[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 175]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                U.S. FOREST SERVICE PLANNING REGULATIONS

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, on December 22, 2004, The U.S. Department 
of Agriculture Forest Service published a final rule that will 
streamline the process used by the Forest Service in revising forest 
management plans.
  I am pleased that the Department completed work on this important 
regulation. Ultimately, this rule will help local forest managers 
provide future generations with healthier forests, cleaner air, cleaner 
water and more abundant wildlife through more efficient management of 
our forests and grasslands. I am also pleased that this regulation 
builds upon one of the important lessons we learned during 
consideration of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act in the 108th 
Congress: emphasis on actual forest management rather than 
administrative paperwork. This will result in our forest managers being 
able to undertake important forest health projects rather than be 
overburdened with administrative processes.
  Although the final planning rule is very comprehensive, I would like 
to point out several key components: It will for the first time 
incorporate implementation and outcome assessment into the forest 
planning process, which will ensure that the forest planning process is 
a dynamic one that can quickly adjust to changing conditions. As we 
learned with the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, a dynamic management 
system allows the Forest Service to address the most time-sensitive 
forest health issues such as wildfire, invasive species, or disease. It 
incorporates meaningful public participation throughout the planning 
process, and ensures that the best available scientific information 
will be used in decision making. It contains a process that will fairly 
and objectively allow us to see whether the Forest Service is getting 
the job done. This reporting process will rely on independent reviews 
of Forest Service land management, will measure actual results against 
intended outcomes, and will incorporate an audit process to produce 
publicly available results. Finally, and most importantly, this rule 
will streamline the planning process, which in turn will save the 
Forest Service both time and money. The current forest plan takes 
between 5 and 7 years; under the new regulation the anticipated 
timeframe is between 2 and 3 years. These savings in both time and 
money will allow our land managers to more quickly complete on-the-
ground projects to improve the health of our Nation's forests.
  For too long our Nation's forests have been imperiled because of a 
planning process that is too cumbersome and takes too long, and usually 
results in forest plans that are out-of-date by the time they are 
finished. I applaud the efforts of the U.S. Forest Service to 
streamline our Nation's forest planning process to reduce red tape and 
paperwork. I am hopeful that this final rule will provide further tools 
for the U.S. Forest Service in appropriately managing our Nation's 
forests.

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