[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 34 (Monday, August 26, 2002)]
[Pages 1395-1398]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Healthy Forests Initiative in Ruch, Oregon

August 22, 2002

    Good morning. Thank you all for being here.
    I just got a firsthand look at the terrible effects of the Squire 
fire. First, I want to thank the fire crews, the men and women of Oregon 
and surrounding States who risk their lives to put these fires out. On 
behalf of a grateful nation, I want to thank you for your service to the 
country, and thank you for what you do.
    I flew over the Biscuit fire today when we were coming in. It's 
devastating. I mean, it is big, and it's a powerful fire that has been 
raging for more than a month. It's amazing the scope of the devastation 
that's taken place in Oregon as well as other Western States. Here in 
this State, a million acres have burned. A million acres have caught on 
fire. Hundreds of millions of trees have been destroyed. Countless lives 
have been affected--the same thing all across the West, a lot of people 
whose lives have been turned upside down. I saw firsthand the effects of 
fire in Arizona. I remember going to that school, Governor, where the 
people were just emotionally spent because of what the fire had done to 
them.
    These devastating fires are--threaten the safety of our communities, 
obviously the lives of the firefighters. They destroy homes. They ruin 
farms. These fires destroy critical wildlife habitat, and they leave 
behind long-lasting environmental damage. And as we work to put out the 
fires and to bring relief to the victims, we have a responsibility as a 
nation to work together to prevent the devastation that can be caused by 
future fires. We have a responsibility to bring sensible policy and put 
it in place.
    Today I'm announcing some steps my administration is going to do to 
restore the health of America's forests, steps that I believe and we 
believe will help prevent the kind of destruction we've seen this year.
    Before I talk about that, I do want to thank Secretary Ann Veneman 
and Secretary Gale Norton for coming and for working together, for 
listening to the voices, such as the voices

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of our Governors. These two ladies understand that not all the genius in 
the world is in Washington, DC, that if we listen to people whose lives 
are affected by managing nature, that we'll probably get better policy--
not probably--will get better policy.
    I want to thank Jim Connaughton, who works on my staff and has 
helped develop this policy, for being here. I want to thank John, the 
Governor of Oregon, John Kitzhaber, for being here. John Kitzhaber and 
Dirk Kempthorne brought the Western Governors together to develop a 
sensible policy as to how to deal with this issue. And Judy Martz and 
Governor Jane Dee Hull of Arizona are with us as well.
    This isn't a Republican issue or Democrat issue. Managing our 
forests is an American issue. And it requires an approach that 
understands there's difference of opinion, and we ought to work together 
to achieve common ground. And John's being here today sends that signal 
loud and clear. I appreciate you so very much, Governor, for coming. 
He's an interesting character who--[laughter]--who I enjoy being around.
    I appreciate Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Gordon Smith, one 
Democrat, one Republican, who have both made up their mind to get 
something done. Senator Wyden has been working with Senator Craig to 
develop sound policy. And of course, Greg Walden, Congressman from this 
event, is a very active voice in reason--reasonable policy to help the 
people of Oregon. I want to thank them for coming as well.
    I want to thank Ron Wenker, who led our tour, did a fine job. Little 
did he know a couple of weeks ago that he'd be here entertaining such 
august company and speaking so eloquently in front of the national press 
corps about his job and about the job of protecting our forests and 
doing the best we can do. I want to thank the community leaders who are 
here, people who care deeply about the future of this region.
    I believe, like you believe, that our forests are one of our 
Nation's great treasures, and therefore, we have a responsibility to 
protect our great treasure. It's one of our responsibilities as citizens 
of our country. And yet, as we've seen, our treasure is being wiped out 
by fire. I've looked, as you have, at why, and it's pretty clear that 
this fire prevention strategy of our country has been short-sighted, and 
we, frankly, haven't done a very good job.
    And when you haven't done a very good job at something, it's time to 
take a step back and assess why and solve the problem. Forest policies 
have not focused on thinning--just haven't. That's reality. That's the 
truth. We haven't had a strategy to clear the forest floor of built-up 
brush and densely packed trees that we have seen firsthand here, and in 
other places around the country, create the fuel, the kindling for 
extremely large fires, like those we're experiencing this year.
    The catastrophic wildfires kill the oldest trees, those which we 
long to preserve. They kill just about everything that grows in the 
soil. It's--we should note that because of short-sighted policy, even 
the sequoias of California, Mr. President, are threatened. The fires 
that ravaged the West have destroyed endangered species habitat. They 
damaged fisheries. They've eroded soil. They've become breeding grounds 
for beetles, as we just saw. We were in the midst of a breeding ground 
for insects that prey upon weakened forests.
    Now, they--our policy has not had the health of our forests in mind. 
The hands-off policy that have contributed to this environmental crisis 
have been well intentioned, no question about that. Nobody is 
questioning the intentions of those who have helped put this policy in 
place. But they're dangerous--dangerous plans. And we've got to do 
something about it. All of us in elected positions must respond.
    Some will say, ``Well, there's thinning taking place,'' and let me 
just put what's taking place in perspective to reality. There's --at the 
rate in which we're thinning our forests, it will take a century, 100 
years, to restore America's 200 million acres of Federal forest lands to 
healthy and safe conditions. That's too long, as far as I'm concerned. I 
know it's too long as far as forest firefighters are concerned. It's too 
long as their Senators are concerned. It's too long. And therefore, 
we've got to develop a different strategy.
    We must be active in our management of our forests. We must thin, 
and we must

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quickly restore the areas that have been damaged by fire. People who 
fight fires and who study forests, who know a lot more about this 
subject than I do, agree. And that's what the American people have got 
to know. Come out and speak to a firefighter about good, commonsense 
policy, and you'll hear what I just said.
    Actively managing forests is going to be the centerpiece of this 
administration. And that's what I made clear to those who work with me. 
And we'll begin by identifying and protecting those areas that are the 
most vulnerable to catastrophic fires, areas which are near our 
communities and our watersheds and other key areas.
    In order to effect our healthy forest policy, we must cut through 
the redtape and endless litigation that blocks efforts to restore forest 
health. For example, a thinning project to prevent catastrophic fire in 
the area where we were just standing was proposed 6 years ago. They 
said, ``Well, what can we do to make sure this area is protected?'' Yet, 
because of burdensome regulatory hurdles and meritless appeals and 
litigation, only a very small portion of this acreage was approved for 
thinning before the fires came through. And we saw the difference 
between an area that had been thinned and an area which had not been 
thinned. And the difference is catastrophic. That's reality.
    So, for the good of Oregon's forests, and really for the good of her 
environment overall and for the good of your economy, I've directed the 
Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Council 
on Environmental Quality to do the following steps: One, to authorize 
thinning projects on an emergency basis in the most critical areas; 
secondly, to speed up the process of developing environmental 
assessments while considering the long-term threat that fire-susceptible 
forests pose to endangered species; and to expedite the appeals process.
    Listen, we want our citizens at the local level to have a voice. We 
want there to be an opportunity for our citizens to speak out. That's 
the great American way. But we must discourage the endless delays that 
prevent good forest policy from going forward. And Congress should pass 
legislation that will ensure that vital forest restoration projects are 
not tied up in courts.
    I mean, we can do some of this through administrative action, but 
Congress needs to act. And I'm confident Congress will act in a way that 
doesn't exclude people, that, as a matter of fact, encourages citizens 
to participate. I mean, there's nothing better than having citizens 
worrying about how to conserve assets and resources.
    I signed some legislation earlier this month in what they call a 
supplemental, which provides protection for Black Hills National Forest 
of South Dakota. The reason I bring that up is that, slowly but surely, 
Members of Congress understand that when there's a problem, we've got to 
deal with it. And my attitude is, if--and I recognize the situation is 
different in Oregon than perhaps in South Dakota, but managing the 
forest isn't. Good forest policy makes sense. And so if it's good enough 
for South Dakota or part of South Dakota, it ought to be good enough for 
Oregon and Arizona and Montana.
    And so I want us to move forward with policy. And there's other ways 
to make sure that the communities are involved. John and I were talking 
about--to make sure that any good Federal policy recognizes that--I 
think Ron might have said it--one size doesn't fit all. Obviously, the 
Oregon situation is different from other States. The health of the 
forest isn't different; it's the same. But how to make sure we have a 
healthy forest requires input from local people. The Congress passed 
these pilot programs that encouraged partnerships of nonprofits or local 
governments or private companies to come together to remove small trees 
and brush that fuel dangerous fires. That makes sense.
    But I don't understand why they need to be pilot programs. If it 
makes sense and we want to manage our forests, these pilot programs 
ought to be not pilot programs but permanent programs all around the 
country, so that we don't have a century of work ahead of us to make our 
forests healthy. We compress that time to a reasonable amount of time so 
our children and grandchildren can have healthy forests, and so your 
children and grandchildren aren't fighting fires all the time.

[[Page 1398]]

    I also believe strongly that the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan made 
sense. It was a plan where people from different constituency groups 
came together to talk about how to, first, make the forests healthy. And 
that is the primary concern of this policy or any policy--ought to be 
how to manage our treasure. But at the same time, the plan talked about 
how to protect the wildlife habitat found here in Oregon, how to make 
sure that recreational areas were in good shape.
    And there was a dividend, by the way, to the Northwest plan of 1.1 
billion board feet taken a year of sustainable timbering and that, of 
course, is so people can find work. And that makes sense to me, 
particularly in a place and a part of the world where people are having 
trouble finding work.
    Good forest policy yield a dividend. They yield healthy forests. 
They yield places where people can bring their families. They protect 
the endangered species, but it also--one of the dividends is work, where 
people can put food on the table. And that's important. The human 
condition is very important, as far as I'm concerned. When somebody is 
looking for work who can't find work, we need to do something about it.
    So I want to thank you all for welcoming us here today. This is a 
classic example of what is possible, given what happened and what is 
happening. It is possible to have sound forest policy that will protect 
against fire. It's possible. It is possible for us to work together to 
achieve a good strategy to protect a national treasure.
    My administration looks forward to working with both Republican and 
Democrat alike to forge the policies to leave behind a legacy of healthy 
forests.
    Thanks for coming. Thank you for your concern, your deep concern 
about this beautiful State, this wonderful area.
    May God bless you all, and may God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 11:50 a.m. following a tour of the Squire 
Peak fire area. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. John Kitzhaber of 
Oregon; Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho; Gov. Judy Martz of Montana; Gov. 
Jane Dee Hull of Arizona; and Ron Wenker, district manager, Medford 
District Bureau of Land Management, Medford, OR.