
Service. It is time to eliminate the ``analysis paralysis'' of 
administrative appeals and litigation that has heretofore prevented the 
U.S. Forest Service from conducting badly needed thinning projects that 
are needed to protect communities and wildlife.
  The fires of the last few years have ravaged the west. My district 
was no exception, where the 137,000 acre Hayman Fire tore through the 
Pike National Forest last year. That wildfire--the largest and most 
destructive in state history--burned homes, fouled streams and 
reservoirs, and may even have pushed an endangered butterfly into 
extinction. Fires like these have proven once and for all that no 
management on our public lands, is bad management.
  Unfortunately, much of the destruction caused by these fires is 
attributable to the bureaucracy, appeals, and red tape that have 
hamstrung land managers for years. The Hayman Fire, for example, 
occurred in part in an area slated for treatment. Unfortunately, the 
treatments took years to plan because of arcane procedural rules, and 
were then further held up by frivolous appeals filed by a host of 
environmental groups. Before the treatments could begin, the fires 
reduced the area to ashes. This bill will seek to streamline that 
process, and curtail frivolous litigation so that we can avoid the 
large scale environmental devastation caused by these catastrophic 
fires in the future. In addition, the bill will help reduce costs to 
the American taxpayer.
  The cost to extinguish these abnormally massive fires to protect 
communities and their water supplies has cost more than $1 billion. 
With the passage of H.R. 1904, rather than continuing to treat the 
expensive symptoms of this dangerous buildup of dead and diseased trees 
in our forests--we will finally get at the root cause of the problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe every dollar we spent on a thinning project 
that prevents a fire, is several dollars saved in suppression and first 
responder costs when the fire starts. Restoring our forests to a 
healthier state by clearing out dead fuel and bug-infested trees before 
they feed wildfires isn't just good environmental policy, it's good 
fiscal policy too.
  Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1904, the 
``Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.'' For the Northern 
California Congressional District I represent, this bill is long 
overdue. My District comprises 5 national forests, and wildfires are an 
annual and growing threat. Each day, month and year that good forest 
management is stymied, communities are placed in greater danger.
  Mr. Speaker, in my view, this bill doesn't go far enough to address 
our monumental and compounding forest health crisis. With 190 million 
acres of forests at risk, and only 2 million acres being treated 
annually, we have to do much, much more. But it takes an important 
first step forward in the face of tremendous resistance from the 
radical environmentalists. And I want to commend my colleagues--
Chairman Pombo, Chairman Goodlatte, Chairman McInnis and Congressman 
Walden--for their staunch leadership and dedication in fashioning a 
collaborative bill that is able to win a majority of the House and 
Senate. President Bush also deserves a great deal of credit and thanks 
for his efforts in bringing our growing forest health crisis to the 
attention of the American public, and to the forefront of our 
environmental policy debate.
  An extraordinarily cumbersome environmental review process, which can 
delay forest health projects for years, has elevated the review 
``process'' over good management and professional judgment. The Forest 
Service Chief, Dale Bosworth, testified to Congress that his agenda 
spends 40% of its time on planning and process activities. Litigation 
and an appeals process that is ripe for abuse have been utilized by 
radical environmental groups to stop community-supported forest health 
projects. A General Accounting Office study indicated that 59% of all 
projects eligible for appeal are appealed, the vast majority from 
radical environmental groups. The percentage is even higher in 
California. Meantime, our forests are literally burning up. Lives are 
being lost. Catastrophic fires are causing billions in property damage 
and costing the taxpayer billions in suppression and rehabilitation 
costs. Public health and safety demands that something be done.
  For too long radical environmental groups have hijacked our forests 
to advance their own so-called ``environmental agenda.'' Their 
handiwork has contributed to an immense forest health crisis where 
lives and property are threatened, billions of taxpayer dollars are 
spent to suppress destructive fires--instead of on common sense forest 
health projects that could prevent them--and millions are wasted on 
endless environmental reviews and litigation. It's high time for the 
rest of us to take our forests back.
  This bill will not solve this enormous and compounding crisis. But it 
takes an important step forward by streamlining environmental reviews 
and preventing abuses of the appeals process, which will allow urgently 
needed management to move forward in a small portion of our at-risk 
forests. It will give forest professionals the tools they desperately 
need, and provide positive momentum for continuing active management 
throughout all of our forests to restore them to a healthy condition, 
and address a very serious and growing threat to lives and property. I 
urge my colleagues to support it.
  Mr. MATHESON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Healthy 
Forests bill. This legislation will help restore Utah's forests that 
have been devastated by fire, drought, and insect infestations.
  I am hopeful that this legislation will prevent a repeat of this 
year's severe wildfire season and stop fires from spreading so quickly 
and affecting our communities. This legislation focuses its resources 
on hazardous fuel reduction efforts close to home by prioritizing 
efforts to prevent fires within a mile and a half of at-risk 
communities. This bill also provides grants for states and local 
communities to perform the fuel reduction activities that will benefit 
them the most.
  Not only will this legislation help prevent forest fires, but it will 
address the infestation of the bark beetle that has affected much of 
southern Utah. This bill requires the Forest Service to develop a plan 
to combat insect infestation and allows for the expedition of projects 
that would help eliminate this problem that has turned Cedar Mountain 
in the Dixie National Forest into a skeleton of what it once was.
  The passage of this bill is critical to protecting the health of the 
forests in Utah and throughout the West. We've seen too much 
devastation and damage in recent years to allow the situation to go 
unchanged. I am committed to this legislation as an important first 
step toward remediating our forests.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass). All time has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the conference 
report.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, this 15-
minute vote on the conference report will be followed by 5-minute votes 
on H. Res. 453, on which the yeas and nays were ordered, and S. 1156, 
on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 286, 
nays 140, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 656]

                               YEAS--286

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Baca
     Bachus
     Baird

[[Page H12172]]


     Baker
     Ballance
     Ballenger
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Cardoza
     Carson (OK)
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chocola
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Cole
     Collins
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Dicks
     Dooley (CA)
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Feeney
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harman
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hooley (OR)
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Janklow
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Mica
     Michaud
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy
     Murtha
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sandlin
     Schrock
     Scott (GA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Turner (OH)
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (CO)
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Wu
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--140

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baldwin
     Becerra
     Bell
     Berman
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Brown (OH)
     Brown, Corrine
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (IN)
     Case
     Clay
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costello
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Gonzalez
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     Kirk
     Kleczka
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lynch
     Majette
     Maloney
     Markey
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (NC)
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Rodriguez
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Solis
     Stark
     Tauscher
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Cubin
     Fletcher
     Gephardt
     Green (TX)
     Kucinich
     Quinn
     Ruppersberger
     Wynn


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass) (during the vote). Members are 
advised 2 minutes remain in this vote.

                              {time}  1509

  Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas and Messrs. Crowley, Evans, Abercrombie, 
Deutsch, Lantos, Owens, Delahunt, Costello and Jefferson changed their 
vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. STRICKLAND changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the conference report was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________