[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 6, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION ACT

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, yesterday I introduced legislation that 
has been given the number S. 2593, the Forest Landscape Restoration Act 
of 2008. I developed this legislation with Senators Domenici and 
Feinstein, who are cosponsors of the bill. We also have as cosponsors 
Senators Allard, Wyden, Salazar, Cantwell, Craig, Akaka, and Crapo. I 
also am pleased to point out that Chairman Grijalva in the House of 
Representatives is introducing a companion bill, and I look forward to 
working with him as his subcommittee in the Natural Resources Committee 
moves forward with that bill.
  This legislation establishes a program to select and fund projects 
that restore forests at a landscape scale through a process that 
encourages collaboration, relies on the best available science, 
facilitates local economic development, and leverages local funds with 
national and private funding.
  As many of my colleagues know, we are facing serious forest health 
and wildfire challenges throughout our country. A century of over-
aggressive fire suppression, logging, and other land uses have 
significantly deteriorated entire landscapes.
  These conditions have played an important role in the extraordinary 
wildfires and insect-caused mortality that we have seen literally on 
millions of acres of national forest and other lands. To address these 
problems, it is critical that we begin trying to restore our forests on 
a landscape scale.
  Landscape-scale restoration is key for controlling wildfire 
suppression costs. It is an important component of successful economic 
development. It is important for the health of many of our forest 
ecosystems.
  Despite the importance of landscape-scale restoration, neither the 
National Fire Plan nor the Healthy Forest Restoration Act nor any of 
the other efforts we have made to date have been very successful in 
facilitating restoration and hazardous fuels reduction on landscape 
scales. A lack of sufficient funding is one of the primary reasons. 
Restoring landscapes takes a significant amount of funding over a 
significant period of time.
  To address that problem, the Forest Landscape Restoration Act 
authorizes $40 million per year for 10 years to be paid into a national 
pool. Eligible landscape restoration projects from around the country 
would compete for a portion of that money. Mr. President, $40 million 
is not nearly enough money to fund landscape-scale treatments in all of 
the forest landscapes that need restoration, but it is a realistic 
amount for us to pursue at this time, and it is enough to make 
landscape-scale restoration a reality.
  Because of funding and other challenges, landscape-scale restoration 
remains largely theoretical. As a result, this legislation is designed 
to be both practical and experimental. It does not redirect existing 
efforts. Instead, it adds to existing efforts by creating a program 
that will make planning, funding, and carrying out at least a handful 
of these landscape-scale restoration projects possible.
  Again, I thank Senators Domenici and Feinstein and the other 
cosponsors of this legislation for working with me on this bill. I also 
thank the many stakeholders from across the spectrum for their input on 
the legislation, including the Nature Conservancy which has been very 
supportive of this effort.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The assistant majority leader.

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