[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 39, Number 34 (Monday, August 25, 2003)]
[Pages 1089-1094]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in Redmond, Oregon

August 21, 2003

    Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you. You know you're in a pretty 
good country when you see a lot of cowboy hats out in the crowd--
[laughter]--and when you got horses guarding the perimeter.
    Thank you for your hospitality. It is like home, except the 
temperature seems to be a little cooler and a little more hospitable. 
But thanks for your hospitality. I'm thrilled to be in Deschutes County, 
Oregon. I've been planning to come for a while. I'm sad that I had to 
come to see another forest fire.
    We just toured two fires that are burning in the area. It's hard to 
describe to our fellow citizen what it means to see a fire like we saw. 
It's the holocaust; it's devastating. We saw the big flames jumping from 
treetop to treetop, which reminds me about the brave men and women, what 
they have to face when they go in to fight the fires. I first want to 
start by thanking those who put their lives at risk to protect our 
communities, to protect our people, to protect our national treasures, 
the U.S. forests. I appreciate our firefighters. All those firefighters 
know something that I've come to realize, that we can thin our forests, 
that we can use commonsense policy to make the fires burn less hot and 
protect our forests.
    And that's what I want to talk about here. Before I do so, I want to 
thank Secretary Ann Veneman, Secretary Gale Norton for doing a fine job 
on behalf of all Americans. I want you to notice that these two ladies 
are from the West. I appreciate Dale Bosworth, who's the Chief of the 
U.S. Forest Service. I also want to thank Leslie Weldon. Where are you, 
Leslie? Where? Oh, hi, Leslie. Thank you. Leslie is the Forest 
Supervisor of the Deschutes National Forest. She was our tour guide. She 
is a dedicated professional, just like the people she works with from 
the U.S. Forest Service. I want to thank those who work for the U.S. 
Forest Service, for the BLM, for serving your Nation in the communities 
in which you live. I appreciate the hard work you put in. I appreciate 
your dedication to the preservation and conservation of one of the 
greatest assets the United States has, which is our land and our 
forests.
    I appreciate your Governor, Governor Kulongoski, who came with me 
today. I'm honored that he is here. It should say loud and clear to 
everybody that preserving and protecting our forests is not a political 
issue. It is not a partisan issue. It is a practical issue that we must 
come together and solve. So I'm very honored that the Governor is here.
    I'm also honored to be with the two members of the legislative 
branch of our Government in Washington, DC--a great United States 
Senator, Gordon Smith, and a great Congressman, Greg Walden. I 
appreciate being able to work with these two fine men. You've just got 
to know they represent your interests well. They're constantly talking 
about the people of Oregon. Every time I'm around them, they bring you 
up. They say, ``Let's have some commonsense policy in Washington, DC, to 
help people help themselves in our State. That's all we want. We

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just want the Federal Government to respond in a responsible way.'' And 
that's what we're here to talk about, how best to be able to do that.
    I don't know if you know this, but today are the Waldens' 21st 
anniversary. Congratulations to you both. Eileen must be a patient 
soul--[laughter]--kind of like Laura. We both married above ourselves, 
Congressman. [Laughter]
    Laura sends her love and her best, by the way. She's still in Texas 
and wasn't able to travel today, but I wish she could come and see how 
beautiful this country is. See, we both grew up in the desert of west 
Texas. This is really a beautiful part of the world.
    I appreciate the mayors who are here today, Mayor Unger of Redmond, 
Mayor Teater of Bend, Mayor Allen, Mayor Uffelman, Mayor Elliott. I 
thank the mayors and the local authorities who have taken time to come 
and give me a chance to visit with you. I appreciate your service to 
your communities. I think mayor is a little tougher than being President 
because you've got to make sure the potholes are all full and the 
garbage is collected. [Laughter]
    I appreciate Garland Brunoe, who is the Chairman of the Confederated 
Tribes of the Warm Springs, and I want to thank all the tribal members 
who are here with us today as well.
    Today when I landed, I had the honor of meeting a fellow named 
Curtis Hardy. Curtis is sitting right there. The interesting thing about 
Curtis is, he's volunteered 5,000 hours over the last 10 years to the 
Deschutes National Forest. I asked Leslie if he was doing any good. 
[Laughter] She said, ``Absolutely.'' She says it's people like Curtis 
Hardy that make her job easier. It's very important for people to know 
that they can take time out of their lives, if they care about their 
beautiful surroundings, and make a positive, significant difference. 
Curtis is doing that. Curtis, thank you for setting such a good example, 
and I appreciate your service.
    Ann was right: I was here a year ago. Unfortunately, when I came a 
year ago, I witnessed the effects of fires. I saw the Biscuit fire and 
the Squires Peak fire. Both of them were devastating forest fires. They 
destroyed buildings and homes, changed lives. They destroyed natural 
resources. The Biscuit fire alone scorched nearly half a million acres, 
cost more than $150 million. It burned down over a dozen homes. You 
know, anytime our communities face the devastation of wildfire, it 
really does test the character of the people. For those whose lives have 
been deeply affected and probably will be affected by this fire, we send 
our sympathies, and we wish God's blessings on their families.
    The Federal Government can help. We will give grants, and the FEMA 
grants, all the SBA loans, the different things that happen when there's 
an emergency. I can assure you, Gordon and Greg will be all over us to 
make sure we appropriate the proper money to spend.
    But the Government has got to do more than just spend money. I mean, 
we'll spend it, but we've got to effect wise policy, it seems like to 
me. I mean, how often--we write checks a lot on firefighting, and we'll 
continue to do that. But it seems like to me we ought to put a strategy 
in place to reduce the amount of money that we have to spend on 
emergency basis by managing our forests in a better, more commonsensical 
way.
    The forest policy--the conditions of our forests didn't happen 
overnight. The experts who know something about forests will tell you 
that the condition, the overgrown and unhealthy condition, of a lot of 
our forest land happened over a century. It's taken a while for this 
situation to evolve. It may interest you to know that today there's 190 
million acres of forests and woodlands around the country which are 
vulnerable to catastrophic fire because of brush and small trees that 
have been collecting for literally decades. A problem that has taken a 
long time to develop is going to take a long time to solve. So what 
we're going to talk about today is the beginnings of a solution. But 
we've got to get after it now. We have a problem in Oregon and around 
our country that we must start solving.
    You see, the undergrowth issue, the problem of too much undergrowth, 
creates the conditions for unbelievably hot fires. These forest 
firefighters will tell you that these hot fires that literally explode 
the big trees can be somewhat mitigated by clearing out the

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undergrowth. And by the way, the undergrowth chokes off nutrients from 
older trees. It makes our forests more susceptible to disease. We got a 
problem. It's time to deal with the problem. And that's what we're going 
to talk about.
    Before I talk about the solutions, I do want people to understand 
that if you are concerned about the endangered species, then you need to 
be concerned about catastrophic fire. Fires destroy the animals which, 
obviously, live amidst the raging fire. If you're concerned about old 
growth, large stands of timber, then you better be worried about the 
conditions that create devastating fires. The worst thing that can 
happen to old stands of timber is these fires. They destroy the big 
trees. They're so explosive in nature that hardly any tree can survive. 
We saw that with our own eyes, choppering in here. Thinning underbrush 
makes sense, makes sense to save our species. It makes sense--of 
animals. It makes sense to save the big stands of trees.
    You know, what I'm telling you about a strategy to deal with our 
forests to make them healthy is not something that was invented in 
Washington, DC. It's the collective wisdom of scientists, wildlife 
biologists, forestry professionals, and as importantly, the men and 
women who risk their life on an annual basis to fight fires. That's who 
I've been listening to.
    Our administration is taking their advice. Congress needs to take 
their advice. Congress needs to listen to the--[applause]. So having 
listened and realized that we've got a problem, I've proposed a Healthy 
Forest Initiative. And I proposed it right here in Oregon one year ago. 
At my direction, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of 
Agriculture and the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, 
Connaughton, who is here with us today, on my staff--these three--that's 
why they're here, by the way. I want you to look at them. They are 
responsible for putting this initiative into place.
    Their job is to cut through bureaucratic redtape to complete 
urgently needed thinning projects. That was the first task I gave them. 
We're going to focus on areas where thinning is the most critical, where 
the damage can be most severe by--caused by fires. We're working with 
the Western Governors Association to determine projects of the highest 
priority in each State. In other words, we're setting priorities, and 
we're getting after it.
    We are speeding up the process of environmental assessments and 
consultations required by law. Look, we want people to have input. If 
somebody has got a different point of view, we need to hear it. This is 
America. We expect to hear people's different points of view in this 
country. But we want people to understand that we're talking about the 
health of our forests, and if there's a high priority, we need to get 
after it before the forests burn and people lose life.
    We're expediting the administrative appeals process so that disputes 
over thinning projects are resolved more quickly. We want to hear 
people. We want them to have a point of view. We want to save our 
forests, too. That's what we want to do here in America. We want to deal 
with the problem. Nobody's to blame. The problem has existed for years. 
Now let us be the ones who start solving the problem. And that's what 
I'm going to ask Congress to do when they come back.
    Our approach relies on the experience and judgment and hard work of 
local people. Metolius Conservation Area is such an example. Leslie was 
describing it to me. The Friends of the Metolius, a conservation group, 
came to the Forest Service with an interesting idea. What I'm about to 
tell you is called a collaborative effort--to do some commonsense things 
in our forests to protect them and protect the communities around the 
forests.
    So these good folks came and said, ``Look, why don't we set up some 
sample plots in the Deschutes Forest to be treated with thinning and 
burning and mowing and to leave some of the plots untreated, so people 
can see the difference between a treated plot and an untreated plot, to 
kind of break through the myths, the mythology, the propaganda of what 
it means to protect our forests?'' And the Forest Service agreed, and 
they worked together, and they shared costs. And thousands have now come 
and have seen good forest management practices in place. They've seen 
what is possible to do. And I want to thank the folks for working hard 
in a collaborative way to share your wisdom and

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your hard work, to help educate our fellow citizens about the realities 
of what we're talking about when it comes to maintaining a healthy 
forest.
    Bill Anthony is not with us today--I think he's fighting the fires--
deserves a lot of credit for this program, as does Leslie. They're in 
the process, by the way, of treating 12,500 acres--additional 12,500 
acres. I want to thank the Friends of the Metolius. I want to thank the 
local citizenry here for doing what is right. Ranger Bill says community 
participation has been critical to the success of the project, and 
that's the kind of initiatives we like and want. We want initiatives 
where the Federal Government works closely with the State government, 
with community groups, conservation groups, local people, in order to do 
what is right for our country and our States. You see, there's too much 
confrontation when it comes to environmental policy. There's too much 
zero-sum thinking. What we need is cooperation, not confrontation.
    I appreciate the stewardship contracting programs that will be going 
on. I hope you do, as well. You see, the thinning projects that are 
going to go forward should help some of these local communities that 
hurt. And by the way, I fully understand Oregon's unemployment issue. 
It's the highest in the Nation. I'm sorry it's the way it is. There are 
some things we can do to help people. We want people working. We want 
people to have food on the table.
    Stewardship contracting--what that means is, is that private 
organizations or businesses will be able to do the necessary thinning, 
and they'll be able to remove small trees and undergrowth, and they'll 
be able to keep part of what they remove as partial payment. That seems 
to make sense to me. First of all, somebody's working. It seems like the 
taxpayers come out okay. After all, if you're able to keep some of the 
thinning, which protects our forests, as part of the payment, it's a--
takes a little load off the taxpayer. The local community's tax base 
will get better when somebody spends the money they make from thinning 
the projects, and the forests are more healthy. Stewardship contracting 
makes sense. It's an integral part of our plan.
    I'll give you a quick report. The Healthy Forests Initiative is 
producing results. Last year, we treated 2\1/4\ million acres of 
overgrown forests. By the end of the fiscal year in September, we will 
have treated more than 2.6 million acres of forest and rangeland. We're 
slowly but surely getting after it, as we say in Crawford, Texas. We're 
beginning to deal with the problem that we've--that will help make the 
country, by solving the problem, a better place.
    This year alone, we'll spend more than $43 million of forest 
treatment projects here in the State of Oregon. And as we go forward 
with the Healthy Forests Initiative, if we can ever get it authorized by 
Congress, I look forward to working with the appropriators, working with 
Gordon and Greg, to get the projects funded. We just don't want the 
initiative authorized; we want the initiative funded so we can solve the 
problem.
    But the initiative I've laid out is one step. Congress needs to act. 
People ought to understand up there in Washington that--or over there in 
Washington, way over there in Washington--[laughter]--that current law 
makes it too difficult to expedite the thinning of forests because it 
allows the litigation process to delay progress and projects for years 
and years. That's the problem. And those delays, the endless litigation 
delays, endanger the health of our forests and the safety of too many of 
our communities.
    So I've asked Congress to fix the problem. Gordon and Greg are 
working hard to fix the problem. The law called the ``Healthy Forests 
Restoration Act'' would bring government and communities together to 
select high-priority projects relevant to local needs. In other words, 
it's part of the prioritization of what I just described to you earlier. 
It would also direct courts to consider the long-term threats to forest 
health that could result if thinning projects are delayed. In other 
words, it says, ``We have a national goal to protect our--one of our 
finest assets, and that is our forests. And therefore, you--Mr. Judge, 
make sure you understand that a healthy forest is a part of your 
consideration when you're listening to these appeals.''
    The legislation makes forest health the priority, a high priority, 
when courts are forced to resolve disputes. And it places reasonable

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time limits on litigation after the public has had an opportunity to 
comment and a decision has been made. Congress must move forward with 
this bill. It's a good, commonsense piece of legislation that will make 
our forests more healthy, that will protect old-growth stands, that will 
make it more likely endangered species will exist, that will protect our 
communities, that will make it easier for people to enjoy living on the 
edges of our national forests.
    The House of Representatives passed the bill--and I appreciate your 
good work, Greg. The Agriculture Committee has agreed on a bill. The 
Agriculture Committee agreed on a bill, and when the Senate returns, 
they need to pass the healthy forests legislation and get it to my desk.
    The administration is also working to help communities of this 
region by implementing the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. This plan was 
designed to protect wildlife and to support a viable woods-products 
industry in the Northwest. It was designed, obviously, before I arrived 
in Washington. It's a good plan. It makes a lot of sense. It was a plan 
forged by conservationists, industry professionals, government officials 
who came together to decide on a reasonable target for sustainable 
timber harvesting on a small portion of our forests. The plan calls for 
harvesting of about a billion board foot of timber per year. It will 
strengthen our communities. It will help rural America. It will help our 
homebuilders. It makes sense. It was a promise made to the people of the 
Northwest. It's a promise I intend to work with the Federal Government 
to keep.
    Good forest policy can be the difference between lives surrounded by 
natural beauty or natural disaster. And we're watching a natural 
disaster unfold right here in this part of the world. And we can do a 
better job protecting our assets. We can do a better job protecting 
people in the communities. Now it's time for people who represent 
different parts of the country to come together to see the devastation 
that takes place out West on an annual basis and allow these good people 
out West to manage their assets in a way that we'll not only be able to 
say we've done a job well-done for future generations but we're 
protecting something that we hold dear, and that is the forest lands of 
America.
    Before I finish, I do want to talk about another conservation issue 
that affects the people of the West Coast, and that's energy 
reliability. First, I thought our Government response to the power 
outage out East and in the Midwest was a good response. You know, after 
September the 11th, we came together in a way to be able to better deal 
with emergencies that affected America. The Federal Government, the 
State government, the local governments all worked in a very close way, 
and the communications was good. The system survived. The system 
responded well. We had a lot of good people who didn't panic and dealt 
with the problem in a very professional way. And I want to thank our 
citizens out East and up in the Midwest for doing such a fine job of 
responding to a very difficult situation and being respectful for their 
neighbor.
    And yesterday Secretary of Energy Abraham and the Canadian Minister 
of Natural Resources met in Detroit. It's the joint effort to find out 
what went wrong. We're going to try to find out as quickly as we can 
exactly what caused the rolling blackout. But this rolling blackout and 
the problem we've got here with hydropower, the problem in California 
recently should say loud and clear to members of the legislative branch 
of Government that we've got an energy issue that we need to solve in 
America.
    I called together a--put the task force together and made 105 
recommendations for our Government to look at about a comprehensive 
national energy plan, one that encourages conservation, one that 
encourages energy efficiency, one that realizes that we've got to be 
less dependent on foreign sources of energy. And part of that was to 
recognize that our infrastructure, the electricity infrastructure, needs 
to be modernized.
    And we've taken some action without law passed by the legislative 
branch. For example, there's a bottleneck that plagued California for 
years. In other words, electricity wasn't able to move as freely from 
south to north, north to south, as we wanted. And we're now permitting 
lines so that that bottleneck can be removed. And the Department of 
Energy is working with the private

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sector to get the lines up and running so we can move more electricity.
    And we've been dealing with the shortage of hydropower. As you know, 
you've got an issue in the Klamath Basin, and we've been trying to come 
up with reasonable policy so that people can farm the land and fish can 
live at the same time.
    But Congress needs to act. I don't know if you know this or not, but 
for many years the reliability of electricity in America depended on 
companies observing voluntary standards to prevent blackouts. I don't 
think those standards ought to be voluntary. I think they ought to be 
mandatory. And if there's not reliability backup for electricity, there 
ought to be a serious consequence for somebody who misuses the public 
trust. And Congress needs to have that in the law.
    We ought to authorize the Federal Government to step in as last 
resort to put up new power lines where it best serves the national 
interest. We ought to make investment--new investment in a transmission 
of electricity easier to make. We've got some old laws that were passed 
a long time ago that make it harder for people to invest in new 
electricity lines, new transmission lines. That doesn't make any sense. 
If we've got a problem, let's deal with it.
    The law that passed out of the House of Representatives deals with 
it. I'm confident--and the Senate passed a bill--in other words, out of 
the two bodies, they need to get together. I talked to Pete Domenici, 
the Senator from New Mexico. I talked to Billy Tauzin, the chairman from 
Louisiana. They both agreed on what I've just described to you as 
necessary in a new bill, so that we can say we solved the problem; we're 
modernizing our electricity system so the people of America don't have 
their lives disrupted like what happened during the rolling blackout 
that took place last week. So we're going to get us a good energy bill. 
We need an energy bill, an energy strategy, and we need the will to 
implement it.
    Let me conclude by telling you that I'm incredibly proud of our 
country. You know, we've been through a lot. We've been through a 
recession. You're still in it here in Oregon. We had these people attack 
us because of what we stand for. We love freedom in America, and we're 
not going to change. We stood tall and strong. We're a determined 
country, to not only protect ourselves; we're determined as well to 
protect ourselves by spreading freedom throughout the world. We know 
that free societies will be peaceful societies. We believe in America 
that freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to 
every single human being on the face of the Earth.
    We've been through some tough times, and these tough times came to 
the right nation. Our values are strong. Our people are courageous and 
strong and compassionate. I love being the President of the greatest 
nation on the face of the Earth.
    May God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 3:23 p.m. at the Deschutes County 
Fairgrounds. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Ted Kulongoski of 
Oregon; Mayors Alan Unger of Redmond, Oran Teater of Bend, Richard Allen 
of Madras, Stephen Uffelman of Prineville, and David Elliott of Sisters, 
OR; Garland Brunoe, tribal council chairman, Confederated Tribes of Warm 
Springs; Bill Anthony, Sisters District Ranger, Deschutes National 
Forest; and Minister of Natural Resources Herb Dhaliwal of Canada.