[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 102 (Monday, July 11, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4486-S4487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KYL (for himself and Mr. McCain):
  S. 1344. A bill to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to take 
immediate action to recover ecologically and economically from a 
catastrophic wildfire in the State of Arizona, and for other purposes; 
to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, today I am introducing, with Senator John 
McCain, S. 1344, which is a response to Arizona's largest wildfire, 
called the Wallow Fire. This act is the Wallow Fire Recovery and 
Monitoring Act.
  The Wallow Fire in Arizona burned, over about 40 days, 538,000 acres 
of Arizona land, making it the largest fire in the history of our 
State. Just to put it into perspective, that is nearly 841 square miles 
or almost four times the

[[Page S4487]]

size of the city of Chicago. The fire destroyed 32 homes and 4 rental 
cabins. Nearly 10,000 people were evacuated at one point, and the fire 
cost the taxpayers over $100 million before it was finally 
extinguished. Unfortunately, it will likely cost double that amount for 
the necessary rehabilitation of the forests that needs to occur now. 
After a fire such as this, there is only a short opportunity to hasten 
forest rehabilitation, reduce risks of flooding, insect epidemics, and 
future fires, and capture at least some of the economic benefit from 
the dead and dying trees to help offset and pay for those restoration 
costs.
  Given the urgent need for action, as I said, I am introducing today 
the Arizona Wallow Fire Recovery and Monitoring Act, joined by my 
colleague, John McCain, as an original cosponsor. This legislation 
would expedite the removal of hazard, dead, and dying trees in 
community protection management areas within the Wallow Fire area. The 
removal projects carried out under the act will be completed within 18 
months of enactment. The reason for this timeline is that when it comes 
to timber harvesting of the fire-killed trees, the costs of delay are 
extreme. Fire-killed trees will lose more than 40 percent of their 
value in less than 2 years.
  Due to the intensity, the size, and the magnitude of the fire, there 
is a tremendous amount of dead and dying trees within the Wallow Fire 
area. Portions of the forest that have burned pose a risk to forest 
users, to communities, and to private property and the remaining 
resources. These risks include the hazards of falling trees, erosion, 
flooding, reburns due to excess fuel loads, and insect infestation risk 
to the remaining live trees. Under these postfire conditions, timber 
salvage is a management tool to mitigate these risks, generate revenue 
and jobs, and put the forest on the road to recovery.
  We saw the negative consequences of delay firsthand in Arizona after 
the Rodeo-Chediski Fire in 2002, which at that point had been our 
State's largest fire. Bureaucratic regulations and lawsuits so severely 
delayed salvage efforts that by the time the projects were cleared to 
proceed, the trees had lost most of their economic value. Congress 
should not stand by and allow this situation to be repeated.
  That said, we are not looking to eliminate environmental safeguards 
or exempt timber harvests from Federal environmental laws. This bill is 
narrowly tailored, limiting the removal of hazard, dead, and dying 
trees to those trees located within community protection management 
areas. One of these areas includes the wildland urban interface and 
other areas critical to communities. In addition, a comprehensive 
hazard tree and commercial timber evaluation and an environmental 
assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, are 
required. All appeals and judicial review would follow the processes in 
the bipartisan Healthy Forest Restoration Act.
  The practice of postfire timber salvage may be controversial in part 
because there is limited scientific information on its ecological 
effects. Most of the scientific literature that does exist is based on 
forests in the Pacific Northwest. The forests in that part of the 
country are very different from the dry ponderosa pine-dominated 
forests that burned in the Wallow Fire. Thus, the bill would require 
monitoring for all timber removal projects implemented under the act.
  Finally, from a fiscal perspective, there is never going to be enough 
Federal funding for the forest restoration work that needs to be done 
to save the forest that remains. Acknowledging this reality, this bill 
takes the proceeds from the timber removal project sales and keeps them 
on this forest to help pay for future forest restoration treatments.
  This bill strikes a responsible balance between environmental 
concerns and economics after a catastrophic wildfire. I urge my 
colleagues to support its swift passage.
  The Arizona Wallow Fire Recovery and Monitoring Act requires a 
comprehensive evaluation of the forest conditions and hazard tree and 
fire-damaged timber resources across the Wallow Fire Area; limits the 
areas where dead and dying trees can be removed to Community Protection 
Management Areas; limits tree removal to hazard trees and trees that 
are already down, dead, broken or severely root sprung trees where 
mortality is highly expected; prohibits the construction of new, 
permanent roads; provides for an expedited, but thorough, environmental 
review of tree removal projects proposed in the Wallow Fire Area, 
including full public participation in the development of such 
projects; uses the processes for appeals and judical review established 
in the bipartisan Healthy Forest Restoration Act; requires monitoring 
of the ecological and economic effects of timber removal projects; and 
authorizes the use of timber receipts to offset the costs of forest 
restoration.

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