Segment 3 Of 3 Previous Hearing Segment(2)
SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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FOREST ECOSYSTEM HEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES
(Inland West and Northeast)
THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1997
House of Representatives,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:55 a.m., in room 1300, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert F. (Bob) Smith (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Barrett, Goodlatte, Canady, Lucas, Chenoweth, Bryant, Foley, Thune, Jenkins, Cooksey, Stenholm, Peterson, Farr, Baldacci, Berry, Goode, McIntyre, Stabenow, Etheridge, Johnson, and Boswell.
Staff present: John E. Hogan, chief counsel; David Dye, deputy chief counsel; Dave Tenny, Sharla Moffett, Monique Brown, Callista Bisek, Wanda Worsham, clerk; and Danelle Farmer.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT F. (BOB) SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. I apologize for the delay. There was some sort of an organizational problem on the floor of the House. You understand organizational problems. So, we will call the hearing to order.
I have an opening statement, and without objection my full statement will be entered in the record, as will all other members', should they choose.
I want to thank all the witnesses today for appearing here, and especially Chief Dombeck. This is the fifth in a series of hearings that we will and are having that began in Sunriver, OR in January of this year. At that point, Chief Dombeck, the Governor of Oregon, and I agreed in a spirit of cooperation about a program to take care of the catastrophic conditions of the forest in eastern Oregon, and for that matter, hopefully, a model for the rest of the country.
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Our discussions led to a number of agreements that we reached at that point. We concluded first that there had to be active management of forests, and secondly that there was immediacy, that we must act immediately to try to stem some of the losses and some of the problems we've had, especially in the West. We agreed that we ought to use the best verifiable science available to us to assist us in this endeavor, and that anything we did had to be accountable to the public.
Well, since that time, we've had an opportunity to hear the Oliver report, and I'll be interested to discuss that report with Chief Dombeck, but Dr. Oliver has spent, along with his associates, about a year preparing some alternatives for management of forests in this country. He was joined by nine scientists from across the United States, and I commend that report to you because I think it gives the policymakers alternatives with which to choose in the manner in which we manage forests.
Of most interest to me was the first alternative, which was do nothing, and the Oliver report indicated that if you do nothing, if you do not manage forests, ultimately you will lose everything that you are trying to protect, in other words, you'll lose the endangered species, you will lose the water quality, you will lose, finally, the resource, because of the changing conditions it will finally burn. Then he lists seven other alternatives which are of interest.
At that point, we turned our interest to seeking information about forest conditions and forest production throughout the country, and this is one of those hearings. Another important, I think, lesson in the Oliver report was the fact that what happens in the public forests in the West impacts what happens to private forests in the East and South. So, we are not operating in a microcosm of view here, we are actually, and should be, concerned with the total forest product, be it east, south, west or whatever, and the policy decisions that we make impact other parts of this country, as well as that particular region.
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I'm optimistic enough to believe that the result of these hearings will provide us with at least a coordinated approach with the Forest Service on how to correct the problems of ecosystem health in this country, but as well to give us an opportunity for a reasonable procedure of harvesting timber from our public lands.
So, with that, again, let me thank all the witnesses and, in particular, the Chief, who has taken a special interest in the forest health system in the West and has traveled at length into that region.
If any member has a statement for the record, it may be included at this time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thune follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN R. THUNE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
Thank you Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Stenholm. Today's hearing is indeed an important one. I am pleased to have the opportunity to hear from our distinguished panel of witnesses. One of the witnesses here today is from my home State of South Dakota. Bill Baker is the president of the Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition. This coalition consists of 43 organizations in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. Their members work to communicate, educate and participate in the natural resource debate at local, state and federal levels. They interact with urban and rural populations, with government representatives, and with diverse groups who use natural resources to produce consumer goods and to meet recreational or social needs.
The Black Hills National Forest, located in western South Dakota, is considered by many to be the ''crown jewel'' of multiple use management. In fact, the very first timber sale in the Nation took place in the Black Hills, near Nemo, SD in 1899. That same area has been harvested twice since then. Today, a new generation of ponderosa pine stands tall and strong--a testament to the proper stewardship of the Black Hills National Forest. The forest is famous for its enormous stands of ponderosa pine and is an essential part of South Dakota's economy. It is an outstanding example of how recreation and commodity programs can co-exist, providing a win-win situation for residents, tourists and the local economies.
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The Black Hills forest products industry includes 18 sawmills and 12 secondary manufacturers producing a full spectrum of lumber products, from housing-quality lumber to particle board and wood pellets. The industry sustains nearly 2,000 jobs. Preserving these South Dakota jobs and the future health of the forest requires careful management--both by the Forest Service and by the timber industry. Good management of the forest by the Forest Service helps sustain a good cut for the timber industry. If we groom the forest well and keep it healthy, then we will have a healthy economy.
Recently, in my State of South Dakota, the U.S. Forest Service released a forest plan to manage the Black Hills National Forest. This plan calls for a lower harvest level which we believe will significantly damage the health of not only our forest industry, but also our National Forest. The new plan also calls for an increase in prescribed burns. One of the worst fires in South Dakota history was a prescribed burn which got out of control. We would rather manage our forest through proper harvesting of dead and dying timber, with a limited amount of prescribed burns.
Having said that, I look forward to hearing today's testimony and will work with my Colleagues on this very important issue. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dombeck, we are delighted to hear from you today.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DOMBECK, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, U.S.DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, Mr. Johnson. I had a chance to visit with Mr. Johnson, who is from my home State, not only my home State, but the good part of the State from the woods in the north country. And, I have with me Dr. Ann Bartuska from our forest health protection staff, and Rick Prausa from our forest management staff, so they are really the people that have the knowledge on the issues that we are here to talk about.
But, I would like to just spend a few minutes talking a little bit about philosophy, because I do believe we all are on the same page, and then make a few comments about the Oliver report, and then we'll be happy to enter into any dialogue and answer questions that you have.
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On my first day in this job, which was January 6, sort of the outline that I laid out for the employees of the Forest Service, that first and foremost we must maintain healthy, diverse and productive ecosystems and watersheds, that if we don't do that we can't meet the needs of people. So, I certainly share the view of the importance of forest health and ecosystems, and that we do that by, essentially, two ways. No. 1 is, we need to apply the best science and technology that we have, and it's also very important that we work with people, people who care for the land, people that are on the land, the loggers, the anglers, the campers, the recreationists, the families that are out there.
I also firmly believe in what Gifford Pynchot said, that a public official is there to serve the public, not to run them, and it's my expectation that everything we do, it's important that we work within the limits of the land.
We know that ecosystems are dynamic and ever changing, and while your forests are generally healthy, problems do exist, and we have many forest health problems that need attention. And, as an attachment to my statement I've attached problems by geographic region that I would ask be entered to the record with the statement.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. DOMBECK. We're abiding by three principles. No. 1, first, unhealthy conditions of our forests developed over many decades, and solutions will take time and commitment. It's important that we look at restoration of forests as an investment, an investment in the land, an investment in our children's futures, an investment that will ensure productivity, healthy and diverse forests.
Second, that restoring forest ecosystem health is not simply a forestry issue. A healthy forest is one that maintains function, diversity, resiliency of all its components, including the vegetation, the fish and wildlife, riparian areas, soils and economic potential, and in most cases will require adaptive management. Doing nothing is not the solution.
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They require maintenance and obliteration in some cases of roads, uses of prescribed fire, grazing management, thinning of green trees, removal of insect and disease infested trees, restoration of wildlife, habitat, riparian areas and the list goes on. The most important point I'd like to make is that we must use all of the tools available to us in forest management and watershed management.
And, third, I want to reaffirm again the importance of effectively communicating the environmental and economic benefits of forest ecosystems to the American public, and I appreciate the dialogue that we've had with this committee in efforts to do that.
I want to turn just a minute to Dr. Oliver's report, the Report of Forest Health in the United States, and I applaud the work of the team of scientists, and I believe the report is of great value in promoting the kind of dialogue necessary to gain public understanding and support for forest restoration activities.
I've also included as a supplement to my statement a detailed analysis or critique of the report, and both Rick and Ann here have looked at it in detail as well.
But, first the report validates the necessity for an ecosystem based approach to management. While it's difficult to achieve integration, integration is the key to solving many of the challenges we have and, in fact, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, that things are connected, something that happens in the Pacific Northwest ultimately has an impact on the South and the Midwest and other places, so that's an important point.
A second important point is that it recognizes the importance of incentives for technical assistance and incentives for the nearly 10 million non-industrial private forest landowners across the country, and those landowners are extremely important, and it's extremely important that we work in a cooperative way with those folks.
But, lastly, I'd like to conclude by saying that ensuring healthy ecosystems begins and ends by working with people, and this is the spirit that I will always work with you, and the committee, and all the interests on, is that we need to work cooperatively, face the issues that we have to face, make sure people understand them, and then move forward. So, it's with that spirit that I'm here today, and I want to thank you for inviting us here to testify, and we'd be happy to answer any questions.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Dombeck appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Chief.
Do your associates wish to make a statement?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Yes, I'd like to add one item to what the Chief has said, and part of the issues that we are dealing with is, we have to identify where the areas of greatest risk are, and that is requiring good information, and I think what we have found is that a good solid monitoring program that establishes where the risks are now and where we are going in the future is part of the package.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I surely agree with that, and a good solid monitoring system also helps you achieve your goals, if we have goals.
Chief, I appreciate your generally favorable statements about the Oliver report. Do you support the concept of fact-based integrated, scientific management? Those are words of art, obviously.
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. That's not a trap, and thank you for the answer. The point I think here is that we have dealt with the Congress and with the Forest Service and people are suspicious about how we are applying forestry practices, and we are more heavily basing our decisions on science than we are the courts, and that's where I think we ought to be.
We've allowed the court system and our mixed management procedures to reach decisions in a court of law, where those decisions should not be. So, maybe relying more upon science, like the Oliver report, will help us avoid that kind of management that I don't think benefits any of us very well.
How do you intend to use the Oliver report in helping to restore the Nation's forests?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I think I will let Ann talk more in detail on that, but, first of all, I think the report, like with many of the studies, is an excellent starting point. It touches on many, many of the issues. I believe the report has been and is being peer reviewed, and comments, we will receive constructive comments that will further strengthen the report. So, I think it's another important tool that we need to utilize, and I'd let Ann add any details that she wants to to that.
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Ms. BARTUSKA. I think what I can add to that is that, one of the strengths of the report is that it does put all the different, or a whole array of management options on the table. It also opens the debate to consider both public and private lands.
And, as Dr. Oliver and I have talked about, he saw this as, and his committee saw it as, an opportunity to increase the level of dialogue, and I think that directly feeds into where we'd like to go in addressing forest health issues, recognizing the array of forest resources and all the lands tied to that.
I think it also is a real opportunity to look at an integrated approach to restoring ecosystem health and forest health, and by addressing certain key factors where do you get the biggest bang for the buck approach. I think where we have some additional work and, again, Dr. Oliver agrees to this, is the consideration of some of the water issues and the wildlife issues associated with those options, and that's something, again, continuing the debate and looking at what the next steps might be fits very well into our direction.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.
You mentioned private landowners, and I wanted to ask you, many of them believe that the Forest's Inventory and Analysis Program is a critical tool for them, what specifically are you folks doing to implement and expand that program for private timber owners?
Mr. DOMBECK. I completely agree, and, in fact, of all of the issues that I hear about in this job, I don't believe that there's an issue where there is more uniform agreement on than that issue. And, you know, from the State foresters, the private landowners, industry, the resource professionals, everybody that's involved, and I, you know, will be looking to put as much funding and request as much funding in that area, not only from the State and private side of the program, but also of the research and management side of it. So, we will be--I view that as one of the most critical programs that we have, because if we worry about going from A to B, that's one of the ways we know where B is and where we are today, or where B should be rather, based on where we are today.
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
At this point, I'd like to recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Stenholm.
Mr. STENHOLM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd just say I'm very pleased to have Mr. Dombeck here today. Sorry I missed your testimony, but I appreciate your input into these hearings.
I understand also, Mr. Chairman, that your staff invited several environmental groups to testify today, and none of which accepted the invitation. I'm disappointed that we won't be hearing from them today, but look forward to hearing from the other panels and continue to work with you on this very important endeavor.
Mr. Dombeck, you and your staff, thank you for being here.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Stenholm. Let me just add a word. There has been some criticism about the balance of the input for this committee, and I want everybody to understand that we have invited a broad array of people. We can't make them attend, but because they have refused this time will not be a reason that they won't be invited again. So, we'll continue, and I thank the gentleman for that point.
Questions of the Chief? The gentlelady from Idaho, Mrs. Chenoweth.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dombeck, it's good to see you. I do want to say I read a speech that you gave a couple of weeks ago to some leaders in a number of different groups. I was very pleased with the speech, and I don't know whether that helps you or hurts you, but I do want you to know the measured approach that you are taking in your job is very impressive.
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And, I appreciate it.
I also want to say, it was awfully good to have Ann Bartuska with us in Idaho and Oregon as we toured the forests and saw some of the devastation that you are working with now.
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I was pleased also to hear from Ann Bartuska today that monitoring systems will be a big part of your programs, and I think it's something that has been lacking in the past.
In our area, we are facing a lot of layoffs in the Forest Service, the different supervisors are having to make those tough decisions. And, in some instances one-third of the Forest Service is being laid off, because the trust funds have been depleted.
With the backlog that is apparent as we tour the forests, of the forest dumpage that needs to be harvested, how are you advising your supervisors to make those cuts? What kind of personnel are you advising to let go, and what kind must be retained in order to keep your program moving?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, first of all, I guess as a general statement, the supervisors themselves determine, you know, their personnel needs. They know their needs better locally than I do back here in Washington.
The thing that I think is important from the standpoint of what's occurring in the northern region of the Forest Service, where the funds are depleted, and it's a general point I think that applies to a lot of things, is I'd like to see us take a look at our budget structure, and I'm also looking at performance measures within the agency, but we've had a tendency to put the cost of entire management on the back of timber.
The direction that I would like to see us--and, as a result, we end up--that leads us into situations like that--I think I'd like to see us approach it, you know, that we make investments in land and land produces all kinds of things if we take care of it. You know, it produces wood fiber, it produces water, wildlife opportunities, hunting, fishing, recreation, scenic beauty, all those kinds of things.
A dialogue that I will be pursuing is taking a look at exactly how our budget structure can move forward to give us as much flexibility as possible, and, you know, to allow us to work with those activities that are needed, without assuming that we have to put the cost of everything we do on the back of timber. I think that's led us into some of the problems we are into today.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Dombeck, as the trust funds have gone, so have gone, in a sense, the PILT payments to those counties who have been impacted by changed policies. I just want to say that I'm going to be working to try to restore the PILT payments, as well as other timber lieu land tax payments. I hope I can have the support of the administration.
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I have a number of other questions, I see my time is nearly up, but I'd like to just write you a letter and present the questions, if it's all right with you, and with you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes, questions will be answered, Chief, should we not have an opportunity to ask all of them, questions may be submitted in writing.
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. DOMBECK. I'd be happy to come up and visit with anyone any time, I realize you are running behind schedule today.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, don't say that, there are 50 of us, so you may never get around. We'll not hold you to that specifically.
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I would invite you all to my office, and we'll visit there.
The CHAIRMAN. That's better.
Mr. Farr.
Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and, again, thank you for having these hearings.
I basically have two questions relating, one, to fire costs, and two, to coordination with State agencies. And, I appreciate your comments about the multiple uses of the forest. I don't think that they are all there for timbering purposes either, they are for recreational uses and passive uses.
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I happen to represent the Los Padres National Forest, which is the only National Forest in California that touches the ocean, and it's mainly in the northern part, in the Monterey County part, it's a passive ecotourism use.
This summer we had two significant fires there, and it seems to me in light of your comments of management, the big criticism, one, was the cost to suppress those fires in an area where if you had applied all these policies that we ought to allow these fires to burn. They were man caused, they were, you know, not naturally caused fires, but they didn't threaten anything. There were no stands of marketable timber to be threatened, the houses were protected, and so, essentially, the question was, why didn't they let it burn more. And, it seems to me that the policy we have usually for forest management is around an intended fire for a controlled burn, rather than a wildfire. Can we apply the same policies that we would for a controlled burn to a wildfire, if, indeed, the bottom line, the intent, is the same?
Mr. DOMBECK. I believe the answer to that is yes, and as a matter of fact the policy that we are headed for, and I'm not familiar with the specific fires you are talking about, if you wish we can look into the specifics of that, but----
Mr. FARR. There is a letter on your desk of some months ago asking about this question.
Mr. DOMBECK [continuing]. I think the policy is, is what we need as part of the land planning process is a fire plan that is developed working with the State, with the countries, with the local communities, so we know in advance how we are going to respond, and, in fact, who is going to respond to deal with that situation, because, you know, as we've talked about with this committee, there are many, many beneficial effects from fire.
Mr. FARR. Let me take the second question, because there has been criticisms from the California side, from CDF, about the different approaches that the U.S. Forest Service has with fire suppression, and forest management, and even the maintenance efforts that we've been talking about here.
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The criticism, basically, is that the Federal system is the most expensive way to do it, that there are cheaper, more cost effective plans, and that there is a lack of coordination on these fires, essentially, you know, there's too many different colored trucks that all show up, and different jurisdictions, and different methodologies for fighting the fire.
Incident Command is a great system. In fact, it was born out of California, and I support it, but I do think that we need to have a better coordination, particularly, where the States have a pretty sophisticated system of their own, that we ought to be learning from States, rather than going about it in just the Federal fashion.
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I certainly agree with that, and I hope that our programs are moving in that direction, but I've got to say, I think some fairly progressive things came out of the fire community, like the Incident Command system, the Cooperative Resource Management Planning Process, where all the entities got together and said what makes the most sense on this tract of land for us to operate. I mean, that's one of the basic premises of ecosystem management, is that we take a look at it and do what's most efficient and expedient, and that's the direction that I'm pushing.
Mr. FARR. Well, would you take a look at the Monterey, the Los Padres fires, because those are $13 and $15 million suppressive efforts that I think could have been considerably cheaper.
Mr. DOMBECK. I think it's important to note, though, one of the problems that we run into with fighting wild land fire is, fire is always dangerous, whether it's a prescribed burn, and we always have to treat it that way. Between the States and the Federal agencies and the Forest Service, we have the best wild land firefighters in the world, and oftentimes local people that are not trained want to help, and we're always very concerned about their safety, and making sure that they don't get into a situation that's very dangerous for them.
In fact, in the chairman's district, we had some very close calls in 1994 with local residents that were there helping and you have a blowup occur, and fortunately there weren't injuries in that situation, but they were sure close calls. So, I would urge, I always urge people to be very careful with fire, and that's why we've got to leave it to the pros in the States, the counties.
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Mr. FARR. I totally agree.
Mr. Chairman, I'm going to submit a letter with some specific suggestions from CDF in California on some of these issues that I'm talking about.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
While we are talking about fire, occurrences last year in Oregon were dismal, frankly, a natural fire started in the bottom of Hell's Canyon, it was determined that it should be limited to 10,000 acres, it was in August, 100 degree temperature, 40 mile an hour wind, it burned 50,000 acres shockingly. And, another fire, the Summit fire, was a very small fire started by a lightning strike. It was left and it burned about 32,000 acres of prime timberland, billions of board feet of timber.
Now, I guess the question is, Chief, and we talked about this at some length, no matter whether it's a natural fire, man caused, or a fire caused by other means, if it's in July, August and September in the West we ought to fight every one of them, it seems to me. I mean, the idea that you allow one to burn to 10,000 acres and it gets away, it seems to me a waste.
So, is there any reason to have a prescribed fire in the height of fire season, I guess is my question?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I think we should never have a prescribed fire when the conditions aren't appropriate. One of the advantages of the using of the tool of prescribed fire, which is one of many, is that based upon the management plan, you know, you worry about--you are supposed to have a window of opportunity that, you know, the appropriate humidity, the appropriate moisture, field moisture levels, the weather conditions and that sort of thing, and if conditions aren't appropriate then we shouldn't be doing prescribed fire.
And, of course, we rely on our experts. I don't know of that specific situation, and I don't know if Ann or Rick want to add anything about our fire policies, but we've got a window of opportunity that we work in, and we shouldn't be working outside of that.
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The CHAIRMAN. Well, hindsight is perfect. Nobody wants those fires to burn, nobody wants them to explode. The point is that maybe we need more direct kinds of instruction to people, so that they don't make bad judgments, and everybody is subject to a bad judgment here and there, but the point is that it seems to me rather simple, simply put, that you ought to have a rule that you don't have prescribed fires during the fire season, nor do you allow a fire to go unattended during fire season.
Ms. BARTUSKA. If I could just add to that, I think what you are talking about really underlies one of our new directions, and that's to get into areas and do a lot more aggressive mechanical treatments before you introduce a fire.
What we know for the Inland West is, only about 10 percent of that area can you burn a prescribed fire in before you've done something. We also know that the prevention really pays off, and a 20 to 80 return on the investment from suppression to prevention comparison. So, I think it's really critical that we do get in there, into some of these sites, and do the treatment before the fires are allowed to come in.
The CHAIRMAN. That's very correct, and, you know, I've said many, many times that if you have a third of the timber standing dead, if you have over 25 tons of fuel on the floor of the forest, and you have a situation in the summertime where there's a fire, it's pretty hard to even fight that kind of fire. Most naturally, you wait until it reaches a natural barrier, it's hard to fight. They are too hot to fight.
And, your point is well put, that's the reason we are here. We are trying to point out the fact that an investment in the forest, in management, to eliminate many of these hot fires is a great investment for this country, because if you don't manage the forests we're going to lose them, that's why we are here. And, your forest health issue is right on track.
Mr. DOMBECK. In fact, I want to thank you for your support, although the 1998 appropriation isn't final, but we appreciate your support of the funding.
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and we're trying to point out to the appropriators this very important lesson, and that is simply that, the investment on the land will reduce the need for huge firefighting costs, and in the end we will, hopefully, reduce the costs of fighting fire because we'll have less of them and they'll be less destructive.
Further questions of the Chief?
Mr. Baldacci.
Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for these extensive hearings on the health of our country's forests. I'm especially grateful for the time that the committee will spend examining conditions and issues in the Northeast. I also want to extend a welcome to two people from Maine, Chuck Gadzik and Steve Shefley, president of Pingree Associates, and also the director of the Maine Forest Service. Pingree Associates has approximately 950,000 acres of Maine timberland and family ownership.
I applaud the chairman's desire to have an open discussion about using science and balancing often conflicting values to craft policy for our Nation's timberland. I need to reinforce a major point that will be raised by some of the witnesses today, one that is very important for Maine, where less than 5 percent of the State's forest lands are publicly owned. The underlying science remains the same, whether it's for public or private lands, however, the value sought by land managers as they balance environmental needs and economic stability differ dramatically between public lands and private lands.
The question I have for the Chief is that the Northern Forest Lands Council was created in 1990, had a life span of 4 years, and it sought ways for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont to maintain traditional patents of ownership in use of the northern forests. It conducted research, consulted experts, held public meetings before weighing options and fulfilling its obligations by crafting a series of recommendations.
The Forest Service was one of the stakeholders involved in that, and I just was interested in the views you have in the resulting legislation, the Northern Forest Stewardship Act, and how you would propose to implement it.
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Mr. DOMBECK. Well, we are very pleased to be part of that effort, and are very, very supportive of that effort and that legislation, and we want to continue to be partners with the players involved in that, so you can look to State and private programs and expertise that we have to assist with that.
Mr. BALDACCI. As far as about the ability to implement it, any comments in regards to how you would go about implementing it?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I guess I'm not sure how we are positioned in the budget to do that. I don't know if Rick or anyone here has that information, but we would be--you know, I'd be happy to send you a summary of where we are at on that specific to budget and out capability.
Mr. BALDACCI. OK, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
If there are no other questions, I have just one other question, Chief. You've mentioned in prior testimony that we have some 40 million acres of national forests in the country which is in an unacceptable level of fire risk. Where are these areas, specifically?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I think most of it is in the Inland West, and, again, you know, thanks to your support for our 1998 appropriation that's in the mill now, we hope to be able to increase work on almost a half million acres to add another 500,000 acres to what was originally planned for 1998, and we'd ultimately like to reach a point where we are gaining on this problem by about 3 million acres a year, I think.
And, based upon the current House mark, we could do about, is it 1.1 to 1.2 million acres of treatment on that, so we've got to increase the rate at which we are going after the problem.
The CHAIRMAN. That's obvious, it would take us 40 years to get there at this rate, and 40 years from now those forests won't be there likely, unless we make a dramatic change in what we are doing on the floor of the forests.
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Mr. Johnson.
Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of quick questions.
First of all, I'm pleased to have somebody from Wisconsin heading the Forest Service. I grew up not far from the Hiawatha National Forest and the U.P., not far from you, but now I've got the McClay National Forest in my district.
I wondered if you'd comment on the Forest Roads Program, its value, any changes you may see regarding forest roads.
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I think the roads have been part of the debate that we have, in a sense, struggled with over the last few years, and I think what we've got to do is look at the roads system as a transportation system.
For example, in the proposed budget, of the 2,300 miles of road work, over 2,000 of that is upgrading existing roads to standards, roads that, you know, have sedimentation problems that are contributing to other environmental problems, and it's real important that we look at roads as a transportation system, because on the Shawamegan, where I grew up, you know, a Forest Service road went right by our house, and today it's black top, but it wasn't then. So, it's part of the infrastructure of the community, well beyond roads that are specific for one single specific purpose, and we need to view it in that light.
Mr. JOHNSON. One part of the testimony, I was looking at the Forest Service team's analysis of the report, and you talk about the report saying that it doesn't analyze fire water, wildlife, recreation issues in as much depth as the analysis on economics and wood production issues, suggests economic value of recreation is minimal, to the contrary, with the expected continuing increase in urban population the Forest Service expects the value of recreation enforced in areas will increase. Is there a way, are you proposing a way, are you talking about ways to measure the economic impact of recreation on forests?
Mr. DOMBECK. We continue to work with that. Part of the mandate of the Resources Planning Act is that the Forest Service analyze all of the uses.
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What I can tell you is that the recreation use of the National Forest System is literally skyrocketing. I know, you know, in the Nikalay and the Shawamegan, the National Forest System is now, of all the Federal agencies is the largest provider of recreation, surpassing the Park Service, we're at 865 million visitor days, and within the next decade or so we expect to exceed a billion. We've got to have a way to manage and work with, you know, this significant program.
And, roads are important to recreation, very important to that aspect.
Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you very much.
Mr. DOMBECK. Sixty percent, I think, of Wisconsin is forest, so it's pretty big there.
Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Foley.
Mr. FOLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
In your testimony, you state that this administration firmly believes the current legal framework under which the Forest Service operates has worked well in serving the needs of the American public, while protecting the environment.
In your opinion, has the appeals and litigation process improved or impeded forest ecosystem health restoration over the last 10 years?
Mr. DOMBECK. It's impeded it, and I think a lot of the debate, in a sense, of the forest health, the debate is as much a social debate as it is anything, and that's why I believe so strongly that this kind of dialogue in the atmosphere we've had with this Congress has been productive.
The more that we can get out there and talk to people, and get people to understand the importance of healthy watersheds, and function of forests, I believe the stronger support base that we'll have.
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I'm one that believes deeply that most people want to do the right thing. And, what I intend to do in this job, within the space that I have to work in, is number one, is we need to be absolutely ruthless in streamlining our processes, because over the last 20 years or so it seems like the resource manager has moved out of the field and into the office, and we've got to get, you know, our foresters, our hydrologists, our biologists, our landscape architects, and the lists go on and on, we've got to get them out on the land and streamline our processes significantly, and that's one area that I am focused like a laser on. In fact, I met with my planning staff yesterday, and pretty much told them that I want them to be ruthless in streamlining and working with CEQ on streamlining NEPA and the consultation process.
And, another important part of this is the coordination of agencies that I think has, in many parts of the country, increased significantly. There was a backlog of endangered species consultations of about 1,200 in the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, and by simply moving from a serial to a parallel process we have eliminated that backlog. Those are things that I can do in working with the other agency heads, and just know that I'm going to continue to champion that.
Mr. FOLEY. So, clearly, the appeals and litigation haven't obviously helped nurture the forestry areas, they've actually cost you to put more people focused on those areas, rather than doing your mission.
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes. We have a limited amount of time and energy and money, whether you are at home or at work, and it's important that we direct as much of that to the land and the work on the land as possible.
There has been a disproportionate amount of energy directed to the process.
Mr. FOLEY. What do you suggest you will do over the next 6 months or even up to a year in order to streamline the process? What mechanism will you put in place to help expedite?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, there are two things that I can do. First of all, just from the standpoint of the way each individual employee operates on a day-to-day basis, what I've asked employees to do is to write simpler, write shorter letters, use smaller words, no bureaucratese, none of us need more to read, and to streamline every process that we can.
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The individual employee knows their job better than I do, and if they don't, we need to find somebody that does, because I know more about less things than anybody else in the agency. But, that's a responsibility of the employee, and I want each of them to do that.
If we can streamline what we do by 10 percent, that's a tremendous savings in an organization the size of the Forest Service, and I think it's really important not to overlook the importance that each individual can make.
The second thing is what I talked about earlier, is to go after our administrative processes and planning processes, and streamline as much of that as possible.
And, there's a third important area that I think I can work in, and the agency can work in, and that's to build a local support base for what we do. The more people agree upon our approach, the more they understand the importance of forest health, the less challenges we'll have and the more work will get done on the ground.
Mr. FOLEY. I'm looking at streamlining, if you can just quickly answer how much time will be saved in project preparation, how many more of the 40 million acres at risk will the streamlining enable the Forest Service to restore in a year, and then, really, how much will this streamlining lower unit costs for forest ecosystem health restoration? Is it quantifiable now, if you even do the 10 percent streamlining?
Mr. DOMBECK. I guess I would hesitate to take a wild guess here, but I think we can take a stab at the question in a written response if you wish, unless Ann or Rick would like to get out on a limb. No, they opt for the written.
Mr. FOLEY. Well, we would accept the written analysis.
Mr. DOMBECK. But, it's easy, I would say with confidence, the savings that we need to accrue through streamlining is significant.
Mr. FOLEY. And, you feel the entire agency will be cooperative to this new venture?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, with as much the Chief has control over the agency, they better be.
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Mr. FOLEY. Right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Further questions?
Mr. Thune.
Mr. THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to, if I could, followup just a little bit on the line of questioning that Mr. Foley engaged in there.
You had indicated, Chief, that in your testimony the administration believes firmly that the current legal framework under which the Forest Service operates has worked well in serving the needs of the American people, while protecting the environment. And, I appreciate your emphasis of the importance of the need to streamline that process.
We are going to hear a little bit later today from a gentleman from my State, and the Black Hills National Forest System, and I just want to point something out because I think it's important. When you talk about this appeals process, the last 31 consecutive timber sale decisions have been appealed in our State of South Dakota. And, ultimately what happens, and normally it's the same handful of people that do that, the impact has been especially critical on salvage sales.
Now, just as a case in point, we had 3 million board feet of blow down, trees blew down during a blizzard in the northern Black Hills, the salvage actually isn't going to start, the logging operation, until October, while the Forest Service wades through the appeal process.
And, 10 years ago, I think that that operation already would have been underway. And, of course, the longer that we wait, the more that it means that the U.S. Government is going to recover and get less than it would have for the timber, because it will be deteriorated and lost, and the value to the sawmills.
I guess the only point I would make is, there has got to be a way, and maybe you could again comment on this, when you talk about streamlining, to either limit the amount of time in which this appeal process can be carried on, or in some way within the agency work to avoid this type of problem.
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I mean, this is--and the other thing, I guess, I would note too, and maybe you can comment on this as well, there was no reference in your testimony to the whole logging issue, and it's almost like logging is a bad word. And, certainly in our part of the country, that's a part of the management of the resource, and we are going to hear from the Multiple Use Coalition in South Dakota, which I think has done a wonderful job of managing that resource and the number of groups who have an interest, including those who are involved in logging, in grazing, in mining, in recreation and tourism, have worked together and are, perhaps, the very best stewards of the land that we can possibly have.
There's also, I think he will show us later on, and he probably needed someone to help him carry his briefcase, but an environmental assessment that they had to go through, and it's a stack of about that thick, and there just has to be a better way, a more common sense and more balanced way in which to approach this process, and so I'd be interested in knowing what your thoughts might be in that regard.
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I guess there are several questions or several topics in your statement, and let me say first that the more we can rely on science and technology, and the things that we've talked about, the monitoring needs, the forest inventory and analysis needs and things like that, I think the quicker we'll be able to make decisions and the more flexibility we'll have.
The forest health debate, and I view it as a social debate as much as anything, and, in fact, some of the areas that are in troubled areas maybe we haven't practiced the appropriate silviculture in for whatever reasons, and in many cases we had a tendency to put the cost of everything on the back of timber, and if the values weren't there then the management prescriptions that could have improved that area may not have been applied, and that's one big issue that we need to take a close look at.
From the standpoint of, you know, the comment on logging, like, you know, where I grew up, like where Representative Johnson grew up, logging is, you know, an important industry, and logging is one very, very important tool that we have, and I continue to see timber harvest as playing an important role as part of the tool bag with prescribed fire, and thinnings, and dealing with invasive exotic plants and all those kinds of things.
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Now, was there another question?
Mr. THUNE. Well, I think that, hopefully, I guess I'm just looking in a very practical sense, you know, we have to do something, because it is in everybody's best interest, in my view, including the interest of the U.S. Government, to see that this lengthy, protracted appeals process is somehow addressed in a way that, again, makes sense, not only for the people who are making a living in that, but also from the Government's standpoint.
And, one point, I guess, I would add as well, maybe in the form of a question, would be what can the Forest Service do by way of education to help people understand the importance of logging and the timber aspects of our national forests?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, we've got to get out of the office. The more interaction we can have with people on the land the better, is, I think, one of the key things that we can do, and streamline our processes, get more efficient, make sure that we spend as much time as possible in areas of agreement, and that's why I think, you know, call it collaborative stewardship, partnerships, people working together on the land, whatever you want to call it, I think that's the way we're going to ultimately make progress.
Rick had a comment with maybe some more detail on one of my points.
Mr. PRAUSA. Well, one thing we might mention is that the agency learned a great deal about the public's desire for the appeals process, and the public's desire to be involved in our projects through implementation of the 1995 Rescissions Act, and some of the reviews that were done during that time period indicated that where we do have collaborative efforts with the public and with other agencies, that does tend to reduce our work load with appeals. And, I think some of these efforts that are going on now, that the Chief was talking about, will really help to reduce that work load that we've got, essentially.
Mr. DOMBECK. It's interesting, not only with this topic, but I'm sure with many other topics that you hear about, is that, you know, people want the ability to question Government, and I can't add anything to that statement.
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Mr. THUNE. And, I believe that. I mean, I think most of here know full well that people like to question Government, based upon the volume of mail that's generated in each of our offices, and it's very important, I think, that we be responsive. That is our job, after all, but I do think that to the extent, when you've got procedures and processes in place, that they can be managed better in the interest again, I mean, there are a lot of people who are dependent upon the resource for their livelihood in our part of the country, and it just seems to me that, you know, when you are batting 31 for 31, and every single time it is the same people who are bringing that appeal, and every single time it's a lengthy, drawn out battle, that we've got to do a better job with that.
And so, I guess I would urge you and your people that you work with throughout the country to, as much as you can, begin taking us in that direction.
Mr. THUNE. Thank you. I thank the Chair.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
I agree totally, and I won't put words in anybody's mouth, but we are approaching gridlock when we come to these questions of how do you get a salvage sale to market while there is still value in the timber. In the fires of last year, if we ever get to a point that those sales can be sold we will be late this year, and the question then, as we all know, how that timber reduces rapidly in its value, so the question I guess, again, Chief, to underlie Mr. Thune's point here, if, indeed, there is--you find assistance necessary from this committee, or changes in the law that you can support, we'd be happy to help you do that, recognizing that no one here wants to close the courthouse doors, no one. However, there are frivolous lawsuits, and you must take care of each of them, and so somehow together we have to struggle through this to make sure people still have a right to redress their problems with the Government, but that it doesn't abnormally delay the process. I guess that's what we are trying to reach for.
So, in your review, again, we invite you to allow us to help you, if you so choose.
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Mr. DOMBECK. Well, thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Further questions of any of our members?
We have a vote, we'll recess for a short time, and we'll return to hear the rest of our witnesses.
[Recess.]
The CHAIRMAN. We'll come to order.
For those who are interested, we have three more panels. I plan to hear the next panel now, and at that point we will recess until 2:00, so for those of you who are making plans you will be notified of that, unless someone has an airplane connection problem, which you can talk to me about if you do.
Therefore, we will continue our hearing, and we are pleased to welcome Mr. Jim Hubbard, Colorado State Forest Service, Colorado State University, Mr. Bryce, a State Forester for the Division of Forest and Lands in Concord, New Hampshire, and Mr. Gadzik, who is the State Forester for the Maine Forest Service. Gentlemen, welcome, we are delighted to have you here. We'll start with Mr. Hubbard.
STATEMENT OF JIM HUBBARD, COLORADO STATE FOREST SERVICE, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm Jim Hubbard, State Forester, Colorado, and as such a land manager. My primary job is serving State and private land ownership, but I come from a State and a region where there's considerable Federal land that has impacts on our management activity.
The observations I have of the Oliver report, I'll be brief in general, and that is that, to establish consistent policy and less confusion is important as a purpose, and I think the Oliver report's useful information and thoughtful options give us the opportunity for that kind of a dialogue.
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Just as importantly, I'd like to note that the report suggests our current assessment systems are having a hard time keeping up with monitoring demands, and I would agree with that wholeheartedly.
Specifically, about the Inland West, one third of the land base is Federal and two thirds of the productive timberland is Federal. At the same time, less than 40 percent of our growth is being removed, and most of that 40 million acres that was mentioned at risk is in the Inland West. We have small diameter forests that are overcrowded, over 100 years old, and where fire has predominantly been excluded. These systems were created by disturbance and they are ready to regenerate.
Therefore, our greatest risk facing us is catastrophic fire. We've got fuel build-ups, we get hotter fires, they are more difficult to control, and then when you add people into the equation, homes in the woods, you've got a public protection problem.
In 1996, 96,000 fires occurred, 6 million acres were burned. The 10-year average is 39,000 fires and less than a million acres. I don't think that's an anomaly. It was a tough year in 1994, too, and I think we are facing those kinds of years with our current forest condition. So, we are increasing our exposure. It's more dangerous fighting those fires, and we've got the associated property and resource damage that go with that.
What are our management options? There are more acres than we can treat immediately. There's less management activity, especially on Federal land, and that's leading to a declining industry base to help us get this job done.
On the positive side, there's more local agreement about land management objectives. There's more agency collaboration in assessment and setting priorities. An example is what we call the Colorado Red Zone, where the U.S. Forest Service and the State Forest Service in Colorado, along the front range where we have a lot of development moving into the forests, jointly conducted a wildfire hazard assessment that's setting planning objectives that are entering work plans for national forests that we are implementing together.
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But, without that implementation, the job is not complete, and that implementation too often doesn't occur.
With this as a backdrop, I'd offer the following suggestions. Fuels management can't wait. Where policy and funding allow, mixed ownership projects should receive a priority. If process interferes, I would recommend pilot authority be considered. Colorado, for instance, is prepared to implement stewardship contracting on all lands, that's timber removal for land treatment primarily aimed at non-timber objectives. It's a mechanism for integrated management on priority sites.
Private lands need to be addressed in terms of removing tax policy disincentives. Estate tax is a primary disincentive leading to land fragmentation. Voluntary incentive programs for public benefit objectives also contribute a lot to what private landowners can add to the equation.
Longer term, thanks to this committee, the work that's happening on the Senate side, what western governors are doing, and significantly international efforts, have provided a leadership opportunity that I suggest we haven't seen before. Establishing national goals for sustainable forest management is something that I think we now have a chance to do. The United States has agreed to a set of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. I've provided a copy to the committee.
Seven criteria that are in this agreement could become the basis for national goals, and the appropriate indicators could be the accountability that we are looking for, and this together can be long-term national policy. Then we hold up all the laws and the programs against this direction and measure our progress accordingly.
In summary, the Oliver report is a vehicle for policy debate, a good vehicle for policy debate. The Inland West is a forest that's beginning to regenerate, in places that's going to be through catastrophic disturbance. In the short term, I think stewardship authorities, joint hazard reduction projects and landowner incentives can play a role. In the long term, I think we need the strategic policy that addresses all the Nation's forests, that policymakers like yourselves can give land managers like myself a guide to go by.
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Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hubbard appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
Now we are pleased to hear from Mr. Bryce, who is from New Hampshire.
Mr. Bryce.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP A. BRYCE, STATE FORESTER, DIVISION OF FOREST AND LANDS, CONCORD, NH
Mr. BRYCE. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Philip Bryce. I am a New Hampshire State Forester. It's an honor for me to be before you here today.
I would like to introduce you to New Hampshire's forest policy and in particular share with you the style of forest policy development that has resulted in many successes over the years. If I were to describe the New Hampshire style, it would be as follows: empower an enlightened community of diverse interests to take action.
The forest policy document for the State, the New Hampshire Forest Resources Plan, is the result of this style of forest policy development. The plan sets out 62 specific actions developed through the collaboration of 28 individuals and the organizations that many represented. New Hampshire's plan is based, to a great degree, on the successful work of the congressionally funded Northern Forest Lands Council.
I wish to submit to the committee a copy of the New Hampshire Forest Resources Plan as an addendum to my testimony to be entered into the record. The plan contains New Hampshire's specific recommendations on how to address many of the 35 values in the Oliver report on Forest Health of the United States and primarily promotes the integrated approaches to management described in the report.
New Hampshire has relied on other States for guidance in its policy development. We hope that in turn the actions in the New Hampshire plan and the New Hampshire experience may be helpful to other regions of the country with similar demographics and forest ownership patterns.
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So, why does empowering an enlightened community of diverse interests to take action work? Based on my own experience in New Hampshire, I would like to answer that by explaining each of the terms in the phrase further.
In New Hampshire, empowerment has occurred when organizations, including Government, are not afraid to let others take leadership. Empowerment also means artificial barriers to progress are lifted, participation is meaningful, and external resources are provided on the basis of trust.
A solid foundation in the best available science is the key to enlightened policy. Science provides the necessary understanding of the implications of actions at the and global scales. Enlightened policy is developed successfully with openness to new thought, sensitivity to the objectives of others, and an understanding of our dependence on and relationship to the forest.
Communities occur at different scales and are defined by commitment to a common set of goals. The key to the forestry community in New Hampshire has been the close relationships built between diverse interests over the years.
Representation of diverse interests is the basis of an inclusive process. Success in New Hampshire has occurred where there is honesty, trust and respectful disagreement among diverse interests, from staunch industry critics to steadfast private property rights advocates.
Taking action, the last term in the phrase, supports trust and respect and is where we finally turn all the dialogue into concrete results.
While New Hampshire forest policy development has seen a number of successes, there are a number of threats to the style that resulted in these successes.
There is a natural tendency to slip towards a polarized style of issue resolution, a style based solely in the short term preservation of self interest. Too often good work is shelved because there is a lack of commitment to find the resources necessary to follow through, it is too easy to discount the work of others, and further study allows for renegotiation of earlier decisions. It is particularly frustrating for people to commit to development of collaborative forest policy only to have an unsatisfied minority of interests prevent agreed upon actions from being implemented.
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Some of the biggest threats and opportunities for New Hampshire are the impacts of Federal policy and a global economy over which the State has limited control.
There are a number of specific policies which have been identified at the Federal level which have a direct impact on the ability of New Hampshire's forests to provide its many values and the values outlined in the Oliver report. Recommendations for these policies follow.
Fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund at the currently authorized level and support Forest Legacy to provide States with a means to protect resource values, particularly those lost in land conversion.
Address forest taxation issues, such as capital gains treatment of timber and estate taxes so that policy is consistent with long-term investment in our forest resources.
Support existing programs such as the Stewardship Incentive Program that provide incentives to landowners to actively manage their land for a variety of forest benefits.
Provide more complete and timely data through the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis, so that States can make informed decisions about their resources.
Continue to actively manage National Forests for multiple benefits, including timber production, to support local forest products economies, to offset timber growth lost as more integrated approaches are being applied on private lands, and to serve as an example to the public and private landowners of the benefits of the integrated management approach.
As stated earlier, the actions that New Hampshire is taking to provide the broad spectrum of forest values are set forth in the Forest Resources Plan. A summary of the key findings excerpted from the plan, and the first action steps in implementation of the plan, are included in my written testimony.
I hope my comments and this information is useful to you.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bryce appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
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The CHAIRMAN. I thank you, and it's very useful. I appreciate it. Without objection your full statement will be entered in the record.
Mr. BRYCE. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gadzik, from the State of Maine, welcome.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES J. GADZIK, DIRECTOR, MAINE FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION, AUGUSTA, ME
Mr. GADZIK. Thank you, thank you, Chairman Smith, members of the committee.
My name is Chuck Gadzik. I am a State forester from the State of Maine, and it's a pleasure to be here today.
I think in your deliberations, I'm not sure how much you've heard about the Northeastern forests, perhaps, maybe Phil and I are the first ones to represent those issues to you today, there will be more that follow, but clearly in the Northeast there's a different focus from what you've seen and worked on in terms of the issues of the West.
First of all, fire is not the dominant driving force in our forest management issues. It's a presence, but it's not a dominant force. The other is the ownership patterns. The Northeast is dominated by privately-owned forest lands, and probably Maine represents that to the ultimate degree. In Maine, 96 percent of our 17 million acres is privately held. It's 85 percent, I think, overall in the Northeast.
I think an important point in deliberations an understanding that when we talk about privately-owned forests, we are not talking about entirely private values or private benefit. In Maine, we have 150 years of management in these private forest lands, and we have come to expect and in many cases demand that the private--the management on these private lands fulfill the objectives, public objectives, of purifying water, maintaining wildlife habitat, providing recreational--quality recreational experiences, and now most recently I think we are beginning to flesh out, and demand, and understand the issues around forests' biological health, with the full expectation that management on those private lands will meet objectives and goals to satisfy public concerns.
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Not all is perfect in Maine. We have issues to resolve and problems to sort through, and these are issues that we've been dealing with for a period of time, and I think one thing that I would like to emphasize, on this issue of ownership patterns, and traditions, and where our successes have been, is that in the early 1990's the Northern Forest Lands Council was created. Phil referred to that, and I think Charlie Levesque later on will talk in more detail, but the consensus goal and objective or basis statement for that Northern Forest Lands Council to proceed was the simple statement that, ''The current land ownership and management patterns have served the people in the forests of the region well. We are seeking reinforcement, rather than replacement, of the patterns of ownership and use that have characterized these lands for decades,'' and I think that's a key component as we talk about what's broke and what needs to be fixed, it's not a case of a train wreck where all of these things have collapsed. We really have a success story, and we are looking at really tinkering and modifying that.
The Northern Forest Lands Council report of September, 1994 did identify a number of issues. I think the key issue that was there for them were the problems that develop with lands that transfer from one ownership to another. We see the change of traditional use, change of focus, change of commitment to forestry principles are in question with these transfers, so there were a whole variety of issues that developed there.
We also know, and clearly we know in Maine, that there are great concerns about forest practices, and we are engaged in a great political debate about that now.
But, I think in coming here today, one of the things that I really wanted to do was focus on the question of what can you do to help these issues. What is the proper role for the Federal Government? And, again, I think there's a distinction between the Federal ownership, the public ownership and private lands, whereas, the people of Maine are not asking the Federal Government to come in and take a management role to the degree that you are taking on Federal lands, that's not what we are looking for. And, in fact, I mean you said that you may be approaching gridlock, I think from all pretenses our view from Maine is, you've reached gridlock on Federal lands, and we commonly refer to it as a train wreck, and this is not what we want, this is not where we want to head.
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The first thing you can do is continue support and enact the Stewardship Act that comes out of the Northern Forest Lands Council. It's a principal thing that really needs to happen. We have broad consensus support from all interests in Maine that this is a good thing that should happen and from the region.
Beyond that, there are three areas that really need your help and support. One is removing disincentives, and those are principally tax issues, and I know that Steve Schley from Maine in a later panel will talk at length about those.
The other is to enhance the incentive programs that already exist, and I want to talk a little bit about that, but first I want to start with my priority here, which is really to enhance the scientific-based information. It was a pleasure for me to hear from Chief Dombeck and from yourself the importance that the Forest Inventory and Assessment Program has. The reality is, that program is $16 million or less than a half of a percent of the U.S. Forest Service budget, and you've allocated, I think, $200 million to the monitoring on Federal lands. There is clearly a disproportionate problem there. You need to allocate more money to FIA.
Basic information is what we all agree needs to happen to make better decisions on forest policy and forest basis here.
I see I've got the yellow light, I don't have a lot of time left.
The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead, please. Don't worry about the yellow light.
Mr. GADZIK. Thank you.
The same component is the existing programs. Now, the U.S. Forest Service has, as 4.8 percent of their budget, a division or group called State and Private. State and Private is a tremendous success story. It has done tremendous things in identifying key programs that have really made a difference in promoting good forest stewardship on privately-held lands, diversifying and building economies in rural communities. It's been tremendously successful, but it has really struggled to attract the attention of full financial support.
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And, I'm going to tell you that the people who are tied to State and Private, such as myself, really feel that we are the ignored poor cousin of the U.S. Forest Service, and, you know, we will get the general comments of support, but in reality, when push comes to shove, we are not a key component. And, it seems extremely ironic to me that as timber harvests have declined in the national forest lands, and pushed to what I think is 90 percent harvest, 90 percent of our wood needs are coming from private lands, at the same time we have continued to de-emphasize the role that the U.S. Forest Service can play on those other lands through State and Private. I think that's a key area of focus for your attention.
So, I thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gadzik appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. And, I thank you.
Mr. Gadzik, you raise some interesting questions, one of which we have been discussing with the scientists, and that is simply the possibility of arranging a group of scientists to serve in various regions of the country, both private and public, but allow them to be a type of consultant for private landowners as well as the publics. In the case of the publics, they are there to provide the current and best available science to be applied, which may assist in the problems that we are having with lawsuits possibly, simply because the judge now has a scientific panel, as well as his own investigation of the question of the lawsuit, but in the case of private landowners and especially in Maine and New Hampshire, a panel of scientists that would help you and the private landowners search for the best methods of forestry practices. What do you think of that idea?
Mr. GADZIK. Well, I think it potentially has merit. There are dangers with it. I think if you can be in a role of supporting, I mean, I think it's clear that forest policy, certainly in Maine, and I think New Hampshire and the other States, the region, see that their policies are going to be sorted out in their own State Houses, and that you, through providing good information, and as you propose better expertise, or more depth in expertise, those can be good things.
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There is a fear. There is a fear that with Federal expertise, or Federal programs, or Federal support, comes all the other things, and people see that what tags along ultimately on the end is appeals and litigation. And, you know, obviously, these are issues associated with the Endangered Species Act today in our State, and some of the wetlands issues now. So, I think that if you propose dedicating more resources and expertise to the States, it's really important how that be structured. I think it can work, but I think you need to expect that if it's perceived in the wrong way it will be strongly rejected from the notion that, here is big brother coming.
And, that's why I think looking at State and Private, which has very successfully over a lot of years carved out a niche of support, and built the relationship so that they are not feared as some new external effort would be.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, just to comment on your management, if, indeed, you have provided through, what, 96 percent privately-owned forests, you've accommodated endangered species, you've accommodated your water quality issues, you've accommodated the private sector in logging practices, indeed, if you've done all that maybe we ought to privatize the public forests.
Mr. GADZIK. Well, that's certainly been kicked around in our circles, but, I mean, you know, it's not to say that we have no problems, we do. We have debates, we have difficulties, but we are in a different place than Federal lands, for sure.
The CHAIRMAN. Sure.
Mr. Hubbard, the question you always wanted to have asked is the one that I'm going to ask you. Following Mr. Gadzik's recommendations, what should the Federal Government be doing, and what should the Congress be doing that we are not in the area of public forestry management?
Mr. HUBBARD. I think the biggest suggestion--the most important suggestion that I would have is to establish some national policy, some goals, some over-arching goals, long-term goals, that policymakers such as Congress decide are best for the country.
I suggested that maybe that ties into the International Agreement on Criteria and Indicators, but whatever it is, I think that we need that kind of direction. We have a number of different laws now. They aren't always headed in the same direction, and it causes us many process problems.
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I think when we focus first on the process, we've missed part of it. We need to back up and look at the national policy for all the Nation's forest land, and weigh what we decide in implementation against that policy. So, I would very much like to see Congress establish that direction.
The CHAIRMAN. I agree with you.
Mr. Bryce, same question.
Mr. BRYCE. Support the existing local efforts. For example, you talked about providing scientific expertise. You've already done that to a great extent in New Hampshire through the Federal funds that flow down through to Cooperative Extension, Federal funds that flow through to the Durham office of the U.S. Forest Service, both for State and Private and research. Those folks were critically and intimately involved in the creation of recommended voluntary forest management practices for the State of New Hampshire, which cover things like heron colonies, high elevation forests, and vernal pools. Those practices that match between science and applying things on the ground.
We've just completed the recommended practices we're very proud of it, and it was an effort of both policy people and the scientific community sitting at the same table and coming up with an excellent product.
One of your later speakers is going to speak to that a little bit in depth, and he has a copy of the practices that he brought with him.
The other Federal role is in providing data, as is mentioned earlier, through forest inventory and analysis. The concept of national indicators flowing out of the Santiago Agreement, indicators of sustainability that we've set out for ourselves at a national level, would be an excellent service to the States, so they'd know where they fit in the larger picture, and land and water conservation funds, and, last but not least, in general, following through with the work of the Northern Forest Lands Council that Mr. Gadzik mentioned earlier. There are 35 odd specific recommendations in there that Congress funded to have developed, and they received broad support from a lot of folks and from those community of interests in New England. They are worthy of looking at each one and seeing how it's coming along.
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The CHAIRMAN. All right, thank you very much.
Questions of this panel?
Mr. Cooksey.
Mr. COOKSEY. I wanted to ask a series of questions with only a one-word answer, and I can give you the choice. It's a multiple choice.
Do the panel members know what supposedly is the oldest profession? Yes or no.
Mr. HUBBARD. Yes.
Mr. COOKSEY. Okay.
Do you know what the second oldest profession supposedly is?
Mr. HUBBARD. No.
Mr. COOKSEY. The legal profession.
Do you get the feeling that a lot of times when there is some questionable scientific information out there, or some questionable data, there's always an involvement of the members of the second eldest profession?
Mr. HUBBARD. Yes.
Mr. BRYCE. Yes.
Mr. GADZIK. Yes.
Mr. COOKSEY. I used to make an honest living as a physician before I got this new day job, but I, too, am concerned, and I grew up in the timber industry, quite frankly, I, too, am concerned about a lot of the information that comes out, and it's just not valid, there's no scientific basis for it, and I feel like it's because there are groups of people who are out there trying to achieve one goal with no basis for it.
I've been in two other hearings this morning, and I just left another hearing on a very controversial issue, and there are people that come in with vague ideas about what the problem is, what the cause of the problem is, but as physicians, as foresters, as people that are going to be intellectually honest, I feel strongly that we've got to base decisions in this body on scientific fact, and not on hearsay, not on innuendo, not on what someone is trying to achieve.
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I, too, want clean air, clean water, I want the woodpeckers to survive. I grew up in a very rural area, but anyway, I share some of your concerns, and I have some very definite ideas about what the problems are.
Comments on my concerns?
Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, sir.
I think we, for a long time, have been looking independently at different parts of the body, and we haven't looked collectively at the forest condition. And, as we look separately and we design systems of assessment, like forest inventory and analysis, forest health monitoring, national forest system plots, that we've got very good information, critical information. I think what we now are telling ourselves we need to do is find ways of integrating assessments that we can take better advantage of analysis.
Mr. GADZIK. I think out situation in Maine is that there's still quite a long list of information that we need, and that we are still operating with some lack of knowledge, public knowledge, to guide that public debate. And, that's why I think building FIA is so important to us, building that capacity.
Certainly, science doesn't answer the difficult questions, and people interpret from their own perspective what science says, and, you know, what we learned in Maine over the last year, where the forestry issue was elevated to every citizen, it actually was a more popular draw to the polls than the presidential race, and what we saw was that people are looking for who they trust, who they believe in. You can't make a forester or a scientist out of every citizen, that it really comes down to where is the accountability, where is the trust, and, you know, I think in both regards, certainly in Maine, Maine is dominated, it has such a strong presence of forest industry, I think part of the lesson is that they need to work hard on building their credibility with the public, and even those of us in Government need to work hard, too.
Mr. COOKSEY. Mr. Gadzik, a question, you said that 95 percent of the land is privately owned, how much of it is owned by individuals, how much is owned by corporations?
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Mr. GADZIK. 15 large landowners, 9 of which who are pulp and paper interests, own 60 percent of the forest land in Maine, which is about 9.6 million acres. The rest is owned in approximately 80,000 small owners.
Mr. COOKSEY. Good.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Cooksey.
Mr. Thune.
Mr. THUNE. Just a couple of questions, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm still trying to figure out where my friend from Louisiana was going with that professions thing there.
Maybe you could kind of enlighten us a little bit, how has the management of the western public forests affected the management of the eastern private forests, in your judgment?
Mr. GADZIK. I'll start, it actually strengthened demand for forest products incredibly, and elevated prices. We have white pine sawmills in Maine where historically their traditional market was, you know, along the east coast, that are now sending their product to west coast door and window manufacturers.
So, in some respects, it improved the bottom line for manufacturers. But, on the other side it has driven the level of demand to the point where there is grave concerns about the balance of cut and growth, and it triggers a variety of issues that are there, so it is, you know, increasing the cost to the consumers for products is certainly part of what has happened there, and it's strengthened some mills, but it has elevated the level of concern, public concern, and it has pushed probably the most visible disturbing practices to new levels and new visibility, which in some respects threatens the whole industry itself as well.
Mr. BRYCE. Yes, I'd pretty much agree with what Chuck says. On the positive side, it provides additional income because with the demand, prices go up. This provides an opportunity because you have more cash flow to maybe do some things to protect biodiversity, for example, you otherwise wouldn't have done.
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So, that's on the bright side.
On the down side, it puts pressures on the resources that you really are not looking for pressure on, such as high elevation softwood forests, and so there's a little bit of a down side there.
It also, depending on where that pressure goes, I know that Chuck picked up a big mill in Maine that is putting a lot of pressure on our mills in New Hampshire, I believe, the investment for that mill came from a west coast firm. And so, the sawmills in New Hampshire are worried about that, so that's just another example of the impact of changes way on the other side of the country to New Hampshire.
And, of course, the last is, we have, you know, roughly 800,000 acres of ownership in New Hampshire in the White Mountain National Forest. Federal policies on other public lands affect us in New Hampshire a lot because of that large chunk of ownership sitting in the center of the State.
Mr. GADZIK. There also may be political implications, where you start setting precedents on how forestry issues get resolved that come to play and bear on us ultimately in our political forums, and that really hasn't sorted itself out yet, but I think that that's sort of looming on the horizon.
So, there's not--even though it improves bottom line, no one is standing around cheering the shutting down of west coast timber from a business standpoint, because they know that if forestry doesn't stand the scrutiny, and test, and public confidence on public ownership, then it's just a matter of time before it further erodes and is a problem in the East.
Mr. THUNE. I want to followup on a point that you did make earlier, and I think it has a lot of relevance to what we are doing here, and we had some discussion this last week with a different set of panelists, but do you feel that the private, non-industrial forest can bear the burden of providing timber that used to come from Federal lands, I mean, a long term look at supply and demand situation.
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Mr. GADZIK. Well, I think with better management it can be more. That's certainly true in the Northeast. I think the South may be reaching some limits there, but in the Northeast we could easily double production on non-industrial private lands through better management.
But, I think, you know, part of the question needs to be, not just whether we can meet demand by shifting, I mean, the U.S. ought to be a net exporter of timber. We are not so wealthy a society that we shouldn't be thinking in those strategic terms. I mean, you know, it is--we should be out there aggressively. We can compete on the world market with products that would grow from those lands, rather than service, and that would be better for us economically.
So, I think--and, actually, you are raising a point that bothered me about the Oliver report, is that it did have sort of an air of allocation where we'll allocate our needs, this portion from Federal lands, this portion from non-private, non-industrial, this portion from industry, and I don't think that's the way this country wants to approach forestry, is to predetermine some level and just work on an allocation scheme. I think we ought to be trying to really achieve sound management and good production under broad ecological needs and other needs, but if we are out there, we can be an exporter of wood and the market worldwide is there for us to do as well.
Mr. THUNE. Good, thank you.
I thank the Chair.
The CHAIRMAN. Just in addition to your statement, we are importing about 15 billion board feet of timber and lumber from Canada. The President's budget has in it about 3 billion board feet, we think that's about 2 billion, roughly, of lumber availability, the rest is where the rest is.
So, to strengthen your point, we are a long way from becoming a net exporter. In fact, we are a heavily dependent importer at the moment.
Further questions?
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Mrs. Chenoweth.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hubbard, in one of the answers that you gave, I believe to the chairman, you mentioned the National Agreement on Criteria Indicators. Could you explain that a little more for me?
Mr. HUBBARD. Yes. In 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, at the UNSED conference, the United States pledged to practice sustainable forestry, sustainable development and conservation. That was followed up by what's called the Santiago Agreement, where the United States agreed to develop criteria and indicators that would assure sustainable forest management in the United States. Through what's called the Montreal Process, those criteria have been agreed to by 13 countries with temperate and boreal forests, the United States being one of those, and they've established seven criteria and 67 indicators that would measure progress towards sustainability, and the United States is now preparing what's called the first approximation report, to give its first annual report of how we are doing.
That's all in a beginning stage, I would say. We don't have good measures of 67 criteria. We might have good measures of ten, all of them might not be appropriate everywhere, but it begins to say, here's some things that we ought to be concerned about. Here's some goals in the criteria that might become, if we decide, national policy, with regional differences taken into account, and then design the progress and measure the progress and the accountability towards reaching those goals.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Have you found in Colorado that these agreements have impacted how you make decisions in forest management on the ground?
Mr. HUBBARD. No, not yet. I think this has to be national policy for all the Nation's forests, and then if that's established, I agree with Chief Dombeck, the private landowners I deal with, and the land managers, the public land managers I deal with, want to do the right thing. I think we need to help define what that might be for the management of all of our lands.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Hubbard.
Mr. Bryce, in your testimony you suggested the Congress refund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Why do you make that suggestion as a State Forester, and does the Land and Water Conservation Fund directly impact in a positive way your activities in New Hampshire?
Mr. BRYCE. Yes. It's important because in New Hampshire one of the greatest threats we have is land conversion, and also loss of, associated with land conversion and other practices, some critical habitat. Right now there's currently no funding available, or limited funding available, to protect both the long-term values of having larger parcels of contiguous forest ownership, as well as, you know, specific values associated with, you know, a cedar swamp or something like that, that the community and the landowner has agreed that are worthy of protection.
And, in particular, the use of conservation easements holds great promise, I believe, having worked on negotiating easements, and when I was working for private industry we were very, very excited about the use of easements, as might work through the Forest Legacy Program. And so, that fund could provide dollars that would be an excellent investment in the State to make sure that it can withstand some of the other pressures that it is facing.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you.
Mr. Gadzik, I have to say that I've sat through a number of hearings in the last term and this term, and seldom does anyone testify with the focus and candor that you have.
You are right, I have agreed with 100 percent of what you have said, and I think things must be running very well in Maine.
Mr. GADZIK. There's no one from Maine here, I can say yes, they are.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. In the forest industry.
I know in my Subcommittee on Forestry, we are going to be looking at forest health problems in the East, forest health problems with regards to exotic or foreign species, whether it's bugs, insects or disease that has impacted eastern forests.
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Does any come to mind with regards to the kind of focus that we should take in the upper eastern forests, with regards to forest health?
Mr. GADZIK. Well, yes, I mean, we've actually been very involved in the Forest Health Monitoring Program that the Forest Service administers. Our State entomologist, Dave Struebel, has been very active nationally in helping keep forest health focused.
We have a number of insect pests that we watch. Right now we have problems on our coastal islands with the spruce bark beetle devastation. We have problems with round tail moth, which actually is an insect that carries a poison in its hairs and causes respiratory problems with people. So, there's always a series of issues there relevant to forest health.
I think one of the things that we've talked about, and it's actually somewhere in the process as an idea, is combining the Forest Health Monitoring Program with Forest Inventory and Assessment, because really they are the same thing, and they are both in need of resources. And, really, if there was a way to give them some more oomph, and combine them and build some stuff there, that would be really good, but, absolutely, forest health, you know, one of the traditional ones has been air pollution, acid rain and, you know, there was just a huge amount of money and effort was thrown at acid rain in the early '80's, and probably acid rain is not a major issue on forests, as we best know it now, and I believe that's a fair characterization of it. Obviously, it has implications for water quality and other issues, but they are always out there looming, that there may be things.
Science is discovering new things, and what we didn't think was previously a problem we now learn that it is, so, absolutely, there are forest health issues there.
Thanks.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence I'd like to ask one more question.
In your forest practices in Maine, have you felt that you've been able to keep ahead of the curve in terms of the explosion of insect infestations and disease, because of your forest harvest techniques?
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Mr. GADZIK. We do not have the same issues that you do in the West, where because of a super abundance of decaying material you foster populations of insects. We aggressively manage and utilize our forests, we could be better managing and increasing utilization, but we don't have huge amounts of decaying, dying material because it's all tied up with litigation and can't be harvested or whatever the reason.
We do have major insect problems. We had a major--probably our biggest is what we call spruce budworm, we had a major infestation beginning in the late seventies through the early eighties. It was actually an effort that we had some Federal help in dealing with those problems and issues.
We know it's just a matter of time before budworm comes back again, but in terms of tying specific insect problems to specific management, there's not the same link in the East, in Maine, that there is out West right now.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bryce, just a comment, if we can't get you anymore land and water conservation funds, maybe Mr. Hanson from Utah and I have some help for you. We are suggesting that since 95 percent of the wilderness is west of the Mississippi, that the East has been deprived, and we'd like to assist you in New Hampshire if you want us to in establishing wilderness areas.
Mr. GADZIK. He better not say yes to that one.
The CHAIRMAN. He's thinking about it.
Mr. BRYCE. We're very much interested in New Hampshire in continuing a working forest, both on public lands and private lands.
The CHAIRMAN. I suspicioned that's what you might say.
Gentlemen, thank you very much. We appreciate you being here and taking the time, it's been most helpful to all of us. Thank you.
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Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you.
Mr. BRYCE. Thank you.
Mr. GADZIK. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. At this point we will recess until 2:00, and we will hear the next two panels. Thank you.
[Recess.]
The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will now resume, and I'm pleased to introduce the third panel that we have today, who are with us, Mr. Eric Kingsley from new Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, Mr. Schley is with Pingree Associates in Bangor, ME, Mr. Sorenson is here from Delta, CO; and Mr. Bill Baker from Rapid City, SD. Gentlemen, welcome, and we'll take you in order that you are sitting there.
Mr. Sorenson, go ahead.
STATEMENT OF ERIC SORENSON, DELTA TIMBER COMPANY, DELTA, CO
Mr. SORENSON. Thank you, Chairman Smith and committee members, for the opportunity to comment on forest health and timber issues in Colorado and the Inland West. I'm Eric Sorenson, I'm the manager of a small sawmill called Delta Timber Company in Delta, CO. I'm a graduate forester and I have worked in the forest products industry in Colorado for the last 15 years. I was director of the Colorado Timber Industry Association for 3 years prior to my current position.
A little bit on the current forest conditions in Colorado, they've been talked about quite a bit today, but in Colorado forest health is a very important issue right now. The forests are getting old, and trees are very similar to humans in some ways, in that once they get old they are very susceptible to disease. Insect infestation, disease and wildfires, they don't know the boundaries, and so they consequently affect private property, State lands and national forests also.
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In May 1996, as has been mentioned, the Buffalo Creek fire just south of Denver burned 11,000 acres in one afternoon. That fire resulted in tremendous financial loss, loss of wildlife, timber, valued habitat for both land and aquatic animals, as well as loss of recreational opportunities. A flood which occurred as a consequence of the fire resulted in the tragic loss of human life and caused serious damage to the major water supply for the Denver area.
As public concern has increased, the State Legislature responded by holding two joint House and Senate Agriculture Committee hearings on forest and timber issues. Regional forester, Elizabeth Estill, Colorado State forester, Jim Hubbard, and representatives from the forest products industry were there to testify. Their testimony gave ample evidence that the forest health concerns in Colorado are real. The regional forester, Elizabeth Estill, is quoted as saying, ''The forest products industry in Colorado is in dire straits, and the Forest Service is contributing to the problem.'' These hearings were the foundation for a timber resolution which was titled, ''Concerning support of proper timber harvesting as a management tool to ensure better forest health in Colorado,'' sponsored by Senator Don Ament and Representative Matt Smith. The Colorado General Assembly overwhelmingly passed the resolution by a vote of 34—0 in the Senate and 63—1 in the House.
As far as policy recommendations, there's a number of them that I have in my testimony, I'll hit on a few of them. One of the things is that we'd need to use what works. In Colorado, we have what's called the Colorado Pine Zone Project, which is a good example of a cooperative effort between the Forest Service, industry in the State, local interest groups, to accomplish a goal of forest restoration in ponderosa pine in the southwest part of the State. Even the local environmental groups within the area are supportive of this project. The Governor gave his Smart Growth Award to the project, and it's widely recognized. One of the pieces of the strategy on such projects is recognition that healthy forests are intertwined with healthy communities and healthy forest products industry.
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Another issue is the budget, as we've discussed before. One of the things that I come across time and time again, when talking about timber supply issues on the Forest Service, is that their hands are tied with the budget shortfalls. All the good forest health policy in the world is meaningless without the budgets to implement those policies. Timber programs need to be predictable from year to year, in order for the sawmills to continue to operate. If timber harvest is to be used as a management tool to achieve good forest health, the forest products industry must have some assurance of the supply of timber. On this issue of supply, I mentioned that I'd been in Colorado for 15 years, three of the different facilities that manufacture timber within Colorado have shut down in that time period. The current operation I work for is a small mill that produces 3 or 4 million feet a year, and we are hopeful that it may survive, but it's a trend that's causing some difficulty for forest management throughout the State.
Appeals have been mentioned, the problem with appeals is real. The most significant change that needs to be made, I believe, is to the appeal process. The ability to tie up these timber sales or projects through the current appeal process is staggering.
Accountability, it's been touched on, but to me it doesn't look like the Forest Service line officers who don't meet their targets get treated any differently than the ones who do meet their targets. In some cases, the Forest Service has not met their timber targets for years, but rarely is the missed volume put up for sale the next year. The cumulative effects to the forest industry is really critical in this situation. We'd like to think that if those folks don't do their job there are consequences to that.
In summary, I want to thank you for allowing me to testify. As I've indicated, there's ample evidence of the magnitude of immediate and long-term forest health problems on our national forests. These forest health problems will affect all resources and all users of the forest, and will have significant ecological implications.
As I've also reviewed, in many cases the knowledge of what needs to be done and the tools are in place, but organizational and budgetary constraints are the limiting factor. Without making management policy changes, the situation will only continue to get worse. To be honest, I'm concerned that the Congress and the Federal Government may not be able to adequately implement land management policies for the Federal land in the West. I'm sympathetic to those who are calling for a larger and more significant State role.
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There's no question, however, that managing the Federal lands in the West is complex and contentious. Land management, regardless of the ownership, requires a significant investment. I believe if correctly structured that investment could yield very positive returns and could result in a legacy that our grandchildren would be proud of.
I thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Sorenson appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Sorenson.
We will stand in recess for a few moments. I'll return shortly.
[Recess.]
The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I apologize for the problems caused by us having to vote.
Mr. Kingsley, we are happy to have you here.
STATEMENT OF ERIC KINGSLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW HAMPSHIRE TIMBERLAND OWNERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. KINGSLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you today to talk about forest health issues, and then broadly, forest issues in the Northeast.
I am the executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, and we are a 1,500 member association of landowners, loggers, foresters, wood using industries. Our members own and responsibly manage over a million acres of forest land, and I know by Western standards or by Maine standards a million acres isn't a great deal, but we are a small State.
New Hampshire is the second most forested State in the Nation. We are 87 percent covered with forests, pines, spruce-fir, hardwood, and our ownership pattern is, we have 20 percent in Federal holdings, primarily the White Mountain National Forest, so certainly public land issues are important to us, we have 14 percent in industrial ownership, and the remaining 66 percent of our forest land is in the hands of small private non-industrial forest landowners, and this is obviously very different from some other areas. In New Hampshire, we have a good balance of species, ecosystems, age classes, and we grow a good bit more timber than we harvest. By and large, using a traditional definition of forest health, we have a healthy forest.
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I want to reflect a little on the Oliver report, and specifically, I'd like to commend it for recognizing that the issues faced by forest landowners are distinct by region and by State. I'm going to direct my comments to that. The issues of forest health must be and should be addressed by those who know the character of the region and have an understanding of the forests.
In his opening remarks this morning, the Chief of the Forest Service said of his own forest supervisors, ''they know what their needs are in the field better than we do in Washington,'' and I think that not only applies to the Forest Service, but to forest policy across the Nation
When issues arise and need to be addressed in a capitol, I would urge that it be the State Capitol, and that the solutions that are found reflect the issues, the character, the traditions of that region. What works in New Hampshire works in New Hampshire. It may work in Maine, it may not, and in all likelihood it probably won't work in Colorado, California, South Dakota. I commend the report for recognizing this.
I want to talk briefly about two initiatives that we've had that demonstrate collaborative forest policy development. We hope efforts such as these will continue to help us avoid what Mr. Gadzik referred to as the train wrecks that we have seen in forest policy in other parts of the Nation. They are both private solutions, and we believe that private solutions have a great place in the forest policy debate.
One is the New Hampshire High Elevation Memorandum of Understanding. In New Hampshire land over 2,700 feet in elevation has unique habitat features, and landowners in New Hampshire, working with the State, Division of Forest and Lands, the State Fish and Game Department, and the Appalachian Mountain Club, which is a regional environmental organization, worked to establish a non-regulatory, voluntary agreement to ensure habitat conservation and continued production of forest products from these lands. This agreement took almost 2 years to negotiate, and it holds far more promise than any regulatory effort our State could have undertaken to protect these lands. There exists great buy-in from the landowners and there is a commitment on the part of the State to help those landowners.
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It took us 2 years to do, and it is complicated. There were tense negotiations, but I think it demonstrates the value of addressing things in a non-regulatory manner and respecting the property rights of the landowners. It's a private solution with excellent public benefits.
The other thing which I'd like to provide to you is a copy of a recently released Good Forestry in the Granite State, which Mr. Bryce referenced in his remarks. This is a set of recommended voluntary forest management practices for forest landowners, the key word being voluntary. In New Hampshire, we have minimal regulation of forest practices, and we're proud of that. Instead, we as a State and we as a forestry community have endeavored to provide landowners information on how to manage for different ownership objectives.
What's included in here includes recommendations on how to manage for timber, income, maintaining site quality, water quality, watersheds, recreation habitat--all the public values that the Oliver report cites. This document was completed by the work of 23 individuals working over 2 years, and it's a method of providing information, not regulation, to landowners. While the text is specific to New Hampshire, when you go to address future issues I hope you would take a look at this model and provide State foresters around the Nation the resources to provide such information.
I strongly encourage you to look at State-based solutions to State-based problems or regional solutions to regional problems. While I recognize that there are national issues, they are really best dealt with, as the Chief said, by those people closest to the standing timber, who need to be empowered to make those decisions and implement those decisions.
I also have remarks in my testimony on tax policy, forest legacy, Federal lands, and the Forest Inventory Analysis, which I hope could be entered into the record.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Kingsley appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and without objection those documents will be entered into the record, Mr. Kingsley.
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Mr. Schley is with us today with Pingree Associates in Bangor, ME. Thank you for coming, Mr. Schley.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN W. SCHLEY, PINGREE ASSOCIATES
Mr. SCHLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Steve Schley, I'm a resident of Brewer, ME, and I'm a non-industrial landowner. I work for and represent a 157-year old Maine family forest ownership that was started by my great, great, great grandfather. Our Forest Management Program has been recognized by the national and international environmental community as being a standard to which others should aspire.
The current biological health of the forest is not a big issue in the Northeast. We have temporarily put catastrophic health threats behind us. There are, however, numerous Federal policy challenges to and opportunities for continued family forest ownerships of timberland and all the values they hold. My allotted time today is short, so I'm going to focus on a few issues which I believe this Congress, this year, should address to make a long-term difference in the future health and vitality of forests in the United States.
Congress must realize that which is good is forestry is good for the environment. Public policies that encourage longer forest rotations are good for water quality, wildlife, recreation, aesthetics, forest sustainability and our economy.
There are some specifics. Congress should use, as has been described earlier, surplus money in the Land and Water Conservation Fund to further fund the Forest Legacy Program, better fund the farm bill to bring more non-industrial forest land under active integrated forest management. It may be the most cost effective, efficient environmental protection program this Congress could ever undertake. The forests are our water filters, our air scrubbers and our wildlife habitat.
Pass the Private Property Protection Act and clarify the takings definition for the courts and for over zealous State and Federal regulators who don't seem to understand that when the Government, through regulation, owns more value in my property than I do, they should pay me for it.
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Reform the Endangered Species Act, and also consider the important private landowner and conservation measures as detailed in the Northern Forest Stewardship Act.
I recognize that it is not the purview of this committee, but tax policy is where I want to focus my testimony today. No discussion of forest health would be complete without addressing the major disincentives that exist. Congress simply must address critical tax issues. These include capital gains taxes, passive loss provisions, as they apply to non-industrial landowners, and the alternative minimum tax. All of these are important, and I hope you get a chance to read my written testimony and the details of each.
I want to zero in, however, on the one Federal policy, tax or otherwise, that poses the greatest threat to continued family forest ownership of timberland in the United States. That policy is the estate tax. 50 percent of the private family ownership in this country is owned by individuals who are 60 years old or older. Millions of productive forest acres are going to be inappropriately and unnecessarily converted to non-forest use as a result of the estate tax. United States public policy, not private greed, or really any other private consideration, United States public policy is going to destroy the most productive and sustainable forest management system in the world.
The estate tax forces private action that works against virtually every positive attribute detailed in your Forest Health Science Panel Report. Public values are destroyed every time a family ownership has to either strip the timber off the land, fragment the property and sell off high-value development portions, or sell entire forest ownership blocks just to pay taxes. The Government simply must stop the process if it hopes to sustain private productive and sustainable forest management in this country.
Our family ownership in Maine has survived into the 7th generation of owners, through luck and determination. Luck in that most of our owners have managed to live into their 90's, it has given us time to plan their estates. Determination in that we have financed insurance trusts, altered the ownership form, and maintained the annual exclusion gifting program to move ownerships through generations. And still, after 150 years of effort, the estate tax looms large in our family. We are simply dismayed by the imposition of a tax on our ownership, when no land has been sold, no timber has been liquidated, nothing has changed on the ground. Someone has died, the name on the deed or the interest has changed, and that is all, but we are forced to pay the tax.
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We have proven on our ownership that active, integrated management can accomplish the goals we are all talking about here today, and it can be done efficiently, effectively and profitably. I suggest that Congress should demand that accomplishment from the public forest managers and throw them out or replace them if they don't achieve the same goals that we have managed to achieve.
I thank you for the opportunity to address you today, and I would appreciate the chance to try and answer any questions you may have.
[The statement of Mr. Schley appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much.
Mr. Bill Baker is president of the Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition in Rapid City. Welcome, Mr. Baker.
STATEMENT OF BILL BAKER, PRESIDENT, REGIONAL MULTIPLE USE COALITION, RAPID CITY, SD
Mr. BAKER. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Smith.
Like you said, I am Bill Baker, president of the Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition. My family and I own and operate a small sawmill, a logging and whole tree chipping operation and a ranch in the Black Hills area of western South Dakota. I represent the Black Hills Home Builders within the coalition.
The Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition consists of 43 organizations in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. Our coalition represents a wide range of public land users, ranchers, loggers, miners, snowmobilers, fly fishermen, rockhounds, mountain bikers, irrigators, hunters, both motorized and non-motorized recreationists. What the members of the coalition have in common is their use and enjoyment of public lands in South Dakota and Wyoming, and a willingness to work together to find and support local, common sense solutions to public land management issues. On behalf of our members, I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before this committee.
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I appreciate your willingness to address forest health conditions and policies on national forests of the Western United States. I would like to hold the Black Hills National Forest up as an example of how forest management should work and how forest health can be incorporated into the management strategies of a national forest.
Mountain pine beetle epidemics, which increase the subsequent likelihood of wildfires, are a common cause of tree mortality in the Black Hills. Modern silviculture has learned how to reduce beetle impacts by thinning stands below vulnerable densities. Although pine beetle outbreaks still occur in the Black Hills, each successive outbreak has been less destructive than the one before. They have been minimized by an ongoing, active timber management program, and even though wildfires continue to be a problem they are not as severe as many Western forests are experiencing, again, because of a proactive timber management program.
We need to emphasize on the ground management rather than trying to study forest health to death. There are already good examples of successful forest management, and I believe the Black Hills National Forest is one of those examples. What we now need is leadership and action.
While good science must be the basis for forest management policies, good science, in and of itself, doesn't make good policy. It does, however, help to establish the sideboards within which we can consider the social and political values and tradeoffs, and ultimately make the decisions which benefit forests as well as society.
Forest management policy should not be a cookie cutter approach. What works well on one national forest may not work on another national forest.
We need to clarify the mission of the Forest Service. The agency is operating under inconsistent and conflicting expectations from Congress, the administration, forest plans, local communities, independent businesses.
We need to repair the appeals process. Appeals design, this has already been mentioned before but I want to reiterate, appeals design to stop timber management have been an ongoing nightmare in the Black Hills for the last 5 years. The last 31 consecutive timber sale decisions have been appealed by the same groups representing just a handful of people.
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We need to consider the allocation of funding. Forest health projects shouldn't rely completely on timber sale funding. Every resource from watershed, to recreation, to wildlife, depends on healthy forests, and should help to carry the financial load.
We need to give the Forest Service more budgeting flexibility, keeping revenues on the ground at each national forest would encourage innovation.
Make the Forest Service compliance with NEPA more efficient. Timber sale and environmental assessments have become tremendously complex and detailed. I appreciate the need for a thorough analysis, but more, and more and more analysis is hurting the program. Enough is enough.
A recent environmental assessment of one timber sale in the Black Hills National Forest is thicker than the whole plan. This is the forest plan for the Black Hills National Forest, and this is an environmental assessment on one timber sale within the Black Hills.
Environmental assessments are described in NEPA regulations as brief, concise documents. I haven't seen one that fits that description in many years. We need to streamline the processes.
We need to allocate sufficient funding to accomplish forest health goals. All the cooperation, consensus, science and hands-on knowledge regarding forest health and forest health management become moot points if the land management decisions are already predetermined by budget policy.
In summary, the Black Hills National Forest provides an excellent standard for Forest Service management. The best possible direction is to drive land management decisions down to the local, on-the-ground level, where it is easier to find answers that are in harmony with the environment and the local communities which are dependent on public grounds.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Baker appears at the end of the hearing.]
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.
I agree with you, we need action and fewer words. If we all abided by what was said, we would have had it already solved today. Putting it into action is much more difficult, as you well know.
And, I appreciate your thoughts about the appeals process, which we all suffer from certainly in the West, which, again, is a very difficult area. I asked again the Chief of the Forest Service today, as I have in the past, to give me his recommendations and his thoughts about what he would support to reduce the appeals time, and without any criticism there's been nothing forthcoming.
I wanted to ask for sure that the legislative act out of Colorado, can you either send us a copy or leave us a copy of that?
Mr. SORENSON. Yes, I believe there's a copy with my testimony.
The CHAIRMAN. There's a copy with your testimony, that's really great. Thank you.
And, Mr. Kingsley, the MOA, is that a part of your testimony? Do you have it?
Mr. KINGSLEY. I brought copies of both documents I referenced for the committee.
The CHAIRMAN. That's great, the committee would like to have that as well.
Mr. Schley, I suppose that the meager efforts of tax reform here don't win you over exactly. The idea, which has been changed from time to time, that we move the exemption from $600,000 over a period of years to a million, really doesn't get at the issue that you are bringing us, I assume.
Mr. SCHLEY. No, sir. While it's a good start, it barely keeps up with inflation from when the $600,000 was created, and it really doesn't do anything for the asset. Unfortunately, far too often discussions on estate taxes are focused on dollars, and they are not focused on the assets being considered.
The timber is a very illiquid asset relative to your bank account. If you've got $600,000 cash sitting in your checking account that's one thing. If you've got $600,000 tied up in standing timber out on the ground that may or may not yet be ready for harvest, that's a completely different thing. And so, historically, my predecessor in my position testified in Congress when section 2032(a) was created, and the way that bill eventually got drafted it was supposed to benefit real estate, farm and timberland owners. It, essentially, left out timberland owners in its provisions, because it has what's commonly referred to as a ''muddy boots'' requirement, the requirement that you actually do all of the work on your ground in order to receive the benefits. Well, in forestry, the land, the resources, the wildlife, everything is best served if you hire professionals to do that work for you. Hire the foresters to be out there and engaged, so you don't meet the ''muddy boots'' test.
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So, no, there needs to be more. Certainly, the $600,000 to a million is a nice step in the right direction, but if you happen to own a house and you have a life insurance policy, and you also are fortunate enough to be sitting on some nice timberland property, a million dollars doesn't even begin to put a dent in what you could conceivably have to pay the Federal Government.
Mr. KINGSLEY. Mr. Chairman?
The CHAIRMAN. Yes, please.
Mr. KINGSLEY. May I briefly comment on that?
The CHAIRMAN. Please.
Mr. KINGSLEY. We are here to discuss forest health, and traditionally that's defined fire, insect, wind. In New Hampshire, we are an urbanizing State, we are currently 87 percent forested, but loss of forest lands to development is our greatest threat to productive, healthy forests. We've been losing about 13,000 acres a year, and, again, Oregon has counties bigger than the State of New Hampshire, so 13,000 acres a year is an awful lot for us.
What will drive that development in the future is estate taxes. Our landowners are older, getting older, and when they pass on land to their heirs, inevitably, they are shocked to find that the value is very high, and they are shocked to recognize that they have to either liquidate or develop the land in order to meet those estate tax payments.
I can say, certainly, that estate tax laws, as they stand now, are the greatest threat long term to the forest health of New Hampshire. While all of the values in the Oliver report are important, they are going to be irrelevant if estate tax policy does not change.
The CHAIRMAN. All right, thank you.
Do you have a State tax, a State inheritance tax in New Hampshire?
Mr. KINGSLEY. We do, but it does not apply if property, be that land or other property, is handed down within the linear family. So, children and grandchildren are exempt.
The CHAIRMAN. Oh.
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And, what about Colorado?
Mr. SORENSON. I'm not aware of that.
The CHAIRMAN. South Dakota?
Mr. BAKER. I don't believe there's any exemptions.
The CHAIRMAN. OK.
I know Mr. Thune has some questions.
Mr. THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the panel for what I think is some wonderful testimony, which touches on a lot of issues that are at the heart of the broader issue, and many of you talked about, and, you know, we touched on tax reform, tax issues, we talked about local control and keeping that point of control as close to the ground as we possibly can, and those are all things that I think, in terms of values, the people in my State of South Dakota share, and I am hopeful that through this process of the tax bill that is pending here, that where the death tax is concerned, where cap gains is concerned, there are in the House mark right now some AMT, alternative minimum tax relief, that some of those issues can be addressed.
But, I think that in many respects this industry is a lot about family business, it's a family business type culture, and much of South Dakota is very much the same, from family farms, to small businesses on Main Street, to those who are like Mr. Baker in the resource industry, and I think we want to do everything we can in terms of Federal policy to continue to promote that type of a climate, in which those businesses can succeed and prosper and continue for generations to create and provide opportunities to the people who live in our respective States. I certainly want to be a part of a process that will move us in that direction toward that end.
Just a couple of questions. It was an interesting observation, I was noting earlier today when we were talking, Mr. Baker, in your testimony in our home State, and, again, the Multiple Use Coalition I think is a wonderful model. And 43 organizations have joined together and are working in a way that I think helps advance a good many causes, all of which don't get enough attention and awareness out there. But there was a discussion earlier today about giving groups access to the public process. We noted this morning that in 31 cases we had 31 different appeals. Every time there was a timber sale, in each case it was a long protracted process.
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And yet, I was just noting in your testimony here, Mr. Baker mentioned, and we have a group called the People and the Land Alternative, the Multiple Use Coalition came up with a concept called The People and the Land Alternative to the Forest Service Plan, and yet, when they developed a consensus among all the organizations there, the Forest Service said they wanted public involvement, and yet, wouldn't allow this group, the Multiple Use Coalition, to sit down and discuss this because it would violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
Now, when someone wants to stop a sale, we have this long, drawn out public process that makes it inordinately complicated, and we are talking about something that, in fact, is the livelihood of people's business, and yet, when it comes time to have some input into the process of developing a usable plan it seems to me that there is a real inherent inconsistency, a disconnect here, in what we talk about. If we are going to have a public process for one purpose, then we certainly ought to make it available for the other.
Just a couple of quick questions, if I might, and I think it's worth exploring the things that have worked for the Multiple Use Coalition in South Dakota and how they might be modeled elsewhere, but, Mr. Baker, could you tell us what you think is probably the single, most important lesson that this committee could incorporate from the Black Hills National Forest into management policies for other national forests?
Mr. BAKER. Well, I guess I would say I think we need to have a proactive timber management program. We can't wait, we can't sit back and wait for forest health conditions to deteriorate and then react to that and go out and treat a stand of trees that's too dense and the trees are dying, that's too late. I think we need to be proactive, we've got the science on our side. We know when stands are too dense and at risk of being under attack by an insect epidemic, we need to go out and actively thin those stands in order to reduce those risks.
One thing I might mention, in the Black Hills National Forest we used to use the Salvage Sale Fund, which most people think of it as a fund to go out and clean up dead, or dying, or blown-down trees, but there is a clause in there that states that you can go out and treat imminently susceptible timber, that's in risk of being infected. We used to do that in the Black Hills until about 3 years ago we were told we can no longer do that because that was misuse of the Salvage Sale Fund. And so, I'd like to see something like that put back in, that we can proactively manage timber stands.
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Mr. THUNE. What are your concerns in the new management plan for the Black Hills National Forest, and, specifically, with regard to forest health?
Mr. BAKER. Well, we just went through a new forest plan revision, and we've got our timber allowable cut cut back from about 118 million board feet a year to about 83 million board foot a year. And, our concern is, especially at reduced funding levels, that we even obtain that 83 million board foot a year.
And, with those reduced levels, we are a little afraid that we are going to lose the ground that we've gained on bolstering our forest health problems. We are afraid that the densities are going to increase, we are going to increase the risk of wildfire and bug epidemics. I'd say that's our biggest concern.
Mr. THUNE. I appreciate those comments, and, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that in terms of the policy that we apply at the Federal level, or at any governmental level for that matter, it ought to reinforce our most deeply held traditions and values and not destroy them, and I think there are a lot of things here that need to be addressed in terms of bringing flexibility and local control, and certainly tax policies, and many of the things that have been noted by this panel that I think are important if we are going to manage this in such a way that it continues to be there for the future, and that the many in this country and in our State who make a living, derive a living from the natural resource industries, continue to have that opportunity.
I would certainly hope that we can work as a committee, and with the Forest Service, to make necessary changes that would incorporate some of those thoughts.
But, I go back to the vivid illustration of holding up that environmental assessment there, and that was one timber sale, and I think we have gotten to the point where through taxes and regulation we have certainly made it very difficult for people to bring a common sense approach to these issues.
So, I thank the panel, and I thank the Chair.
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The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Baldacci.
Mr. BALDACCI. I won't be needing all my time that's set aside, but I want to thank you for calling the panel, and for, Steve, for you coming down, and, Chuck, our State Forester, for coming down, because I'd like to believe, and I think it's true, you know, the way that things are done in Maine, where people work together, even if they are not in the same party, and everybody pulls together. You know, it's kind of that Yankee ingenuity that we have, and I'm very proud of your company and what you've been able to do in carrying it down.
The biggest challenge we all have in our little family businesses is changing from one generation to the next, let alone with all the emotionalism and charge around that, but the taxes on top of that especially is compelling.
Now, Pingree Associates has ample reason to be very proud because of its status as the largest, privately-owned, certifiably sustainable forest in the world, and what I would like you just to go on about is how has this green certification helped your business? What has it meant to the company?
Mr. SCHLEY. The green certification has not resulted in--thank you, by the way, for the compliment--has not really resulted in any premium values for our wood products. It has not brought, as we might have expected, the environmental organizations beating on our door for all of the products that we can make available based on a certified sustainable forest.
But, it has, in some ways, set us apart from other forest landowners. It has provided market penetration opportunities for very small, admittedly small, but niche product development, where we would not have had the opportunity to engage in those wood product sales were it not for the certification.
I think it has also provided some regulatory relief. We saw that in last year's debate in Maine, relative to forest practices, wherein they recognized what we had accomplished and said, we don't need to worry about your ownership.
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Interestingly enough, because we are non-industrial landowners, we don't have any milling capacity of our own. It has strengthened our relationships with our mill customers on whom we depend to take the roundwood product and put it into final product form for distribution to the end consumer. And so, that strengthening of relationships has helped us a great deal.
In terms of what it has meant to our management, the opportunity for third-party, independent audit, and having a different and new set of eyes look at our management program, has resulted in some opportunities for our management improvement. Nobody is ever perfect, you can always be a little bit better.
We have proven, I think the certification has proven, that active, integrated, profitable forest management can result in the contribution of all the kinds of values that are detailed in the Oliver report.
It's interesting to me, listening to this debate relative to public forest management, that we are able to accomplish all of that on almost a million acres with a full-time employment equivalent of only about 40 people.
So, the message is that it can be done, and I think that the certification has just kind of shown the world that it can be done. Hopefully, some day there will, indeed, be sufficient demand for certified wood products that will actually profit from it, I don't know that.
Mr. BALDACCI. Thank you, Steve.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
I would like to see the contents of the green certification.
Mr. SCHLEY. We have a packet that we developed with the history of the ownership, the process that we had to go through, all of the criteria that had to be met, I can certainly make that available to the committee.
The CHAIRMAN. Good, I appreciate that, and who audits, who is the third party that audits you?
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Mr. SCHLEY. In our case it was a company out of California called Scientific Certification Systems, which is a company that has subsequently been certified as a certifier by the Forest Stewardship Council, which is an international association of environmental organizations interested in sustainable forest management practices.
The CHAIRMAN. And, as a result of the green award or certification, do you have, do you believe, less interference from environmentalists?
Mr. SCHLEY. Well, we were recently invited to a conference in San Francisco, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund and attended by a great many of the large foundations and environmental organizations interested in sustainable forestry. And, at that conference we had to tell them that, while they had told us, as a result of our certification, that the pressures would be less, the reality isn't the case.
We were caught up as deeply in last year's forest practices debate as any other landowner. In fact, many of those organizations who rhetorically support our efforts were funding the efforts of activists who were trying to put us out of business.
We called that to their attention, and it only took about 30 days for me to hear word back, kind of through the grapevine, that they were paying attention.
So, I hope long term, for foresters in the business, you know, 5 years is short term, so I hope--and we've only been in this 4 years now, and I hope that long term it will, indeed, make a difference for us.
The CHAIRMAN. When it does, please inform us and we'll use it. That's an opportunity foregone.
A hypothetical question to you, Mr. Kingsley. About 15 percent of New Hampshire forests are national forests?
Mr. KINGSLEY. That's correct.
The CHAIRMAN. If we put them all in a national park, what would be the result, in your opinion?
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Mr. KINGSLEY. Well, I guess I'd like to use as a point of reference the values in the Oliver report. It's certainly nice to think of it as hypothetical. However, as we are going into our new forest plan, as required by the National Forest Management Act, this is something that is being openly discussed by those that are opposed to timber harvesting.
There is not a value in the Oliver report that would be better served by locking up White Mountain National Forest as the White Mountain National Park, not a single value. We are proud that our national forest historically and hopefully well into the future is an example of excellent management for multiple benefits.
We have a good timber program. We have a wide variety of wildlife habitat. It is our State's largest tourism attraction. It is the headwaters and the water filters for the bulk of New Hampshire's population.
If that became a national park, we would lose a lot of that habitat diversity, we would lose some recreational opportunities on the forest, and we would lose those timber jobs, as well as the benefits that we get out of management.
People occasionally throw around the idea of a park as being the salvation. We believe that empowering the Forest Service to make decisions on the ground, not having them checked over, scrutinized, by everyone up the line, as well as subject of countless appeals would serve the public interest. You mentioned that appeals are a Western problem, I want to assure you you are not alone, not a single value would be served and we would lose an excellent example, an excellent public example of management for multiple benefits.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much, and I thank all of you for a very productive session. Thank you so much.
And, the fourth panel, I'd like to invite Mr. Levesque to come forward, from new Hampshire, Mr. Daniel Dessecker from Pennsylvania, Mr. Williamson who is with us from Washington, D.C.
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Gentlemen, good afternoon, thank you for your patience.
Mr. Levesque, we are happy to have you here.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES A. LEVESQUE, PRINCIPAL, INNOVATIVE NATURAL RESOURCE SOLUTIONS
Mr. LEVESQUE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I was going to say members of the committee, I guess they are all off. I really appreciate the patience that you've had to go through so many panels today.
The CHAIRMAN. Don't worry about the absent members, I will instruct them exactly of what you have said.
Mr. LEVESQUE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. And, we do have the record as well, Mr. Levesque, thank you.
Mr. LEVESQUE. I'm the principal and owner of a natural resource policy consulting firm called Innovative Natural Resource Solutions. We are based in Concord, NH. Our firm does work both in the public and private sectors in New England and New York, mostly in forest policy or forest policy related issues.
Prior to founding my firm in 1994, I was the executive director of the Northern Forest Lands Council, which you've heard about a number of times today, and as has been mentioned the council was a congressionally chartered and funded forest and land use policy effort that resulted in a number of recommendations, which I'll talk about in a moment, that were directed to the Congress and to the States on issues focused on a four-State forested area of about 26 million acres, stretching from Lake Ontario in New York, all the way to the Canadian border and eastern Maine.
I'll largely focus my thoughts today on the results of that effort, and the geographic area which I hope to concentrate on, really, is all of New England and New York, at least attempt to do so.
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But, to highlight a little bit more about what the northern forest issue was all about, put it in context, in 1988 a portion of the Northeastern U.S. forest lands owned by the former Diamond International Corporation, which was a timberland and forest products manufacturing company, were put up for sale for development. This act caused much consternation among those in the forestry and environmental communities in the Northeast because the many values associated with these lands were perceived to be at great risk.
The fear was also present that other companies in the region would begin to sell their lands off for non-forestry purposes.
The threat to forest values in the regions, the very ones discussed in the Oliver report, caused the Congress and the States to embark on the sixth year, $4.5 million effort to develop public policy recommendations to address the potential loss of these forest values in the Northeast.
The final product of this project was a report, which I have here, and which all members of Congress were sent, at least at the time, called ''Finding Common Ground, Conserving the Northern Forest,'' and that was released in the fall of 1994.
Now, a little bit about the forest conditions in the Northeast. As the Oliver report describes, most of the forests in the Northeast are privately owned. The few large concentrations of public ownerships in the White and Green Mountain National Forests in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, along with land that is State owned within the Adirondack Park in New York, except for large industrial ownerships in northern Maine, with some additional areas in northern New Hampshire and Vermont, and some in New York, most of the forest area in the Northeast is owned by small, non-industrial private forest owners.
But recent demographic studies, these non-industrial owners, very much an aging set of owners, and I think you've heard about that a number of times already today. This is a significant factor.
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The work of the council concentrated on the large industrial ownerships of the northern areas of Maine, western New York, because these lands and forests provide more of the values described in the Oliver report, from timber to wildlife, water resources, recreation opportunities, biodiversity conservation, and the list goes on from there.
Maintaining these large unbroken expanses of forest and relatively few individual ownerships became the focus of our northern forest effort and, frankly, is still today, because these discussions are going on as we speak.
Simply put, these large contiguous blocks of forest land provide more of the 35 values discussed in the report than other forests can.
And, as you've also heard today from those from the Northeast, without a doubt the greatest factor affecting the condition of the forests of the Northeast is the rapid urban and suburbanization. Its development and fragmentation of the ownerships in the forests of the Northeast is seriously affecting the ability of these forests to provide the range of values desired by the people of this country.
As the number of forest owners in the Northeast continue to increase, the challenge of providing the range of desired values from these forests rise astronomically. The move by middle America to own a piece of the Northeast forests for their very own is resulting in the slow and steady demise of the forest resources in the Northeast as we know it.
Now, getting to the public policy recommendations. Actually, this task is relatively easy for me, and that's simply because of the work that has gone on with the Northern Forest Lands Council. There are thousands of people who are engaged in the Northern forest process, many of whom are still in this room, at least I think some of them are, that have been involved from the late 1980s to present and still continue to be involved.
A very detailed set of recommendations has been developed as a result of that, and that is in the final report of the Northern Forest Lands Council.
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Thirty-seven public policy recommendations were formed from it, and the council process was very specific and very different from many, and certainly anything that I had been involved with prior. It worked well because of a few very specific factors.
No. 1, exemplary public involvement. The processes we use for the Northern Forest Lands Council provide for an inclusive, user friendly public policy process, continuing to be cited as the standard by which all other public involvement processes are measured in the Northeast on natural resource issues.
And, more importantly, those processes built long-term relationships, and that really probably is the key product that came out of that whole effort.
Also, significant science came out of this process, and I think I win today for bringing the biggest document, but this three-inch thick plus document is all the science that came out of the Northern Forest Lands Council process, numerous studies and reports that were hired out or in many cases time donated are all put in place, and they were really the basis for the fact-based findings that came out that led to some specific public policy recommendations.
So, the result was the recommendations, but the process itself and the relationships built were just as important as that final product.
Now, a wide range of constituencies and interests who were involved in that whole process still are advocates for it, and you have probably seen and met some of these folks because they are working on some issues before the Congress.
So, I think we have some of the answers, maybe not all of them, but I believe we've studied enough to know that we have some of them, and so I'd like to share a few of those with you.
More importantly, I guess, from your perspective, these answers or these recommendations have been through the excruciatingly treacherous mill of public scrutiny over and over again in the Northeast over a 6-year period. The Oliver report is a wonderful report, and I'm going to keep it as a resource, there's tremendous information in there, but I think we can act now, and I think we can act on the basis of some of the information in the Oliver report and a lot of other information from this project and others that you've heard from today.
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So, I ask that you consider the recommendations as a whole from the Northern Forest Lands Council, as sort of my recommendations to you today, to address the concerns for the loss of the forest values articulated in the Oliver report.
Most of the Federal recommendations from the council's report are in two bills before the Congress now, the Northern Forests Stewardship Act, which has both a Senate and a House version, and the Family Forest Land Preservation Tax Act, which has a Senate version and a House version which I understand is going to be introduced next week.
The council's report broke down its recommendations under four categories, fostering stewardship of private land, protecting exceptional resources, strengthening economies, rural economies, communities that is, and promoting more informed decisions. Of these 37 recommendations, 18 of them are very specific to Federal actions. There are many others that relate to it, in fact, the Northern Forests Stewardship Act actually discusses a number of other ones that are beyond these direct Federal ones, but let me touch on just a few and those most particularly that deal with this issue that I brought up, which is the fragmentation development challenge that is so rampant in the Northeast at the moment.
Some of these recommendations addressing that, in particular, include some that you've heard already from others today, funding the Forest Legacy Program, in this case I'll be more specific, the council's report talked about funding it for the Northeast alone at $25 million annually. It obviously hasn't even approached that in recent years. Making changes in the estate tax policies, which Mr. Schley and others mentioned, a key component of the council's recommendations. Funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund to authorize levels, and to address, I guess, some of the questions that came up before on that issue, the reason why that's in this report is that one of the things that we found in the work over the 6-year period is that, no, the whole area isn't being developed and won't be developed in a 5- or 10-year period, but those jewel areas, the lakefront properties, the high elevation areas, the scenic areas are being developed very rapidly, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund appropriations would go towards protecting some of those areas.
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And, finally, to reiterate, the Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis, the FIA, is also a recommendation in here, and, again, I've just touched on a few, and those who have been involved with the Northern Forest Lands Council probably wouldn't be too pleased about my picking and choosing, because one of the few reports like this is, there's no executive summary in it, and intentionally so, because the council wanted this to be as a package, the 37 recommendations to be considered as a package.
I have picked out a few here, and I hope that you would consider everything that's in there. So, I'll conclude by saying, I applaud your interest in all of these efforts and in having the Oliver report produced. I think it's very useful, and I'm making copies and passing it on to others, because I think it will be useful in a lot of other venues besides the work that you folks are doing.
I believe that the work that we've put in in the Northern forest issue over the last now 8 years plus is something that I hope you would consider in all of your deliberations as you come up with possibly some legislation out of the efforts that you have before you in this committee and beyond.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Levesque appears at the conclusion of this hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Levesque, and there's no question that we will use that as source material, and I have to agree with all of you, we've studied this issue quite long enough I think.
Now we are going to hear from Mr. Daniel Dessecker who is a forest wildlife biologist for the Ruffed Grouse Society in Coraopolis, PA.
Mr. DESSECKER. Our headquarters is in Coraopolis, but I'm fortunate enough to live in northern Wisconsin.
The CHAIRMAN. All right, welcome.
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STATEMENT OF DANIEL R. DESSECKER, FOREST WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST, RUFFED GROUSE SOCIETY
Mr. DESSECKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The report from the Oliver committee is clearly a significant contribution to our understanding of forest health across the country, not just in the Inland West and the Northeast. Perhaps, one shortcoming of the report, however, is its relative lack of attention to forest wildlife.
It is clearly understandable, given the fact that what is a healthy forest system for one species of wildlife or for one species assemblage is an unhealthy system for others.
From a wildlife perspective, a healthy forest landscape requires that we have the full range of forest habitats that will then be able to support the full range of forest wildlife species. And, frankly, Mr. Chairman, the beauty of it is that the development of these habitats does not necessarily require money. It's one of the few things that, indeed, we can do on forest landscapes that doesn't.
Mature forest habitats develop simply through time, whereas, young forest habitats develop only through active forest management. Disturbance dependent forest communities and our young forest communities are declining throughout the Inland West and the Northeast. Lodgepole pine and aspen in the Inland West are, indeed, becoming less common on the landscape, principally being converted to spruce-fir forests through natural conversion. In the Northeast, our aspen-birch communities, also disturbance dependent, also becoming increasingly less common on the landscape.
I provided in my written testimony a table documenting the declines in the Northeast on a State-by-State basis, and I certainly won't go into that here.
The ephemeral nature of disturbance dependent forest communities and young forest communities necessitates that we see a continuous practice of forest management. Unfortunately, as long as significant elements of the public view forest management as designed largely to meet timber targets, to harvest timber, those publics are apt to view such activities with continued hostility, which will forment nothing more than the seemingly endless appeals that we've already referenced today on numerous occasions.
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To aid in addressing this misconception, perhaps, we should consider changing the emphasis on Federal land management policy away from timber targets, to some other measure, perhaps, a regeneration target, or a resource target, simply change the name. It may sound simple, but I truly believe it might help us out.
In many instances, the resource in consideration will be timber, as it should be. Our Nation's forests are, indeed, public lands and they are working forests.
In other instances, the resource in consideration will be wildlife habitat, forest composition, or any number of others. Now, this may help the public to recognize that forest management is far more than simply a means to harvest wood fiber from a given site. Forest management is, indeed, the only practical means we have to manipulate forest vegetation, to provide the full range of forest wildlife habitats that's absolutely essential to ensure long-term forest health.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Dessecker appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and I think the way we approach these issues with names that are suddenly in disrepute, I totally agree. If you say logging, people go crazy, and now if you say salvage they think you are cutting green trees. I mean, we've got to get by this nomenclature business, and I agree with you, get to something that's not so harsh on the ears to the public.
We are joined by Mr. Williamson, who is with the Wildlife Management Institute in Washington, DC.
STATEMENT OF LONNIE L. WILLIAMSON, WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE
Mr. WILLIAMSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think, indeed, these words are important, as you just said, we've got to get past those things. I was chuckling this morning, there's a lot of talk going on here today about collaborative efforts, collaborating and so forth.
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For those of us who remember World War II, if you were a collaborator the FBI was looking for you, and if they caught you, and you were convicted, bad things would happen. I wish we would start cooperating instead of collaborating so much these days.
I, too, am very impressed with the Chad Oliver report. It's a very fine document. We've seen a number of them over the years, and all of them have been very helpful. This one, I think, will help us, too, but it's not going to solve our problems, simply because the issue of forest management is too complex, it's too localized, but we can learn from it.
I'm convinced that science cannot give us the definite answers, even though it is so vital to giving us information with which we will make decisions.
I think the resource managers, and I'm talking about the foresters, the wildlifers, the watershed people, so forth, that have effect and do the management on our forests of all kinds, public and private, they know how to manage forests for many purposes already, and any gaps that may be in their knowledge can be filled with some targeted research.
However, our forest managers in the Forest Service, in particular, really do not have a clear direction on what to manage for. I think that's where we are lacking, and I don't believe the answer to that is among scientists or managers, the answer is with the people who own public and private forest lands. We've got to know what they want, and I think the committee can be very helpful in trying to determine, what is it that these people want.
I've worked for quite a few years on various legislation and so forth, trying to improve forest management and range management. One of the recent and really successful efforts that we've got going has to do with range land, and I wanted to bring it to the committee today and tell you a little bit about it. There will be more in my full testimony and attached to my testimony. It has to do with range land, but I believe it can be converted very easily into the forest area, it's called Seeking Common Ground.
We found that to be the first really widespread effort that serves everyone's needs with regard to range land, and thereby, because of that, it's capable of success. This already proven effort resulted from a livestock/big game symposium that was held out in Nevada in 1991, which was called to address some fairly significant conflicts, primarily between livestock and elk in the West, on public and private land. Many of us left that meeting determined that the symposium would just not be another meeting, but would get some positive action and try to solve some problems on the ground.
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And, as a result, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the National Forest Foundation, and the Wildlife Management Institute all went together and put money in the same pot to provide financing for projects that are underway, they are sort of demonstration type projects, there's several dozen of them going on now. All have been very successful, except one that we could never get off of the ground.
We have other participants in the program too, such as the Farm Bureau, the Cattlemen's Association, Public Land Council, International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, they are partners in the program, but I don't believe any of those have provided any funding for the effort yet.
Seeking Common Ground involves really three aspects, at least one of which all the failed programs of the past seem to have lacked. First, we try to improve range management at the local level with local interests involved. That's the first thing. Second, all public land interests are part of the effort, including private landowners, Federal agencies, including not just the land agencies but the Extension Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service and what have you, State wildlife agencies and representatives of public land recreational users, and even county governments, if we can get them to participate. And the third, and the very first order of business in these efforts, and the most vital, is to create an atmosphere of trust, and sometimes even respect among the participants of this group, and we have found that without trust among the groups the projects are going to fail.
We had a very, very successful project in Wyoming, where a rancher is participating, and said that the greatest benefit that he gets is the fact that all interest groups are strong supporters of what he's doing, and that's the first time that ever happened since he's taken over his operation, and it's about a third generation ranch there. He said that that support, local support, is even more important than the money provided to improve his public land grazing allotments and the private range.
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It's a very simple process, Mr. Chairman. We get various interests out of the meeting rooms, on the ground, at the local level, we develop trust, we determine what the rancher and others need from the land, we develop a plan, everyone throws in a few bucks, and then the agencies go to it, and the private landowner goes to it.
I think this is the way that land management will be done in the future, rather than by decrees from the Washington office of the Forest Service or anyone else, and there's no reason in my mind that this approach can't work in forest management. It's quite simply a way to operate at the local level in the national interest, which is something I think we all could support.
Thank you, sir.
[The statement of Mr. Williamson appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Williamson.
Mr. Levesque, I'm interested in your State's effort for land use planning, which not only would the Land and Water Act supply money to buy sensitive spots in New Hampshire to keep them from being urbanized, but also the State Legislature, it seems to me, could provide some zoning programs for you. Have you looked at that, and does New Hampshire dare tread in the area of land use planning?
Mr. LEVESQUE. First, Mr. Chairman, my remarks were really addressing most specifically four States, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The CHAIRMAN. Okay.
Mr. LEVESQUE. I am from New Hampshire, I work in all these States and southern New England, so as it relates to New Hampshire specifically, and I should mention that these other States have, both at the statewide level and at the local level, significant zoning regulations, New Hampshire's are primarily based at the local level. The land use zoning regulations really come from the municipal end of things, and they are significant in some communities, others not.
In terms of doing the kinds of things that might be or substituting land use zoning for the kinds of things that Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars might go towards, like anything else in the case of private landowners I think in many cases private landowners are willing to sell real estate, sensitive areas, the kinds I talked about, if there's money there to reimburse. And, land use zoning, I don't have to tell you that in many cases it's not the most appropriate way to, in fact, sort of reap the public benefits that might be available from private lands.
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So, while New Hampshire does have zoning, I think there is a role for money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, as there has been in the past, not to turn the State into a big national park of any sort. I can assure you that folks there wouldn't want that to happen, but there is a role for it there, as it is elsewhere in New England and in New York, and there's a role for land use planning and local zoning as well. But, I think the roles sometimes might meet, but most often they are two separate end results, I think, that we are looking for.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, for one, I'm willing to turn over all the Land and Water Conservation Funds to you in the Northeast. You understand, I'm sure, that, you know, those funds have been used in the West in areas that are already 75 and 80 percent owned by the Federal Government, and everybody is very sensitive out there about losing more of their tax base, because they have left. That's the sensitivity, as you well know.
I'm wondering, maybe all of you could answer this question, Mr. Dessecker and Mr. Williamson, you heard the overall problem here. We have some 40 million acres of public forest land in this country under duress, and on the edge of a disastrous kind of condition that may occur, fire especially. We are funding and treating 1 million acres, and it's quite expensive.
From your point of view and your experience on private lands, how can we better economize? How can we better treat these acres, and what advice do you have to the public as to how they can improve the forest health of the land base without spending all this money, or without spending so much? Is there another formula?
I heard you, Mr. Dessecker, talk about improving wildlife opportunities without spending money.
Mr. DESSECKER. Economies, particularly, on public lands, could be greatly improved, and I hate to rehash an issue that's already been discussed, but by addressing the appeals issue, it costs a lot of money. Some appeals are very well-intentioned, others are not.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.
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Mr. DESSECKER. That would be, I think, a major cost savings.
Perhaps, a longer-term answer is the real answer, and that is to try and get the general public, as I referenced, to understand that disturbance is a part of forest systems, and that means management, and that's going to be a difficult row to hoe, but we have to keep after it.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Williamson?
Mr. WILLIAMSON. I think one thing, Mr. Chairman, that we should do right off is to take a look at the management that goes into this, what did we do that got us in this shape to begin with.
I think if we look back and we are honest with ourselves, we can't blame the local land manager out there for that. There's been a lot of dictating going on to the people out on the ground that what has happened on our individual forest has not necessarily been what that forest ranger wanted to happen.
Second, the appeals process, of course, I'm one that happens to think that we could eliminate the appeals process. We should be involved up front in the planning process, and once a decision is made, let's go with it.
However, every time something is tried, something is attempted to solve that problem, the appeals process would be taken away from one group but not another. I don't think you can do either/or. The most recent attempt by the Forest Service allowed the appeals process to continue with people who had contractual arrangements with the Service and so forth. Our group was opposed to that, even though we were not opposed to eliminating the appeals process altogether.
So, there's any number of things I think we can do. The most important being, give the Forest Service direction and let what that forest can provide come from the ground up, instead of being dictated to setting targets from Washington down there. Let the people out there tell you what they can provide.
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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Levesque?
Mr. LEVESQUE. If I might talk about public lands in the East, too.
The CHAIRMAN. Please.
Mr. LEVESQUE. My firm currently is working with the White and Green Mountain National Forests, and the beginning components of forest plan revision, and we have not had the forest health problems in these national forests as have been experienced elsewhere in the country, but we do have the appeals problem that has been described over and over again here, and I think if we didn't have that we'd certainly be one step in a direction where we could probably do a whole lot more good with these national forests. Things can go, and have gone, reasonably well. We don't have the fire problems that are elsewhere in the country, in fact, these forests have often been called the asbestos forest, because fire just isn't a big issue on these forests.
But, the appeals process is a major issue, and I don't know, you know, whether or not anything can happen administratively within the administration to deal with that, but it's a problem, and it's a problem everywhere, and we would love to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel to change that.
On the private forest end of things, I think much of what the Northern Forest Lands Council worked on were private forest lands issues, not exclusively, but most were, and many of them were really trying to take the impediments away that prevent landowners from doing the right thing. And, I believe, as others have said here, that, you know, given the right tools landowners do want to do the right thing, but if they are forced into developing their property, or subdividing, or fragmenting it, because of the tax policy, or if they don't have good information because the State forestry agency doesn't have the resources to provide the kind of technical assistance that they need, then they are likely not to do the right thing, and not because they don't want to, just because they can't, they are constrained.
And so, I think we can get a lot of bang out of very little buck by sort of channeling it for the private landowner to make sure that there aren't impediments in public policy there to prevent them from doing the things they already want to do, and then helping them in the areas that they do want to do, with some resources that aren't necessarily significant from a national budget perspective, but on the local level and with the State forestry agencies are significant in assisting those folks with technical assistance.
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The CHAIRMAN. OK, thank you.
We've been joined by our colleague, Ms. Stabenow.
Ms. STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought you looked very lonely in here. I wanted to make sure you had some company.
If I might just followup, I'm very interested in your comments regarding the appeals process, specifically, how would you change it in order to be more helpful?
Mr. LEVESQUE. Well, I think there was a set of administrative rules that would have changed the appeals process already in place authorized through the National Forest Management Act, and I think there were significant components in there, and in the so-called Craig bill, that has been floating around the Senate, that could, in fact, improve what might be a process that still can allow the public to access decision-making on these public lands, which they need to do, but shouldn't do so in a way that positively cripples the process.
And, you know, I don't know that I could cite a verse here today, but I think the nuggets are in there, in those two places. Unfortunately, the administrative rules that were sort of put forth a number of years ago to change the planning process, they've sort of quietly been put away, we don't see those any longer, although it could be done that way. It doesn't necessarily have to be done administratively, rather, legislatively. But, from all I understand, I don't think the administration has an interest in taking those out again.
So, I think the answers are there, at least in part. It's not throwing it all away, it's simply saying, this is unreasonable and we need to allow the public to have access to these processes, but they shouldn't be able to do what they are going to do in the White and Green Mountain National Forests again, we are in the beginning processes of revising the forest management plans, as I mentioned, we have not entered the NEPA process yet there, and with the Forest Service and what we are helping the Forest Service do there is to try to bring all the stakeholders together in a kind of a cooperative fashion ahead of the NEPA process to try to get the issues out on the table, not necessarily solve everything, but to try to build some of the relationships.
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The problem is that those interests who want to appeal plans, or sales, or other actions, are not at the table, and they will not be at the table because they don't have to be. And somehow, there is something fundamentally wrong there, where other members of the public, other interest groups, from all spectrums, do want to sit down and work through things, but others who see another avenue to sort of get what they want in the end can do the end around, after, in the case of these national forest plan revisions, years of process, that's what it's going to take to get to the end.
So, some of the answers are there, somebody needs to make some hard decisions about that. I hope you would all consider that, and I hope that the Chief of the Forest Service would consider and the administration to revise those rules that were out there and, frankly, had some good nuggets in them.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, gentlemen. It's been good of you to come.
I have just one other thought, Mr. Williamson. In January, I mentioned the Governor, Mr. Dombeck and I all met with 450 people in the State of Oregon, and we all walked out very euphoric. We threw arms around one another. We said we agree to this program. It's an 11-point program, and kind of in the middle of it there's this statement that we need not to go into areas where there is old growth, not to go into areas which have possible stream bank problems, and not to go into roadless areas.
When you are through with all of that, there's no place to go, so the question is, while we were cooperative there, we need to take the next step. We haven't harvested a tree, even a dead one hardly, since that point, nor have we built a road to go harvest a dead one, so our frustration is together, how do we take the step on the ground that we've all talked about, how do we take the step on the ground to move the ball?
Mr. WILLIAMSON. It might be you are working with the wrong people there, Mr. Chairman. I don't know that the Governor is going to do you any good, or Dombeck, either. You might ought to be talking to the people out on the ground like we do. We don't fool with the Governor a lot, to tell you the truth.
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The CHAIRMAN. All right, that's maybe good advice.
With that, I think we'll end the hearing. Thank you, gentlemen, very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
STATEMENT OF MIKE DOMBECK, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
I am pleased to appear today before this Committee to discuss the Report on Forest Health in the United States. I am joined today by Dr. Ann Bartuska, Director of our Forest Health Protection Staff.
Forest Health in the United States
Before addressing the Report on Forest Health in the United States, I would like to share a Forest Service perspective on the health of our nation's forests. I believe there is a great deal of commonality between our assessment and that presented by Dr. Oliver and his colleagues.
On January 6, my first day as Chief, I shared my resource philosophy with the employees of the Forest Service. That day, I said:
''We must maintain healthy, diverse, and productive ecosystems. We cannot meet the needs of the people if we do not first conserve and restore the health of the land''
So our first priority is to protect and restore the health of the land. Failing this, nothing else we do really matters. Just how do we maintain the health of the land: By working with people who use and care about the land. Anglers, loggers, campers, families. As Gifford Pinchot said, ''a public official is there to serve the public, not run them.'' To successfully adapt to growth and change we need to engage people in dialogue. My expectation is that everything we do--every environmental impact statement we write, every timber sale, recreation plan, mining plan or allotment management plan we approve--will not compromise the health of the land.
After nearly 6 months as Chief, I am more committed than ever to this philosophy. I also take great heart from the knowledge that we can restore forest ecosystems.
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Demonstrated Success in Improving Forest Ecosystem Conditions
We believe the nation's publicly-owned forest ecosystems are generally in a healthy condition. Where they are not, however, we are working to restore them. Three examples of forest health success stories are restoration of longleaf pine in the Southeastern United States, developing seedling resistance to white pine blister rust, and the use of prescribed fire and thinning on the Boise National Forest.
Longleaf Pine in the Southeastern United States
Of all the southern pines, many consider the longleaf pine the most valuable in terms of quality of wood products, the most aesthetically pleasing, and the most resistant to fire and to insect and disease attacks. In presettlement times, approximately 60 million acres of longleaf pine stands extended from East Texas through the lower coastal plain to Virginia. This ecosystem was maintained by frequent low-intensity fire from lightning strikes or human-caused ignition. By the early 1900's, the area of longleaf pine forests had declined to about 3 million acres. This was mainly due to the exclusion of fire, extensive conversion of forest lands to agricultural uses, and introduction of other tree species less suited to the ecosystem.
We are now restoring longleaf pine on the most appropriate sites where it originally grew, working with other Federal agencies, state forestry organizations and private land owners. We are also involved in cooperative research on longleaf pine ecosystems with partners such as the Longleaf Alliance, with members representing Tall Timbers Research, Inc., universities, private landowners, and environmental organizations. The Forest Service is now making restoration of longleaf pine ecosystems a priority as the Southern national forests revise their land and resource management plans. Through these efforts, we are establishing new stands of longleaf pine providing a wide array of ecological, social and economic benefits. For example, restoring this ecosystem is important for protection of red-cockaded woodpeckers and other at-risk species.
Seedling Resistance to White Pine Blister Rust
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In 1909 and 1910, white pine blister rust from contaminated nursery stock from Europe was introduced to the east and west coasts. The first infection in Idaho was discovered on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest (now a part of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest) in 1923. Since then, it has spread throughout the white pine forest type in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, New Mexico, and western Montana. In the West, blister rust has killed 90 percent or more of the western white pine in many locations. Stands where white pine formerly dominated have converted to grand fir, cedar, hemlock and Douglas fir.
Disease-resistant white pines were observed in infected areas. In the 1950's and 1960's, we began a successful breeding program to develop resistant white pines. This program has enabled us to keep western white pine as a species choice for regeneration efforts. We are reintroducing resistant white pine seedlings as fast as we can, working toward the restoration of the western white pine ecosystem in our Northern Region.
Prescribed Fire and Thinning on the Boise National Forest
The past decade brought severe drought and fire to the Boise National Forest in south central Idaho. High intensity wildfires burned to a greater extent than in the past. Although fire is an integral part of the natural system in that area, the extent of high intensity fire resulted in damage to forest ecosystem and dependent communities in some locations. The conditions that have made the Boise so susceptible to an increased amount of high intensity fire are evident. Once fire resistant forests dominated by ponderosa pine have been replaced by far more dense stands of trees. These forests cannot sustain their normal fire resilient conditions. These overstocked, highly stressed stands have resulted in fuel loads that, when ignited, result in very large stand-replacement fires far more often than historical conditions provided.
Using the latest technology to identify areas at highest risk to high intensity fire, the Boise National Forest prepared over 16,000 acres for prescribed burning this year. Through the increased use of prescribed fire and landscape-wide thinnings, we are changing tree composition, stand structure, and tree density to restore ponderosa pine ecosystems, where fire will play a more normal role. The value of this work is obvious. It costs $20 to $50 an acre for prescribed burning compared to $400 to $4,000 an acre to suppress wildfires.
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Current Forest Conditions
Forest ecosystems are dynamic and ever-changing. We now know the futility of trying to maintain static and predictable forest conditions. We recognize that natural disturbances such as fire, flood, insects, disease, and hurricanes are not only inevitable, they are necessary to maintain the health, diversity, and productivity of a forest ecosystem. Understanding the role and function of natural disturbances and the effects of human-induced ones is a prerequisite to restoring and sustaining healthy ecosystems. How we integrate these relatively straightforward concepts into our restoration efforts is the challenge.
While our forests are generally healthy, problems do exist. Perhaps the most visible evidence of health problems is found in the inland West. In this region, past timber harvesting practices such as selective removal of pine overstory with the subsequent ingrowth of fir understory combined with the elimination of fire from these fire-dependent ecosystems have increased the risk of high-intensity wildfires, and increased the severity of drought, insect infestation, and disease. Other forest health problems need attention. We have listed these problems, by geographic region, in a supplemental statement. In addressing these problems, we must abide by three principles.
First, unhealthy conditions in our forests developed over many decades and any solution will require time and commitment. We must look at restoration of forest health as an investment: an investment in the land; an investment for our children's futures; and an investment that will ensure productive, healthy and diverse forests.
Second, restoring forest ecosystem health is not simply a forestry issue. A healthy forest is one that maintains the function, diversity, and resiliency of all its components, such as wildlife and fish habitat, riparian areas, soils, rangelands, and economic potential and will require active management. It will require maintenance and obliteration of roads; use of prescribed fire; grazing management; thinning of green trees; removal of insect and disease-infested trees; restoration of wildlife habitat; restoration of riparian areas; and other ecosystem management practices. We must use all available tools and continue our search for new ones.
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Third, we must more effectively communicate the many environmental and economic benefits of restoring forest ecosystem health as well as the consequences of inaction. If people do not support restoration of forest health, then all of our best efforts will be wasted.
Actions by the Forest Service to Address Forest Health Issues
The Forest Service is implementing a number of management actions to address critical forest health conditions. These include: increasing the use of prescribed fire and fuels treatments in restoring fire-dependent ecosystems; in partnership with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, reducing the introduction, spread, and impact of exotic pests--both plant and animal; accelerating restoration of riparian functions; increasing thinning in dense forests; increasing forest health monitoring of forested and rangeland ecosystems to get the best information we can on which to base decisions; increasing use of science in resource decision making; and increasing technical and financial assistance to non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners.
The Value of The Report
I applaud the work of Dr. Oliver and the other scientists who prepared the ''Report of Forest Health in the United States.'' This report should be of great value in promoting the kind of dialogue that is necessary to gain public understanding of and support for forest restoration activities. In a supplemental statement, we are providing a more detailed critique of the report. I will focus my comments on several of the broader policy issues the report raises.
First, the report validates the necessity for an ecosystem-based approach to management. While difficult to achieve, integration is the key to solving many of the challenges of forest stewardship. It is the underlying principle of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, the Pacific Northwest Plan, the draft plan for managing the habitat of the California Spotted Owl, and many other efforts.
Second, the report appropriately recognizes the importance of incentives for and technical assistance to the nearly 10 million non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners who own half of the nation's non-public forested lands. Increasingly, the Nation is dependent on these lands to meet timber demands. Some NIPF lands are not as healthy or productive as the owners would like. Our Forest Stewardship Program and the Stewardship Incentives Program help meet those problems.
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I would also point out that the report does have a number of shortcomings. While the range of values used to compare the management options is wide, the report does not adequately analyze fire, water, wildlife, and recreation issues. Before we could evaluate the usefulness of the weighting scheme included in the report, these resource values would need to be better incorporated. This conclusion is consistent with Dr. Oliver's statement that the report is a work in progress--one that needs to be modified as new scientific information becomes available.
Finally, implicit in the report is a call for Congress to amend various laws such as the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act. We do not agree. This Administration firmly believes that the current legal framework under which the Forest Service operates has worked well in serving the needs of the American people, while protecting the environment. Although we acknowledge the need to streamline procedures and processes, this is being done administratively through regulatory changes and improved inter-agency cooperation.
Future Initiatives
I am proud of what the Forest Service is doing to restore forest health. But more can and should be done. To this end the administration has proposed in the FY 1998 budget a significant increase in fuels management under our wildland fire management proposal. This proposal recognizes the fact that we have less of a ''fire'' problem than we do a ''fuels'' problem. We must make fuels management a significant part of our overall fire management program. Ultimately, this investment in fuels reduction will result in long-term savings in fire suppression costs. We have also proposed increases for timber stand improvement activities and forest vegetation management. We hope you will support the 1998 budget proposal.
Finally, I would like to address the issue of gridlock. Ensuring healthy ecosystems begins and ends with working with people on the land. We believe that cooperative efforts can produce management practices that are widely supported. We are working to depolarize the debate by what we call this ''collaborative stewardship.'' The Forest Service is implementing collaborative stewardship by: using partnerships and collaboration in the decision making process; better communicating how resource management affects economic prosperity; fostering a multidisciplined, multicultural organization; commodating growth while maintaining sustainability; enhancing conservation education; using science and technology; and, insisting on personal accountability.
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When implemented, this approach will effectively restore the credibility of the Forest Service as a conservation leader--one that can be trusted to make reasonable decisions that protect the long-term health of the forests for the benefit of the people, plants and animals who depend upon them.
Summary
As the report notes, present-day forest conditions were a long
time in developing. Restoration will not be quick nor will it be cheap. But it is worth the effort. Dr. Oliver and his colleagues have produced a document that will be useful in helping us to develop further the commitment necessary to restore the health of our nation's forests.
STATEMENT OF BILL BAKER, PRESIDENT OF THE BLACK HILLS REGIONAL MULTIPLE USE COALITION
I am Bill Baker, president of the Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition. My family and I own and operate a small sawmill, a logging and whole tree chipping operation, and a ranch in the Black Hills area of western South Dakota. I represent the Black Hills Homebuilders in the Coalition.
The Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition consists of 43 organizations in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. Our Coalition represents a wide range of public land users--ranchers, loggers, miners, snowmobilers, fly fishermen, rockhounds, mountain bikers, irrigators, hunters, and both motorized and non-motorized recreationists. What the members of the Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition have in common is their use and enjoyment of public lands in South Dakota and Wyoming, and a willingness to work together to find and support local, common sense solutions to public land management issues. The Coalition has brought together diverse groups which, upon learning more about each other, have been able to find ways to cooperate and coexist on finite land. On behalf of our members, I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before this Committee.
II. FOREST HEALTH CONDITIONS IN THE BLACK HILLS NATIONAL FOREST
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I appreciate your willingness to address forest health conditions and policies on the national forests of the western United States. I know that some people dispute the existence of forest health problems, but there's no question in my mind. I've seen both mountain pine beetle epidemics and forest fires, and I've seen a definite relationship between these natural catastrophes and the way our forests are managed.
I'd like to hold the Black Hills National Forest up as an example of how national forest management should work and how forest health can be incorporated into the management strategies of a national forest. I don't agree with everything the Black Hills National Forest does, but from the horror stories about other national forests, I believe the Black Hills National Forest is certainly on the right track.
The Black Hills National Forest is a ponderosa pine forest. Historically, our Forest has experienced periodic mountain pine beetle epidemics and forest fires. The towns of Deadwood and Whitewood, South Dakota both got their names from the large amounts of dead trees present 120 years ago.
The pictures taken during the Custer Expedition in 1874 give us a unique insight into the pre-settlement forests of the Black Hills. As documented in Yellow Ore, Yellow Hair, Yellow Pine, the forests of a century ago were noticeably less dense and covered much less of the landscape than today's forests. Ponderosa pine mortality, caused by fire and mountain pine beetles, was very conspicuous. Early explorers frequently noted evidence, such as burned trees and treeless meadows with residual stumps, of forest fires.
Mountain pine beetle epidemics, which increase the subsequent likelihood of wildfires, are a common cause of tree mortality in the Black Hills. The duration and intensity of infestations are strictly a function of the number of 7-foot to 13-foot trees in the stand--the more of these small trees, the higher the chance of an epidemic.
A major epidemic occurred in the western Black Hills from about 1895 to 1906, killing as many as 90 percent of the trees over thousands of acres. Outbreaks reaching epidemic levels occurred approximately every twenty years until the late 1970's, when a massive pine beetle outbreak occurred in the northern Black Hills. That epidemic, which prompted alarm among residents, had a significant effect on the management strategies of the Black Hills National Forest, with-the Forest Service making a conscious decision to manage for stand densities and structural stages that would reduce the long-term risks of mountain pine beetle epidemics instead of just undertaking after-the-fact salvage of infected trees.
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As I said before, there will always be pine beetle outbreaks. During a 1992 timber harvest to reduce infestation risks in a still-dense area, an epidemic in progress was discovered. It was quickly controlled by prompt timber harvesting to salvage bug-infested trees, but to accomplish this before the infestation grew exponentially the Forest Service had to declare that the project was exempt from the appeals process. Although more than 5,000 acres were affected and more than 50 percent of the trees in that area were killed, this was substantially less than in past major outbreaks.
Modern silviculture has learned how to reduce beetle impacts by thinning stands below the vulnerable densities. Although pine beetle outbreaks will still occur, each successive outbreak in the Black Hills has been less destructive than the one before. They have been minimized by an ongoing, active timber management program.
Mountain pine beetles and forest fires don't honor property lines. Just as we expect private owners to manage lands in manners that do not jeopardize surrounding land, so the national forest should accept the responsibility of being a ''good neighbor.'' What happens on the national forests will affect adjacent private landowners, of whom I am one. This is especially significant in the rural-urban interface.
We've still had severe fires in the Black Hills in the last 10 years, but not anything close to the magnitude of the fires on the Boise National Forest, for example. In every case, the fires have occurred in areas where the stands had not been thinned, and the dense doghair stands were a primary factor in the fire intensity. Fires are a serious concern in rural-urban interfaces, especially with the large number of houses which have been built in those areas in recent years.
While I've painted a very positive picture, it's not a completely rosy picture in the Black Hills. The new forest plan has reduced the annual timber harvest level from 118 million board feet to 83 million board feet, and there's a lot of uncertainty about whether or not the Forest Service will continue to receive enough funding to implement even that reduced amount. There's also a lot of concern that the gains that the Forest has made in reducing the risk of insect epidemics and fires will be lost when there is less timber harvest, and stocking and density levels increase.
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And even though there's tremendous public support for the forest management on the Forest, there are a few naysayers who have been able to monkeywrench the timber sale program with appeals of every timber sale decision. These appeals have greatly increased the costs of the timber sale program by consuming unnecessary man-hours, they have lowered Agency morale, and they have taken forest managers from the land and put them behind desks.
III. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Following are some of the principles that I feel will help incorporate what we know about forest health into action:
We can't wait for more studies. We need to emphasize on-the-ground management rather than trying to study forest health to death. There are already good examples of successful forest management, and I believe the Black Hills National Forest is one of those examples. What we need now is leadership and action, and a commitment to continually monitor and keep adapting from what we learn.
While good science must be the basis of forest management polices, good science in and of itself doesn't make good policy. It does, however, help to establish the sideboards within which we can consider the social and political values and tradeoffs, and ultimately make decisions which benefit the forests as well as society.
Forest management policy should not be a ''cookie-cutter'' approach. What works well on one national forest may not work at all on another national forest. For example, there is a lot of support for restoration forest management on some national forests, and I don't have any reason to disagree with that goal, for those forests. However, I cannot agree with a carte blanche policy of restoring all forests to ''pre-settlement'' conditions. In the Black Hills National Forest, for instance, restoring the land to the ''natural'' or ''historic'' conditions would not be acceptable to most area residents or to the millions of tourists who visit the Hills each year.
Clarify the mission of the Forest Service. The agency is operating under inconsistent and conflicting expectations from Congress, the administration, forest plans, local communities and dependent businesses. There seems to be no definite mission, and policy formulation comes from all directions, including from radical preservationists who disregard the consumer needs of the country as well as the health needs of the land. Consider the following quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
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''And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for one moment what is the object of our forest policy. That is not to preserve the forests because they are beautiful, though that is good in itself, nor because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness, though that, too, is good in itself, but the primary object of our forest policy, as the land policy of the United States, is the making of prosperous homes . . . Every other consideration comes as secondary.''
''You yourselves have got to keep this practical object before your minds; to remember that a forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress, or safety of the country is of no interest to the Government, and should be of little interest to the forester. Your attention must be directed to the preservation of forests, not as an end in itself, but as a means of preserving and increasing the prosperity of the nation.''
The expectation was clear. National forests were created to contribute to the financial prosperity of this nation and to be used so that the most citizens possible benefitted from the harvests and regeneration of these forests.
Repair the appeals process. Appeals designed to stop timber management have been an ongoing nightmare on the Black Hills National Forest for five years now. The last 31 consecutive timber sale decisions have been appealed by the same groups representing just a handful of people. The impact is especially critical on salvage sales. For example, last April about 3 million board feet of trees blew down in a severe blizzard in the northern Black Hills. However, actual salvage logging isn't expected to even begin until October while the Forest Service wades through the appeals process. Ten years ago, the salvage operation would already have started. Waiting until October means the United States Government will get 40—50 percent less for the timber because it will have deteriorated and lost that much value to the sawmills. This significant loss of value to the timber purchasers and consequently of revenues to the Federal Government is intolerable. We are not such a rich country that we can afford to waste our natural resources.
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At the same time, limit the opportunities for ''court shopping.'' The local environmentalists filed a lawsuit on a timber sale in the Rapid City Federal court, and got slam-dunked. So, they just filed a lawsuit on another timber sale in the Federal court in Denver, where they hope to receive a more favorable decision. This is more expensive and is much more difficult for the Black Hills National Forest to co-ordinate with the U.S. Attorney.
Make the Forest Service's compliance with NEPA more efficient. Timber sale Environmental Assessments have become tremendously complex and detailed. I appreciate the need for thorough analysis, but more and more and more analysis is hurting the program. Enough is enough. A recent Environmental Assessment on a single timber sale on the Black Hills National Forest was thicker than the entire forest plan. Environmental assessments are described in the NEPA regulations as a ''brief, concise'' document, but I haven't seen one that fits that description in years. In most cases, I don't believe there's any better on-the-ground analysis--there's just this tremendously detailed and exhaustive documentation.
Consider the reallocation of funding. Forest health projects shouldn't rely completely on timber sale funding--every resource, from watershed to recreation to wildlife to fuels, depends upon healthy forests and should help to carry the financial load. Preventive management should have high priority. Rather than spending money on fighting wildfires and ''chasing bugs,'' we should be in the business of minimizing both.
We also need to look at innovative ways of funding. Two years ago, Governor Janklow offered to lend money to the Black Hills National Forest to help sustain the timber sale program. Since the program returns more than $2 in revenues for every $1 in expenditures, this looked like a good opportunity but there isn't a mechanism to allow that type of innovation. Another alternative is to aggressively use the Salvage Sale Fund for preventive maintenance forest management. Up until three years ago, the Black Hills National Forest very successfully used the Salvage Sale Fund for thinning stands which had the conditions that made them susceptible to mountain pine beetles. But the Black Hills National Forest was instructed that they could no longer use Salvage Sale Funds in that manner. The Forest's current reliance on appropriated funding has been much more problematic and unpredictable.
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Give the Forest Service more budgeting flexibility. Keeping revenues on the ground at each national forest would encourage innovation. For example, Custer State Park, in the southern Black Hills, funds its operations entirely from its revenue from timber and buffalo sales and entry and concession fees. Park personnel are motivated to continually search for ways to cut costs without decreasing environmental quality or long-term resource use. I'm convinced the Black Hills National Forest could also be self-funding after a little help in streamlining their processes.
Develop involvement processes similar to the BLM's Resource Advisory Committee, through which the public can genuinely participate in establishing national forest plans and management strategies without the threat of violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act. We need public involvement models geared to education, communications, and problem solving. I doubt that will be easy, but I know that getting ranchers and motorcyclists to agree isn't easy either, and our Coalition has done that.
The Black Hills Regional Multiple Use Coalition developed an alternative for the forest plan revision--we called it The People and the Land Alternative--and we actually had a consensus among all of our groups. The Forest Service says that they want public involvement, yet the Black Hills National Forest wouldn't sit down with us to discuss it because they said that would violate FACA.
Allocate sufficient funding to accomplish forest health goals. All the collaboration, consensus, science and hands-on knowledge regarding forest health and forest management become moot if the land management decisions are already predetermined by budget policy. Forest management should reflect long-term commitments, and forest funding should be adequate to keep our forests healthy for the generations to come.
The Forest Service must work to increase the public's natural resource knowledge. The agency distributes information on virtually every forest recreational use and many wildlife management programs and partnerships, but virtually no information on forest health or forest management objectives or the links between forest management and insect epidemics and wildfires. Maybe it's not politically correct for the Forest Service to talk about harvesting trees and forest health and forest management, but that's part of the problem we're talking about today. The Forest Service simply has to step to the plate and explain what it's trying to accomplish in forest management. The agency has not done an adequate job of explaining forest management, and as a result, a large portion of the public has no conception of forest management benefits or non-management consequences.
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Land stewardship contracts may be a solution but these must be designed in such a way that small businesses--loggers and mills--can afford to be players. Such contracts must be feasible for mills of all sizes in all sections of the country.
In summary, the Black Hills National Forest provides an excellent standard for Forest Service management. The best possible direction is to drive land management decisions down to the local ''on-the-ground'' level, where it is easier to find answers which are in harmony with the environment and the local communities that are dependent on the public lands. The steps we take for forest health can't be short-term, tentative steps. Managing for forest health should be a long-term commitment by the Forest Service, its partners, and the public.
Again, thank you very much for this opportunity to testify.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP A. BRYCE
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Philip Bryce and I am New Hampshire State Forester. It is an honor for me to be before you today.
I would like to introduce you to New Hampshire's forest policy and in particular share with you the style of forest policy development that has resulted in many successes over the years. If I were to describe the New Hampshire style it would be as follows:
Empower an enlightened community of diverse interests to take action.
The forest policy document for the state, the New Hampshire Forest Resources Plan, is the result of this style of forest policy development. The plan sets out 62 specific actions developed through the collaboration of 28 individuals and the organizations many represented. New Hampshire's plan is based to a great degree on the successful work of the congressionally funded Northern Forest Lands Council.
I wish to submit to the committee a copy of the New Hampshire Forest Resources Plan as an addendum to my testimony. The plan contains New Hampshire's recommendations on how to address many of the 35 values in the Oliver Report on Forest Health of the United States and primarily promotes the integrated approaches to management described in that report.
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There are several other recent examples of the success of the New Hampshire style of policy development: the updating and reorganization of New Hampshire's forestry laws, a management agreement between the State and private landowners covering thousands of acres of high elevation habitat, and the recently released Good Forestry in the Granite State which turned principles of sustainability into specific voluntary forest management practices for landowners.
New Hampshire has relied on other states for guidance for its policy development. We hope that, in turn, the actions in the New Hampshire Plan and the New Hampshire experience may be applicable to other regions of the country with similar demographics and forest ownership patterns.
So why does empowering an enlightened community of diverse interests to take action work? Based upon my own experience in New Hampshire, I would like to answer that by explaining each of the terms in this phrase further:
In New Hampshire, empowerment has occurred when organizations, including government, are not afraid to let others take leadership. Empowerment also means that: Statement of Philip A Bryce
June 19, 1997artificial barriers to progress are lifted; participation is meaningful; the parties put their cards on the table up front; and external resources are provided on the basis of trust.
A solid foundation in the best available science is the key to enlightened policy. Science provides the necessary understanding of the implications of actions at local and global scales. Enlightened policy is developed successfully with: openness to new thought; sensitivity to the objectives of others; and, an understanding of our dependence on and relationship to the forest.
Communities occur at different scales and are defined by commitment to a common set of goals. The key to the forestry community in New Hampshire has been the close relationships built between diverse interests over the years.
Representation of diverse interests is the basis of an inclusive process. These interests bring a breadth of knowledge and experience and incorporate the strength of many perspectives into the final product. Inclusion also provides the broad base of support needed to implement policies. Success in New Hampshire has occurred when there is honesty, trust and respectful disagreement among diverse interests; from staunch industry critics to steadfast private property rights advocates.
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Taking action supports trust and respect and is where we finally turn all the dialogue into concrete results. In addition, following through builds confidence in the system and provides the experience needed to solve new problems in the future.
While New Hampshire forest policy development has seen a number of successes, there are a number of threats to a style which empowers an enlightened community of diverse interests to take action.
There is a natural tendency to slip towards a polarized style of issue resolution, a style based solely in the short term preservation of self interest.
Too often good work is shelved because there is a lack of commitment to find the resources necessary to follow through, it is too easy to discount the work of others, and further study allows for the re-negotiation of decisions. It is particularly frustrating for people to commit to development of collaborative forest policy only to have an unsatisfied minority of interests prevent agreed upon actions from being implemented.
Some of the biggest threats and opportunities for New Hampshire are the impacts of federal policy and a global economy over which the state has limited control.
There are a number of specific policies which have been identified at the federal level which have a direct impact on the ability of New Hampshire's forests to provide its many values. Recommendations for these policies follow:
Fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund at the currently authorized level and support Forest Legacy to provide states with the means to protect resources values, particularly those lost in land conversion.
Address forestry taxation issues, such as capital gains treatment of timber and estate taxes so that tax policy is consistent with long term investment in our forest resources.
Support existing programs such as the Stewardship Incentive Program that provide incentives to landowners to actively manage their land for a variety of forest benefits.
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Provide more complete and timely data through the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis so that States can make informed decisions about their resources.
Continue to actively manage National Forests for multiple benefits including timber production to support local forest products economies, offset timber growth lost as more integrated approaches are being applied on private lands, and serve as an example to the public and private landowners of the benefits of the integrated management approach.
As stated earlier, the actions that New Hampshire is taking to provide the broad spectrum of forest values are set forth in the Forest Resources Plan. To provide a sense of the plan, a summary of the Key Findings excerpted from the Forest Plan and the first actions steps in implementation of the plan follow here.
EXCERPTS FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE FOREST RESOURCES PLAN APRIL 1996
Forest Resources Plan Steering Committee and New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development Division of Forests and Lands
The following are excerpts from the New Hampshire State Forest Resources Plan completed in April 1996. The planning process began in April of 1994 and was guided by 28 individuals representing a broad spectrum of forest resource interests. This excerpt includes a summary of key findings from the forest plan assessment, first priority actions for implementing the plan, and the plan conclusion. A complete copy of the Forest Resources Plan has been submitted as reference for the committee members.
SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS
For over 300 years, New Hampshire's forest-based businesses have been a stable force and major contributor to the state's economy. The wood products industry, from timber harvesting to the manufacturing of finished goods, ranks third in the state for value-added, cost of materials and value of shipments, and ranks fourth in employment and wages. But wood manufacturing in New Hampshire has not reached its full potential. We export an estimated 122 million board feet of unprocessed timber annually to neighboring states and Quebec, with lost value-added opportunities for our forest economy.
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Maintaining blocks of contiguous forest is extremely important, both ecologically and economically. In northern New Hampshire, nine blocks of contiguous forest have been identified, each over 25,000 acres. In southern New Hampshire, blocks of forest over 25,000 acres are rare and blocks of uninterrupted forest are likely to be in multiple ownerships. With private land comprising 83 percent of the state's forested land, factors such as tax policies, land use and forest policy have a large impact on the ability to maintain large tracts. New Hampshire's Current Use Law (RSA 79-A) is the best tool currently available for conserving forest land. But current use assessment does not address the full range of pressures facing land owners.
For decades sustained-yield forest management has been the accepted model of forest management. In the 1990s the concept of forest sustainability has been expanded to include larger landscapes and non-commodity values of forested ecosystems. Information to assess current forest conditions is needed to adapt forest management to an evolving notion of sustainability.
Local decision-making authority is the foundation of New Hampshire civic discourse. The potential of local decisions to impact the ability to practice forestry and sustain healthy forests is not widely recognized. Local decisions affect the availability of land for timber harvest, the value of property owned for forest management purposes, and the fragmentation of contiguous tracts of forest. Land use policies are a potentially powerful tool for conserving forest land and forests adjacent to communities, but their success depends on adequate natural resource information that is readily accessible to local decision-makers.
The human influence on biological diversity is very complex, but it is clear that some forest habitats are scarce because of past or present human activity. The state list of threatened and endangered species now includes 17 percent of known species of vascular plants and 14 percent of known vertebrate species. These habitat and species declines are not all related to forest management activities. Many are the result of land clearing, farm abandonment and development. Species declines that are linked to the availability of forested, and in some cases agricultural, habitat are important concerns in forest resource planning.
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New Hampshire's population has nearly doubled in the last 30 years which has stimulated changes in land use. For example, an average of 13,000 acres of forest land was converted to development each year between 1982 and 1992. Demand for outdoor recreation opportunities by residents and millions of tourists who visit each year are evident in two trends. On public lands, the numbers of people using state and federal lands is increasing and some popular locations bear visible signs of overuse. On private lands there is a perception that more owners are restricting public access to their property. Since completion of the Land Conservation Investment Program, New Hampshire no longer has a coordinated process to prioritize state acquisition of land and conservation easements.
Access to reliable information about the forested resource is critical to sustain both the industry and the forest. While several sources of information are currently available there is insufficient information on some issues vital to sustaining our forests. In some cases, the information is not being collected. In others, the system for collecting data is not thorough or timely. New Hampshire depends on the U.S. Forest Service decennial Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) for data on the status of timber and other forest resources. However, FIA inventories are conducted at unpredictable intervals and do not collect comprehensive information about all biological elements of the forest. Limited funding for the Natural Heritage Inventory Program, established to serve as an ongoing inventory of the state's biological diversity, has allowed only limited inventory coverage of the state. Increased efforts to coordinate research are needed to provide landowners and resource managers with the information they need to make informed decisions.
As New Hampshire's population increases, fewer residents are connected to the land or have a real understanding of our forest resources. The Steering Committee believes that forest policy will not achieve the desired goals of a sustainable ecosystem and forest economy without public understanding of the natural systems that allow forests to function. Education for landowners and resource professionals to respond to new technology and research is expected, but the recurring call for basic science education for children demands stronger action.
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New Hampshire has a long and proud tradition of protecting personal and property rights while working collaboratively to resolve public issues and problems. Open communication between diverse and often opposing interests is needed to foster respect for different views and to develop creative solutions based on trust and consensus. The emphasis on forest sustainability and a more ecological approach to forestry will further test our ability to balance personal and property rights with public values and societal objectives. A variety of mechanisms to facilitate cooperation and collaboration are in place. They provide a foundation, that with some modification, will assist people in developing and revising our forest policies.
First Steps
Working toward the ideal presented in the Vision and Challenges, the Steering Committee developed 62 actions to address the issues identified during the assessment process. They are grouped under broad objectives for clarity and to capture the complex interconnections between the actions. Every action in this plan is important. Taken together they will help us make progress toward the vision of New Hampshire's forests in 50 to 100 years. Nevertheless, all 62 actions cannot be implemented at once. The Steering Committee identified the following 12 actions as necessary first steps.
Action 1-1. Integrate forest products development with other state economic development activities by establishing a full-time forest products development specialist position at the Department of Resources and Economic Development in Concord. The specialist would direct existing programs and agency resources toward forest-based businesses and value-added manufacturing of unprocessed wood.
Action 2-2. Encourage the maintenance of large contiguous parcels of forest lands in private ownership. Promote long term forest management by supporting current use assessment, capital gains treatment of timber, an equitable regulatory climate, and property and income tax policies that influence the attractiveness of investment in forest land.
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Action 3-2. Integrate scientific information and management through establishment of statewide forest structure and composition goals. The Forest Sustainability Standards Work Team should consider this as part of the development of voluntary site-specific forest management practices and landscape-level strategies. Practices and standards should assist landowners and foresters in linking new scientific information to feasible management applications.
Action 4-2. Encourage careful siting of development to maintain ecologically significant land and large contiguous blocks of managed forest by providing communities with information and tools to assist them in making long range land use decisions.
Action 5-2. Support the Ecological Reserve System Steering Committee process to design a science-based system of ecological reserves as one approach to maintain and enhance New Hampshire's biological diversity. The committee should involve citizens in planning and developing a process to create reserves through the participation of public landowners and the voluntary cooperation of private landowners.
Action 6-1. Continue building coalitions between forest landowners and people who recreate on private lands. Increase awareness of New Hampshire's landowner liability law among landowners, recreation users and others. Build understanding of responsible use of private land by recreationists.
Action 7-1. Provide accurate and timely forest inventory data to landowners, resource managers, and forest-based industries to make informed decisions and to guide forest-based economic development. Data should be developed through state partnerships that build on the USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis, but give New Hampshire the flexibility to creatively meet our own information needs.
Action 7-2/3. Conduct comprehensive biological inventories on all public lands, and encourage landowners to conduct ongoing biological inventories of their land. On public lands emphasize state and municipal lands where the least information has been collected. On private lands develop a protocol for data collection, provide incentives and respect the concerns of property owners.
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Action 8-1. Form a coalition to work with the State Board of Education/Department of Education to assure that future generations of New Hampshire citizens have an adequate background in science and natural resources. The coalition should address the availability of science and conservation education curricula and materials, and propose revisions to teacher certification and continuing education distribution requirements.
Action 9-1. Initiate a goal-oriented, public planning process to develop a state acquisition program for land and easements that builds upon the successful model of Land Conservation Investment Program and Trust for New Hampshire Lands.
Action 10-1. Continue to expand community forestry programs with an emphasis on urban ecosystem benefits and public awareness. Focus on city and community tree programs, citizen involvement, maintaining private forest land in suburban settings, and open space planning in communities.
Action 11-1. Create a task-oriented ''umbrella'' group based on the Northern Forest Lands Council concept of a State Forest Roundtable. Their role should be to advocate implementation of actions in this plan, coordinate forest policy development, facilitate dialogue between diverse interests, and assure opportunities for public participation in policy development.
Success will depend on the commitment and cooperation of all who have a stake in the forests of the future--agencies, landowners, organizations, businesses and citizens. The task ahead is to implement actions to realize the vision of New Hampshire's forests set forth in this plan.
TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN W. SCHLEY
My name is Stephen W. Schley. I am a resident of Brewer, ME. I am a non-industrial forest landowner. My brothers and I own a small farm with managed timber on it in Harris County, Georgia. I work for and represent a 157 year old family ownership of timberland in the State of Maine. That ownership is the world's largest, private, certified-as-sustainable forest ownership. The family considers the land a long-term asset and manages it accordingly. Our Maine ownership has been independently inspected and verified as surpassing internationally established standards for forest based sustainability of wood products, ecological health, and socio-economic support for local populations. Our certification was an all practices and all acreage, inclusive audit of our ownership by a team of experts in forest economics, wildlife, and silviculture.
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In our Maine forest, the work is done by licensed, professional foresters and loggers. We manage almost one million acres of forest land for the full range of values and attributes identified in the Forest Health Science Panel report. We accomplish our objectives with the full time equivalent of only 40 people. The U.S. Congress should challenge and require the U.S. Forest Service to accomplish the same objectives with the same efficiency of management, financial return and cost effectiveness. Approximately 350 people have full-time jobs working on our land. Hundreds more are employed in the 44 different Maine mills to which we sell wood. Hundreds more enjoy employment in the tourism sector because we maintain a policy of allowing public use of our private land.
Our forest management program can best be described as ''naturalistic'', designed and implemented to mimic natural processes and patterns. The objective is to work with natural forest processes to grow timber of superior quality and value over the long-term. Management relies heavily on the use of partial harvests, selection and shelterwood systems, and natural regeneration.
GENERAL FOREST POLICY ISSUES
I have served as the chairman of the Forest Industries Council on Taxation and the Maine Forest Products Council. I have also served on the executive committee and board of directors of the American Forest and Paper Association as the only non-industrial landowner representative. I bring many perspectives to the discussion of timber tax and other Federal policy issues.
The Forest Health Science Panel report notes that non-industrial, private forest landowners own two thirds of the productive forests in the North. Maine's forest and forest industry has the great fortune of being 90 percent privately owned and therefore less subject to the changing whims of our national electorate. The private ownership works. The public enjoys the land for recreation and substantial employment. The private sector profitably and efficiently manages the resource for the betterment of all. Our situation is a substantial improvement over any Federal forest ownership scenarios I have ever seen. Congress should consider any and all opportunities to encourage and support private forest ownership in the United States of America. U.S. public forest ownership and management rarely works because forestry is too complex and too long-term for a public that is increasingly removed from the land. The public does not have the patience necessary to effectively relate to the incredibly long-term nature of the asset and process. Congress should reject suggestions for further public forest acquisition or public forestland set asides. In fact, Congress should consider opportunities for taking advantage of the efficiencies of private ownership and management through a public forest privatization plan.
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Private forest ownerships recognize that we have a responsibility to protect basic public values. Those values are clean water, clean air, and suitable wildlife habitat for existing native species and populations. Government has no role in prescribing how those values must be met or provided. Instead, government should set goals and monitor how practices achieve those goals over the long-term. The focus on ''long-term'' is important. Too often, government sets goals and expects to see results faster than the natural forces in a forest can possibly respond. Government must exercise the patience necessary to allow strategies to work.
When dealing with an asset that can take 30 to 100 years to mature, regulatory rules must be steady and predictable. How many times has the Federal Government changed the definition of a wetland in the last ten years? How many landowners have been caught by those changing rules? Consistency is a must when dealing with long-term assets and government has a responsibility to steer a predictable course.
Much of the public thinks in 30 second sound bites. Six months seems like forever and five years an eternity. In an environment where a car can go from 1,000 parts to a completed machine in a matter of days, the public has difficulty relating to an asset that takes 50 or more years to reach final product stage. They look at snapshots in time, get worried and overreact.
We hear statements like ''Maine's forest will be a sea of stumps in 10 to 15 years. The paper companies are geared for liquidation and will have cut off what remains, close their recently enlarged mills and move to wherever in the world a forest still stands.'' That forest activist's quote was in an article in the Ellsworth American newspaper in 1983. It was made during our most recent, catastrophic insect infestation. Activists did not like what they saw and overreacted. Just last year, Maine forest activists followed the Sierra Club's lead and legislatively called for the end of good forest management. Maine's forest volumes are currently below record highs, but still considerably higher than 30 years ago or historic norms. In fact, Maine's forest industry, supposedly at the end of it tether and long past its era of sustainability, remains the cornerstone of Maine's economy.
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Too often our government perceives a problem, institutes a prescriptive solution and only succeeds in discouraging responsible land management. If the public and legislators would exercise the patience necessary to allow market forces to work through the management of timber, desirable results would be achieved. The public's best, and most effective opportunity for demanding more ''enlightened'' forest management is through use of their purchasing power. Then market forces will pull, rather than push, private owners into meeting public desires.
Concerned citizens and governments have the ultimate power to put their money where their mouths are by demanding, and paying for, products generated from truly sustainable forest management. The market is the place and opportunity to positively affect forest practices. Conversely, every time government issues an ill-advised forest management edict, ''thou shalt do [whatever]'', landowners resist and react negatively. Government must learn to work within the private sector incentive system if it hopes to accomplish its objectives.
Congress must realize: that which is good for forestry is good for the environment. Public policies and incentives that encourage longer forest rotations are good for wildlife, water quality, aesthetics, recreation, our economy and forest sustainability. Current public policy, however, discourages long-term investments in forest management. This country has some of the most productive, well managed forestland in the world but public policy is squandering the resource. We are setting aside more and more acres from good stewardship and management, inevitably driving production of necessary commodities to poorly managed forests elsewhere. The public demand for forest products has not decreased, we have simply shifted the burden to less enlightened management regimes. Do not believe the naysayers who suggest commodity based forest management can not meet the goals spelled out in your Forest Health report. Our Maine forest management is proof that the job can be done.
LOOK AT TAXES FROM THE FOREST'S POINT OF VIEW
It takes 50 or more years to grow a stand of trees. Trees are not an annual crop that provide a quick return on investment. When you consider fires, insects, droughts, diseases, windthrow, and even volcanic eruption, you can see how a lot can happen in half a century! But these natural forces are not the only vagaries faced over 50 years. Landowners must also deal with biannually changing legislatures with new lawmakers and new agendas. We have no choice but to suffer through the risks of natural disaster, but it should be possible to address the dangers inherent in unpredictable changes in tax and other policies.
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Much of the United States productive forest land is privately owned. If large areas of healthy forestland are to be maintained, landowners must be able to realize a competitive return on their investments. Timber management contributes greatly to the economy, social structure, and provides jobs for thousands. In Maine, surveys have shown that 98 percent of the privately owned forestland is open for public use via a privately constructed and maintained road system. These lands provide outdoor recreational opportunities for thousands of people each year. Hikers, leaf peepers, hunters, fishers, picnickers, boaters, bird watchers and more, all have the opportunity to relax and enjoy themselves on private forestland. In return, landowners ask to be absolved of liability and that their land be treated with care and respect in terms of fire, litter, and road safety.
Landowners also ask that the public support a taxation system which makes it economically feasible to continue practicing high quality forest management. The methods by which local, state and Federal Governments tax forestland can have enormous impacts on the economics of purchasing and/or holding forestland as a long-term investment. The public must appreciate those factors and support tax policies that permit investments in forestry to compete with alternate uses of capital. Good tax policy will help ensure that forests continue to support clean air and water, critical wildlife habitat and all of the jobs and recreation opportunities associated with managing this country's renewable natural resource.
ESTATE TAXES
The single most important forest policy the U.S. Government must address is estate taxes. Fifty percent of the private forest ownership in this country is held by individuals 60 years old or older. All of that land is going to be forced through the estate tax process in the next 10 to 30 years. Millions of productive forest acres are going to be inappropriately and unnecessarily converted to non-forest uses because of the estate tax burden. The tax will disrupt the ownership and lives of forest owning families and the flow of over 50 percent of this country's forest products wood supply.
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The estate tax forces private action which works against every positive resource characteristic described in your Forest Health Science Panel report. United States public policy, not private greed or any other private consideration, is going to destroy the most productive and sustainable forest management system in the world. The estate tax law must be modified to encourage the passage of forestland from one generation to the next, minimizing the chance that the land will be sold, subdivided and developed, or stripped just to pay estate taxes.
The estate tax threat is a huge impediment to long-term, sustainable management of private forests. Estate tax planning negatively effects every private forest management decision. Nothing can be done without considering how each decision will impact the ability of future generations to maintain the ownership. Estate planning is totally counterproductive for public and private values. The estate tax does not recognize the inherent illiquidity of timberland. It is difficult and ill-advised to force conversions of forests-to-cash to pay those taxes. Public values are destroyed each time family ownerships have to strip timber off the land, sell potential development parcels or entire forest ownership blocks just to pay taxes. It is poor public policy to force liquidation and conversion of forest ownerships just because someone died. Government must stop the process if it hopes to sustain private, productive, and sustainable forest management. And government must support continued private, productive and sustainable forest management because it has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to conduct those practices on public land.
Our family ownership in Maine has survived into the seventh generation of owners through luck and determination. We have been lucky in that most of our owners have lived into their nineties, giving us time to carry out estate plans. Determination has driven us to finance insurance trusts, alter the ownership form, maintain an annual exclusion gifting program, and still the estate tax looms large. We are dismayed by imposition of the tax on our ownership when nothing has changed except the name on the deed or interest. No new cash has been generated, no land has been sold, no timber has been liquidated. An individual has died and we are required to pay the tax.
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Congress is currently discussing broad based estate tax reform in the guise of increasing the lifetime credit from $600,000 to $1 million. The effort is a nice start but it barely helps us keep up with inflation over the past 15 years. This Congress needs to accept the recommendations in the Forest Health Science Panel report and recognize that it is in the best interest of all U.S. citizens that private lands continue to remain forested and productive. Target the estate tax change and the cost is insignificant.
TIMBER EXPENSING
The timber expensing section of the tax code is another critical element in governmental policy effecting the sustainability of private ownership. Any Congressional effort to repeal existing timber expensing tax provisions would be devastating to forestry, water quality and wildlife in the United States. Timber expensing provisions in the tax code are identified by every new Congress as ''corporate welfare'' or a tax subsidy. Timber expensing is neither. Timber expensing is accurate recognition of the true nature of the ordinary and necessary annual expenditures that must be made by forest landowners in order to keep their forest in the best shape possible. It is only through expensing timber costs that we are able to keep our foresters on the ground, taking care of wildlife, water quality and all of the other societal issues that all agree are so important.
As mentioned earlier, my family's forest ownership in Maine has been independently certified as exemplifying true sustainable forestry. Meeting those standards requires constant supervision and attention by professionals who are on the ground daily. That level of landowner commitment to retention of biodiversity, maintenance and enhancement of wildlife habitat, and the practice of exemplary forestry as described by our certification, is an expensive proposition. The out-of-pocket disbursements are accepted in order to maintain the quality of the overall resource. Eliminating expensing and forcing capitalization of those costs over our 70—100 year rotation cycles would eliminate any and all ability we have to commit those funds. We would be forced to discontinue our modern forest management and revert back to the 1950's when one of the landowners traveled around the state handing out stumpage permits.
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Most non-industrial landowners, unable to generate forest related income annually, lost expensing as a result of the passive loss provisions in the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Those landowners can no longer take these necessary and justified expenses off their taxes because of passive loss rules imposition. Long-term forest management has suffered as a result. This ill-conceived public policy has forced shorter timber rotations and the degradation of wildlife habitat and ecosystem health. Landowners can not afford to hold timber any longer than the first moment at which it becomes economically merchantable. The loss of timber expensing has eliminated their ability to commit to the long rotations which produce sawtimber and mature forest conditions and also yield important types of wildlife habitat.
Any proposal to eliminate timber expensing for the rest of the forest landowning community would exacerbate this problem. It would force all landowners, as a result of the length of forest rotations and the subsequent effect of compounding on the time value of money, to recapture their expenses at the earliest harvest date possible. That shift would either force our domestic solid-sawn timber products companies out of business or to overseas markets for wood supply and further erode our balance of trade.
Any Congressional effort to repeal existing timber expensing provisions would force all landowners to reconsider their investment and their willingness to take the long view of forestry. Any repeal would be horrible policy at a time when this country needs the strength of this truly sustainable and renewable resource more than ever. I urge this and all future Congresses to eliminate the biannual heart stopping threat of eliminating timber expensing provisions. But first, fix the error made in the 1986 Tax Reform Act when small non-industrial forest land ownership was lumped into shopping mall type commercial real estate investment via the passive loss provisions. This oversight must be corrected. It should have been corrected years ago. The good news is that correcting the error costs the Treasury almost nothing.
CAPITAL GAINS TAXES
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Forestry is the ultimate long-term investment. Forest landowners make annual investment decisions that will not be realized for decades. Our capital is locked into the ground for as long as a century but U.S. tax policy says there is no difference between investing for one year or 50 years. There is no recognition of the inflation, catastrophic natural events or other risks inherent in committing capital today from which there will be no return for decades. Timber is taxed the same as other investments which can yield returns in a much shorter time. Federal tax laws should be modified to tax landowners on the real gain in value from selling timber, not the inflationary gain. This modification would recognize the long-term nature of forestland investments and encourage longer forest rotations.
I encourage Congress to consider reforming capital gains tax policy as follows: recognize true long-term investing by requiring a longer minimum holding period. Then graduate the tax exemption for each year thereafter until the tax disappears completely. Calculating the tax this way would reduce ''lost'' revenue versus other proposals while appropriately recognizing true long-term investing.
ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX
The last tax issue I want to address is the alternative minimum tax. You may ask, what does a non-industrial timber owner know or care about the AMT. I know that the conscientious stewardship of tens of millions of forested acres relies on access to good markets for all forest products of all species. The timber processing business is incredibly capital intensive. If my sawmill and paper mill customers can not upgrade their machinery and make the investments necessary to remain competitive in this global marketplace, they will eventually fail and my wood will have no place to go. The AMT must be reformed to allow capital intensive industries to survive. Of all my recommendations, this is the most expensive and therefore the most difficult, but I implore you to find a way to address the problem.
CURRENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR POSITIVE FOREST POLICY CHANGE
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The Forest Legacy program in the State and Private Forestry division of the U.S. Forest Service holds great promise for the conservation of critically important forestland in the United States. The program has been refined and perfected. It serves landowner and public needs. It preempts forest fragmentation by eliminating development threats with easements which compensate landowners for development values. Forest Legacy helps keep the working forest working. A nice feature of the program is that there are no general Federal budget considerations. There is a surplus of money in the Land & Water Conservation Fund that should be directed at this terrific opportunity.
Funding for critically important non-industrial landowner assistance programs should be a top priority for Congress. Bringing more non-industrial forest land under active, integrated forest management may be the most efficient, cost effective environmental protection program Congress could ever fund. Forests are this country's water filters, wildlife habitats, and air scrubbers. As noted in your Forest Health Sciences Panel report, however, forests only work to accomplish those environmental protection measures if they are under active management. Allowing millions of forested acres to simply grow old and die accomplishes little for the environment or the values the report seeks to promote.
Private Property Rights are best safeguarded when decisions are made closest to home. The Federal Government has a role in setting parameters for the courts and states to operate under, but forest regulation should be left up to the states. The most important effort the Congress could make with respect to private property rights is to clarify the definition of ''takings'' for the courts. It is clear to me that when, through regulation, the government holds more value in my property than I do, they should pay me for it. Judicial opinion, however, varies widely around the country. Some courts opine that leaving a landowner with no rights except the right to picnic on his property and enjoy the scenery is not a ''taking.'' Others have said that eliminating all rights on one part of a forest ownership is not a taking so long as there is some value left in the remainder of the ownership. Individual states have attempted to pass private property rights legislation because of the growing frustration over regulatory takings, but they keep getting hung up on the definition of ''some economic value''. Congress must pass a private property protection act and clarify these issues for the courts and overzealous state and Federal regulators.
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The Endangered Species Act must be reformed. Currently, the ESA does little to nothing for the wildlife that needs help (no species has ever come off the list due to recovery) and is incredibly damaging to the human population trying to co-exist on the landscape. Maine is currently suffering from attempts to eradicate two important natural resource management industries under the guise of protecting a species. Commercial shipping is the greatest threat to Right Whales but activists are attacking our lobster industry using the whale as a surrogate. Blossoming seal populations, now protected from exploitation, and offshore fishing are depleting Atlantic Salmon stocks on the Maine coast. Activists, however, are using the opportunity to attack forestry and blueberry farming as the ''roots of all evil'' with respect to Atlantic Salmon populations. The ESA must be reformed so that meaningful and compatible opportunities for co-existence can occur.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hydro power dam relicensing process is another bureaucratic system torn asunder by special interest's use of extortion to achieve special interest demands. The Great Northern Paper Company in Millinocket, Maine just completed an 11 year, 11 million dollar project to relicense their private power system. All that money and time was wasted pushing paper around and trying to satisfy special interests with the eventual result of virtually no change to historic water management systems. The damage to the local community and forest industry, however, was enormous. The uncertainty of the process forced Great Northern to delay and eventually eliminate efforts to modernize and improve their facilities.
FERC is being asked to threaten our ownership using a utility's dam relicensing application as the vehicle. We are not associated with the project or the ownership of the license but activists are pushing for substantial restriction on our ownership rights and land management in an attempt to extort concessions from the utility. This bureaucracy run amok must be reigned in by the United States Congress because no one else has the authority. I urge you to demand accountability from agencies like FERC, the EPA, the Army Corp. of Engineers and others who are abusing legislatively created power to affect special interest agendas.
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Congress must demand a new attitude in the US Forest Service. At a recent meeting in Washington DC, a senior USFS official told the audience that timber production can not be the primary goal of true multiple use management (''integrated management'' as defined in your Forest Health Science Panel report). The ownership I represent is ongoing proof that timber production can indeed be the primary goal of multiple use management while providing the other goals society desires. The Forest Service's attitude undermines public and private efforts toward continued forest management. Anti-forestry activists point to this Forest Service position and demand that timber production be curtailed ''because it can not be considered in conjunction with the restoration of biodiversity and habitat considerations.'' Private industry has proven the Forest Service wrong and Congress needs to hold the Forest Service to our higher standards.
The Northern Forest Stewardship Act (NFSA), S.546, currently before Congress, contains a great many provisions that should become part of forest policy for the United States. After months of intense work with New England U.S. Senators and their staffs, forest industry and conservation organizations have forged a great opportunity for the application of Federal forest policy in northern New England. The language, tailored for northern New England forest and ownership conditions, could be modified as necessary and applied to other parts of the country. Language in the NFSA will accrue significant benefits to private landowners. Examples include:
''...the intent of this Act: to support the primary role of the Northern Forest States in the management of their forests, to protect the traditions of the region, to emphasize the rights and responsibilities of landowners and to advance new mechanisms for cooperative conservation of the Northern Forest lands and its resources for future generations.'' (emphasis added)
''...educate the public that timber harvesting is a responsible forest use so long as the long-term ability of the forest to continue producing timber and other benefits is maintained.'' (emphasis added) With all of the Congressional and national debate over the fate of logging on public lands, this statement in support of forest management is an important achievement for Federal legislation.
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No new authority to regulate land use. Nothing in this Act creates new authority in any Federal agency to regulate the use of private or public land in any State.
With respect to government acquisition, S.546 says''... acquisition of land and interests in land only from willing sellers, with community support; involvement of local governments and landowners in the planning process in a meaningful way that acknowledges their concerns about public land acquisition;
recognition that zoning, while an important land use mechanism, is not an appropriate substitute for acquisition; assurances that unilateral eminent domain will be used only with the consent of the landowner to clear title and establish purchase prices;
consideration of the potential impacts and benefits of land and easement acquisition on local and regional economies; minimization of adverse tax consequences to municipalities by making funds available to continue to pay property taxes based at least on current use valuation of parcels acquired, payments in lieu of taxes, user fee revenues, or other benefits, where appropriate... .'' (emphasis added)
The bill also includes a number of non-binding Congressional recommendations to make legislative changes to...change tax policies that work against the long-term ownership, management, and conservation of forest land...strengthen relief-from-liability laws to protect landowners that allow responsible public recreational use of their lands...provide additional reduction in property taxes for landowners that allow responsible public recreational use of their lands...and strengthen enforcement of trespass, anti-littering, and anti-dumping laws.
As submitted, the NFSA will make it easier for the States to access Federal dollars to acquire land and/or interests in land from willing sellers only. This will help landowners who have in interest in the sale of property or conservation easements. The bill clearly states that zoning is not an appropriate substitute for acquisition. It protects landowner rights and the rights of local communities that might be impacted by government acquisition of lands historically part of a local tax base.
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Sensitivity to local and national concerns is best addressed by allowing regulatory and management decisions to take place as close to the standing timber as possible. Forests change dramatically from region to region and state to state and there must be sufficient flexibility to operate within those differentials. It is wholly inappropriate for Federal, state or private forest managers to be forced to operate under a system or set of rules established for another part of the country. Southern Pine forests, with tap roots that sink deep into the ground and provide significant windthrow resistance, can withstand thinning regimes that would never work in the Northeast's thin soils and shallow root systems. Regardless of the regulatory issue, the Federal Government needs to get out of the habit of setting prescriptive standards for accomplishing objectives. Instead, if appropriate for the protection of the public good, the Federal Government should set broad goals and allow local managers to determine the best way to reach those goals.
Forest management priorities must allow flexibility of landowner objectives. Most of the forest in the Northeast is owned by individuals who have widely varying goals and reasons for their ownership. These differences in management objectives and styles is the primary reason why New England still benefits from incredibly high biodiversity. One landowner may be managing for long rotation, high quality sawlogs while his neighbor manages for shorter rotation pulp fiber production. Each is a legitimate forest management regime and each serves an important component of our forest products industry and global consumer demand but the practices are dramatically different in application. Those differences ensure multiple types of wildlife habitat, forest rotations and production, recreational opportunities, and aesthetic attributes. Imposition of one-size-fits-all management requirements across the landscape (as exists on vast public ownerships in the West) would eliminate this diversity of management styles and objectives and the biodiversity we currently enjoy.
The forest areas at greatest risk for providing a full range of values are those public or private tracts receiving little or no management. The Forest Health Science Panel report correctly surmises that the fewest negative tradeoffs and greatest number of positive attributes are found under ''integrated'' or multiple use management regimes. Maintaining reserves for the purpose of retaining ''control plots'' or scientific benchmarks against which measures and comparisons can be made is important, but we only need representative samples of areas. The greatest risk to maintaining the desirable values described in the report is the continued allowance and/or creation of new no management zones. The family ownership I represent has proved that a forest can be all things to all people under an all acreage inclusive management regime. There is no need for huge set-asides, further restricted National Forests, or new National Parks.
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The funding, accountability, and efficiency issues on public land could all be addressed by Congressional demands for the Forest Service to conduct their operations as efficiently as the private sector. To do that, Congress must first lift the yoke of all the frivolous lawsuits Federal land managers are forced to suffer. Congress must allow intelligent management decisions to be made at the local level and end top-down edicts like ''let it burn'' to apply nationwide when those edicts make no sense in certain regions.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture. I am pleased that you are taking an in-depth look at Federal forest policy. I look forward to working with you further to ensure our forests remain one of this country's greatest assets.
STATEMENT OF ERIC KINGSLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW HAMPSHIRE TIMBERLAND OWNERS ASSOCIATION
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss forest health issues in the Northeast. As the executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, I represent over 1,500 landowners, loggers, foresters and wood using industries in the Granite State. Our members own and responsibly manage well over a million acres of productive forestland. New Hampshire is the second most heavily forested state in the nation, with roughly 87 percent of the state covered by hardwood, white pine and spruce-fir forests. Of this forestland, 20 percent is under Federal or other government ownership--primarily the White Mountain National Forest, 14 percent is owned by forest industry, and the remainder, 66 percent, is under the stewardship of non-industrial forest landowners. New Hampshire has a healthy forest with a good balance of species, ecosystems, and age classes. We grow considerably more timber than we harvest.
The Report of Forest Health of the United States by the Forest Health Science Panel covers a great deal of ground, and I would like to briefly address its implications for the Northeast. All of the thirty five values identified in the report are important, and experience shows we can manage the forests of this nation for multiple benefits. What we cannot accomplish, and should not pretend is possible, is the presence every value on every acre. In this regard, the three management options identified in the report--intensive management, management for multiple benefits, and non-commodity management--all have their place. New Hampshire has a wide mix of ownership patterns and ownership objectives, and we see all of these forms of management in practice.
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State Based Solutions
More than anything else, I am pleased that this report and these hearings recognize that the issues faced by forest landowners are distinct by region and by state. The issues of forest health must be addressed by those who know the character of the region and have an understanding of the forests. We must encourage decisions to be made by those who know the land--loggers, foresters and landowners. When issues are to be addressed in a capitol, let it be the state capitol, and let the culture and history of the state shape the solution. In New Hampshire, we have been able to address the issues that face us in a collaborative manner. I will quickly point to two examples from the Granite State that demonstrate the benefits of collaborative work to government, landowners, forest industry and citizens.
1. New Hampshire High Elevation Memorandum of Understanding--Land over 2,700 feet in elevation in New Hampshire has unique wildlife habitat that is not found on lower elevation lands. Landowners in New Hampshire (Champion International, Mead Paper, International Paper Company, Crown Vantage, Hancock Timber Resource Group, Wagner Forest Management, Dartmouth College and Mr. Fred Foss) worked with the state Division of Forests and Lands, the State Fish & Game Department and the Appalachian Mountain Club, a regional environmental organization, to establish non-regulatory guidelines to ensure habitat conservation and continued timber production from these lands. This agreement, which took almost two years to negotiate, holds more promise and has more support than any regulatory action could hope to. I have provided a copy of the agreement so that you can appreciate the complexities, and value, of taking the time to really address an issue in this manner. This is a private solution with significant public benefit.
2. Good Forestry in the Granite State; Recommended Voluntary Forest Management Practices for New Hampshire In New Hampshire, we have minimal regulation of forest practices. Instead, we as a state and a forestry community have endeavored to provide landowners with information on how to manage for different ownership objectives. We have allowed landowners to make responsible decisions that meet their situation and goals. One recent example is a set of recommended forest management practices that address the great majority of values that a landowner may want from a forest. These include, but are not limited to: income, maintaining site quality, sustaining watersheds, recreation, wildlife habitat, aesthetics and production of forest products. This document, completed after two years of work by a team of twenty-three professionals, is a model for the nation. It is a means of providing the best possible information to landowners so that they can make informed decisions. This method respects the property rights of the landowner by providing information, not regulation. I believe that while the text is specific to the forests of New Hampshire, this is a process that may serve to encourage continued improvement in forest management around the nation. I have provided the committee with a copy of this text so that you might review it and judge its usefulness for yourself.
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I encourage you to continue to treat forest health as a regional, and often a state-based issue. The Northern Forest Stewardship Act, sponsored by Congressman Bass of New Hampshire and co-sponsored by many of his colleagues, recognizes that states, not a regional or national entity, are best positioned to address the issues. Empower and provide resources to State Foresters to address the issues, but recognize that solutions must be individually tailored in each state. Encourage collaboration, and in doing so discourage simple solutions that often lead to complex problems.
Federal Tax Policy
I understand that tax policy is not the focus of this report, nor the purview of this committee. However, the capital gains and estate tax policies presently in place are the greatest threat to the forests of the Northeast and New Hampshire. If these policies do not change, the values identified and the management options cited will soon be irrelevant. Estate tax policies that value forestland at its development value often force heirs to sell well-managed family woodlots to developers, forever converting the land out of productive forest use. While I understand that this issue is being addressed by your colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee, I cannot overstate to you the importance of estate tax reform to the continued environmental health of the Northeast. I urge you to support targeted estate tax relief for forest landowners, such as Congressman Sununu's recently introduced Family Forest Tax Preservation Act.
Capital gains tax, not indexed for inflation, discourages long-term investment in forestland, which often take thirty, sixty, or more years to return on an investment. If responsible forest management is not an attractive investment, money will flow to short-term and often unsustainable management practices, which will not serve the public good in the long run. If you want to encourage the forests and all of their public benefits, Federal tax law must change.
Forest Legacy
Conversion of forestland to other uses, primarily residential housing, is the greatest threat to several of our forest types. In fact, a recently completed New Hampshire Comparative Risk Project ranked loss of land habitat to development the third of fifty-three threats to human and environmental health facing New Hampshire. One cost-effective programs administered by the Federal Government is the Forest Legacy program, which provides for the purchase of development rights on productive forestland. The land remains in private hands and under private management, but is permanently protected from conversion to non-forestry use. This ensures that working forests remain a part of our landscape. This program has tremendous untapped potential. I urge you to look to Forest Legacy and other easement based programs to conserve important features of the landscape long before you seek to acquire more fee holdings for the Federal Government. The efficiency of dollars spent on easement programs is huge compared to those spent on fee acquisition.
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USDA Forest Service
The White Mountain National Forest is a critical part of New Hampshire's forest--770,000 acres managed for recreation, timber, wildlife, watershed and wilderness. We have seen, in the last several years, the frustrations of professionals trying to manage the land under uninformed public scrutiny, burdensome Federal laws and shifting budgets. The U.S. Forest Service is positioned to be the forestry leader in the nation, if not the world. It is not living up to its potential. In fact, they are moving backwards. For the Forest Service to reclaim this title, they must be allowed to pursue management strategies that reflect the needs and values of the region. The National Forest Management Act requires that Forest Plans be periodically revised, however funding for preparation and implementation of the plans is uncertain. We must recognize that National Forests have the ability to provide for all of the values that the public demands from the forests, and we should accept no less. We must look to our public lands to produce their fair share of the nation's enormous demand for forest products, and we must streamline the processes by which this occurs. In doing so, we must search out long-term solutions that provide for the sustained viability of communities that depend upon our public lands for timber and tourism. If Congress cannot provide the means for the Forest Service to realize its potential, then you must find alternative management solutions.
Forest Inventory Analysis
One area where the Federal Government can be most effective is in providing timely data in a useful format on the forests of the nation. Presently, the U.S. Forest Service provides Forest Inventory Analysis to New Hampshire on a fourteen year cycle, while states in other regions receive data on intervals roughly half as long. The forests of the Northeast are no less important. The jobs that our industries provide to working families are no less important than those in other regions. I assure you that, for almost every policy issue this committee seeks to address relative to forestry, accurate data on a consistent cycle of five to ten years is crucial. This information, more than any other, will help address forest policy issues in a manner, based on strong data, that is supported by the facts. Further, it will provide landowners, industries, and citizens a clearer picture of what can realistically be expected from our forests. This program is important to all the forests of the nation, and I ask your support for current efforts to shorten this time interval to a consistent 5 years.
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STATEMENT OF LONNIE L. WILLIAMSON
I am Lonnie Williamson, vice president of the Wildlife Management Institute, which is headquartered in Washington, DC. Established in 1911, WMI is staffed by professional wildlife, range and forest managers. Its sole purpose is the restoration and improved management of wildlife in North America.
While reading the committee's instructions for this hearing, I was impressed with your obvious desire to really improve forest management nationwide and thereby serve the needs of all our citizens. Your willingness to listen is the first big step toward success. For it, I commend you all!
The Chad Oliver report is a fine document, but I must admit to having had time to read and study only the executive summary. Two of the panel members, Dr. Whaley and Mr. Sampson are personal friends and long-time colleagues, for whom I have greatest respect. Still, that report, or any such exercise, is capable mostly of stimulating thought. There are few answers in it. There can be no complete answers in it because the issue of forest management is too complex. In fact, I'm convinced that science cannot give us definite answers to forest health questions. However, science is vital in giving us information with which to make decisions.
To be brief, Mr. Chairman, what I am saying is that real solutions to current forest management issues rest in the arts, not the sciences. Resource managers pretty much know already how to manage forests for many purposes and conditions. Any gaps in their knowledge can be filled with targeted research. However, our forest managers have no clear direction on what to manage for. And the answer to that is not among scientists or managers. The answer is with the people who own public and private forest lands.
The greatest service that this committee can offer is to ask these people what they want from their forestland and then develop policy to direct and help agencies and private landowners produce those desired goods and services.
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I think all of us involved in natural resource management would do well to keep in mind that our highest duty is to maintain and hopefully improve the quality of life for all Americans. To do that, we must manage our forests to provide what the owners (public and private) want. Only when we all are convinced of that can we develop useful policies and delivery systems. Otherwise, we're manufacturing buggy whips.
And speaking of delivery systems, the Seeking Common Ground program is one at which the committee should take a close look. It is working on rangeland. I believe it can work on forests also.
I have worked for nearly 30 years on various legislation, programs and even schemes to improve public rangeland management to optimum levels, and Seeking Common Ground is the first widespread effort that appears to serve everyone's need and thereby is capable of success.
This already proven effort resulted from a Livestock/Big Game Symposium held in Sparks, Nevada in 1991. That meeting was organized to address conflicts between primarily cattle and elk on public and private land. Many of us became determined that the symposium would not be just another meeting, but would result in positive action. Subsequently, with leadership from the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, Seeking Common Ground was formed. The Forest Service, BLM, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National Forest Foundation and Wildlife Management Institute provide financing for the many projects now underway. Other participants include the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen's Association, Public Lands Council, and International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
On the surface, Seeking Common Ground does not appear all that different from numerous past attempts to expedite rangeland conservation. For at least a couple of decades, to my knowledge, there have been several coordinated resource management programs sputtering along, some locally successful, and many others not so successful. So what is the difference with Seeking Common Ground?
There are big differences, in my opinion. I will try to explain with a short historical perspective.
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Beginning in 1970, I was part of numerous negotiations with the livestock industry and government on improving public rangeland management. We would sit around tables and talk, but invariably, participants would wind up posturing, defensive and negative. We had some good people on both sides. Unfortunately, however, we never achieved success to the levels aspired. This was caused, in my opinion, by a few extremists in both camps. Among conservationists and ranchers were enough detractors to spoil real progress with their uncompromising and combative nature. But we kept trying.
I was walking down the street in Washington, DC. one day with Ray Housley, who was then the D.C. representative for the Society for Range Management. We were discussing how fringe elements had slowed needed range management that would help both livestock and fish and wildlife interests. I asked if we might convene a group from both sides, minus the bilious ones. My thought was to discuss only those issues on which there likely could be agreement and forget about such things as grazing fees. Ray thought a moment and said that such an outfit sounded like a ''Lonesome Dove'' operation to him. But we tried it anyway, and the process was called Lonesome Dove.
After several years, there was meager progress, such as agreeing to support more realistic budgets for range management in the Forest Service and BLM. But the effort eventually died out, because the naysayers managed to infiltrate our group.
About that time, the Forest Service initiated what usually is known as an ''internal review'' of livestock/big game conflicts on western range. Increasing elk populations were a big concern. However, the Service did the review a bit abnormally. Instead of involving just Service people, the agency invited outsiders to participate. Along with Service personnel were Jack Metzger (AZ) and Jim Connelly (NV) representing the public land livestock industry and Don McQuivey (Nevada Wildlife Agency) and myself representing big game interests. We visited forests and talked to many dozens of people in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. We met ranchers with real problems and a few that seemed intent only on badmouthing government. We talked with considerate and helpful wildlife and environmental groups and some environmental groups which had nothing to contribute but bluster. The latter seemed to be against everything.
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Some good suggestions came from that review, the first of which was to conduct the Livestock/Big Game Symposium. But most importantly for me, the review revealed that Metzger, Connelly, McQuivey and myself could come to substantial agreement out on the ground and away from the stuffiness and temptations of a meeting room. So, we are trying to spread such agreement through what we call ''Seeking Common Ground.''
Seeking Common Ground involves three aspects, at least one of which all the failed programs seem to have lacked. First, improved range management is initiated at the local level with local interests involved. Second, all public land interests are part of the effort, including private landowners, Federal public land agencies, other Federal agencies such as the Extension Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, state fish and wildlife agencies, representatives of public land recreational users, and county governments if possible. And third, the first order of business for a group, and the most vital aspect, is to create an atmosphere of trust, sometimes even respect, among the participants. Without trust, the project will fail.
A Wyoming rancher participating in an early Seeking Common Ground project said that the greatest benefit he gets is the fact that all interest groups are strong supporters of what he is doing. He said such support is even more important than the money provided to improve his public land grazing allotments and private range.
Get the various interests out of meeting rooms and on the ground at the local level, develop trust, determine what the rancher and others need from the land, develop a plan, everyone throw a few bucks in the pot, and then go do it. I think that this is the way that range management will be done in the future, rather than by decrees from on high. Ranchers need our support and we need theirs. Together, we can overcome any detractors.
There is no reason in my mind that this approach can't work in forest management. It is quite simply a way to operate at the local level in the national interest, which is something everyone should support. To me, Mr. Chairman, Seeking Common Ground's success supports my previously stated contention that our most pressing natural resource management problems will be solved by the arts, not the sciences.
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Yet we must keep a cadre of well-trained professionals on the ground with their tool boxes full. We must let them operate locally with local people for local solutions to the complexities of forest management.
TESTIMONY OF ERIC SORENSON
Thank you, Chairman Smith and committee members, for the opportunity to comment on forest health and timber issues from a perspective of Colorado and the Inland West. I am Eric Sorenson, Manager of Delta Timber Company in Delta, Colorado. I am a graduate forester and I have worked in the forest products industry in Colorado for the last 15 years. I was the Executive Director of the Colorado Timber Industry Association for 3 years prior to my current position.
Current Forest Conditions:
Forest Health is an issue in Colorado. In recent years there has been growing concern about the condition of our forests, primarily those which are part of the national forest system. Our forests are getting old. Mature and over-mature stands of aspen, lodgepole pine, spruce and Douglas fir are the norm in many of Colorado's national forests. Similar to humans, trees in this condition typically are more susceptible to insect infestation and disease. The increasing recognition is that forest health problems, which result from lack of management, don't stop at the boundaries of the national forests, nor at the fence line of private property. Insect infestation, disease and wildfires know no boundaries and affect forests on private property, state lands, and national forests.
The evidence of Colorado's long history of disturbances in the national forests is very obvious. The most significant are spruce beetle epidemics, mountain pine beetle epidemics, dwarf mistletoe, and wildfires. A spruce beetle epidemic in the 1940's, which affected most of the national forests in the state, was the most damaging ever recorded. This outbreak was triggered in 1939, when a violent windstorm blew down extensive patches of subalpine forests in western Colorado. The White River Plateau suffered the greatest spruce losses during this outbreak with tremendous spruce mortality occurring between 1943—1946. By the time the outbreak subsided in 1952, nearly all spruce eight inches in diameter and larger were killed. An estimated 3.8 billion board feet on 700,000 acres were destroyed.
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Today, most of the major forest vegetation types have the largest percentage of their acreage in the mature class. These areas are susceptible to outbreaks of the most potentially damaging insects and disease agents. To illustrate:
The 1992 Rocky Mountain Region Annual Report stated, ''About 60% of the region is forested land. Following decades of suppressed natural fire, many forested ecosystems--their age, density and species composition--have reached a mature stage where insect infestation and catastrophic fire are the next likely events. Timber harvest offers a controllable alternative to this succession while providing a source of needed wood products. Where appropriate, harvesting can improve the long term health and productivity of the forest, simultaneously contributing to other multiple uses and forest values.''
Attached is a graph showing the annual increment resulting from growth, mortality, and harvest on the national forests in region 2. Just on the suitable lands, growth is over 6 times the harvest level, mortality is nearly double the harvest level, and the annual increment of 531 MMBF contributes a little more each year to the potential for long-term forest health problems.
A recent inventory on three national forests in the Northern Region showed similar conclusions. According to Regional Forester Salwasser, ''The Flathead, Kootenai, and Bitterroot National Forests have an annual sawlog growth of approximately 900 million board feet, with 400 million board feet of sawlog mortality on lands outside wilderness areas. The mortality component on the three forests is equivalent to two billion tons biomass. Approximately 160 million board feet of timber is being harvested annually from these three forests. Continued buildup of biomass on these three national forests could result in historically unnatural catastrophic wildfires.''
Also attached are copies of the structural stage distribution for the Routt and Arapaho/Roosevelt National Forests. According to these graphs, not only are the current conditions heavily weighted towards mature and over-mature stands (with the highest risk of forest health problems), but this condition will be further exacerbated by the Forest Service's proposed management in the revision of their Forest Plans.
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Finally, an article in the May 4, 1997, issue of Journal of Forestry very clearly discussed the status of aspen stands in the West. According to the article, ''Communities of aspen are deteriorating throughout the western United States. Comparisons of data from historical records indicate that the area occupied by aspen has declined by 60 to 90 percent or more since European settlement... .'' ''The decline of aspen, then, has ramifications far beyond the loss of a single species, and the condition and trend of aspen communities should be a major consideration as we attempt to revive our ailing western forest ecosystems.'' ''It must be remembered, though, that doing nothing is management--a decision that has wide-ranging consequences. Following the status quo in the West means, among other things, ... forest fuels will accumulate, setting the stage for high-intensity crown fires that could not only threaten human life but also most likely create burn patterns not previously seen in the West.'' ''Creating wilderness areas and parks and then allowing nature to take its course, often called hands-off or natural-regulation management, will only consign aspen to extinction.''
In May, 1996, the Buffalo Creek fire just south of Denver burned nearly 11,000 acres in one afternoon. Luckily, no one was killed in the fire, however, that fire resulted in tremendous financial loss, and the loss of wildlife, timber, valuable habitat for both land and aquatic animals, and loss of recreational opportunities. A flood which occurred as a consequence of the wildfire resulted in the tragic loss of human life and caused serious damage to a major water supply for Colorado's largest metropolitan population.
Coloradans are increasingly becoming aware of the tremendous danger of wildfires along the metropolitan Front Range suburbs, which the U.S. Forest Service has identified as the Red Zone. This urban interface area adjacent to the Arapaho/Roosevelt National Forests is classified by the Forest Service as being at a potentially catastrophic fire danger level. This condition resulted as the population increased in this foothills area, and less and less timber was harvested. The consequence of not harvesting timber in this area, coupled with increased fire suppression, is increased fuel loading and the potential for wildfire, thus the Red Zone designation.
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As public concern increased, the Colorado State Legislature responded by holding two Joint House and Senate Agriculture Committee hearings on forest and timber issues. The committee considered testimony on the following: forest health; Red Zone; the air quality and visibility problems associated with burns; growth, mortality and harvest comparisons; Forest Service timber targets, budgets and accomplishments; industry's role in national forest management; the availability of national forest timber sales; the reliability of supply of timber from the national forests; community sustainability and dependence on the forest products industry; county government's perspective on the loss of 25% payments; the need for Forest Service accountability; the affects of national forest management on State and private lands; the role of forest products industry as a forest management tool; and the cost comparisons of management of state forests vs national forests. Regional Forester Elizabeth Estill, Colorado State Forester Jim Hubbard, and representatives of the forest products industry were among those called to testify.
The testimony provided ample evidence of forest health concerns in Colorado and of the health of the State's primary forest management tool, the forest products industry. In Regional Forester Elizabeth Estill's testimony, she said, ''The forest products industry in Colorado is in dire straits, and the Forest Service is contributing to the problem.'' These hearings were the foundation for the Timber Resolution SJR 97—26; Concerning support of proper timber harvesting as a management tool to ensure better forest health in Colorado sponsored by Senator Don Ament and Representative Matt Smith. The Colorado General Assembly overwhelmingly past the Timber Resolution, by a vote of 34—0 in the Senate and 63—1 in the House.
In addition to the forest health benefits of using timber harvest, where appropriate, as a management tool, there are many other benefits (1) increased water yields from snow melt can provide water for wildlife habitat, endangered species, domestic and agricultural needs, (2) preservation of water quality standards, (3) production of needed wood fiber for domestic use in the United States, (4) economic stability for rural communities by providing jobs in the forest products industry, and (5) providing a mechanism to achieve ecologically healthy and sustainable forests to benefit the citizens of our country.
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Preliminary results from research by Charles Troendle, the principle hydrologist and project leader for the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, indicate that the volume of water from snow melt is enhanced by using improved forest management techniques for timber harvest. According to the findings, improved techniques for road building also significancy decrease sedimentation, thus, water quality is not degraded. The results of this study are important in regards to the negotiations between Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and the U.S. Department of Interior which seek to provide more water for endangered species on the Platte River in Central Nebraska. The Federal Government has the potential to increase stream flows for endangered species habitats by increasing timber harvest in suitable drainage basins.
In conclusion, the numerous factors which I have referred to in my testimony indicate that more, not less, forest management should be taking place on the National Forests in the Rocky Mountain Region.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The use of good science should be the cornerstone of the basis for making sound public policy.
USE WHAT WORKS--An evaluation on the current policy and regulations should be done, and consideration should be given to the fact that some of the present Forest Service guidelines and policies do work. Colorado's Pine Zone Project is a good example of a cooperative effort between the Forest Service, industry, the state, and local interest groups to accomplish the goals of a forest restoration project in ponderosa pine stands in Southwestern Colorado. Even local environmental groups are supportive. This project has won the Governor's Smart Growth Award and has been widely recognized. Work has begun on a similar project in the mixed conifer forest type in southwestern Colorado, again with the objective of restoring the forests to a condition much closer to their natural conditions, and certainly to a condition much more conducive to long-term forest health. One of the important pieces of the strategy on both these projects is the recognition that healthy forests are intertwined with healthy communities and a healthy forest products industry.
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Along the Front Range of Colorado is the Front Range Forest Health Partnership where the Colorado Timber Industry Association, the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado State Forester, the Denver Water Board, the National Renewable Energy Lab, State Farm Insurance, various environmental groups, and others have teamed up in a further example of joint cooperative effort projects. In this case the project's goal is to work to reduce dangerous fire hazards in an area with wide-spread housing in the forests.
LEARN FROM WHAT HASN'T WORKED--The Dixie, Fishlake and Manti-LaSal National Forests in southern Utah lost most of their forest products industry during the last 4 years because of the lack of timber sales put up on the national forests. In 1996, however, those Forests had significant vegetation management needs which required the use of commercial timber sale to accomplish desired resource objective. These needs included salvage in bark beetle outbreaks in old-growth spruce and ponderosa pine stands, regeneration of aspen stands, and thinning to promote improved Northern Goshawk habitat. However, because of the lack of local forest products industry, those Forests were forced to entice purchasers from up to 500 miles from the operating area to assist with their management needs.
This is virtually the same predicament that the Colorado Front Range Forests have found themselves in because of the loss of the forest products industry. Following last year's Buffalo Creek fire, the lack of local purchasers available meant that the Pike-San Isabel National Forest was unable to find timber purchasers to salvage the fire-killed timber.
FEDERAL COMMITTEE ADVISORY ACT - There is an increased need for local level participation of the parties interested in national forest issues. Local residents and local government have the best perspective on the needs of their area, and how to accomplish resolution of conflicts. These groups are more likely to have the best interests of their community in mind, rather than other agendas. Advisory councils such as these need authority in the decision making process beyond merely submitting their comments to the Forest Service's already identified preferred alternative.
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BUDGET--All the good forest health policy in the world will be meaningless without the budgets to implement those policies. There is too much uncertainty in the present Forest Service budgets for the forest products industry to make the type of long-term business decisions necessary to remain competitive and survive. Timber programs need to be predictable from year to year in order for the mills to continue to operate in a competitive business atmosphere. If timber harvest is to be used as a management tool to achieve good forest health, the forest products industry must have some assurance of the supply of timber. Can you imagine going to the local banker and asking for a loan for your sawmill and telling him that you're counting on national forest timber for your supply of timber?
We also need to start looking at management of the national forests as an investment and compare the costs of that investment to the alternatives, such as the costs of fighting wildfires. The balance sheet on the Pine Zone Project showed that the timber harvest lost $30 per acre, but compared to an average forest fire cost of $400 per acre, the investment of $30 per acre looks pretty smart.
I would suggest several creative opportunities for funding:
- identify ways that multiple sources of funding can be used beyond the current timber program budget. For instance, there's no reason that forest health projects shouldn't be financed with recreation, wildlife, fuels, and watershed funds.
- identify ways to keep more of the timber sale receipts at the forest level and re-invest those funds into additional projects, including forest health.
- consider biannual appropriations. Most years the local national forests don't get their final budgets until almost halfway through the fiscal year, which really limits their ability to plan for the use of funds as efficiently as they should.
FOREST PLANS--Consideration of long-term forest health should be addressed in every forest plan revision. The Forest Service's own data indicates there is a serious potential for forest health problems and those problems are only going to get worse, but the Forest Service is virtually ignoring that information in their alternatives and decisions.
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Maintaining a viable forest products industry should be a high priority. Right now, the Forest Service has nearly lost the ability to implement salvage or forest health projects on the Pike-San Isabel and Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forests because there is virtually no forest products industry left in those areas. Clearly, this could happen elsewhere and other national forests could wind up in a situation like the southern Utah Forests.
There is a tremendous potential for development of local partnerships to find local solutions to local issues of national forest management. But the Forest Service tells us their hands are tied because of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
National forest planning used to include just two levels of planning, the forest plans and project plans. Now, we see more and more use of Landscape Analyses, which cover an area larger than a project area and smaller than a national forest. Frankly, these appear to be rather unfocused, and require additional unnecessary time and expense.
APPEALS--The most significant change that needs to be made is in the appeals process. Requiring the participation of interested parties in the planning stages of a proposed timber sale, for instance, would help stop the abuses of the present system.
ACCOUNTABILITY--From my perspective, it doesn't look like the Forest Service Line Officers who don't meet their targets get treated any differently from the ones who do meet their targets. The forest products industry in Colorado depends on the national forests for 80% or more of their long-term timber supply needs. In some cases, the Forest Service hasn't met their timber target for years, and I'll concede sometimes for good reasons. But rarely is the missed volume put up for sale the next year, and the cumulative effects on Colorado's forest products industry are becoming critical.
PRIORITIES--We don't disagree that prescribed burning is an important tool in forest management, but we are very concerned by suggestions that prescribed burning can be a replacement for commercial timber harvest. On suitable lands, prescribed burning and commercial timber harvest can complement each other without killing commercially valuable trees and impacting visibility and air quality. Timber harvest can be used much more safely than prescribed fires. In some areas, such as wilderness areas, prescribed burning is basically the only management tool available. We strongly believe commercial timber harvest on suitable forested lands should be a higher priority than prescribed burning in wilderness areas, simply to help ensure the survival of the forest products industry that depends heavily on the national forests for their supplies of timber.
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NEW WAYS OF DOING BUSINESS--One in particular would be to authorize stewardship contracts, where a timber sale purchaser would perform all of the work in a given area as part of the timber sale contract. For instance, in addition to removing required timber, the purchaser might install watershed improvements, perform campground maintenance, install wildlife structures, or build a trailhead.
In summary, I want to thank you for allowing me to testify. As I have indicated, there is ample evidence of the magnitude of the immediate and long-term forest health problems on our national forests. These forest health problems will affect all resources and all users of the Forests, and will have significant ecological implications. As I have also reviewed, in many cases the knowledge of what needs to be done and the tools are in place, but organizational or budgetary constraints are the limiting factor. Without making management policy changes the situation will only continue to deteriorate. To be honest, I'm concerned that the Congress and the Federal Government can adequately implement land management polices for the Federal lands in the West, and I'm sympathetic to those who are calling for a larger, more significant State role. There is no question however, that managing the Federal lands in the West is complex and contentious. Land management, regardless of the ownership, requires a significant investment. I believe that correctly structured, that investment could yield very positive returns, and could result in a legacy that our grandchildren will be proud of.
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