[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 170 (Friday, November 21, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15376-S15379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE HEALTHY FORESTS BILL
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, my colleague from Oregon is on the Senate
floor. We thought for a few moments we would talk about something that
just passed the Senate which we think is landmark forestry legislation.
It has come in several forms over the last year and a half. But we here
in the Senate call it Healthy Forests. The President calls it Healthy
Forests.
The House and Senate have worked together over the last year to try
to resolve an issue that the American public has seen in the form of
devastating wildfires across our public land and forests for the last
several years. Of course, we watched the tragedy of San Bernadino in
southern California and the greater Los Angeles area just in the last
month and a half that was truly devastating not only to 3,700 homes and
human life but hundreds of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat and
watershed.
Clearly, as chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee of the Energy and
Natural Resources Committee, Senator Wyden and I have been working for
the last several years to resolve this issue. My colleague from Oregon
is the ranking member of that Forestry Subcommittee. We have known that
the team effort in a bipartisan way to resolve this issue would produce
a resolution. The answer is that it has.
The Senate and the House just passed a conference report that has our
fingerprints all over it. Frankly, we are mighty proud of it. It moves
us in the right direction of active management of these dead and dying,
bug-infested, and drought-impacted forested areas that are creating
phenomenal fuel loads that the American public has seen played out in
wildfires across our western public land and forests for the last good
number of years. It is a clear step in the right direction. It is a
cautious step. We certainly do not take away the right of appeal, but
we limit it.
We don't want an effort on the part of the Forest Service to do what
we asked them to do to be tied up in the courts endlessly in many
instances as it has been over the last several years. We also want them
to be selective. We targeted most of our efforts in what we call the
wildland- urban interface which will impact most of those forested
areas where there is a substantial human presence in the form of homes
and, obviously, communities.
At the same time, we also recognize that the problem exists elsewhere
across our forested landscape. We allow that treatment of those areas
with caution.
We have designated old growth definitions for protection. We have
also limited it in the next decade to 20 million acres. For those
critics who would suggest that this is a ``ticket to log,'' that is
purely political rhetoric to solve a political constituency problem
that they have because they can't justify anymore the phenomenal loss
of wildlife and watershed and habitat that we have seen over the last 4
or 5 years.
It is a cautious approach. It is certainly going to be limited in
character. Why? Because we want to prove to the American people that
there is a way to manage our forests in a right and reasonable fashion;
that it does not do what we did historically 40 years ago--logged by
clear-cut or logged with substantial problems of erosion and watershed
degradation and all of that.
This is a new day. We want to treat our forests differently. But we
also understand that if we don't do something, our forestry experts
have told us that we could see devastating wildfires for decades to
come that will destroy the watershed, the wildlife habitat, and release
huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere; and, oh, yes, by the way,
destroy a very valuable resource in the form of timber that might in
some areas be allowed for logging or for reasonable approaches of
commercial value of the thinning and cleaning.
All of that said, we have worked hard to produce a bill. My colleague
from Oregon is on the Senate floor. I will yield to him for any
comments he would want to make. We have other colleagues here who I
think are going to address the issue of prescription drugs and Medicare
reform.
But today is an important day in the Senate in the area of forestry
and forest and public land management. I am proud of the work we have
done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I want to
commend Senator Craig. He and I have been working with Senator
Feinstein in particular on this legislation in the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee. We have really been a triumvirate with respect to
this issue.
I am so pleased to have a chance to be on the Senate floor today to
speak on this conference report. This is the first forest management
bill to pass both Houses in the U.S. Congress in 27 years. The fact is,
the forestry legislation that is now on its way to the President of the
United States will protect our communities. It will offer the first
legal protection for old-growth trees, and it will create jobs.
As the distinguished Senator from Idaho, Mr. Craig, just noted, this
legislation came together because at every stage of the process
Senators said we want to get beyond the old rhetoric. We want to get
beyond the polarization that has dominated this issue in the past, and
we want to, in particular, take meaningful action to protect our
communities.
That is what this legislation has been all about. The fires in the
West, as the Senator from Idaho has known through his field hearings
and other such sectors, have literally be infernos. We just felt it was
critical to take steps to ensure that the rural West wouldn't be
sacrificed.
I am proud today to rise in support of the conference report on H.R.
1904. This conference report is based upon the Senate-based wildfire
bill compromise
[[Page S15377]]
brokered by Senators Feinstein, Craig, Cochran, Domenici and myself
passed by the Senate on October 30. With the good faith efforts of
Representatives Pombo, Goodlatte, and my friend and colleague from
Oregon, Representative Walden, this conference report has made only
minor changes to the Senate approved version. This legislation will get
us back on track restoring forests, protecting the environment, and
putting people back to work in rural communities.
This conference report is the first forest management bill to pass
both houses of the United States Congress in 27 years. The last time
Congress was able to send a forest management bill to the President of
the United States, the President was Gerald Ford and it was the
Nation's bicentennial. The bill was the National Forest Management Act
of 1976.
The world has changed a lot in the last 27 years. Forest management
and forest-related economies have changed dramatically. Americans have
grown more interested in protecting the environment while using natural
resources to support rural communities like those in my home state of
Oregon. The conference report we passed today reflects some of those
changes: it contains the first ever statutory recognition and
meaningful protection of old growth forests and large trees, while
streamlining a National Environmental Policy Act process that has
seemed to favor paperwork over forest health.
This conference report will streamline restorative forestry in
forests at risk of unnaturally catastrophic fires resulting from 100
years of fire suppression. It provides the authorities and guidelines
for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to treat unhealthy
forests while preserving public input and protecting old growth it's a
truly balanced approach to forest health.
There were times when I was not sure this day would come. After the
Senate passed our version of H.R. 1904 on October 30, 2003, there was
doubt and disagreement on how to proceed with the House of
Representatives. As a solution to the gridlock threatening the final
passage of wildfire legislation, Senator Feinstein and I proposed
informal meetings. The staffs of the two Houses reached the agreement
on Title I, the forest health title, through these informal meetings
that allowed for a formal conference on all the rest of the Titles.
That conference was held Thursday, November 20. I lost a couple of
provisions for Oregon that I cared deeply about. But, I am overall
pleased that the forest health provisions worked out so diligently by
both Houses were preserved intact.
The Senate said there were four features that were particularly
important to us to maintain in the legislation.
First, we said we have to have the funding to do the job right. We
are not going to get this work done without funding to get this work
done on the ground. I am very pleased with the conference report in
that it keeps that funding intact. I am very pleased that the
conference report will authorize $760 million annually for the
projects, a $340 million increase over current funding. It also ensures
that we spend the money in the right place. That is in the area known
as the wildland/urban interface. The Senate took one approach, the
House had other ideas. With some very minor tweaking, this, too, was
preserved in terms of the work done by the Senate.
On the old-growth part of the legislation, I am especially pleased
because all Americans value these unique treasures, our very large old-
growth trees. Professor Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington
is considered the leading authority on this subject. He says our
provisions with respect to old growth are a major step forward. I
am particularly pleased and honored to have Dr. Franklin's comments on
this. He is the authority, as Chairman Craig knows, on this subject.
For those who have followed the environmental aspects of the forestry
legislation, let the word go out that Professor Jerry Franklin from the
University of Washington, one of the most distinguished scholars in
this field--not just now but at any time--believes this is a
significant step forward in terms of environmental protection.
We were able to protect the public involvement aspect of forestry
policy. Citizens all across this country--whether in Senator Dodd's
part of the world in Connecticut or any other part of the country--feel
passionately about their natural resources and want to be involved in
the debate over this process. As Senator Craig has noted, we have
streamlined the process but we have preserved every single opportunity
for the public to comment. Every opportunity that exists today, for the
public to comment on forestry legislation, has been preserved in this
bipartisan compromise.
Finally, the Senate conferees did very well at defending the Senate
compromise. The Senate kept the number one issue the environmental
community was concerned about off the table and preserved the Senate
compromise position on judicial process. In negotiating this bill, I
did not accept the notion that any special deference beyond the
deference that is ordinarily due should be given to any agency
determinations under the Act, except where explicitly provided in the
statute's text. In fact, the conference report expressly rejected the
House bill's language giving special deference to agency
determinations.
This section, section 106 of Title I, limits venue for these
hazardous fuels reduction cases exclusively to the district court for
the district in which the federal land to be treated is located. It
also encourages expedited review of jurisdictional and substantive
issues leading to resolution of cases as soon as practicable. In
addition, this section limits the duration of any injunctions and stays
pending appeal to 60 days and provides an opportunity to renew an
injunction and stay pending appeal. It also requires the parties to the
action to present updated information regarding the status of the
authorized hazardous fuel reduction project in connection with such
injunction and stay renewals. This last provision is intended to
provide an incentive and opportunity for the parties to the complaint
to work together to resolve their differences or explain to the judge
why that is not possible over time.
This section also directs the courts to balance the impact to the
ecosystem likely affected by the project of the short- and long-term
effects of undertaking the agency action, against the short- and long-
term effects of not undertaking the agency action. There can be
environmental risks associated with both management action and
inaction. America is acutely aware that the past few fire seasons have
been among the worst in modern history in terms of effects on natural
resources, people and private property. Air pollution problems are
rising and wildland fires have forced thousands to evacuate. In 2002 in
one state alone, Colorado, 77,000 residents were evacuated for periods
of a few days to several weeks. Seventeen thousand people in Oregon's
Illinois Valley were on half-hour evacuation notice the same year. In
2002, millions of dollars of property damage included the destruction
of over 2300 homes and other buildings. It is becoming increasingly
evident that while one cannot uncut a tree, similarly one cannot unburn
a forest. In hazardous fuel reduction projects it is important to focus
on the removal of the right vegetation to modify fire behavior--
primarily surface and ladder fuels.
At the same time, there can also be adverse environmental
consequences of hazardous fuel reduction projects, including but not
limited to loss of wildlife habitat, increased sedimentation in
streams, soil compaction, and fragmenting of unroaded areas. As
documented by the General Accounting Office, poorly designed vegetation
treatments in the past have contributed to increased fire risk by
removing the large and fire resistant trees, while leaving highly
flammable smaller trees behind.
This Act is intended to foster prompt and sound decision making
rather than perfectly executed procedures and documentation.
Environmental analyses should concentrate on issues that are essential
to the proposed projects rather than on amassing needless detail.
Section 106 is intended to reinforce Congress's desire that the
totality of circumstances be assessed by the courts to assure that
public interest in the environmental health of our forests will be
served.
Let me be more specific about a few of the other provisions of this
legislation. The Senate also prevailed in
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keeping the Senate funding requirements and levels, preserving the
Senate NEPA language on at-risk lands outside the wildland urban
interface; preserving the Senate old growth and large tree protections,
and preserving the Senate administrative appeals process.
The legislation changes the environmental review process so the
Forest Service still considers the effects of the proposed project in
detail, but can focus its analysis on the project proposal, one
reasonable alternative that meets the project's goals and the
alternative of not doing the project, instead of the 5-9 alternatives
now often required. In the highest priority areas within one mile and a
half of communities, the Forest Service need only study the proposed
action and no alternatives. There is no relaxation from current law in
any areas, however, in how closely the Forest Service must study the
environmental effects of the project it is proposing to undertake.
The changes that were made to the Senate compromise on H.R. 1904
include more relief and respect for rural forested communities. This
conference report allows a single action alternative to be analyzed
under the National Environmental Policy Act inside the wildland urban
interface defined as 1.5 miles from the community boundary. Within the
area identified for protection as the wildland urban interface under a
community fire plan, the agency is not required to analyze the ``no
action'' alternative under NEPA, but is required to analyze two action
alternatives. This conference report also limits the treatment of
diseased forests to those with epidemics, whereas the Senate compromise
allowed the treatment of forests with only an infestation of bugs.
This conference report preserves all current opportunities for public
input and appeal, while streamlining the appeals process and
eliminating some of its worst abuses. Not one current opportunity for
public comment would be lost under the compromise. The compromise will
require the Forest Service to rewrite their appeals process using the
pre-decisional appeals and comment process that has been used by the
Bureau of Land Management since 1984. It works by encouraging the
public to engage in a collaborative process with the agency to improve
projects before final decisions have been rendered upon them by the
agency. This model places a premium on constructive public input and
collaboration, and less emphasis on the litigation and confrontation of
the post-decisional appeals process currently used by the Forest
Service. The compromise is designed to move from the current model of
confrontation, litigation and delay to one which places a premium on
constructive, good faith public input. Whereas in the past, parties
could ``sandbag'' the appeals process by not raising salient points in
hopes of later derailing the entire proposed action in the courts,
parties would not be allowed to litigate on issues they had failed to
raise in the comment or appeal period unless those issues or critical
information concerning them arose after the close of the appeals
process--as a result of the revised agency decision.
This conference report provides the first-ever statutory recognition
and meaningful protection of old growth forests. Never before has
Congress recognized by statute the importance of maintaining old growth
stands. Under the compromise, the Forest Service must protect these
trees by preventing the agency from logging the most fire-resilient
trees under the guise of fuels reduction under these new authorities.
The issue of old growth continues to be the subject of considerable
scientific inquiry and debate. What is not subject to debate is the
special character and ecological value of old growth. Clearly, it is
the intent of Congress that in interpreting the provisions of section
102(e), federal agencies affirmatively recognize the special importance
of old growth forests while maintaining the deference they are due
unless their determinations are arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of
discretion.
This legislation is designed to address past mismanagement of federal
forests, and to protect old-growth so that we don't repeat the mistakes
of the past. The majority of old-growth stands are healthy, and don't
require management. In some old-growth stands in the drier parts of the
west, where natural fire regimes have been disrupted by a century of
fire suppression, silviculture with a minimum of disturbance can be
appropriate that will restore natural forest structure and fire
regimes.
Where old growth stands are healthy, as they are throughout much of
the forest on the west side of the Cascade Ridge in Oregon, the
compromise requires that they be ``fully maintained.'' Section 102(e)
of the conference addresses the treatment by the Forest Service and
Bureau of Land Management of old growth stands that may occur on
authorized hazardous fuels treatment projects. Since recently issued
resource management plans of the two agencies are supposed to provide
guidance on the treatment of old growth Section 102(e) directs the
agencies to rely on the old growth definitions contained in resource
management plans that were established in the ten-year period prior to
the enactment of the legislation.
Older plans must be reviewed, and if necessary, revised and updated,
to take into account relevant information that was not considered in
developing the existing definitions or other direction relating to old
growth. Any revision or update must meet the requirements of subsection
102(e)(2), which requires the Secretary, in carrying out authorized
hazardous fuels treatment projects, to fully maintain, or contribute
toward the restoration of, the structure and composition of
structurally complex old growth stands according to the pre-fire
suppression old growth conditions characteristic of the forest type,
taking into account the contribution of the stand to landscape fire
adaptation and watershed health, and retaining the large trees
contributing to old growth structure. Nothing in the bill is intended
to prohibit or restrict establishing other standards for old growth
stands where purposes other than hazardous fuel management are being
pursued under other authorities.
The intent of section 102(e)(4) is to avoid disrupting resource
management plan revisions that are already underway. Comprehensive
revision of older resource management plans may be preferable to
separate amendments or updates for old growth standards, and the bill
allows additional time for operating under older plans where revisions
are in progress.
In negotiating this bill, I did not agree to the imposition of any
more restrictive standards than the ``substantial supporting evidence''
explicitly set forth in the statute for members of the public's
identification of old growth stands during scoping in subsection
102(e)(4)(C).
The compromise makes it less likely that old growth will be harvested
under current law by mandating the retention of large trees and
focusing the hazardous fuels reduction projects authorized by this bill
on thinning small diameter trees.
In moving this legislation, it was my intent to see that the right
work get done in the right way in the right place using the right
tools. In other words, to see that the risk of catastrophic fire is
reduced through legitimate hazardous fuel reduction activities.
These activities are referenced in Section 101(2) of the bill and are
spelled out in detail in the Implementation Plan for the Comprehensive
Strategy for a Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risk
to Communities and the Environment, dated May 2002. That document lists
the following tools as being appropriate for hazardous fuel reduction:
prescribed fire, wildland fire use, and various mechanical methods such
as crushing, tractor and hand piling, thinning, and pruning.
In other words, this bill does not authorize a new wave of large tree
commercial timber sales. It must be noted that the bill emphasizes the
avoidance of the cutting of large trees in Section 102(f), where it
specifically states that protects must focus largely on small diameter
trees, thinning, strategic fuelbreaks and prescribed fire to modify
fire behavior and that projects maximize the retention of large trees.
Section 104(f) requires the agencies to focus on small diameter
trees, thinning, fuel breaks and prescribed fire to modify unnaturally
severe fire effects, and to maximize the retention of large trees.
Large trees are important ecological components of most forest systems.
In particular, they are often more fire and insect resistant
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than smaller diameter trees, and therefore, with rare exceptions do not
contribute to hazardous fuels overloads. They are also considered to be
critical ecological legacies because they are essential to the desired
future structure and composition of forests. However, large trees are
now often underrepresented components of many forest types. In those
forest types, forest health will not be restored without a diversity of
age classes and types, including large trees.
Section 102(f) deals with federal agency treatment of large trees in
authorized hazardous fuels treatment projects outside of the areas
identified under section 102(e) and requires the Forest Service and
Bureau of Land management to maximize the retention of large trees, as
appropriate for the forest type, to the extent that the trees promote
fire-resilient stands. From an ecological standpoint, and in regards to
modifying future fire behavior, large trees are the very last ones that
should be removed, if at all.
This is an appropriate limitation in that the last trees that need to
be removed from an ecological sense, as well as to modify fire
behavior, are the large trees. The clear intent of this legislation is
to focus primarily on surface fuels such as brush and dead and down
woody material and ladder fuels consisting of small diameter trees and
saplings.
This direction is very important to me and I intend on remaining
vigilant and responsive to concerns where projects veer from this
important direction.
This conference report restores balance to healthy forests
legislation by authorizing $760 million annually for these projects.
This is a $340 million authorized increase over the currently
appropriated level of $420 million for hazardous fuel reduction
projects. The conference report maintains the requirement that at least
50 percent of funds spent on restorative projects to be spent to
safeguard communities which face the greatest risks from fire.
This conference report also includes improved monitoring language
that will help Congress track the successes and failures of this
legislation. Section 104(g) requires the Secretaries to monitor and
assess the results of authorized projects and to report on the progress
of projects towards forest health objectives. This evaluation and
reporting will help guide the agencies in future hazardous fuels
reduction treatments in existing project areas and in other project
areas with similar vegetation types.
The Senate intends that treatments authorized under this Act be
directed to restoration of fire-adapted ecosystems as well as hazard
reduction. The threat of uncharacteristically severe fires and insect
and disease outbreaks decreases when the structure and composition of
fire-adapted ecosystems are restored to historic conditions. Thus,
section 104(g)(4) directs agencies to evaluate, among other things,
whether authorized projects result in conditions that are closer to the
relevant historical structure, composition and fire regime.
The Senate recognizes that fire ecologists have learned that fire is
a landscape process and that treatments are most effective when
conducted in accordance with landscape- or watershed-scale analyses.
Section 104(g)(4) requires the agencies to evaluate project results in
light of any existing landscape--or watershed--scale direction in
resource management plans or other applicable guidance or requirements.
Managers should also evaluate and use available relevant scientific
studies or findings.
Section 104(g) also requires the Secretaries, in areas where
significant interest is expressed, to establish a multiparty monitoring
and evaluation process in order to assess the environmental and social
effects of authorized hazardous fuel reduction projects and projects
implemented pursuant to section 404 of this Act. Many forest-dependent
communities support multiparty monitoring, which simply means that
communities and individuals may participate with the Federal agencies
in monitoring the projects. The Managers recognize the importance of
multiparty monitoring as a way to rebuild trust between rural
communities and the agencies.
In conclusion, we have a lot of work to do. We will have others raise
questions about the ramifications of this legislation as it relates to
the National Environmental Policy Act and other concerns. We want to
get this done and implemented properly. As Chairman Craig and I have
seen in the subcommittee on forestry, we know, for example, it will be
tough to get all the funds that are going to be necessary to do these
projects on the ground. Our bipartisan coalition is committed to doing
that. Then we can turn our coalition to looking at other areas where we
can find common ground and move forward in the natural resources area.
A lot of people never thought we would get to this day. Look at the
editorials that have been written, some of the interest groups with
respect to this legislation, and some of the attacks made on Members. I
recall some of those to which Senator Feinstein was subjected. She
showed the courage to make it clear she would hang in there and work to
get this legislation enacted.
We had a lot of Members of the Senate on both side of the aisle say
they would put the public interests first, they would concentrate on
protecting communities. That is what has brought us to this day.
I want to thank the following Senate staff for all their hard work on
this important legislation: Lance Kotschwar and West Higginbothom of
the Senate Agriculture Committee staff, Frank Gladics and Kira Finkler
of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources staff, Calli Daly of Senator
Craig's staff, John Watts of Senator Feinstein's staff and Sarah
Bittleman and Josh Kardon of my own staff. Josh Penry and Doug
Crandall, staff from the House Resources Committee, did yeomen's work
to get this bill to conference. These folks, and many others, put in
countless and numerous evenings and weekends into this bill and they
deserve our appreciation for their hard work and dedication.
This legislation will now go to the President's desk for his
signature. I look forward to that happening. Just this week it snowed
in Oregon--the fire season has passed for another year but it will come
again next year as sure as the spring follows the winter. With this
bill in place as law I am hopeful that we will be a bit better
prepared.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
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