SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
Page 1 TOP OF DOC
80–804 PDF
2002
2002
THE STATUS OF THE ROADLESS AREA CONSERVATION RULE
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS,
OVERSIGHT, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JUNE 27, 2002
Serial No. 107–17
Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
Page 2 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
agriculture.house.gov
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
LARRY COMBEST, Texas, Chairman
JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio
Vice Chairman
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
NICK SMITH, Michigan
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
JOHN R. THUNE, South Dakota
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
BOB RILEY, Alabama
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
DOUG OSE, California
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
CHARLES W. ''CHIP'' PICKERING, Mississippi
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska
Page 3 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
SAM GRAVES, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota
——— ———
CHARLES W. STENHOLM, Texas,
Ranking Minority Member
GARY A. CONDIT, California
COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi
JOHN ELIAS BALDACCI, Maine
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
DAVID D. PHELPS, Illinois
KEN LUCAS, Kentucky
MIKE THOMPSON, California
Page 4 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
JOE BACA, California
RICK LARSEN, Washington
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
ANÍBAL ACEVEDO-VILÁ, Puerto Rico
RON KIND, Wisconsin
RONNIE SHOWS, Mississippi
Professional Staff
WILLIAM E. O'CONNER, JR., Staff Director
LANCE KOTSCHWAR, Chief Counsel
STEPHEN HATERIUS, Minority Staff Director
KEITH WILLIAMS, Communications Director
Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
Vice Chairman
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Illinois
DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida
Page 5 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina,
Ranking Minority Member
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
ANÍBAL ACEVEDO-VILÁ, Puerto Rico
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
JOHN ELIAS BALDACCI, Maine
RONNIE SHOWS, Mississippi
BRENT W. GATTIS, Subcommittee Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
Clayton, Hon. Eva M., a Representative in Congress from the State of North Carolina, opening statment
Submitted material
Goodlatte, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia, opening statement
Thune, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the State of South Dakota, prepared statement
Letter of June 5, 2002 to the President
Witnesses
Christensen, Ron, chair, Public Lands Steering Committee, National Association of Counties, Gila County, AZ
Prepared statement
Page 6 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Gehrke, Craig, regional director, the Wilderness Society, Boise, ID
Prepared statement
Rey, Mark E., Under Secretary, Natural Resources and the Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement
Scar, Dick, owner, Trailhead Outfitters, Buena Vista, CO
Prepared statement
Smith, David, president, Society of American Foresters, Blacksburg, VA
Prepared statement
Submitted Material
DellaSala, Dominick A., forest ecologist, World Wildlife Fund, statement
THE STATUS OF THE ROADLESS AREA CONSERVATION RULE
THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2002
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Department Operations,
Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:40 a.m., in room 1300, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Bob Goodlatte (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Pombo, Rehberg, Clayton, and Berry.
Staff present: Brent Gattis, subcommittee staff director; Lance Kotschwar, chief counsel; Callista Gingrich, clerk; Kathleen Elder, Anne Hazlett, Ryan O'Neal, Kellie Rogers, and Quinton Robinson.
Page 7 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. GOODLATTE. I want to welcome everybody and acknowledge all of our panelists. We have a vote on the floor, so we will convene the subcommittee hearing as soon as I get back from that vote. Thank you.
[Recess.]
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB GOODLATTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Mr. GOODLATTE. We will try again. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry to review the roadless areas in our national forests will come to order. I have an opening statement.
President Theodore Roosevelt once said: The Nation behaves well when it treats its natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.
It was under Teddy Roosevelt's watch and through his love of nature that our national forests were first created. President Roosevelt and his friend and confidante Gifford Pinchot, saw something special in our Nation's forested lands that they wanted to conserve for future generations of nature lovers. I think we can all agree that our national forests are still special places that we all treasure. Even within our national forests, we can find unique areas that distinguish themselves from other national forest areas, and roadless areas are one such area.
When then-President Clinton announced on October 13, 1999, the beginning of a unique to rulemaking process to manage these areas, he made the announcement from the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in my home State of Virginia, in fact, in my congressional district. Comparing the forests of today to the forests of a century ago, when they had been nearly decimated by overuse, President Clinton described them as ''the land at once no one wanted is now a thriving forest everyone can enjoy.'' I am one of the millions of visitors who go to the forest every year to enjoy natural surroundings. In fact, I hike in the forest most every weekend. It is indeed a very special place. But it is important to recognize that this forest did not grow to be the forest it is today without management and natural processes working side by side.
Page 8 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
As I look at the national forests across the west going up in flames today, I am saddened by the thought that 100 years ago Teddy Roosevelt spoke about our responsibility to leave the land in better condition than we found it for the next generation. And when I recall Gifford Pinchot's principle that has guided the management of forests for over a century, to manage our Nation's forests for the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run. I think, where did we go wrong, and what do we do about it now? How do we save our forests?
Many of our Nation's forests are sick. Earlier this week, President Bush declared parts of Arizona a Federal disaster area because of forest fires. The Governor of Colorado also declared an emergency in his State because of the catastrophic wildfires. In this, is this how we take care of our land for the next generation to come? These fires are burning so intensely that crews are finding areas where the heat of the fire actually melted the soil. These areas won't resemble forests again for at least a century, meaning the next generation won't have these forests to enjoy. It is time, in fact, overdue, to actively work to conserve our Nation's forested treasures. President Clinton quoted Gifford Pinchot as saying, ''We must prefer results to routine'' and said he liked that a lot.
I wholeheartedly agree. It is time to discuss the condition we want to leave the forests in for our children and grandchildren. It is time to end the rhetoric swirling around the roadless debate of protection versus destruction and wilderness versus timber. It is time we discuss this issue in its entirety, and that is the issue of forest health.
How do we save our forests? Do we save them by stopping restoration management in the very areas we have identified as being unique and special, the roadless areas? We are witnessing the result of blocking restoration and stewardship in our forests, and the result is devastation. We need to work to find a solution to our forest health crisis so these unique and special areas will be here for the next generation along with all of national forests.
The roadless rule that was finalized in January 2001 does not ensure conservation of our roadless areas. If we truly want to save these treasures, we need to reopen the dialog and discuss real answers to this very real forest health crisis.
Page 9 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
It is now my pleasure to recognize the ranking Democrat on the committee, the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Mrs. Eva Clayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EVA M. CLAYTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Mrs. CLAYTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this hearing. The reason for calling this hearing is to see how we can indeed move forward in managing the stewardship of our forests. Increasingly, the words and our beliefs about the forests sound very similar that we have unanimity in our respect in the value of a forest, but we have differences in the ways.
The roadless areas, the roadless bill, and the rules indeed have created a lot of debate, but there has been a lot of discussion about the roadless rule. In fact, it has been the most engaged one of all, and it can't be said that this hasn't been debated. I think continued debate may be good, but it is not because there hasn't been debate already. I am certainly one to try to resolve the issue.
I want to just share my belief that is similar to what the religious community shared with me some time about that, and it represents my own faith. They said:
Many members of the religious community played a significant role in urging development of the strong policy to protect the underdeveloped areas of our national forests. We were there in hearings, letters, and prayers. We have rejoiced at the prospect of protecting 58.5 millions acres of some of our Nation's most pristine forests.
The instructions to care for the creation is found in the Scriptures as well as other religious and ethical teachings. The Earth belongs to God.
Page 10 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
It says it in Psalms 24 and Leviticus:
And God has declared that the totality of creation is very good. We are tenants called to till and to keep the garden. Moreover, it is often in the wild places such as the pristine forests that we encounter creation's sheer magnificence. There in awe and serenity, our hearts turn to God. We praise God for all the goodness we have received, and we are glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done marvelous things.
It would be sad to deny to the future generation wild forest areas that offers this opportunity for spiritual substance. We pray that you—
they also wrote to the President as well as to us—
and your administration formulate and promote plans for protecting national forest roadless areas that implement stewardship in the fullest sense. Please seize this opportunity to establish a legacy that clearly demonstrates we really care about our offspring and the web of life upon which all lives, including our own, our dependents.
So much of this blessed land has been already made over into our own image and one often to the detriment of creation. With the elements of life, including water, air, soil, plant, animals, and ourselves. Let us not lose this vital opportunity to honor God and our creation.
Finally, the Christian Environment Council, which applauds this roadless policy bill today that they have. They say it's a major step towards protecting of the pristine of God's marvelous work. The CEC maintains that central to our Christian lives is our belief that all in the environment belongs to God. As people of faith, we are deeply concerned about our responsibility to the forests and to God's marvelous creation.
I would like to enter the full text of that, Mr. Chairman, into the record.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, so ordered.
Page 11 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mrs. CLAYTON. That's it.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlewoman.
Congressman Thune has asked that his statement be included in the record, if there is no objection so ordered.
PREPARED STATEMENT HON. JOHN THUNE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
Thank you Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Clayton for allowing me to be a part of this hearing today. I want to thank the panel for their time today. I especially want to thank Under Secretary Rey for joining us, again.
As you may know, I, along with 49 other Members, sent a letter to President Bush in opposition to the Roadless Area Conservation rule, asking him not to codify or administratively implement the rule. I would like to ask unanimous consent that the letter be made a part of the record today.
Let me start by saying that I have several concerns with the roadless rule. First, this Clinton-era plan was a top-down decision that did not include input from local forest managers. Rather, the decision was made by a small group of environmentalists and presidential advisors.
The Black Hills National Forest (BHNF) in South Dakota is in the middle of revising its forest plan. This plan has a roadless component. In fact, one of the most contentious revision topics has been management of roadless areas, but through a lot of hard work and dedication, the local stakeholders involved reached a compromise agreement.
Yet, despite all of this local involvement and input, the Clinton administration ignored the efforts made by local officials and concerned citizens and instead decided that it should impose a one-size-fits-all roadless policy.
It is outrageous that the Forest Service has had to conduct more ''analysis paralysis'' of the forest plan in order to deal with roadless and/or unroaded areas. I guess what's most frustrating is at its heart, this roadless initiative process is simply another example of Washington, DC decisions trumping local decisions—and that is wrong.
Page 12 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Second, the roadless rule would negatively affect the health of literally millions of acres of national forest land. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has identified nearly 40 million acres of National Forest land, some of which is roadless forest land, that are at serious risk of catastrophic fire loss and bug infestation, such as is occurring with the pine beetle epidemic in the Black Hills National Forest. This Clinton proposal would limit access to fight forest fires and effectively manage our Nation's forest lands.
Third, this rule harms sportsmen by denying many of them access to public lands. In March 2000, sportsmen testified before the House Committee on Resources that the Clinton administration's roadless policies would make it more difficult for hunters and fishermen to use public land to recreate.
Decisions affecting the lands that South Dakotans live, work and recreate on should be made locally, it's just that simple. Local land managers are better able to make decisions affecting South Dakota than are Washington, DC bureaucrats.
As an avid sportsman, I understand the importance of protecting our environment. However, the Clinton-era roadless proposal is not based on sound science and will not only damage habitat and wildlife, but will also negatively impact outdoor enthusiasts and local communities by restricting access to public lands.
Let me conclude by saying that we have enough forest health problems in the Black Hills National Forest with the pine beetle infestation in Beaver Park and the overgrowth in the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve, without dealing with this top-down roadless proposal. Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman for allowing me to participate in this hearing.
Mr. GOODLATTE. We are now pleased to invite the panel to the table. We again welcome back Mr. Mark Rey, Under Secretary, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture. We also welcome Mr. David Smith, president, Society of American Foresters, from Blacksburg, VA; Mr. Ron Christensen, Chairman, Public Lands Steering Committee, National Association of Counties, Gila County, AZ; Mr. Dick Scar, owner, Trailhead Outfitters, Buena Vista, CO, and Mr. Greg Gehrke, regional director of the Wilderness Society, Boise, ID.
Page 13 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I would like to welcome all of you, and tell you that your written statements will be made a part of the record. We would ask that you limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes. And we are pleased to start with Under Secretary Rey.
STATEMENT OF MARK REY, UNDER SECRETARY, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. REY. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today to address the status of the roadless area conservation rule. This administration recognizes that inventoried roadless areas contain important environmental values that warrant protection. Appropriate protection in management should be crafted through an open and fair process that addresses the legitimate concerns of States, tribes, local communities, and all others affected by the rule. After a thorough review of the rule that was published in the Federal Register on January 12, 2001, and the concerns that have been raised about it, Secretary Veneman announced on May 4, 2001 that the Department would implement the roadless area conservation rule, but would take actions that would ensure implementation in a responsible and common sense manner consistent with five principals:
First, informed decision-making, using reliable information and drawing on local experience and expertise through the forest planning process.
Second, working together by collaborating with States, tribes, local governments, organizations, and individuals through a process that is fair an open and responsive to local input and information.
Third, protecting forests from the negative effects of severe wildfire, insect, and disease outbreaks.
Page 14 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
And, fourth, protecting communities, homes, and property from the risk of severe wildfire or other risks existing on adjacent Federal lands.
And, finally, protecting access to property by ensuring that States, tribes, and citizens owning property within inventoried roadless areas have access to that property as required by existing law.
On May 10, 2001, the District Court of Idaho preliminarily enjoined implementation of rule. The court indicated the plaintiffs groups were likely to prevail on at least four separate claims under the National Environmental Policy Act, including the public review and comment process. This decision has been appealed, and is now pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In total, the roadless rule is now the subject of nine lawsuits in six Federal district courts and four Federal circuits. While several district courts have stayed proceedings, pending decisions by other Federal courts considering these issues, the administration continues to vigorously defend the rule in the three cases that are proceeding in North Dakota and Wyoming. At present, there are a sufficient number of judges reviewing the roadless rule to fill out the lineup card of a major league baseball team, with several judges left over. Five of these lawsuits have been filed by States Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, and two other States, Colorado and Montana, have submitted filings in the Idaho litigation.
Among the several issues raised, these lawsuits share a common allegation that there was inadequate opportunity for meaningful public review and comment on the roadless rule.
The complete list of filed cases, including plaintiffs' claims and the issues raised against the Federal Government, is attached to my statement for the record.
Following the Secretary's stated intention on May 4th, 2001 to implement the rule, the Forest Service published an advanced notice or proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on July 10, 2001, requesting comments from the public on key issues that have been raised regarding the protection and management of roadless areas. A content analysis of the report of the comments received was released yesterday and will be submitted in its entirety here for the record of the hearing today.
Page 15 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Content analysis is a catalog of public concerns, organized around the questions concerning the roadless area management proposed by the Department in the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. Analysis of the responses reflects two predominant views of natural resource management and prospectives on decision-making. One view supports environmental protection and preservation with roadless decisions imposed at the national level. Other respondents supported responsible resource management of natural resources with decisions made at the local level. The Forest Service will use the responses to the advanced notice in a measured and responsible way to determine how best to proceed with protecting roadless values.
Since the Idaho decision, USDA has taken a number of proactive steps to protect roadless values during the pendency of our rulemaking process. Those are described in greater detail in my prepared statement.
To date, no road construction, no road reconstruction, nor timber harvest proposals in inventory roadless areas have been submitted the Chief of the Forest Service for his proposal, nor have any activities taken place in inventoried roadless areas that would not have been allowed under the Clinton administration rule.
On November 7 of last year, the Forest Roads Working Group, an ad hoc coalition of non-governmental organizations representing conservationists and sportsmen, approached the Forest Service to ask if the agency would be willing to participate in a good-faith dialogue among interested stakeholders in how best to proceed to develop the rule. The Chief's response was affirmative. I will provide the exchange of letters from the Forest Service and the Forest Roads Working Group for the record of this hearing.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the National Forest Management Act creates a legislative mandate for the Secretary of Agriculture to review roadless areas and recommend those that qualify for consideration by Congress as wilderness. The latest example of a working forest planning process is the Chugach National Forest Plan Revision in Alaska. It is my pleasure today to recommend to the Congress approximately 1.4 million acres of wilderness on the Chugach National Forest. And I would like to just show you a few of the areas that are being considered in the Nellie Juan-College Fiord Wilderness. That's College Fiord there, the area surrounding that is being—will be shortly, I should say, recommended by the administration for consideration by Congress as wilderness. Those are some of the islands and shorefront areas in the Nellie Juan.
Page 16 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The Department and the Forest Service are committed to evaluating and appropriately protecting and managing inventoried roadless areas as components of the national forest system. We fully intend to proceed with the reevaluation of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and the protection and management of inventoried roadless areas. Thank you very much for your attention. I would be happy to answer any questions that the subcommittee has.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. We are going to go a little bit out of order here, and without objection of the other members.
Mrs. Clayton is going to have to leave fairly soon and wants to pose some questions to Under Secretary Rey. So I am going to allow her to do that. Then we will go back to the testimony of the other witnesses, and then all the rest of us will pose questions to all of you, including Under Secretary Rey, unless anybody else has to pursue a similar strategy.
Mrs. CLAYTON. I appreciate the chairman's indulgence with me.
One of the questions I wanted to pose was—and I apologize to the other panelists for not posing questions to you. Your testimony is very valuable and we will review it, and thank you for being here.
But I wanted to just have the assurance or your appreciation, how would you manage now the comments that are different from the comments we had before? And I am assuming that on your—is your statement—new commerce July 10, 2001, and the process—whether we agree with the content or not, the process itself certainly engaged more than 600 hearings, and thousands of people throughout the country participated. I mean, we are talking about input, and I gather the lawsuit was based on that.
What do we propose to ensure—what is adequacy, and what do you plan to do that is different that wasn't different before, to make sure that everybody who makes comments on all the hearings have had indeed an input in making a final decision or final rule, whatever the case may be?
Page 17 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. REY. Several things. First, I directed the Forest Service to evaluate the comments on the original rule as well as the comments that we have received on the advanced notice and the comments we will receive when we propose a rule going forward from here. So that when we propose our own rulemaking, that we will be proposing something that reflects all the comments received throughout the process.
Second, I have urged everyone involved in this rulemaking to avoid making conclusionary statements about the form that our proposal will take before we actually put it before the public for their review and comment. I think that is something that the reviewing judge in the Federal district court in Idaho identified as a problem with the previous rulemaking.
Mrs. CLAYTON. That is why I raise the question, because you said there was.
Mr. REY. Right.
Mrs. CLAYTON. You also indicated that the content analysis report is being released today. I gather, is that inclusive of the comments that have been made today, or is that exclusive of 1.6 million?
Mr. REY. What I have sitting before me is the summary of the comments on the original rule, the 1.1 million, I think it is. And then the content analysis of the comments on our advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, which totalled 726,000 comments. So we are actually coming on now to close to 2 million comments.
Mrs. CLAYTON. Well, I guess the question is, have you perfected the efficiency that the judge indicated was in the lawsuit? So the question, if that is why you are going back through this again, what have you instituted you think is different that will convince the judge that you have done all you need to do?
Mr. REY. That is a difficult question to answer at this stage in the proceeding, because I am quite confident that the rulemaking that we produce will also be litigated.
Page 18 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
But what we have done is looked at the issues that the judge has ruled on so far as well as issues that have raised—that have been raised in other proceedings to try to fashion a rulemaking that will not run afoul of at least of those issues. We are committed to the extent possible not to repeat the mistakes that have been made before. I committed to Secretary Veneman, when she selected me, that I would make all new mistakes at a bare minimum.
I think that one of the things that we will have to look at most closely is the care and time frame with which we proceed. The judge in the case in Idaho was sending warning signals all throughout the pendency of the rulemaking that he thought the Government was moving in too much haste to resolve an issue of this magnitude; and, indeed, this rulemaking was done on a double-time basis.
I think we are going to have to take a little bit longer and a more studied look at how to proceed in order to persuade not only this judge, who probably will retain jurisdiction of the rulemaking, but the other judges who will be overseeing our efforts, that we are serious about producing something that will meet the standards of the National Environmental Policy Act and the other laws.
Mrs. CLAYTON. If the appeal is held, will you follow the appeal? Will the rulemaking be stopped? Or, will you go forward?
Mr. REY. I think in either case we will go forward. If the ninth circuit upholds Judge Lodge, we will obviously want to see what the ninth circuit has to say, to see if there is additional guidance that the court is providing us, and we will proceed with our rulemaking. But even if the ninth circuit reverses Judge Lodge, I think we are going to proceed with the rulemaking in any case.
If the ninth circuit reverses Judge Lodge, unfortunately, it would be my guess that the other five proceedings that are presently stayed pending the results in the ninth circuit will be reinitiated by the plaintiffs involved. So this will be sort of an active area of litigation all throughout the pendency of our rulemaking process. We will try to thread our way through that as best we can.
Page 19 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mrs. CLAYTON. Thank you for your response.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. We will now proceed with the testimony of the witnesses.
Mr. Smith, we are delighted to have you with us. You are from not quite my district but very close in Blacksburg, VA. We welcome your testimony.
STATEMENT OF DAVID SMITH, PRESIDENT, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS
Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is David Smith, and I am here today as President of the Society of American Foresters. The Society of American Foresters holds sustainability of forest resources as a core value. The SAF strongly supports roadless areas and supports their conservation. In fact, among most conservation organizations, there is little disagreement about the value of roadless areas. The disagreement is how they are designated, what activities can and cannot occur in them, and the area they encompass.
Now, you have just heard from Under Secretary Rey, there are several pending legal actions against the rule. The SAF advocates a prompt settlement of these cases, and recommends they be settled in the following way:
One, establish national standards to guide roadless area conservation; two, require Forest Service line officers to apply those standards through the forest planning process; number three, eliminate national application of the rule; four, require Forest Service line officers to make decisions about roadless areas at the local level with adequate State and public involvement processes; and five, require compliance with all environmental laws.
Page 20 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
SAF believes that all decisions about the status of roadless areas should be made through the National Forest Management Act and Resource Management Planning process at the individual national forest unit level. A single national decision that affects all roadless areas cannot address the unique forest conditions of each individual roadless area. Unfortunately, the rule prohibited road building on 58.5 million acres, that is an area more than two times the size of the State of Virginia—in 2,827 parcels of public land, offering little or no area specific data.
We believe modifying the rule and addressing its flaws through a localized planning process is preferable to endless litigation, which subsequently allows courts to make decisions that natural resource professionals in active collaboration with the public ought to make.
Our first concern should be the health and integrity of the national forests. A final resolution should allow us all to focus on what matters most, the health of the land, the health of the species that depend on it, including humans. A major concern with the original roadless area decision is the assumption that doing nothing is better than actively tending to something.
We must carefully research and evaluate this assumption prior to each individual designation. These areas are already part of a national forest already set aside for special care and stewardship. Under many real-world conditions, we strongly believe that protection may be seriously compromised by designating an area as roadless.
When we evaluate the complex nature of a forest management decision, it is critical that we fully address and understand several key points:
The long-term nature of the decision in the context of forestry growth and longevity, and the constantly changing composition and structure of forests in question. This decision is based on time frames of tens to hundreds of years.
Page 21 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
There are also many important risk factors that are likely to be encountered in the life of a forest. These include potential for wildfires—we are well aware—insect and disease outbreaks, exotic invasive species, impacts from complications of global climate change in the long-term. Issues related to rare and endangered species. Degradation of recreation values.
The risks to human life of property associated with wildfire regardless how remote the origin of the fire. All fires can eventually impact the wildland-urban interface and, therefore, human life and property.
And, third, the community and economic conditions that are unique to forested areas, the forest area under consideration.
Following analysis of the above, we can make an informed decision about the viability of a specific roadless area as being the most appropriate means to protect roadless resources in question. Some believe that forests as natural ecosystems must be left alone to interact with normal regimes of disturbance, such as fire and insect infestation. The fact is that once humans interact with forests, the option is only appropriate for limited and specific areas. Human activity has already influenced every ecosystem on this planet.
In summary, roadless areas are important to the Society of American Foresters and the millions of people of the United States. Like any other land use management decision, determining the specific objective, the activities that are allowed, and the land areas encompassed must be done on a case-by-case basis. The decision must include input and participation from all stakeholders, be based on current science, be fully compliant with existing laws and environmental regulations, and fully consider site specific biologic, social, and economic conditions. Our ultimate goal is to ensure the sustainability and availability of the resources in perpetuity. The Society of American Foresters is prepared to assist in any way to ensure the future integrity and viability of our Nation's forests and the multitude and values and uses they provide. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here today.
Page 22 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Smith. We are now pleased to have Mr. Ron Christensen. Mr. Christensen.
STATEMENT OF RON CHRISTENSEN, CHAIRMAN, PUBLIC LANDS STEERING COMMITTEE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES
Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee. My name is Ron Christensen. I am a county supervisor in Gila County, AZ. I thank you for holding this hearing today on such an important public policy issue.
Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to serve as the Chair of the Public Land Steering Committee of the National Association of Counties. Thus, I am here today not only representing Gila County, but also America's public land counties.
We wish to make our position crystal clear. Decisions about the road and the roadless needs of the individual forests should be left to the existing forest planning processes. NACo supports maintaining and enhancing public access to Federal public lands so that the full benefits of the multiple use can be realized. We oppose the administrative limitations of access to public lands from road building moratoria, road closures, and decommissioning, and other limiting policies that are not consistent with the affected county transportation infrastructure guidelines.
We believe that roadless area treatment is a distinct site-specific local matter. Changing the status of roadless areas from multiple use management to more restricted management regimes must be made on a case-by-case basis at the forest level instead of a sweeping national approach. Flexibility is essential to properly deal with the particular ecological circumstances of each unroaded area, particularly given our rapid increased knowledge of the natural processes.
Page 23 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
As thousands of acres in Arizona and across the West continue to burn, the need for this flexibility is all the more critical. Over 50 percent of the roadless areas in the continental U.S. are at moderate to high risk of losing key ecosystem components from catastrophic wildfire. The remaining roadless areas will require treatment if they are to remain at low risk of losing ecological value from catastrophic wildfire.
Furthermore, roaded areas have a higher potential for wildfire than on roaded areas, according to the Forest Service. While roadless and roaded areas are about 24 million acres each in region one and four, 50 percent more acres burn in the roadless than in the roaded areas. Clearly, lack of flexibility to build appropriate roads not only will harm the efforts at fire prevention and control, but may also increase the incident of fire.
Catastrophic wildfire could also devastate in-holdings and structures in and adjacent to roadless areas. Within roadless areas are at least 422,000 acres of private land, 43,000 acres of State land, and 29 million acres of Federal land managed by agencies other than the Forest Service. Despite the efforts of States, counties, and private land owners to reduce the risk of insect infestations, disease, and catastrophic wildfire, their efforts cannot be effective without the cooperation of their Forest Service neighbors since these problems know no boundaries.
The fire now devastating eastern Arizona communities today started deep in the forest, and quickly burned out of control as a result of heavy fuel loads and dense tree stands. The Forest Service needs to have the flexibility to construct the roads required to get into the high-risk fire areas and thin them out.
Even apart from the effects of catastrophic wildland fire, the roadless rule will harm communities. Considering the often prohibitive costs of mechanical fuel treatments and helicopter logging without road access, local managers will have fewer tools available for appropriate stewardship, which will in turn likely result in more catastrophic fire and negative impacts on communities.
Page 24 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
NACo also understands there are roadless areas of the national forest that should remain in that status, and that many appropriate management activities can be accomplished without requiring additional roads.
We also believe very strongly that forest roads can and should be constructed and maintained in an environmentally sound manner based on balanced environmental standards, which would reduce the potential for environmental degradation of the forest resources, including water sheds.
Counties play an important role in the future of America's national forests. Through the collaborative forest planning process, we can provide appropriate input on the future of roadless areas at the forest level. The roadless area rule undermines that capacity by proposing sweeping national policy options without regard for the needs of local communities while placing them literally in harm's way.
Thank you for this opportunity to express these comments to you and this committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Christensen appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. Now we are pleased to hear from Mr. Dick Scar.
STATEMENT OF DICK SCAR, OWNER, TRAILHEAD OUTFITTERS, BUENA VISTA, CO
Mr. SCAR. Yes. I appreciate the opportunity to comment in support of H.R. 4865. I am taking off more than two days from work during our busy season to speak to you for 5 minutes today because I feel the protection of roadless areas is so important to my hometown of Buena Vista, CO and to the Nation.
Page 25 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
My family has owned and operated an outdoor specialty shop in Buena Vista for over 30 years, and for 15 years we have led groups on walking trips through many roadless areas of the West.
Buena Vista is nestled between the banks of the upper Arkansas River and the 14,000-foot Collegiate Peaks in our San Isabel National Forest. Businesses like ours are a vital part of the local community. Over the years, our own Chaffee County has become increasingly dependent on the service industry, of which recreation and tourism are big components. Chaffee County contains more than 180,000 acres of roadless forests, plus some of Colorado's most spectacular congressionally-designated wilderness areas. Our customers are outdoor enthusiasts, and most of them spend time enjoying public lands that are roadless. Many local residents visit these places, but many more are from other States and increasingly from other countries.
We found that people seek out areas having no roads because they want to get away from the noise, traffic, pollution, and humdrum of everyday life, and spend some time in a simpler, quieter environment. They enjoy the experience of being in a more natural world where past human activity has been minimal. Quite often, these people have no similar roadless areas in their own States or countries. Quite often also, those of us who live near such areas take them for granted. But nevertheless, having such unspoiled public lands nearby is an extremely valuable asset for us. In fact, the fastest growing segment of Chaffee County's economy is in services, including recreation and tourism businesses like ours.
There are surprisingly few jobs in timber, mining, and other resource extraction industries. In fact, personal income from these types of jobs makes up less than one percent of total personal income in our county. Roadless areas provide an important habitat for wildlife, another big tourist attraction. In 1996, out-of-State hunters and anglers spent $2.8 million in our county, which has fewer than 17,000 residents.
That these roadless areas are so attractive to visit give them definite economic value, but the remaining roadless areas left in our country would still have great economic value to our Nation even if no one visited them for recreation. Large areas of unfragmented habitat help many wildlife species to survive, promoting biodiversity. I think our country is great because of the diversity of our citizens, each free to contribute in making our Nation more inventive, more productive and stronger. And, in a larger sense, greater biodiversity makes our planet a healthier biosphere.
Page 26 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Roadless areas are critically important sources of clear water from watersheds. My own community is among the 60 million people that depend on water which flows out of national forests. Roadless areas also provide a relatively undisturbed baseline to which the effects of human development on other areas can be compared. I worked as a test engineer years ago, and I understand the importance of having such baselines.
But, given the many economic benefits of roadless areas on public land, it is not all about economics; it is about maintaining our position as a great Nation, a great civilization. It is about leaving a large, great legacy for future generations. People cannot create natural environments; they can only alter, damage, or destroy them.
I understand that there are over 380,000 miles of roads on national forests and that there is an $8 billion backlog in maintaining these roads. It makes no sense to me as a businessman to build more roads on national forest when there is so much maintenance being needed now on the roads we have. If I didn't have money to fix a roof on my store, I certainly wouldn't consider putting on an addition. In fact, lack of maintenance could become a serious liability to me. That is why I believe that forest roads that are in such disrepair as to be safety hazards should be closed until they could be fixed.
From where I live outside the Beltway here, I think that the issue has become awfully political here and even partisan. And, yes, the roadless rule was signed by a Democrat President, but the bulk of American people that spoke had asked for this to be done. I turn 60 this year, approaching middle age, and have been a registered Republican since I was old enough to vote, but I don't understand the reluctance of the current administration to protect what little roadless areas we have left.
To do so would be in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and other Republican Presidents who have acted with courage and foresight to protect our majority of U.S. citizens who have previously expressed their support in some 600 public hearings held around the country.
Page 27 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Unfortunately, the current Bush administration has ignored the wishes of the American people. It is also ignoring in its reluctance to protect these places the best science and the new economics of the west, whose long-term stability depends on an abundance of unspoiled public lands. Now is the time for Congress to approve the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2002. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Scar appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you Mr. Scar. We will now be pleased to hear from Mr. Gehrke.
STATEMENT OF CRAIG GEHRKE, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY
Mr. GEHRKE. Thank you. My name is Craig Gehrke. I am the regional director for the Wilderness Society's Idaho office.
The society has been involved for decades in the effort to protect the remaining national forest roadless areas. We support implementation of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as it was adopted on January 12, 2001, and we support the National Forest Roadless Conservation Act introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Inslee and Boehlert.
Roadless areas have been contentious for more than 30 years. The Forest Service first examined these lands in the 1970's, and then again in the 1980's, to determine would be suitable for wilderness and to discover what value these wilderness lands held. The controversial roadless lands went into the Congress in debates over the roadless budget, and in 1997, the Forest Service recognized the importance that these remaining roadless areas have to the public, and initiated a rulemaking process to address the issue of how these areas would be managed and conserved.
Page 28 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The American public, ever since this process began, has been strong in their voices for strong protection for these areas. Time and again throughout over hundreds of hearings, dozens of comment periods, the vast majority of people who have commented have argued that these roadless areas should be protected. Despite that, we see efforts by the Bush administration to basically dismantle the roadless rule as it was adopted. Last spring, they announced that they would amend the rule and reopen the rule for public comment. Since then, the Forest Service has issued a number of directives that would basically undermine the basic tenets of the rule by removing safeguards for roadless areas that the rule put into place, and exempted certain forests from the roadless rule, including the Targhee National Forest in Eastern Idaho.
Concerns have been raised that somehow protecting these remaining roadless areas are going to increase fire danger or, at best, hamper the Forest Service's ability to fight fire. These concerns are not valid. Trying to tie wilderness area protection to fire is mixing two separate issues. Right now, the Forest Service needs to prioritize its efforts at reducing fire and fighting fire are the most pressing need. And that would be keeping residents and communities adjacent to national forests in the so-called wildland-urban interface, safe from fire. Few reduction efforts must be focused on those landscapes where communities and houses are at risk, not miles and miles in the back country back in these roadless areas.
During the development of the rule, the Forest Service identified that protecting roadless areas would not lead to increase in the wildland fires on the national forests. In fact, they determined that due to the remoteness of these areas, they would not be a priority for treating them for wildland fire risk for more than 20 years. Nevertheless, the conservation rule, as it was adopted, does provide for the Forest Service to take steps for fighting fire in wilderness areas if that need should arise. And, the agency stated that prohibiting construction of new roads on national forests would not cause an increase in the number of acres burned by wildland fire or in the number of wildland fires.
Page 29 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Logging is not going to reduce fire danger. This is particularly true in my home State of Idaho. Federal biologists found that—in central Idaho we have a large complex of wilderness areas and many national forest roadless areas. Federal biologists found that these were some of the healthiest forests in the entire Columbia Basin. They were described as ecologically intact because they had not been logged, and, for the large part, fire had been able to maintain its natural role in these ecosystems.
They found that the areas to these watersheds that were not roaded typically had far better presence of the native species and that the systems functioned much as they were supposed to be functioning. Contrast that to their discovery in the watersheds that had been roaded or logged where they found the forests were fragmented, streams were eroding—I am sorry, roads eroding into the streams had a heightened fire risk because of past logging and grazing activities, and the past fire suppression activities.
The streams of Idaho's roadless lands provide some of the cleanest, clearest water in my State. They provide habitat for populations of bull trout, Chinook salmon, steelhead trout; other animals like the Canada lynx, wolves, and grizzlies. Most, if not all, these species are not found in forests that we have managed. In Idaho, a managed forest means a forest that has been roaded and logged.
There has been a good deal of talk here about the need to manage our forests and the need to restore the forests. And I think that is a great idea. There are millions of acres in Idaho that have been roaded and logged already that need restoration. In Idaho, we have 30,000 miles of roads in our national forest. That is five times the length of the State highway system. For the folks who are such restoration fans, let them go restore those lands where we now have roads choking the streams with sediment, we have exotic species and weeds coming into the forests and displacing native vegetation and wildlife, and we have a real lack of our native species. There is lots of opportunities for restoration in Idaho, but they are not in the roadless areas.
Page 30 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The point has also come up that the roadless lands should be managed by the local planning process. Local planning in Idaho means logging. In 1980's, during the forest planning process, we lost over a million acres of roadless forest lands to logging. That is what is going to happen to our national forests if they go back to the forest plans. In fact, the Forest Service themselves during process for the Roadless Rule figured that if it was left with the Forest Planning Process nationwide, there would be another 6 million acres of roadless land lost. If roadless lands in the national forests are going to be protected, it is going to be through the implementation of a national policy to protect these areas.
The American people have indicated time and again that they support strong protection for these areas and the protection that was outlined and afforded by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Clearly, the Bush administration is out of step by opening this rule up again and looking toward amending and, from our standpoint, weakening the Roadless Conservation Rule.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Gehrke, you need to wrap up.
Mr. GEHRKE. We urge Congress to act promptly and to pass strong legislative protection for our national forest roadless areas. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gehrke appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Gehrke.
Mr. Rey, let me open the questioning by following up on what Mr. Gehrke just said, strong public statement in the comments made as part of the rulemaking process. I wonder if you could comment on the types of responses received to give the committee a clear picture of what was gathered during that process.
Mr. REY. I can give you a quick overview of the comments on both the original rule as well as our advanced notice of proposed rulemaking.
On the original rule, there were approximately 1.1 million comments received. About 90 percent of those were form letters and postcards. In fact, 800,000 of them were letters delivered on the final day of the comment period by a consortium.
Page 31 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
With regard to comments from governmental entities, State and local officials, 62 percent of those—and there were several hundred that wrote in opposing the roadless rule.
In regard to the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, of the 726,000 total comments, roughly 674,000 were from organized groups. Six groups accounted for 500,000 of those were the vast majority, the Public Interest Research Group, Save Our Environment Coalition, the Sierra Club, the Colorado Environmental Coalition, the Wilderness Society, and a phone company—which I don't believe is a WorldCom subsidiary. But it doesn't matter, because we tabulated the comments, not Arthur Andersen. But they provided us about 25,000 comments as well.
I think the important thing, though, is that while we are receiving numerous comments on these proposals—and that is a good thing; it shows that the public is motivated to respond. A rulemaking process by an executive branch agency is not a simple tally of people for and against the proposition. In fact, the courts have admonished agencies from counting up the comments and treating their rulemakings as a plebiscite.
What the courts review in a final rule is whether the regulation is a rational exercise of agency discretion, and not the number of comments for or against the rule.
That is why, notwithstanding the comments on this rule, it has preliminarily enjoined by a court.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How long did it take the Forest Service to produce the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Environmental Impact Statement?
Mr. REY. A little over a year.
Mr. GOODLATTE. This is a pretty sizeable undertaking. How many million acres are we talking about?
Mr. REY. 58 million acres, roughly.
Mr. GOODLATTE. And how does that time line compare with most Forest Service plans that are done forest by forest on a local level?
Page 32 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. REY. Most forest plan—individual forest plan rulemakings and EISs take upwards of 5 to 6 years to complete. Some like the Tongass National Forest took 13 years to complete.
Mr. GOODLATTE. So, it is really an ongoing process. Isn't it? You constantly, in each forest, are receiving input from all kinds of local individuals and organizations, local governments, environmental organizations, tourist, recreation organizations, loggers. Everybody else who is interested in the planning of the multiple uses that are made of the forest. And, as you go through that process and devise the plan, pretty much by the time you get it done, not long after that you start another plan to continually evaluate the forests because they change. Their conditions change, the density of the forests, the fuel load, the age of the forest. All those things change. The encroachment of communities surrounding the forests require a constant reevaluation of those things.
I think that is the biggest concern that I have about this effort that was initiated on top of a mountain in my congressional district, that somehow in one stroke of the pen, we were doing something that was good when, in fact, I think it was very, very contrary to what most people believe is the best way to have input regarding planning for our forests.
And it leads to your answer to my first question and my concern about the efforts of a number of environmental groups that have flooded the agency with postcards, what some people call astroturf lobbying, because there is a great deal of misrepresentation about what the process is and about the nature and need for management in our forests, and about the extent of roadless areas.
Mr. Gehrke, I noted in your testimony you referred a number of times to few remaining roadless areas or remaining roadless areas. Do you have a figure on the number of acres of roadless areas in Federal land in the United States?
Mr. GEHRKE. It is my understanding it is 58 million acres.
Page 33 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. GOODLATTE. Actually, it is about 350 million acres that are in conservation areas throughout the country. The 58 million was, as Mr. Rey correctly noted, what the President was proposing to lock into this particular project. But if you take all manner of Federal lands and all areas in which roads are not allowed, it is in the area of more than half a million square miles, or twice the size of the State of Texas.
And that is pretty remarkable. It is about 12 times the size of the Commonwealth of Virginia, to give people an idea of what we are talking about, about 500 times the State of Rhode Island. And while these lands are significant and important, and we want to maintain them, it is not at all true, the impression that some environmental organizations try to convey to the public, that there are few remaining roadless areas in the United States.
Mr. GEHRKE. The figure you quoted, one thing I know, that the roadless area rule that we are discussing, the rule doesn't refer to the conservation areas that you mentioned. The rule, as promulgated, addresses the 58 million acres. And we do have other areas, obviously, where there won't be roads—designated wilderness areas, the national parks, I believe you lump them together as conservation areas, but those areas are not covered by the rule.
We are just looking at the Forest Service-managed roadless lands.
Mr. GOODLATTE. But as the public considers the opinion of having areas that were described by Mr. Scar as desirable to them to get out into and away from modern society and so on, we have far more of those areas that we aren't even talking about in this discussion. In this discussion we are talking about an area larger than my entire State and the State of North Carolina combined.
My time has expired, and this time it is my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Berry.
Mr. Berry has no questions. We will turn to the gentleman from California, Mr. Pombo.
Page 34 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. POMBO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to follow up very briefly on the point that you brought up, it is somewhat disingenuous and, I think, inaccurate to act like this 58 million is the only wilderness or the only roadless area that we have. When you talk about just Federal ownership, not including State, local and private ownership that is also roadless, as well, we are talking about nearly half of the land that the Federal Government currently owns and manages, which is currently held in a conservation status. This is in addition to that which is already held in a conservation status, which is already held as wilderness areas and roadless areas and wildlife refuges and everything else that we include in the Federal ownership. This is what we are talking about here, for all intents and purposes, is in addition to that.
And I think that if we are going to look at this and talk about public comment and talk about what the public feeling is, I think most people are in favor of protecting wilderness areas. They are in favor of protecting roadless areas. They want them to be there, although most people will never see them, they like the idea of us protecting those areas. But I think that, in a full and honest debate, we have to tell them what it is we currently have.
One of the things that struck me about this rule was that, as it was being put together and maps were requested, Mr. Rey—and I realize this is before you had your current position, but there were no accurate maps of the different roadless areas that were put together.
It is my understanding that many of the so-called roadless areas that were proposed as part of this rule do have roads in them; and it is my understanding that somewhere in the neighborhood of—I believe it is 400,000 acres of private land were included as part of this roadless area.
As I go through all of these things that have been brought to the committee's attention, that have been brought to my attention, it seems like the Forest Service may have spent a year doing an EIS and that may be a topic that is debated in Congress for 30 years, but it doesn't seem like they did a very good job of putting together what a roadless area should be. At the least, you would think that they wouldn't have roads in them.
Page 35 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. REY. You have identified some of the issues in the rulemaking that Judge Lodge identified when he enjoined the rule from going forward. One of our priorities over the past year has been to get the maps updated and ground truth, so that as we go forward with a new rulemaking proposal, we will have accurate and ground truth maps for the public to review in a timely fashion to offer us their comments on.
Mr. POMBO. I appreciate that, and I understand and I have had the opportunity to talk to you about this in the past. And I understand the job that is in front of you. This is not going in—and trying to clean something like this up, I realize, is extremely difficult to do, and I commend your effort to try to do that.
I will just ask you point-blank, does the administration oppose roadless areas?
Mr. REY. No.
Mr. POMBO. At any time has the administration come out and said that there are not parts of this 58 million acres that should be protected?
Mr. REY. To the contrary, I think our view consistently has been that we recognize the value that roadless areas provide and want to work on a system of management for them that is both equitable to the parties involved and sustainable from the standpoint of surviving judicial review.
Mr. POMBO. So what you are telling this committee today is that you don't oppose protecting the roadless areas, you don't oppose the additional addition of roadless areas to the Federal ownership, it is just a matter of trying to clean up what was, I think, in any honest assessment, a very poorly drafted rule?
Mr. REY. There are two challenges. One is to look to the specific legal flaws in the underlying rule, and then to see if those can be corrected in a subsequent national rulemaking or whether they are so grievous that we will have to take an approach that is a more staged approach to how we decide the disposition of these issues.
Page 36 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
But I think our sincerity in approaching these issues in a sensitive fashion is reflected by the fact that we are making a proposal for additional wilderness designations in a forest where we have recently completed a forest plan. It is the largest wilderness proposal sent forward by any administration, to the Congress, since 1984, and the most recent wilderness proposal in the last 12 years.
So I think that our intentions are pretty clear. The difficulty of the task, on the other hand, is quite daunting.
Mr. POMBO. I would like to ask you on the topic of wildfires and forest fires, under current policy of the Forest Service, if a fire breaks out in a wilderness area, does the Forest Service go in with heavy equipment to knock that fire down?
Mr. REY. We don't use mechanized equipment for fire suppression in wilderness areas. We do suppress some fires in some wilderness areas, but we use manual means.
Mr. POMBO. So when this happened in California a few years ago, where a fire took off in a wilderness area and by the time it hit the so-called roaded areas, it was so far out of control that it took literally weeks to put that fire out. And I think one of the misconceptions is that fire suppression, being able to go in and put a fire out in a wilderness area or in the so-called roadless areas is the same as in other areas, that you are allowed to operate the same.
Mr. REY. You are mixing two categories of land designations.
In wilderness areas we are precluded by law by the wilderness statute from using mechanized equipment to attack fires, although as I said, we still do attack some fires in some wilderness areas when—based upon the fire plans that we have for those areas. In roadless areas, we are not restrained or prohibited from using mechanized equipment in the initial attack for fire suppression.
Page 37 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
We may be constrained by the physical realities of whether we can get equipment in there or not. And that is an additional difficulty in fire fighting in roadless areas versus areas that have better access.
I think there are three things that are important to appreciate with regard to fire suppression with—in comparing roadless areas versus roaded areas. First, we know that we get more ignitions in roaded areas because the ignitions are caused predominantly by people and people tend to have better access to roaded areas, so you are going to see more ignitions there. But we also know that our initial attack suppression capability is somewhat less effective in roadless areas than it is in roaded areas because either, if it is a wilderness, we are precluded from using equipment, or even if it is simply a roadless area, the logistics of the area might prevent us from using equipment in initial attack.
The third thing we know is that fuel treatments to reduce fire hazards are more expensive in roadless areas than they are in roaded areas because we tend to have to use more expensive, manual means to reduce fuels.
So I think those are the three most important things to keep in mind as you look at the fire issue in combination with roadless issues.
Mr. POMBO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GOODLATTE. We will come back again, Mr. Pombo.
Mr. Rey, I would be interested in having some statistical information. Mr. Christensen, I think, had mentioned that—or maybe it was Mr. Smith—someone had mentioned that the loss of acreage in roadless areas due to forest fires was 50 percent greater—I think it was Mr. Christensen; he had two comparable areas, and had greater loss there.
I would love to see a correlation between the number of ignitions, the number of fires started in nonroadless areas and compare that to the number of fires started in roadless areas, and then see what the relative loss, or the loss per acre per ignition, is.
Page 38 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. REY. Per fire.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Is that something that is——
Mr. REY. I think we could probably get you that information in past years' fire data. We do an analysis of that at the end of each fire season. Maybe what I will ask them to do is to produce that for the 2001 year.
Mr. GOODLATTE. If could you provide that to the committee and also make it available to the public.
Mr. Smith, you strongly stated that roadless area designation decisions should be made at the forest level and national level. You know I agree with that. Wouldn't this give greatest weight to the local interest?
Mr. SMITH. I think—the way the processes are currently established, I don't think it would necessarily give more weight. But, in fact, each of these situations is unique. Every forest is different, every economic situation within that community is different. The aspirations of the people are different.
We have very clear mandates in terms of the objectives of these roadless areas, I think; this is rather troubling to me. We are folksy on roadless areas, as if it were the objective per se as a means to achieve something. And, to me, that achieving is protection of some nature.
What are we protecting? That often is unclear to me as to how this is determined and where it is determined. Each case will be different. In certain areas we may be trying to conserve some aspect of habitat for an endangered species by having it roadless, and then we need to understand the risks that are involved by having it as roadless.
If it is roadless, access is limited, and the things that we can do will be limited when we look at those risk factors, whether fire, insect disease, invasive species, pollution damage. And we need to fully understand that we have impacted these forests since humans have been involved, which is since—the last Ice Age is 10,000 years. Human beings have been influencing these forests, without question; it is well documented. And to just all of a sudden stop and say, okay, here we are, we are not going to do anything more, we have a situation that is——
Page 39 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. GOODLATTE. The forests continue to grow, don't they?
Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. Today's old growth is tomorrow's regeneration.
Mr. GOODLATTE. And as they continue to grow, the fuel density in these areas builds up, the natural way for that to be thinned out is through fire and disease infestation. So we try to fight some of those things, don't we, particularly when roadless areas are now so close to many communities you really have to fight these fires; you can't just let them burn.
And so the density continues to build, and isn't there at some point some need to make some management decisions about how the forest has evolved?
Mr. SMITH. We have made some management decisions and that, in many cases, was to control fire and not—at the point this was done, not fully understanding the long-term implications. We now have long-term implications where a few of those are far greater than they would have been under the historical conditions. It burns faster, it burns hotter, and the time factors involved with early suppression and detection, we don't have the options of doing certain things that we could have had, if we had these management regimes in place.
Mr. GOODLATTE. You have to consider some new options?
Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. Every situation is different. In the management game, you don't manage by edict, you manage by understanding the conditions that occur in a location at a particular time, and then try and prevent those over the long haul. And in our case, in forestry, we are talking tens and hundreds of years. We have to think about that.
I think that is one thing that is very difficult for a lot of people to understand. This is not a snapshot in time. These are long-term decisions, and they have very significant implications over this time period.
Page 40 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Christensen, in your experience and judgment as a county supervisor, what is the impact of the local economy when they experience a fire like they are experiencing in the town of Pinedale and Show Low and others in Arizona. It is my understanding that thousands of people have been evacuated from areas and what are the short-term and long-term impacts on that part of Arizona?
Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The short term, of course, is total devastation of the economy that is there. The economies of Pinedale and Linden and Havre were based on, primarily, tourism and there is no one going into those areas now.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, some of those areas, after the fires are put out, would be attractive for people to go into.
Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Not for many years. Not in my lifetime will there be a forest there, or my grandchildren's lifetime, that even resembles what that forest was. Show Low, which—32,000 people were evacuated from that particular area; the impacts are tremendous.
The State of Arizona is now virtually broke trying to fight these fires. And those little communities and the Counties of Navajo, Apache and Gila, are devastated financially, as well, in regard to these matters.
So it has a long long-term effect as well. We are looking at a moonscape type of condition there for many, many years to come.
We had a fire of 30,000 acres in 1990, the Dude fire, and that is just a big scar on the face of the mountain now. It is not something that people come up to look at.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you.
Mr. Scar, you made a very strong statement in your testimony which I took note of; you said people did not create natural environments, they can only alter, damage or destroy them.
Page 41 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
You built a business and livelihood encouraging people to interact with the outdoors, and I don't believe you believe that you are encouraging people to alter, damage or destroy the environment. I wonder if you could comment on the fact that when we encourage people to use these areas, that there aren't some accompanying management responsibilities that go with them related to, as Mr. Christensen noted, the long-term need to plan? And Mr. Smith noted the fact that the forest, left unmanaged, will evolve into a non-natural state—not a natural state, but a non-natural State that will potentially destroy the very area that you love and you want people to come and enjoy and do business with you.
Mr. SCAR. Yes, sir. I think that the presence and the entrance of people into forestlands has—it all has an impact.
And there are some areas in our own State where we have a number of 14,000-foot peaks—I can see six of them outside my office window—and they are getting a lot of attention and a lot of tramping because many people like to walk to the top of them. At some point in time there is going to have to be a limit on how many people go there in a particular day.
I know that there is a group called the—well, it is a volunteer group that has built only one trail and they have constructed only one trail to the top on many of these mountains to avoid the impacts of many trails going up without any constructed trail. So I agree that every incident of people going into the forest certainly has an impact; I think, though, that the areas that are not impacted so much do deserve some protection.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you.
Mr. Berry have these questions prompted any?
Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I came here in 1993—not to the Congress, but I was the Special Assistant to the President for agriculture. And we have been having these discussions and debates about how to manage the forest. I really didn't pay a lot of attention to it the last 45 years; I thought God put me on either to take a D–9 cutter blade and cut down the forest and make rice fields out of it—and I made some wonderful rice fields out of it. I am not ashamed of it; that is what I thought I was supposed to be doing.
Page 42 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I am sure that would cause some people in this room to nearly have a stroke if they could see it. I still make no apologies for it. It is land that belonged to me and my family; I thought I was supposed to do it.
We don't have forest fires where I come from because it rains enough that it never happens.
I keep—over this period of time since 1993, I keep getting—you know, one person says—and, Mr. Smith, I think you pretty well had it right. It is an individual situation. You have got to look at each forest as each different deal. You can't have a universal policy as how you manage these lands.
And I do believe management is better than not managing it. And I see things and hear testimony and read information that says that it is better to let the fires burn; and then you see where it is better to log and better to graze; and then some people say it is better not to log or better not to harvest and not to graze and let the fires do it. And so it is a little bit confusing to me.
One thing that I kind of resolved in my own mind is, it is beyond me how it is better to not use the land and then just let it all burn up, like it has in Arizona in the last few weeks, and nobody gets any good out of it. I can't figure that one out.
If anybody has got the answer to that, you know, if you think it is better to just let it all burn up and nobody get any use whatsoever out of it—no grazing, no timber or anything else—and that some way or another that is better than harvesting it and grazing it, I would like to hear somebody respond to that. Because I am a little bit confused. That wouldn't the first time I have been confused.
I would be interested to hear a response to that if anybody has one.
Mr. GEHRKE. Congressman, I would like to throw out an observation based on what I have seen.
Page 43 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I am paid by the Society to convince the committee, when I walk out of here, not to downplay the effects of the fire on houses and communities right now, but to come away from this thinking that a forest that is destroyed by a fire is not, long term, destroyed.
Let's look at Yellowstone. The year after the Yellowstone fires, which were about as intense as any you have seen, grass was coming up. There was no drop in visitation in Yellowstone; in fact, there was an increase. Every year people return to the River of No Return wilderness, the Middle Fork. Every year people float, 10,000 people come still to the River of No Return wilderness and float the Middle Fork.
In the year 2000, a fire struck through Hells Canyon recreation area. That fall the wildlife biologists were talking about how the elk were flocking into the new growth caused by that fire, calling them ice cream plants for the elk coming in there.
Fire does not destroy forests; fire rejuvenates a forest. Surely the short-term impacts can be up to weeks, months, perhaps years. But I think it is important to keep in mind that the forest in the West evolved with fire. They burned for thousands of years before the white man got there. They will burn for thousands of years after we are gone.
The fire affects the forest, it changes the composition of it, but the term ''destroyed'' is not an accurate reflection of what, you know, certainly not what I have seen in my lifetime. And that is true for a lot of the Western states now.
It is—I don't mean to downplay the fear that a lot of people have right now, but again I would hate the committee to walk out of here thinking that the forests of the West are destroyed and nobody will get any use out of them or see them after that because that simply hasn't been the case.
Mr. REY. I would like to offer a little bit of a somewhat different view and make three points.
First, Mr. Gehrke is correct, fires are a natural part of these forest systems. But the second and more important point is that in the vast acreage of our national forests today, the kinds of fires that we are having are not natural fires. The fuel loads—in this case, wood is the fuel, have risen to a level where the fires are burning much more intensely than was historically the case, with much more catastrophic and destructive results. It will take the forests much, much, much longer to recover from these fires than the historically common fires that occurred before these fuel loads were achieved.
Page 44 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
And third, accelerating the process of reducing these fuel loads so that we can get fire back to a more natural visitor and component of these systems, has got to be our top priority in managing the national forests. However we decide the disposition of the roadless issue, or any other of a number of controversial issues, that has to be our top priority if we want to stop seeing the kinds of destructive unnatural wildfires that we are presently experiencing.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Christensen, do you want to respond?
Mr. CHRISTENSEN. I would like to comment.
What Mr. Rey is saying is correct, we are talking about a time when—before the Forest Service and so forth, when Indian tribes managed the land and the forests and so forth and the density wasn't there; so the fires that went through were not destructive they were beneficial in that regard.
The suppression of that and the allowance of what has happened with the density is that, now, they are so intense and the soil is so badly damaged and the erosion that takes place afterwards is so difficult for that soil to be replaced that it will take much, much longer. It will take many, many years, and it is not just going to grow back.
And the idea that suddenly we grow large trees and we are going to have that type of a forest back there—it is just simply unrealistic to assume that that is going to happen in any reasonable period of time. With the moisture that we have in the Southwest, that does not happen.
Mr. GOODLATTE. One of the most spectacular things to see in Arizona is to visit the Petrified Forest. Trees that have——
Mr. CHRISTENSEN. That doesn't burn very much.
Mr. GOODLATTE. In correct geologic terms, they have calcified and lie on the ground in a vast desert.
Page 45 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
And I would say to the gentleman from Arkansas that I am glad he is growing rice, and when he stops growing rice, there will be trees growing there again—without a road going through the middle of it either. The trees will take the whole thing back.
And that is happening in a lot of my congressional district. We have in the areas that are near the national forest, which constitutes about one-third of the land in my congressional district, farms that are no longer economically viable are retaken by the forest.
Mr. Rey, you raise a thought in my mind with your comments about this. We haven't talked about another environmental impact that lack of management of the forest and lack of fighting fires causes, and that is the enormous pollution that is generated by these incredibly hot, intense, all-consuming forest fires that are occurring in places.
Are there any statistics available on the amount of pollution that occurs from forest fires and how that compares to, say, pollution generated by power plants or automobiles and so on? Because I suspect it is a major factor.
Mr. REY. We can provide you with some estimates of what the emissions are from some of these fires. They will be estimates, though; there is no monitoring equipment on site that actually measures what's going on.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. That would be useful to know.
The gentleman from California.
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Mr. Gehrke, when you described the regeneration of the forest, the fire going through and the grasses coming back and all of that, I think we all understand that that is, you know, the natural cycle of a forest. Would you, or do you oppose the use of logging as part of a management tool that would do the same, have the same impact?
Mr. GEHRKE. Congressman, we don't oppose logging on the national forest. What I have read is that logging doesn't have the same impact as fire. It is not a subset because of the fact that, you know, just the land disturbance, the fact of taking material out of the forest isn't the same as what would happen in a fire.
Page 46 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So one can't substitute for the other.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Scar, the—in your testimony, your oral testimony and your written testimony, you talk about the tourism in your area, the impact that that has and how it has become a major industry in your area. And I realize that in probably all of these forests there are parts that should be put aside as roadless areas.
And in your area I am sure you could probably take a map and draw out on that map the areas that you believe should be protected and set aside. And I don't—and you probably wouldn't get a lot of argument over the area that you would draw out.
And I am sure that if you sat down with everybody in your community and in the surrounding area and came up with a map, you guys could probably all agree as to what that roadless area should be and do it in a fairly efficient manner in terms of what that should be.
Unfortunately, this rule includes things that are not—should not be included in a roadless area. And I would like you to comment on that. Because you testified in favor of the bill, you testified in favor of the rule, and I am not sure that you really want to include all the stuff that was included. For example, the private property that is included in this, do you think it is right that American citizens and their private property should be drawn into this roadless area?
Mr. SCAR. Congressman, I wasn't aware that there was any private property included in the rule. And I would certainly question why it would be in there. I thought it applied own to public lands.
Mr. POMBO. Well, and I think most people who wrote the Forest Service saying that they were in full support of this rule didn't realize that nearly half a million acres of privately owned land was included in it.
Let me ask you about the so-called roadless areas that were included in this rule, but they have roads in them. Do you think that that is something that makes sense to you?
Page 47 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. SCAR. I would say, you know, if there are roads included in them that are defined by the definition of roads, why I think that they should—a look should be made, to amend that possibly; you know, if there are mistakes made like there are in any bill, corrections should be made before it is finalized.
But I think—on the larger scale, I think the reason so many people—it is so much of an upswell of support for the roadless rule is that what we have in the country left in the national forest is diminishing pretty rapidly, and all of a sudden, people think, wait, wait, hold up a second; let's take a look at this and see if we want to let future generations decide what to do with this.
Or, you know, in my own area, I don't think there is a spot that is farther than 4 miles from a road. In fact, in the whole State of Colorado I don't think there is.
So people are beginning to wonder, gee, whiz, maybe we ought to hold off, and let's reserve judgment on what to do with this land before we start building so many roads. If there really are 380,000 miles of roads in the national forestland, that boggles my mind.
Mr. POMBO. There may be, and I have heard that figure bandied about over the years; to be honest with you, I don't know where the figure came from. Maybe Mr. Rey could let us know how close to reality that number really is.
But being somebody who spends time in the forest, I think that you know what some of those so-called roads look like in terms of the old Forest Service road versus what the average person in the public may think a road looks like. You will know where that road is, and you probably hike up them, and you probably have gone in on those roads; but the average citizen in this country would probably walk across that road and not realize that they went across a Forest Service road. Because I have spent a lot of time out there, too, and it takes you a little while to find the so-called Forest Service roads that are on those maps.
So when you start talking about what those roads are and what they are used for, I don't think it is really in the mind of the public. They think of a paved road that you can go in on, or at least a gravel road you can go in on; and that is not necessarily what we are talking about in many of these cases.
Page 48 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So I think that, you know, in the debate over this whole issue, and what we have heard Mr. Rey testify to here this morning is that there are problems with the current rule. There are things that need to be fixed. There is private property that has been included in there. There are roaded areas that have been included in there. There are some areas that have been included in the rule that I think we could probably all agree should not have been included in that.
And opening up that process so that the things that truly should be protected, that we could agree on should be protected, will be. But there are areas that should not be and should never have been included in this. And if all that you do is have this debate as a surface debate, and you are arguing that you want more roadless areas, and I am arguing that we shouldn't have roadless areas, that is not real, honest debate over what this rule really is.
But if you and I sit down and you say, this is the area I think we should protect, and I say, okay, but all this private property shouldn't be in there, all of those roaded areas shouldn't be in there, would you agree to take that out; and we could come up with a true roadless plan.
Mr. SCAR. Certainly, Congressman, if there are technical errors in the rule, they should be corrected. I wouldn't hesitate to agree with that.
Mr. POMBO. Well, then, I think we and you and the administration are—probably there is a lot more agreement than you realized when you flew back here. And that is a big part of the effort that is being made. You know, when you do all this stuff in 30-second sound bytes, you can divide people, you can use it as a wedge issue; in fact, you can use it as a heck of a fund-raising tool.
But the truth of the matter is, if you really want to solve the problem, you and your neighbors, as a community, can sit down and figure out a way to solve the problem.
We, in Congress, can sit down and try to figure this out and figure out the best way to protect roadless areas and to use multiple use in the rest of the forest and try to come up with a way to do that. We have spent a huge amount of time trying to do that, but unfortunately, when you have groups that survive on fund-raising and they want to create a crisis and they want to say, oh, look what they are doing, they are tearing up the world and all that stuff, the public gets a very distorted opinion as to what the real issue is.
Page 49 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
So I appreciate your taking your time to come back here away from your business to share your experience with us. And I hope that—you helped me a lot, you helped me to understand a few things. And I hope that maybe you walk away from this with maybe a little different idea than what you came here with.
Mr. SCAR. I should say, I have to admit it is probably not as easy for us locals to come to agreement either on some of these issues.
Mr. POMBO. Oh, I realize that. I have sat through a whole lot of those meetings. But it is easier for you guys to sit down and do it than it is for a bunch of people who have never been to your State to decide what is going to happen to you.
Mr. GOODLATTE. That is a good note on which to conclude. There are no silver bullets or magic formulas here in Washington. We would like to see those legal discussions and that local input and that local knowledge of the beautiful areas that are in Colorado and in Virginia and in California and virtually every other State, have that part of this planning process; and we don't feel that took place with this stroke-of-the-pen creation of something that isn't at all realistic.
I want to thank all of the members of the panel for their contribution today, and I have some magic words that I do have to read here for everybody.
The Chair would seek unanimous consent to allow the record of today's hearing to remain open for 10 days to receive additional material and supplementary written responses from witnesses to any question posed by the panel.
Without objection, it is so ordered. And this hearing of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Page 50 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Statement of Mark Rey
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today to address the status of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
This administration recognizes that inventoried roadless areas contain important environmental values that warrant protection. Appropriate protection and management should be crafted through an open and fair process that addresses the legitimate concerns of states, tribes, local communities, and all others effected by the rule. After a thorough review of the rule that was published in the Federal Register January 12, 2001, and the concerns that had been raised about it, Secretary Ann Veneman announced on May 4, 2001, that USDA would implement the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, but would take actions that would ensure implementation in a responsible, common sense manner consistent with the following principles:
Informed decision-making, using reliable information and accurate mapping, and drawing on local expertise and experience through the local forest planning process;
Working together, by collaborating with States, tribes, local governments, organizations and individuals through a process that is fair, open, and responsive to local input and information;
Protecting forests from the negative effects of severe wildfire, insect and disease outbreaks;
Protecting communities, homes, and property from the risk of severe wildfire or other risks existing on adjacent Federal lands; and
Protecting access to property, by ensuring that States, tribes, and citizens owning property within inventoried roadless areas have access to that property as required by existing law.
On May 10, 2001, the District Court of Idaho preliminarily enjoined implementation of the rule. Based in part on its preliminary April 5, 2001, order, the court indicated that plaintiff groups were likely to prevail on at least four separate claims under the National Environmental Policy Act including the public review and comment process. This decision has been appealed and is now pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In total, the roadless rule is now the subject of nine lawsuits in six Federal district courts and four Federal circuits. While several district courts have stayed proceedings pending decisions by other Federal courts considering these issues, the Administration continues to vigorously defend the rule in the three cases that are proceeding in North Dakota and Wyoming.
Page 51 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Five of these lawsuits have been filed by states (Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming), and two other States (Colorado and Montana) have submitted filings in the Idaho litigation. Among the several issues raised, these lawsuits share a common allegation that there was inadequate opportunity for meaningful public review and comment on the roadless rule. In addition to state governments, plaintiffs include the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, county governments, corporations and a number of organizations representing users of the national forests. These plaintiffs also assert that mandated processes for evaluating inventoried roadless area protection and management were ignored, specifically, the forest land management planning process governed by the National Forest Management Act of 1976 and its implementing regulations at 36 CFR 219. The complete list of filed cases including plaintiffs and claims made against the Federal Government is attached to this statement.
Following the Secretary's stated intention on May 4, 2001, to implement the rule, the Forest Service published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) in the Federal Register on July 10, 2001, requesting comments from the public on key issues that have been raised regarding the protection and management of roadless areas. A content analysis report of these comments has just been released. The analysis tries to give a fair representation of the wide range of views submitted, but makes no attempt to treat input as if it were a vote. While the Forest Service will consider relevant comments, the agency did not tally the comments in ''for'' or ''against'' categories. Total number of responses is not a required factor for the agency to consider in rulemaking. In fact, when courts have reviewed a final rule, they have focused on whether the rule is a rational exercise of agency discretion, and not on the number of comments for or against the rule.
The content analysis is a catalog of public concerns organized around the questions concerning roadless area management posed by the Department in the ANPR. The analysis of the responses reflects two predominant views of natural resource management and perspectives on decision-making. One view supports environmental protection and preservation with roadless decisions imposed at the national level. Other respondents support responsible resource management of natural resources with decisions made at the local level. Most respondents care deeply about the management of the National Forests and Grasslands, some advocate a hard stance for their positions while others believe a degree of compromise is necessary. The Forest Service will use the ANPR responses in a measured and responsible way to determine how best to proceed with protecting roadless values.
Page 52 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
After the Idaho District Court preliminarily enjoined implementation of the rule, USDA has taken a number of proactive steps to protect roadless values. On June 7, 2001, in order to bring some stability to roadless area management, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth informed agency top officials that he would issue interim direction to protect and sustain roadless values until they can be appropriately considered through the forest planning process. These interim directives reserve to the Chief, except in circumstances that are comparable to the exceptions described in the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, the authority to make decisions regarding (a) road construction or road reconstruction until a forest-scale roads analysis is completed and incorporated into a forest plan, and (b) timber harvest until a revision of a forest plan or adoption of a plan amendment that has considered the protection and management of inventoried roadless areas. Originally issued on July 27, 2001, and updated on December 14, 2001, these interim directives are fully consistent with the Secretary's principles identified on May 4, 2001, and responsive to the concerns raised about the rule by local communities, tribes, states, and others.
To date, no road construction, road reconstruction, or timber harvest proposals in inventoried roadless areas have been submitted to the Chief for his approval, nor to the best of my knowledge have any inventoried roadless area entries taken place that would not have been allowed under the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Newly proposed or approved road construction, road reconstruction or timber harvest projects in inventoried roadless areas will be fully consistent with the policy direction and delegation of authority contained in the interim directives.
On November 7, 2001, the Forest Roads Working Group (FRWG), an ad hoc coalition of non-governmental organizations representing conservationists and sportsmen, approached the Forest Service and offered to assist in resolving issues related to roadless area management by initiating a good-faith dialogue among a group of interested stakeholders. Chief Bosworth has agreed to provide useful information to the FRWG, ensure Forest Service participation in such a dialogue, and to consider any substantive outcome in any future rulemaking process or policy development that addresses the inventoried roadless area issue.
Page 53 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
As you know, Mr. Chairman, through the National Forest Management Act, Congress created a legislative mandate that the Secretary of Agriculture would develop, maintain and revise Land and Resource Management Plans for the management of National Forest System lands. The forest planning process is highly collaborative; involves local, regional, and national interests; and uses the best available forest-level information and maps. National Forests across America have completed plans using this process and fourteen forests have now gone through a second planning iteration and revised their plans. Roadless values are fully analyzed during the land management planning process for future land use allocation. Nationally, there are nearly 24 million acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas allocated to management prescriptions that prohibit road construction and reconstruction. Of those 24 million acres, four million acres have been recommended for wilderness designation through the land management planning process.
The latest example of a working forest planning process is the Chugach National Forest Plan Revision and Record of Decision (ROD) in Alaska. The revision process, which included widespread public involvement, resulted in a Regional Forester's recommendation that approximately 1.4 million acres of the 1.6 million acre (recommendation from the 1984 Forest Plan) Nellie Juan-College Fiord Wilderness Study Area, be allocated by Congress to Wilderness designation. This recommendation is currently pending. Approximately 175,000 acres of the area was not recommended for designation, but the Regional Forester's recommendation was the result of a thorough, collaborative forest planning process.
The Department and the Forest Service are committed to evaluating and appropriately protecting and managing inventoried roadless areas as components of the National Forest System. We fully intend to proceed with the re-evaluation of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and the protection and management of inventoried roadless areas.
This concludes my statement Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any questions you and the members of the subcommittee may have.
Page 54 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
CASE DESCRIPTION
State of Idaho v. U.S. Forest Service, Civ. 01–011-N-EJL (D. Idaho)
The State of Idaho has challenged the rule alleging violations of NEPA and NFMA:
(1) failure to consider cumulative effects of roadless rule and roads rule;
(2) inadequate range of alternatives in roadless EIS and inadequate NEPA compliance for the planning regulation's treatment of unroaded areas outside inventoried roadless areas
(3) failure to provide meaningful opportunity to participate in roadless and planning regulations.
Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, Boise County, Valley County, Blueribbon Coalition, Idaho State Snowmobile Assn., Little Cattle Co., Highland Livestock & Land Co., Boise-Cascade Corp. v. Glickman, Civ. 01–010-N-EJL (D. Idaho filed Jan 9, 2001).
A coalition of Idaho groups allege several claims, including:
(1) NEPA: failure to examine site specific impacts violation of NEPA
(2) NEPA: failure to consider reasonable alternative
(3) NEPA: Failure to allow adequate public involvement
(4) NEPA: Failure to adequately consider cumulative effects
(5) NFMA: Illegal de facto amendment or revision without compliance with NFMA procedures
(6) Organic Act, MUSYA, NFMA: Failure to Comply with multiple use and sustained yield requirements
Page 55 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
(7) Sec. 108, P.L. No. 104–208: Illegal rule promulgation relating to R.S. 2477
(8) APA: Failure to give sufficient notice and adequate opportunity to comment
(9) Wilderness Act: Illegal unilateral creating de facto wilderness areas
(10) NHPA: Failure to consult with the Kootenai Tribe with respect to properties of significant cultural and religious importance
Communities for a Great Northwest, et al v. Clinton, et. al., 00-CV–1394 (D.C. DC filed June 12, 2000).
The July 2000 (third amended) Complaint alleged that the roadless initiative violates:
1. Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution (''President usurped powers assigned to the Congress'')
The Wilderness Act (unlawful establishment of de facto wilderness areas)
FLPMA (FLPMA violated by withdrawal of Federal lands)
NFMA (Alleging violation of NFMA by failing to comply with plan amendment process)
MUSYA (failure to manage lands according to principles of ''multiple-use'' and ''sustained yield''
NEPA (failure to take a hard look at effects, including socio-economic effects onlocal economies, health and public safety; failed to identify affected areas and disclose site-specific effects; failed to provide adequate opportunity for public comment and meaningful participation; and failed to disclose cumulative effects of roadless rule with planning and transportation rules.
American Forest & Paper Assn., Alaska Forest Assn., American Forest Resource Council, Arkansas Forestry Assn., California Forestry Assn., Intermountain Forest Assn., Lake States Lumber Assn.. Inc., Lake States Resource Council, Minnesota Timber Products Assn., National Cattleman's Beef Assn., Ouachita Timber Purchasers Group v. Veneman and Bosworth, No. 01-CV–00871 (D. D.C. (TPJ))
Page 56 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The coalition seeks an injunction of enforcement or implementation of the challenged actions alleging that the roadless rule, planning regulations, roads rule and transportation policy were illegally promulgated due to the following violations:
1. The roadless rule, roads rule and roads policy violate NFMA's consistency requirement (16 USC 1604(i)) for forest planning.
2. The roadless rule, roads rule and roads policy were unlawfully developed without compliance with NFMA's procedures for significant plan amendments.
The roadless rule and interim direction in the roads policy violate NFMA's direction for establishment ''one integrated plan.''
The roadless rule, roads rule and roads policy unlawfully reduce the expected timber sale levels projected in forest plans in violation that such information be included in forest plans.
The planning regulations violate NFMA and MUSY by ''substituting ecological sustainability for multiple use and sustained yield. . .
The planning and roadless rules unlawfully fail to address the forest health crisis on national forest lands in violation of NFMA and MUSY.
The challenged actions violate NFMA, MUSYA and APA regarding:
violation of 16 UC 1608(a) regarding temporary roads
failure to provide area-by area analysis per MUSY and NFMA
failure to provide for periodic reviews per MUSYA and NFMA
the planning regulation's inappropriately equates the term significance under NFMA and NEPA
unlawfully permits output schedule adjustment without notice and comment
the 36 CFR 219.32 objection process is unlawful
Page 57 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
unlawful implementation of transition language in 36 CFR 219.35
failing to issue regulations implementing 16 USC 1604(g)(1)-(3)
8. The roadless rule and roads policy violate the State Wilderness Acts.
9. The challenged actions violate the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
The challenged actions were developed in violation of the APAs re:
the planning rule and roads rule were improperly issue as immediately effective
the challenged rules were issued in excess of statutory authority
portions of the roadless and planning were not fairly noticed (timber prohibitions, immediate application of roadless rule on Tongass NF, reliance on Nov. 2000 maps)
the duty to use ''best available science'' was not adequately noticed
the roads policy requirements for contiguous unroaded areas were not properly noticed
the challenged actions are not adequately justified
the Forest Service arbitrarily declined to obtain necessary information
the Forest Service skewed disclosure of impacts assertion of ''no effect'' to legal access is inconsistent with road policy interim direction
State of Utah v. USFS, No. 01-——— (D. Utah)
The State of Idaho challenges the roadless rule, roads rule and roads policy on the following grounds {note: planning regs treatment of unroaded areas also frequently referenced}:
1. NEPA: the Forest Service has failed to analyze and disclose the combined and cumulative effects of the roadless, planning and roads rule.
2. NEPA: the Forest Service denied the State its statutory right of meaningful participation in development of the roadless rule.
Page 58 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
3. NFMA: in promulgating the roadless rule, roads rule and road policy the
Forest service violated NFMA in the following ways:
the challenged actions violate 16 USC 1604(i) as they are not consistent with existing forest plans
the agency failed to conduct the procedures required for a significant forest plan amendment
violates 16 USC 1604(e)(2) and (f)(2) re: projected timber levels
failure to include new direction in forest plans violates NFMA and regulatory requirements calling for one integrated plan
nationwide prescriptions are contrary to intent of NFMA
The range of alternatives was improper:
''There is no sufficient NEPA analysis for these Planning Rules.''
The roadless rule circumvents NFMA's requirement for ''examining a broad range of alternative management scenarios'' in coordination with State and local governments.
4. No meaningful opportunity to participate in violation of NEPA, NFMA, APA; and interference with planning for, and access to, State of Utah forest health projects.
Billings County; Golden Valley County, McKenzie County, Slope County, Friends of the National Grasslands v. Veneman, A1–01–045 (D. N.D.)
On March 14, 2002, plaintiffs filed a ''First Amended and Supplemental Complaint.'' The new Complaint sets forth three claims for relief:
1. ''The statutory authority pursuant to which Defendants adopted the roadless rule either does not apply to the acquired lands in the LMNG or does not authorize the roadless rule.'' (ultra vires, interference with purposes for which lands were condemned or acquired, state rights-of-way laws, and mineral/royalty interests, as well as contradicting Presidential Executive Orders)
Page 59 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
2. The regulations were promulgated in violation of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act and Regulatory Flexibility Act; and,
NEPA: failing to (1) properly define the proposed action, (2) consider reasonable range of alternatives, and (3) assess direct, indirect and cumulative effects, (4) respond to comments and (5) lack of site-specific data and understanding various economic and environmental effects.
State of North Dakota v. Veneman, A1–01–087 (D. N.D.)
The State of North Dakota seeks to have both the Roadless Rule and the OHV Amendments declared unlawful. Plaintiffs assert that the rule and amendments are inconsistent with the agency's underlying statutory authority for the Grasslands, interfere with State property rights and were authorized without adequate compliance with National Environmental Policy Act. Specifically, plaintiffs allege the following violations:
1. The Forest Service violated CEQ's NEPA regulations (40 CFR 1508.25(a)(2)) by segmenting the analyses of the Roadless Rule, OHV Amendments and other related initiatives and failed to consider the significant cumulative effects of those decisions in the same environmental impact statement.
2. The Forest Service failed to consider an adequate range of alternatives for the Roadless Rule's application on the Grasslands.
3. The Forest Service failed to conduct a site-specific analysis of the Roadless Rule on the North Dakota Grasslands.
4. The Roadless Rule and OHV Amendments unlawfully interfere with the State of North Dakota's property rights under R.S. 2477 and subsequent enactments.
5. The Roadless Rule and OHV Amendments are inconsistent with the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act and the Grasslands'' terms of acquisition by illegally subordinating mineral development to other interests.
Page 60 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
State of Wyoming v. USDA, No. 010CV086-B (D. Wyo.)
Plaintiffs ask the court to halt implementation of the Roadless Rule, revised Planning Regulations, the Forest Transportation Rule and Policy alleging the following violations:
1. National Environmental Policy Act: failure to analyze reasonable alternatives, conduct a provide meaningful and complete notice and comment, and fully analyze cumulative impacts
2. National Forest Management Act: circumvents required coordination with State and local governments; inconsistent with forest plans; failed to comply with the procedures for significant forest plan amendment; reduced forest plan's sale levels without changing info displayed in forest plans, violated duty to provide transportation system to meet anticipated needs on an economical and environmentally sound basis
3. Wilderness Act/ Wyoming Wilderness Act: violates buffer zones prohibition and illegally establishes de facto wilderness areas
4. MUSYA: illegally substitutes regulated ''ecological sustainability'' for legislated multiple use and sustained yield as the dominant objective for the entire National Forest System; and failing to provide a roadless area-by-area analysis of resource values and consideration of local economic and environmental conditions.
5. National Historic Preservation Act: actions may result in the loss of both public and administrative access to historic properties.
Federal Advisory Committee Act: Pre-NOI contacts violate FACA
Regulatory Flexibility Act: no RFA for transport rule/policy; inadequate IRFA for roadless rule
State of Alaska v. USDA, No. A01–039 CV (D. Alaska)
Page 61 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The State of Alaska has alleged violation of the following statutes:
1. NFMA (alleges that the rulemaking illegally revised and significantly amended the Tongass and Chugach Land Management Plans)
2. NEPA (failure to provide a reasonable range of alternatives, failure to consider impacts on existing plans and ongoing planning effort, improperly ''directing a final single land use'' during development of the Chugach Land Management Plan segmenting rules (Roadless, Transportation Rule, Planning Regulation) and failing to consider cumulative effects
ANILCA (alleges that the Department has improperly ''set aside'' lands in violation of the so-called ''no more'' provisions of ANILCA)
TTRA (alleges that the roadless rule reduces the ''ability of the Forest Service to exercise its discretion to seek to provide sufficient timber to meet annual and planning cycle market demand'' in violation of the TTRA)
Organic Act, Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act (alleges that the roadless rule will effectively cause the Tongass and Chugach National Forests to be managed on a 'single use'' rather than multiple use basis in violation of the Organic Act, Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act and National Forest Management Act)
6. Wilderness Act (alleges that the roadless rule constitutes an illegal establishment of de facto wilderness areas in violation of the Wilderness Act of 1964)
Statement of Ron Christensen
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, my name is Ron Christensen, and I am a county supervisor in Gila County, Arizona. I thank you for holding this hearing today on such an important public policy issue.
Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to serve as chair of the Public Lands Steering Committee of the National Association of Counties (NACo). Thus, I am here today not only representing Gila County, but also America's public lands counties.
Page 62 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
We wish to make our position crystal clear. Decisions about the road, and roadless, needs of individual forests should be left to the existing forest planning processes.
NACo supports maintaining and enhancing public access to federal public lands so that the full benefits of multiple use can be realized. We oppose the administrative limitation of access to public lands from road building moratoria, road closures and decommissioning and other limiting policies that are not consistent with the affected county's transportation infrastructure and guidelines, (see American County Platform 9.1.8)
We believe that roadless area treatment is a distinctly site-specific local matter. Changing the status of roadless areas from multiple use management to a more restricted management regime must be made on a case-by-case basis at the forest level instead of a sweeping national approach. Flexibility is essential to properly deal with the particular ecological circumstances of each unroaded area, particularly given our rapidly increasing knowledge of natural processes.
As thousands of acres in Arizona and across the west continue to burn, the need for this flexibility is all the more critical. Over 50 percent of roadless areas in the continental U.S. are at moderate to high risk of losing key ecosystem components from catastrophic wildfire. The remaining roadless areas still require treatment if they are to remain at low risk of losing ecological values from catastrophic wildfire. Furthermore, roaded areas can have a higher potential for wildfire than unroaded areas according to the Forest Service. While roadless and roaded areas are about 24 million acres each in Regions 1 and 4, 50 percent more acres burned in roadless than in roaded areas. Clearly, lack of flexibility to build appropriate roads not only will harm efforts at fire prevention and control but may also increase the incidence of fire.
Catastrophic wildfire could also devastate in-holdings and structures in and adjacent to roadless areas. Within roadless areas are at least 422,000 acres of private lands, 43,000 acres of state lands, and 29 million acres of federal lands managed by agencies other than the Forest Service. Despite the efforts of states, counties and private land owners to reduce the risk of insect infestations, disease, and catastrophic wildfire, their efforts cannot be effective without the cooperation of their Forest Service neighbors since these problems know no boundaries. The fires now devastating eastern Arizona communities today started deep in the forest and quickly burned out of control as a result of heavy fuel loads and dense tree stands. The Forest Service needs to have the flexibility to construct the roads required to get into high risk fire areas and thin them out.
Page 63 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Even apart from the effects of catastrophic wildland fire, the roadless rule will harm communities. Considering the often prohibitive costs of mechanical fuel treatments and helicopter logging without road access, local managers will have fewer tools available for appropriate stewardship, which will in turn likely result in more catastrophic fire and negative impacts on communities.
NACo also understands there are roadless areas of the National Forest that should remain in that status, and that many appropriate management activities can be accomplished without requiring additional roads.
We also believe very strongly that forest roads can, and should, be constructed and maintained in an environmentally sound manner based on balanced environmental standards which would reduce the potential for environmental degradation of the forest resources, including watersheds.
Counties must play an important role in the future of America's National Forests and through the collaborative forest planning process, we can provide appropriate input on the future of roadless areas at the forest level. The roadless area rule undermines that capacity by proposing sweeping national policy options without regard for the needs of local communities while placing them, literally, in harm's way.
Statement of Dick Scar
Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to comment in support of HR 4865, the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2002. I'm taking off 2 days from work during our busy season to speak to you for 5 minutes because I feel the protection of roadless areas is so important to my hometown of Buena Vista, CO, and to the Nation.
My family has owned and operated an outdoor specialty shop in Buena Vista for over 30 years and during 15 years led groups on walking trips through many roadless areas of the West. Buena Vista is nestled between the banks of the upper Arkansas River and the 14,000-foot Collegiate Peaks in the San Isabel National Forest. Businesses like ours are a vital part of the local economy. Over the years, our own Chaffee County has become increasingly dependent on the services industry of which recreation and tourism are a big component. Chaffee County contains more than 180,000 acres of roadless forests plus some of Colorado's most spectacular congressionally designated Wilderness Areas. Our customers are outdoor enthusiasts and most of them spend time enjoying public lands that are roadless. Many local residents visit these places but many more are from other states and increasingly from other countries.
Page 64 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
We found that people seek out areas having no roads because they want to get away from the noise, traffic, pollution and humdrum of everyday life and spend some time in a simpler, quieter environment. They enjoy the experience of being in a more natural world where past human activity has been minimal. It is such a rare experience that people are willing to travel long distances to get to such roadless areas and once there, they generally use non-motorized means to explore it. Quite often, these people have no similar roadless areas in their own state or country. Quite often, also, those of us who live near such areas take them for granted. But, nevertheless, having such unspoiled public lands nearby is an extremely valuable asset for us.
In fact, the fastest growing segment of Chaffee County's economy is in services including recreation and tourism businesses like ours. This is generally true for all rural western counties in Colorado. There are surprisingly few jobs in timber, mining and other resource extraction industries. Personal income from these types of jobs makes up less than one percent of total personal income in our county. Roadless areas provide important habitat for wildlife, another big tourist attraction. The economic benefits of protecting fish and wildlife habitat are enormous. For example, the Colorado Division of Wildlife estimates that in 1996, out-of-state hunters and anglers spent $2.8 million in Chaffee County, which has fewer than 17,000 residents.
That these roadless areas are so attractive to visit give them definite economic value. But the remaining roadless areas left in our country would still have great economic value to our Nation even if no one visited them for recreation. Large areas of intact habitat help many wildlife species to survive, promoting biodiversity. I think our country is great because of the diversity of our citizens, each free to contribute in making our Nation more inventive, more productive, and stronger. Greater biodiversity makes our planet a healthier biosphere.
Page 65 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Roadless areas are critically important sources of clear water from watersheds that lack the soil erosion and stream sedimentation associated with road building and other pollution from development. My own community and hundreds of others across the West depend on water from these intact watersheds to supply municipal water systems.
Roadless areas also provide a relatively undisturbed baseline to which the effects of human development on other areas can be compared. I worked as a test engineer years ago and I can understand the importance of having such baselines.
But, given the many economic benefits of roadless areas on pubic land, it's not all about economics. It's about maintaining our position as a great nation, a great civilization. It's about preserving some areas in our country without roads and other development, important parts of our national heritage. It's about leaving a great legacy for future generations. People cannot create natural environments, they can only alter, damage or destroy them.
I understand that there are over 380,000 miles of roads in national forests and that there is an
$8 billion backlog on maintaining these roads. It makes no sense to me as a businessman to build more roads in national forests when this much maintenance is needed on the roads we have now. If I didn't have money to fix the roof on my store, I wouldn't consider putting on an addition. In, fact, the lack of maintenance could become a serious liability to me. That is why I believe forest roads that are in such disrepair as to be safety hazards should be closed until they can be fixed.
I turn 60 this year and have been a registered Republican since I was old enough to vote. But I don't understand the reluctance of the current administration to protect what little roadless areas we have left. To do so would be in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and other Republican Presidents who have acted with courage and foresight to protect our national heritage. And such action would be in keeping with the wishes of the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens who have previously expressed their support in some 600 public hearings held around the country. Before the rule on which this bill is based was issued, more than 28,000 written comments came from my state alone, and more than 90 percent of those comments favored protecting roadless areas from development. Hundreds of people showed up at 27 public hearings in Colorado, most of them in rural areas next to national forests. Local citizens had ample opportunity to voice their opinions and they did.
Page 66 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Unfortunately, the current Bush administration has ignored the wishes of the American people, both rural folks like me and city dwellers, most of whom want to see the Nation's last remaining roadless forests protected. It is also ignoring, in its reluctance to protect these places, the best science and the new economies of the West, whose long-term stability depends on an abundance of unspoiled public lands. Now is the time for congress to approve the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act.
Statement of Craig Gehrke
My name is Craig Gehrke, and I'm the regional director of the Idaho Office of The Wilderness Society. Founded in 1935, The Wilderness Society works to protect America's wilderness and wildlife and to develop a nationwide network of wild lands through public education, scientific analysis, and advocacy. Our goal is to ensure that future generations enjoy the clean air and water, beauty, wildlife, and opportunities for recreation and spiritual renewal provided by the Nation's pristine forests, rivers, deserts, and mountains.
The Society has been involved for decades in the effort to protect the remaining national forest roadless areas. We support implementation of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as adopted on January 12, 2001. We support the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Inslee and Boehlert.
Roadless areas have been contentious for more than 30 years. The Forest Service first examined these lands for their potential as wilderness in the 1970's and again in the 1980's. In the intervening years attempts to develop roadless areas through local forest planning were nearly always controversial and met with appeals and litigation. At the same time the Forest Service road building program was out of control, eventually reaching more than 386,000 miles and saddled with a $8.4 billion backlog in maintenance costs. In 1997 the Forest Service recognized the importance of the remaining national forest roadless areas to the public, and initiated a rulemaking process to address the national issue of roadless area conservation.
Page 67 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The American people have been unwavering in their support of strong protection for the last 30 percent of wildlands on America's national forests. Throughout the drafting process of the Roadless Rule, the U.S. Forest Service held more than 600 public hearings in 37 states nationwide. To date more than 2.3 million comments have been received by the Forest Service with upwards of 95 percent of the response in favor of the strongest protections possible for these last acres of wild forest lands.
But notwithstanding the Roadless Area Conservation Rule's well-balanced approach and continued broad popular support, the Bush Administration is intent on dismantling the basic tenets of the Roadless Rule. Last spring, Administration officials stated their intention to amend the rule and began by reopening it for comments in July. As shown by the questions they posed during the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, these amendments will clearly favor the interests of the timber, mining, and oil industries. Since then they have issued a number of directives that undermine the basic tenets of the rule including procedures that abolish existing safeguards for roadless areas and allow for more environmentally destructive road construction on our national forests. In addition, the Administration has demonstrated no inclination to defend the rule against the litigation it currently faces, despite Attorney General John Ashcroft's assurance at his confirmation hearings that he would defend it in court.
Concerns have been raised that protecting the remaining national forest roadless areas will somehow hamper the Forest Service's ability to control wildfires, or that roadless area protection could lead to increased wildfires on the national forests. These concerns are not valid. The fires currently burning in the West are undeniably a tragedy for the communities and families in their path. However, fire policies on the national forests and protection of the remaining national forest roadless areas are two different issues. Linking the two issues together to try and assign some kind of blame for fires to roadless area protection will not the serve the Nation's interest in protecting lives and property from wildfires.
Page 68 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The Forest Service must prioritize its fire efforts on the most pressing need: keeping residents and communities adjacent to national forests, in the wildland/urban interface, safe from fire. Fuel reduction efforts must be focused on reducing the fire risk in the wildland/urban interface, and not in remote, roadless landscapes miles from houses and communities.
Protection of national forest roadless areas will not lead to increases in wild fires on the national forests. In March 2001, National Fire Plan Coordinator Lyle Laverty told a joint hearing of the House and Senate Interior appropriations subcommittees that ''the roadless plan does not preclude use from doing any treatment on (roadless areas).'' He added that only 14 percent of roadless areas are considered at risk for catastrophic wildfires. The Forest Service analysis determined that due to the remoteness of roadless areas, treating them for wildfire risk would not be a priority for 20 years.
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule is well balanced in its provisions to specifically allow access to roadless areas in case of wildfire. In the unlikely event that wildfires in roadless areas do threaten people's lives and homes, the Roadless Rule specifically states that:
Roads may be constructed when needed to protect public health and safety in cases of imminent threat of flood, fire or other catastrophic event that, without intervention, would cause the loss of life or property. (Section 294.12 subsection b1).
Thinning is also permitted ''to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire effects'' (Section 294.13 subsection b subsection 1).
According to the Forest Service's own analysis on the Roadless Policy, the agency has successfully stopped 98 percent of wildfires in inventoried roadless areas without building roads into these pristine forests, and expects this rate of success to continue. Additionally the agency stated that prohibiting construction of new roads ''would not cause an increase in the number of acres burned by wildland fires or in the number of large fires'' (FEIS Vol. 1, 3–115).
Page 69 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Most wildfires start in areas that contain roads or have been logged—not in roadless areas. The majority of fires are ignited by people and occur in areas where we have altered the forests—natural cycles through activities like logging and fire suppression. Areas without roads have fewer people in them, and therefore few human-caused wildfires.
The Forest Service reports that between 1996 and 1998, 90 percent of fires on national forests were caused by humans, ignited by sparks from cars, off-road vehicles, logging equipment, campfires, careless smoking and arson.
Logging does not reduce fire danger. Logging leaves piles of tinder littering the ground after the least flammable part of the tree—the trunk—is removed. Analysis efforts by the Government's own biologists concluded that commercial logging was a major reason for increased intensity and severity of wildfire. Areas that were thinned, clearcut or salvage logged experienced fires that spread faster and were hotter and more severe than in unlogged, unroaded watersheds.
This is particularly true in my home state of Idaho. Federal biologists found that central Idaho's roadless and wilderness areas were among the healthiest, most ecologically intact forests in the Columbia River Basin. These forests, where large fires have occurred, are healthy because they have not been subjected to roadbuilding and logging. Biologists concluded that ''subbasins having the highest forest integrity values were largely unroaded'' (USDA Forest Service, 1997. An Assessment of Ecosystem Components in the Interior Columbia Basin and Portions of the Klamath Basin). Agency scientists discovered that areas with roads typically have heightened fire risk due to past fire suppression and logging activity.
The streams and rivers of Idaho's roadless national forest lands provide some of the clearest, cleanest water in the state, supporting some of the best remaining populations of rare species like bull trout, cutthroat trout, chinook salmon and steelhead trout. These forests also provide habitat for some of the rarest wildlife species in the lower 48 states, including Canada lynx, wolves, grizzlies, wolverines, and woodland caribou. Most if not all of these species are rarely found in forests that have roaded and logged.
Page 70 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
During the development of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, 200 members of Congress expressed their support for roadless protection. It should be noted that 400 of our Nation's most esteemed scientists sent a letter to then President Clinton detailing the need for this effort. More than 2,000 members and leaders of America's faith communities followed suit, as did hundreds of locally elected officials throughout the country.
Members of Congress have continued to demonstrate strong support for roadless area protection since the January 12, 2001, adoption of the Roadless Rule. In March 2001, 22 Republican House members sent a letter to President Bush expressing their support for the Roadless Rule. A press conference held on Capitol Hill on May 1, 2001, made public the support of 135 congressional Democrats who signed a letter articulating their strong support for the Roadless Rule and urged the Administration to implement the policy. In early May 2002 a letter signed by 26 Senators urging implementation of the Roadless Rule was sent to President Bush.
Without the legislative action laid out in the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2002, the 58.5 million acres of national forest roadless areas will remain at risk from the legal and administrative measures influenced by a minority of special interest industries. We urge the Congress to act promptly and pass strong legislative protection of our national forest roadless areas.