[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 4004-4005]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            NATIONAL FORESTS

  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator from Alaska. I also thank my friend 
from Nevada for the time.
  Mr. President, normally I have fancy charts. I have not had time to 
develop those because we just saw some of the riders of the bill.
  I take the floor to make the point that I have many problems with 
this bill in the area of homeland security--as we are told to take duct 
tape and plastic and get ready for a chemical or biological attack. God 
forbid. We have shorted homeland security in this bill. We have shorted 
port security as it relates to inspecting containers at the ports. We 
have shorted border security, firefighter grants, community policing 
grants; and in education, we are leaving many children behind. That 
breaks a promise to them.
  To me, this bill is wanting in many ways. In the area of the 
environment, which I will talk about, brownfield cleanups have been 
reduced, and the meaning of organic meat has been turned on its head.
  It breaks my heart to tell the Senate tonight that I think America's 
forests are under major attack. It is unbelievable to me that without 
any debate or discussion, a pilot program has been expanded massively 
and, in my opinion, it is going to lead to the ruination of our 
national forests--our forests that belong to the American people. The 
program I am talking about is called the Forest Stewardship Program, 
which started 3 years ago. The idea was to allow limited logging on 
national forest land for the purpose of maintaining healthy forests in 
accordance with the forest management plan. Now, as I said, this 
program has been massively extended.
  Let me tell you why I think this stewardship project that is in the 
bill is an attack on American values. I know the hour is late and I do 
not intend to take a lot of time tonight. But when riders are placed 
into a bill as massive as this, I can tell you, when the American 
people wake up in the morning and learn they are going to lose a lot of 
the old growth trees in this beautiful land of ours, they are not going 
to be happy.
  I think America's forests belong to the people and I don't like to 
see a giveaway of taxpayer property. I don't like to see an open 
invitation to destroy our forests. I don't like to see no limits at all 
on old growth trees. Timber companies will now pick the trees they 
want, with no veto from the Forest Service on these projects. This also 
applies to BLM lands. We could see 70 million acres of national forest 
land open to logging here. That would also include 10 million acres in 
my home State of California and millions and millions of acres of BLM 
land.
  In my opinion, the very purpose of this rider is it tries to overrule 
forest land management plans. I argue that the forest land management 
plans take precedence. But I can assure you, they are going to start 
these projects. I only hope, since the only way this could be stopped 
is in court, that it will be stopped in court. There are limits on 
public participation in these projects.
  Let me show you what they did in the dead of night, if I might say, 
without anyone watching, without any debate, without any discussion, 
without any public participation. I don't know that anybody can read 
this chart, but I am going to go through it.
  Under current law, we see that 70 million of 191 million acres of 
national forests and grasslands are affected.
  Under this omnibus bill, we would see the same number of acres 
affected, plus 200 million acres of 260 million acres of BLM land. We 
are talking about massive amounts of land.
  The number of projects now under the Stewardship Program number 28 
projects a year. Now there is no limit, no limit at all.
  Who is in charge of the projects? Now under the Stewardship Program, 
it is the Forest Service. They come in and they will tell a private 
sector commercial logger: This is what you can cut, but do not cut this 
tree down and do not cut that tree down because they may be old growth, 
or whatever, for whatever reason. Now we give it away to the timber 
companies.
  We are seeing in the red the differences between the current projects 
where they were limited to 28 projects a year to no limit.
  Let me say to my friends in California who may be watching this 
debate tonight, 10 million of our 20 million acres of national forests 
that we love in our State could be under the ax here. I hope you wake 
up to this because this was done in the dead of night.
  There are, under current law, many reasons we allow logging on these 
28 projects a year: soil productivity, watershed restoration. There are 
many reasons why today in these pilot projects you can log. It is very 
carefully controlled. Mostly it is to reduce fire hazards, promote 
healthy forest standards, road and trail maintenance, grading a road to 
maintain a camp site. These are all allowable in this small number of 
pilot projects. This is what has been added.
  Now after the Forest Service turns over this particular part of the 
forest to a commercial logger, they can actually log for commercial 
purposes, such as providing wood to lumber mills.
  Let me explain this. Where we had a project before that was aimed at 
keeping the forest healthy, it has been turned on its head, and now it 
says we are going to turn it over to the commercial loggers. The Forest 
Service cannot even have any say in it. It is completely up to the 
commercial loggers what trees they will cut down. Building a new road 
is allowed, not just maintaining a road.
  I am stunned, frankly, that this could happen in a conference without 
one word of debate. This is a shock to anyone in this country who 
believes the national forests belong to the people of our country 
because this is--and I will put this back again to say in summary how I 
feel about it--this is an attack on American values. We all know that 
our precious environment is just that. We see a giveaway of taxpayer 
property. Not one slim dime will come into the Treasury; not one slim 
dime.
  We have an open invitation to destroy our forests without getting 
anything back for it. There are no limits on old-growth forest logging. 
Timber companies will pick the trees they want with no veto from the 
Forest

[[Page 4005]]

Service, a complete change from what we have had before. We could 
impact 70 million acres of national forest lands, including 10 million 
acres in my home State of California and millions of acres of BLM land.
  This is clearly an attempt--I underscore--an attempt to overrule 
forest land management plans, an attempt I hope will not succeed.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. BOXER. Yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would like to ask the Senator a question. I have only 
been in the Senate 6 years. She has been here slightly longer. Isn't it 
curious some of the worst environmental provisions are included in the 
appropriations bill at the last minute without any hearing, without any 
review? One would think that the people who were supporting this--the 
timber industry and those who support these provisions--would not be so 
afraid of their positions that they have to put them in a stealthy 
situation where, frankly, it is a ``take it or leave it'' bill, a 
``take it or leave it'' 2,000-page bill that includes this rider.
  If I understand what the Senator has said, this provision, so-called 
stewardship contract, could open more than 70 million acres of national 
forest currently owned by the taxpayers of America to logging by 
private companies, and that until this time, we only allowed them to 
test this in 28 different projects, and only 10 of those projects have 
actually been activated and tested. So it is an untested theory which 
the logging industry, the timber industry has now tried to capitalize 
on with this anti-environment rider to open up more than 70 million 
acres to logging; is that the situation?
  Mrs. BOXER. I say to my friend, he is right, but there is more. For 
the first time they have now opened up BLM land as well; that is, 200 
million acres of the Nation's 260 million acres of BLM land is also 
opened, and we are talking about no limit on the number of projects.
  Under the current law, it is 28 projects a year. It is extraordinary. 
Who is in charge? As my friend points out, the timber companies.
  Mr. DURBIN. If I may ask my friend from California, I am sure she has 
read this, but the Los Angeles Times editorial said it best today:

       Since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, Forest Service 
     responsibility has been to manage the forests on behalf of 
     all Americans, not to make sure the lumber mills grind out as 
     many board feet as the world wants to buy.

  That is from the L.A. Times editorial today.
  It seems from what I can gather that many who support this provision 
believe these national treasures, these national forests are there for 
the exploitation of private companies rather than the legacy which we 
owe to our children and future generations.
  To allow these companies to come in and run roughshod over millions 
of acres of America's national forest land for their own profit and to 
do this at the last minute in an anti-environment rider strikes me as a 
harsh commentary on the values that this Senate is putting in this bill 
for the appropriations process.
  I salute the Senator from California. Thank you for having the 
political courage to stand up and make a point about an issue that 
really is going to have an impact on America for generations to come.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend very much. I know my time is running 
short. There is nothing I can do here except take a few minutes to call 
this to the attention of my colleagues and the American people because, 
as my colleague knows, we cannot amend this report. It is up or down. 
This is what makes it so egregious to me.
  I am ready to go to battle toe to toe any day on this issue, and I am 
sure my colleagues would give me a fight on it. We would have a vote 
and take our lumps if we lost and be very happy if we won.
  We have a situation where taxpayer property is being given away 
without 1 cent back to the Treasury. Here we have a situation where, 
instead of the Forest Service saying, OK, you can cut down a few of 
these trees, we need it for certain public purposes, they are out of 
the game. They give it to the logger, and the logger decides what tree 
to cut down.
  I think this is a stunning reversal of a program that started out to 
be one that was in the public interest.
  In closing, I will give you one last example.
  Under this new rule--and, again, I apologize for the crudeness of 
these charts, but we did not know about this until a few hours ago. It 
is now a stewardship goal, if the Forest Service so states, to provide 
wood to lumber mills. That becomes a forest stewardship goal. It is 
unreal.
  Our people think we are protecting our forests, but our new goal is 
to invite the loggers in, with no limits on these projects. I am 
distraught and disturbed about this. I only hope that the courts will 
do what they have done in the past and say this is in violation of the 
forest plans. Maybe they will save us from ourselves. This is 
miserable.
  I wish I could offer an amendment to strip this out. I am prohibited 
from doing it, but I will bring this back to my colleagues at a time 
when we have more opportunity to discuss it in detail.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.

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