[Senate Hearing 110-453]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-453
COLLABORATIVE ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
TO
CONSIDER S. 2593, A BILL TO ESTABLISH A PROGRAM AT THE FOREST SERVICE
AND THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR TO CARRY OUT COLLABORATIVE
ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION TREATMENTS FOR PRIORITY FOREST LANDSCAPES ON
PUBLIC LAND, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
APRIL 1, 2008
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
----------
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43-818 PDF WASHINGTON : 2008
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho
RON WYDEN, Oregon LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington BOB CORKER, Tennessee
KEN SALAZAR, Colorado JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont JIM BUNNING, Kentucky
JON TESTER, Montana MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
Robert M. Simon, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
Frank Macchiarola, Republican Staff Director
Judith K. Pensabene, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator From New Mexico................ 1
Bisson, Henri, Deputy Director, Bureau of Land Management,
Department of the Interior..................................... 8
Craig, Hon. Larry E., U.S. Senator From Idaho.................... 43
Domenici, Hon. Pete V., U.S. Senator From New Mexico............. 16
Gross, Howard, Executive Director, Forest Guild, Santa Fe, NM.... 36
Kimbell, Gail, Chief, Forest Service, Department of Agriculture.. 2
Lawrence, Nathaniel, Senior Attorney and Director of Forest
Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Olympia, WA........ 27
Olson, Keith, Montana Logging Association; Riley, Jim,
Intermountain Forest Association; Simpson, Ellen, Montana Wood
Products Association; Keough, Shawn, Associated Logging
Contractors of Idaho........................................... 50
Salazar, Hon. Ken, U.S. Senator From Colorado.................... 18
Simon, Scott, Arkansas State Director, The Nature Conservancy,
Little Rock, AR................................................ 19
Tester, Hon. Jon, U.S. Senator From Montana...................... 2
West, Christopher I., Vice President, American Forest Resource
Council, Portland, OR.......................................... 24
APPENDIX
Responses to additional questions................................ 53
COLLABORATIVE ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION
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TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366, Senate
Dirksen Office Building, Hon. Jeff Bingaman, chairman,
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW
MEXICO
The Chairman. OK. Why don't we go ahead and get started?
This is, as I've explained to Chief Kimbell and also Deputy
Director Bisson, we're a little fouled up right here because
the Senate is about to start a vote. I think I'll give my very
short statement and then put the committee back into recess for
a few moments while Senator Tester is on his way. He's over
there on the Floor ready to vote and then will come here to
help preside and I'll be back after the vote as well.
So, the purpose of today's hearing is to consider S. 2593,
the Forest Landscape Restoration Act. This bill establishes a
program to select and to fund landscape scale forest
restoration projects through a process that encourages
collaboration, relies on the best available science,
facilitates local economic development and leverages local
funds with national and with private funding.
As wildfire activity and suppression costs have grown
dramatically, and as the effects of global warming are posing
an ever-greater threat to forest and watershed health, and as
the economy struggles, the time is right for this approach.
The positive response that the bill has received from
communities around the country, I believe, speaks to the
importance of these issues and the strength of this approach.
As I indicated, we are just now beginning a vote. So, I
will have to excuse myself for a few minutes.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for coming and for
putting together very thoughtful testimony. I'd like to offer a
special welcome to Howard Gross of the Forest Guild in my home
state. Where's Howard? I know he's here somewhere. There he is.
We have worked with agencies involved, with many others, in
putting this proposal together. We certainly will carefully
consider today's testimony and other feedback that we receive
as we move forward, and as I indicated, I think the best course
now would be to put us back into recess until we get a few more
senators here who can hear your testimony and that'll be
quickly, and I will return quickly myself.
So, we'll go back into recess. Thank you.
[Recess.]
STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER, U.S. SENATOR
FROM MONTANA
Senator Tester. Call this committee meeting back to order,
and I want to thank Senator Bingaman for his opening statement
and the opportunity to address this issue which is critically
important, I think, to the whole country, particularly to the
West.
When we talk about forest restoration, it is an issue that
is becoming more and more apparent in the West because of the
fires, and their intensity, the bark beetles, and disease,
millions of acres of our land is changing. I attribute it
mostly to climate change, and to be honest, in the past we may
have made some mistakes as we managed the forests, but we have
the opportunity to start correcting those mistakes and really
develop restoration projects that would provide the kind of
forest health that we need well into the future and for future
generations.
So, it's a big issue. I had the opportunity last weekend to
deal with a different kind of restoration project in Missoula,
Montana, with the removal of the Milltown Dam, but it's all
kind of connected. Water and forests and wildlife and good
fishing and clean water for drinking.
So, with that, we will start with the statements. Senator
Bingaman, has either one given statements yet?
The Chairman. They are waiting patiently.
Senator Tester. Chief Kimbell.
STATEMENT OF GAIL KIMBELL, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Ms. Kimbell. Thank you, Senator Tester. I'd like to thank
the committee for this opportunity to provide this, my agency's
view on Senate Bill 2593 today and to congratulate the chairman
and the ranking member and other co-sponsors on your efforts to
develop this bill.
We appreciate that you reached out to talk with us and with
many others as you pulled together the concepts of the bill and
for the focus you place on treating the land and restoring
priority forest landscapes.
We could not agree more that it is an important time for
action to restore the health of the Nation's forests. We
believe that sensible forest management approaches, such as
hazardous fuel treatment and forest thinning, can improve the
health of landscapes and watersheds, reduce risks from
catastrophic fire, insect and disease infestations, and can
increase the ability of forests to adapt to the ecological
shifts associated with climate change.
Mr. Chairman, in short, we support the intent and concepts
that you have assembled in this bill. We fully agree with its
emphasis to work on the landscape scale, to integrate the best
available science, and to implement proposals through a
collaborative process and to monitor for performance.
Although the Forest Service has been carrying out
restoration work across landscapes under current authorities,
this bill would enhance our current efforts by helping
prioritize landscape level restoration work.
In my testimony, my written testimony, I offer specific
examples of collaborative restoration efforts, such as the
White Mountain Stewardship Project on the Apache-Sitgreaves
National Forest in Arizona, the 16 Springs Stewardship Project
between the Lincoln National Forest and the Mescalero Apache
Tribe in New Mexico, as well as work in Southern Oregon, the
front range of Colorado, and in South Carolina. There are many,
many others, including in Montana.
I also offer some background on our current efforts in
developing an agency forest restoration framework and policy
and our Open Space strategy to work with partners to conserve
open space.
In addition, we outline the legislative proposal that was
offered within the president's Fiscal Year 2009 budget proposal
for an ecosystem services pilot. It would expand our ability to
bring new partners together with the Forest Service on
landscape scale projects that restore forests through market-
oriented approaches to stewardship of national forests.
Both the president's proposal and Senate Bill 2593 depend
on a collaborative approach that builds commitment to
partnership and ownership of the results. Each would help
different groups find their common interests and leverage
resources to get work done.
On the other hand, we have concerns with the funding
mechanism in the bill and because the amounts appropriated to
the fund may result in the decrease of amounts for other high-
priority work, we have a number of specific comments on
technical aspects of the bill and those can be found in my
written testimony and we'd be happy to work with you.
Mr. Chairman, the Forest Service is committed to working
with Congress and various stakeholders to protect the
communities and people and to work collaboratively to restore
healthy ecological conditions on lands of all ownerships that
have undergone so many changes.
We believe that the actions we are currently taking will be
enhanced by various provisions of this bill. This bill will
provide the Forest Service some important tools we need to do
work to restore the resilience and vitality of our Nation's
forests.
We recognize and appreciate the time spent by the committee
to develop a bipartisan constructive approach to carrying out
collaborative ecosystem restoration a priority for forest
landscapes. We look forward to the opportunity to work with the
committee to explore the establishment of an ecosystem services
authority and to make technical amendments to clarify and
strengthen the bill.
I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kimbell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gail Kimbell, Chief, Forest Service,
Department of Agriculture
Thank you for the opportunity today to provide the Forest Service's
view on S. 2593, a bill that would provide for the establishment of a
program to carry out collaborative ecological restoration treatments on
priority forest landscapes. We support the intent of the bill to work
on a landscape scale, to integrate the best available science, and to
implement proposals through a collaborative process. As reflected by
the inclusion of an ecosystems demonstration legislative proposal
within the President's FY 2009 Budget and much of our current work, we
share this goal. The Administration's ecosystem demonstration proposal
would expand our ability to bring new partners together with the Forest
Service on landscape-scale projects that restore forests through
market-oriented approaches to stewardship of national forests.
Both the President's proposal and S. 2593 reflect a collaborative
approach that builds commitment to partnership and ownership of the
results. Each would help different groups find their common interests
and leverages resources to get work done. Although the Forest Service
has been carrying out restoration work across landscapes under current
authorities, S. 2593 would enhance our current efforts by helping
prioritize landscape-level restoration work. In my testimony, I will
give some background on our current efforts in landscape-level work and
make some general comments on the bill.
We believe there is a need for action to restore the health of many
of the Nation's forests and rangelands. On the one hand, some of our
forests and grasslands have adapted to natural disturbance regimes. On
the other hand, many areas across the Nation are experiencing extended
droughts, reduced snow packs, damaging storm events, and other
environmental stressors. The presence of large amounts of hazardous
forest and rangeland fuels poses a risk of catastrophic wildfire that
threatens other public and private land and natural resources and
communities. Millions of acres of forest and rangeland ecosystems are
under attack from native insects, such as bark beetles as well as non-
native invasive species. For example between 2000-2004, trees were
killed on approximately 27.1 million acres in the Western States from a
combination of factors. These diverse threats affect aquatic and
terrestrial ecosystems in virtually every region of the country.
current efforts
We believe that hazardous fuels treatment and other forest
management approaches, such as forest thinning projects can help
mitigate these risks, restore healthy forest conditions, and increase
the ability of our Nation's forests and grasslands to adapt to
ecological shifts associated with climate change. The Forest Service
has taken several actions to accomplish these objectives, for example:
Forest Restoration Framework and Policy.--The Forest Service has
completed a strategic, science-based framework for restoring and
maintaining forest and grassland ecological conditions titled the
``Ecosystem Restoration Framework.'' The framework looks at the
development of an integrated agency-wide forest restoration policy to
promote ecosystem restoration and efforts to integrate this work across
all functional areas of the agency. The framework also considers
integration of ecosystem restoration into our national strategic,
forest land and resource management plans, and project plans; and use
of incentives to increase accomplishment of restoration objectives.
The framework will address policy factors such as requirements to
plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate ecological restoration
activities in consideration of current and future desired conditions
and the potential for future changes in environmental conditions,
including climate change. Our policy will provide consistent guidance
to all of our field units; communicate our intention to increase
emphasis on operating at a landscape scale, and our expectation to
accelerate collaborative restoration work. The policy is under
development and is expected to be released within the near future.
Stewardship Contracting as a Tool to Accomplish Restoration.--The
Forest Service has been actively using stewardship contracts, part of
the Healthy Forests Initiative, to advance hazardous fuels reduction
and other forest restoration treatments in priority areas. Last year,
we completed an assessment of our progress on implementing stewardship
contracting, and we are working to expand our use of stewardship
contracting. We believe that stewardship contracting is an effective
tool to implement the landscape restoration proposals under this bill,
and we think that the authority to enter into the contracts should be
made permanent. Several projects stand out as examples of this tool's
capability.
The White Mountain Stewardship Contract on the Apache-
Sitgreaves National Forests in Springerville, Arizona is the
largest stewardship contract in the nation. This contract has a
10-year term to treat 15,000 acres per year for a total of
about 150,000 acres, and it is entering its fourth year. The
project was designed and is being carried out through a
collaboration of various state and local governments,
representatives of local forest products industry, and special
interest groups. The goals of this effort are to restore forest
health, reduce the risk of fire to communities, reduce the cost
of forest thinning, support local economies, and encourage new
wood product industries and uses for the thinned wood fiber.
Removal of saw timber is offsetting the cost of fuels
treatments and improvements to forest health. In addition, the
project will partially supply material to the Renegy Biomass
Plant (25 megawatt) in Snowflake, AZ.
In Alamogordo, New Mexico, the Lincoln National Forest and
the Mescalero Apache Tribe signed the 16 Springs Stewardship
Project under the authority of the Tribal Forest Protection Act
(TFPA, Public Law 108-248). This is the first stewardship
contract under the TFPA authority, which permits the Federal
government to enter into contracts and agreements with American
Indian Tribes for work on public lands bordering on or adjacent
to tribal lands. The 6-year contract involves 15,000 treatment
acres (half with commercial timber harvest and service work,
half with service work only). The service work primarily
consists of thinning and fuel treatments. The project is
designed to reduce the threat of wildfire and forest disease
spread from public lands to Tribal land. The project will
contribute to the central priority of restoration of fire-
adapted ecosystems by reducing intensities of wildfires,
especially in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) as identified
under the Otero County Community Wildfire Protection Plan,
sanctioned by the Otero County Working Group. Furthermore, the
project will restore natural ecologic processes across a range
of forest types, provide forest products to the local
community, and enhance watershed conditions. The full
implementation of this contract will reduce the threat of
damaging wildfire to national forest system, private, and
tribal lands.
The Sustained Yield Restoration Stewardship Contract on the
Fremont-Winema National Forest in Lakeview, Oregon is a
contract with a 10-year term that we anticipate will treat
about 3,000 acres per year for a total of about 30,000 acres.
This project will reduce the risk of catastrophic fire and
restore watershed conditions. The goals of the project are to
sustain and restore a healthy and resilient forest ecosystem
that can accommodate human and natural disturbances, to sustain
and restore the capacity to absorb, store, and distribute
quality water, and to enhance opportunities for people to
realize spiritual, and recreational values on the forest. The
forest thinning treatments will yield sawlogs and biomass. The
biomass from this contract will provide a portion of the
material necessary to produce electric energy in the planned
$20-million Lakeview Biomass Plant. Once this plant is
operational, it is expected to annually produce about 13
megawatts of renewable energy. The project is an outgrowth of a
20-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by The Collins
Companies, Marubeni Sustainable Energy, Lake County Resources
Initiative, Oregon Department of Forestry, Lake County, Town of
Lakeview, City of Paisley, the BLM, and the Forest Service.
The Front Range Stewardship Contract is located on the Pike,
San Isabel, Arapaho, and Roosevelt National Forests in Colorado
and is a contract with a 10-year term that should treat about
4,000 acres per year for a total of about 40,000 acres. This
contract will involve the harvest of saw timber, treatment of
non-saw timber, biomass and slash and will create fuel
modification zones, fuelbreaks and fireline construction. The
project is designed to provide hazardous fuel reduction, forest
restoration, watershed enhancements, and related services. The
initiative is the outcome of the Front Range Roundtable, a
diverse group of stakeholders that has worked together since
2003 to develop a long-term vision and roadmap for achieving
comprehensive fire risk mitigation and forest health goals in
the ten counties comprising Colorado's Front Range. Through
intense ecological analyses, the Roundtable identified over 1.5
million acres along the Front Range in need of treatment to
reduce the risks of wildfire to communities and restore forests
to sound ecological health.
The Francis Marion Biomass Removal Stewardship Project on
the Francis Marion National Forest in Cordesville, South
Carolina offered two multi-year contracts to treat
approximately 2,000 acres per year for 5 years for a total of
10,000 acres. The primary objectives are to reduce fire hazard
and improve the forest health of dense stands of young loblolly
pine that established following Hurricane Hugo of 1989. The
contracts have stimulated a biomass chip market that
supplements the energy needs of local users for power
generation. The biomass chip value offsets the cost of pre-
commercial thinning and has realized a major savings for the
Forest. These contracts have resulted in stand treatment costs
dropping by about 50 percent. The project sprung from a
collaboration of Santee Cooper Power and Electric Company,
South Carolina Forestry Commission, the Native Plant Society
and the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, and several
local fire departments from communities adjoining the Forest.
Many of the successes in our use of stewardship contracting are a
direct result of the development and implementation of projects through
collaborative partnerships with groups of diverse interests.
Open Space Strategy.--In December of 2007, we announced the release
of the ``Forest Service Open Space Strategy.'' Healthy ecosystems
require maintenance as well as restoration. The loss of open space
threatens the sustainability of the Nation's forests and grasslands. We
lose approximately 6,000 acres of open space to development or land
conversion each day across the United States. Land development is
outpacing population growth, especially in rural areas where the trend
is low density, dispersed development. The new Forest Service strategy
provides a framework for working with others to conserve open space. It
emphasizes collaborative approaches and partnerships to conserve
ecologically and socially important forests, grasslands, ranches, and
urban green spaces. These important lands provide vital ecosystem
services and benefits for society, such as clean air, abundant water,
connected fish and wildlife habitat, scenic beauty, outdoor recreation,
and renewable resource products.
Landscape Research.--Forest Service Research and Development
provides long-term research, scientific knowledge, and tools that can
be used to manage, restore, and conserve forests and rangelands. Forest
Service research-based information relevant to this bill includes
social science on collaborative planning that can help managers plan
and carry out projects. Also, we are responsible for the Nation's
Forest Census, known as the Forest Inventory and Analysis program.
Research information is essential for understanding effects and
management options for multiple stressors on ecosystems, such as
drought, invasive species, fire, and air pollution and loss of open
space. Other relevant research under way addresses how biomass
utilization can help reduce fire impacts by reducing fuel loads.
Additionally, there is ongoing research on costs of fire suppression
and various fuels treatment that will be available for managers' use.
ecosystem services: a more inclusive path forward to obtaining
forest benefits
Our country and those elsewhere are becoming increasingly aware of
the importance of healthy forest ecosystems as ecological life-support
systems. As you know, healthy forests provide strong economies and
jobs, but also yield other goods and services that are vital to human
health and livelihood--natural assets we call ecosystem services. Many
of these goods and services are traditionally viewed as free benefits
to society, or ``public goods''--wildlife habitat and diversity,
watershed services, carbon storage, and scenic landscapes, for example.
Recognizing forest ecosystems as natural assets with economic and
social value can help promote conservation and more responsible
decision-making.
The President's FY 2009 Budget reflects a commitment to the
expanded thinking about ecosystem services and recognition of other
values that flow from healthy ecosystems. The Budget's proposal would
bring new partners together with the Forest Service in a broad effort
to advance stewardship on national forest lands in landscape-scale
projects that address a full range of ecosystem services. Restoring
ecosystem function through projects such as hazardous fuels reduction
lets local interests invest in local projects to their own benefit with
an assurance of the outcomes of that investment. Here are some of the
highlights of this proposal:
The Forest Service would have the authority to implement up
to five Ecosystem Services Demonstration Projects with partners
to restore, enhance, or protect ecosystem functions on National
Forest System lands.
Outcomes from these projects will demonstrate the value of
clean water, carbon sequestration, and other critical services
that forests provide.
The ecosystem services provided by these projects will be
identified and measured through applied research, providing
valuable information to potential and emerging markets.
These projects will benefit the Forest Service and a
partner, defined as either a State, political subdivision of a
State, Indian tribe, or non-profit organization.
The projects will be expanded or accelerated using the funds
or services provided by a partner. Partnering entities could
carry out the project for the agency, provide funds for project
implementation up to a total of $10 million for all projects,
or provide a combination of funds and services.
Each project will be consistent with applicable land and
resource management plans and will comply with environmental
laws and regulations.
All ecosystem service benefits that accrue from these
projects will remain public.
s. 2593, the forest landscape restoration act of 2008
As does the ecosystem services proposal, S. 2593 would provide an
additional tool for restoration consistent with current efforts.
Projects would be created collaboratively and be part of a system that
is evaluated on a landscape scale. In particular, this could be helpful
for developing comprehensive management options that address issues
related to climate change. I would like to now turn to the bill
language.
Section 3. Definitions.--We believe a definition of the term
``restoration'' would be useful and should focus on restoration of
healthy, sustainable, productive ecosystems for the future, as opposed
to a return to a historic condition. We would like to work with the
Committee on the definition.
Section 4. Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.--
Section 4(a) would require the Secretary, in consultation with the
Secretary of the Interior, to establish a program to select and fund
ecological restoration treatments for priority forest landscapes.
Section 4(b) sets out criteria that ecological restoration proposals
under the program would be required to meet in order to be eligible for
nomination. Requirements include a landscape restoration strategy that
identifies and prioritizes treatments for a 10-year period across a
landscape that is at least 50,000 acres, and is comprised of primarily
forested National Forest System lands, but may also include other
Federal, State, tribal, or private land. The restoration proposal would
be required to be developed and implemented through a collaborative
process. It must include an analysis that estimates the anticipated
cost savings resulting from reduced wildfire management costs, and
decreases the unit costs of implementing ecological restoration
treatments over time. Additionally, the restoration proposal must
include an estimate of the amount of new non-Federal investment that
would be leveraged by Federal funding for restoration treatments,
though non-Federal investments are not affirmatively required.
We support the intent of the bill to work on a landscape scale, to
integrate the best available science, and to implement proposals
through a collaborative process. We already use criteria to support
resource allocation in priority treatment areas regarding hazardous
fuels. However, we suggest the Administration's ecosystem services
proposal provides for a broader suite of actions beyond hazardous fuels
alone, but are willing to work with the Committee on technical aspects
of the eligibility criteria in the bill.
Section 4(c) sets out a nomination process that would require
submission of proposals to Regional Foresters for consideration. As
part of the nomination process, Section 4(c)(3)(B) would require the
Regional Forester to obtain concurrence from the Secretary of the
Interior if actions under the jurisdiction of Interior are proposed.
Section 4(d) would establish the process for selecting the
collaborative forest landscape restoration proposals, which would
require consultation with the Secretary of the Interior even for
proposals that do not affect lands administered by the Interior
Secretary. We would like to work with the Committee to modify this
provision to require consultation only when lands administered by the
Secretary of the Interior are part of the proposal.
Section 4(f) would establish the Collaborative Forest Restoration
Fund that could be used to pay up to 50 percent of the cost for
carrying out proposals for ecological restoration treatments on
National Forest System lands. The bill provides for authorization of up
to 40 million dollars to the Fund for each fiscal year 2008 through
2018. No more than 10 proposals could be funded during any given year,
nor could more than 2 proposals be funded in any 1 region during a
given year. Under section 4(f)(3) amounts appropriated from the general
fund of the Treasury would be invested in interest bearing securities
of the United States. The Administration objects to this provision.
Amounts available for investment should be limited to funds collected
from the public and not to funds appropriated from the General Fund
which are not made subject to the appropriations process. We are also
concerned that amounts appropriated to the Fund may result in a
decrease of amounts appropriated for other high priority work and that
there is no requirement for matching of non-Federal monies for projects
that occur on non-Federal lands.
Section 4(g) would establish program implementation and monitoring
requirements. Section 4(g)(1) would require the creation of an
implementation work plan that includes a description of the landscape
restoration proposal, a business plan, and documentation of the non-
Federal investment in the priority landscape. Section 4(g)(4) would
require the Secretary, in collaboration with the Secretary of the
Interior, to use a multi-party monitoring, evaluation, and
accountability process to access the ecological, social, and economic
effects of each forest landscape restoration project. We are concerned
that, in practice, the implementation of the bill may be
administratively burdensome. Also, it is not clear when environmental
analysis would be required. However, we would be happy to work with the
Committee on clarifying language and to make any necessary
administrative changes to the bill.
We support landscape level planning, projects implemented
cooperatively, and monitoring of performance. We recommend replacing
``multi-party monitoring'' with science-based'' monitoring. This bill
would provide the opportunity to use a network of landscape level
projects to conduct coordinated research on key questions, such as
effects of treatments on soil, water, fire hazard, wildlife, insect and
disease, and economics. A well designed system of science-based
monitoring at the appropriate scale, combined with a well-designed set
of landscape treatments, would provide valuable information about the
effects and effectiveness of large landscape treatments over time
across a number of different types of ecosystems. The results of the
monitoring would improve information for managers providing a network
of standard measures of effectiveness and effects of landscape
restoration.
conclusion
Mr. Chairman, the Forest Service is committed to working with
Congress and various stakeholders to protect communities and people and
to work collaboratively to restore healthy ecological conditions on
lands of all ownerships that have undergone many changes. We believe
that the actions we are currently taking will be enhanced by various
provisions of S. 2593, particularly if combined with the provisions of
our ecosystem services demonstration project legislative proposal.
Together they will provide the Forest Service some important tools we
need to do work to restore our Nation's forests and grasslands to a
condition so they can better resist disease, insects, and catastrophic
fire.
We recognize and appreciate the time spent by the Committee to
develop a bipartisan constructive approach to carrying out
collaborative ecosystem restoration of priority forest landscapes. We
look forward to the opportunity to work with the Committee to explore
the establishment of an ecosystem services authority and to make
technical amendments to clarify and strengthen the bill. I will be glad
to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Tester. Thank you. I think we'll go on with you,
Henri, if you want to make your statement and then we'll have
questions at the end.
STATEMENT OF HENRI BISSON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND
MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Bisson. Mr. Chairman and Senator Tester, thank you for
inviting me to testify regarding S. 2593, the Forest Landscape
Restoration Act of 2008.
The Department of the Interior strongly supports landscape
scale restoration efforts and believes in the goals of
landscape level approaches to land management. While we do have
a few concerns with the legislation, we certainly appreciate
the sponsor's intent in introducing S. 2593 to manage land
health on a landscape scale.
In our view, a true ecological approach to restoration
begins with a collaborative evaluation of what is best for the
health of the landscape and is followed by the engagement of
the appropriate partners.
I would like to take this opportunity to share our current
efforts to improve ecological health of lands through a
landscape scale collaborative approach.
Initiated in fiscal year 2007, the Healthy Lands Initiative
focuses on implementing the landscape scale habitat restoration
and conservation projects across both public and private lands.
A key component of this initiative is the partnership aspect
and working closely with our neighbors to initiative and fund
landscape scale restoration work that allows for continued
healthy working landscapes.
Building on recent success, the BLM proposes to expand HLI
to California, in addition to the six initial project areas in
New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, Northern Nevada, and
Western Colorado. The Western Colorado project is going to be
expanded into the northwestern part of the State in 2009.
My written testimony highlights several successful HLI and
other large-scale landscape level projects.
Since 2001, the department has worked aggressively to
reduce the amount of hazardous fuels on Federal lands and to
restore the health of our public forests, woodlands and
rangelands, utilizing the authorities provided under the
Healthy Forest Initiative and the Healthy Forest Restoration
Act of 2003.
Of the 258 million acres administered by the BLM, 69
million acres are forests and woodlands located in the 11
Western States and Alaska. These authorities have provided us
with tools to ensure sound management practices and to
implement hazardous fuels reduction projects and stewardship
contracting.
Overall, the DOI has applied nearly 8 million acres of
hazardous fuels reduction treatments to forests, woodlands and
rangelands, utilizing the tools of prescribed burns and
chemical and mechanical fuels treatments, and has restored 1.4
million acres through other landscape restoration activities.
We support the intent of S. 2593. The legislation would
provide the Secretary with an additional tool for restoration
treatments for priority forest landscapes on public lands.
We're concerned that the approach outlined in S. 2593 does
not take into consideration the important connection between
the health of forests and adjacent woodlands and rangelands
and, furthermore, we suggest the DOI and Forest Service, where
appropriate, be equal partners in the nomination and selection
process in order to continue implementing priority projects
across entire landscapes.
We're committed to working with the committee and the
legislation sponsor to ensure that any legislation effectively
considers the health and restoration of both forests and
rangelands. We will continue to work toward identifying
priorities in an effort to achieve significant improvements in
the health and productivity of the public forests, woodlands
and rangelands at the landscape level.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I'd be happy
to answer any questions, also.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bisson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Henri Bisson, Deputy Director, Bureau of Land
Management, Department of the Interior
Thank you for the opportunity to testify for the Department of the
Interior (DOI) on S. 2593, the Forest Landscape Restoration Act of
2008, which establishes a collaborative and science-based forest
landscape restoration program that would prioritize and fund forest-
based ecological restoration treatments. The DOI strongly supports
landscape scale restoration efforts, and believes in the goals of
landscape-level approaches to land management. While we do have
concerns with the legislation, which are discussed below, we appreciate
the sponsors' intent in introducing S. 2593 to manage land health on a
landscape scale.
In our view, a true ecological approach to restoration begins with
a collaborative evaluation of what is best for the health of the
landscape and is followed by the engagement of the appropriate
partners. This approach is more effective in achieving the mutual goal
of improving landscape health which, in turn, improves resiliency to
the risk of wildfires and invasive species and preserves key wildlife
habitat. It aggregates the investments of the partners and increases
the cost-effectiveness of those investments. We would like to take this
opportunity to share our current efforts to improve the ecological
health of lands through a landscape-scale collaborative approach.
background
Collaborative landscape-scale treatments continue to be the focus
and priority in carrying out land management objectives on DOI-
administered lands. It is important for us to look at management from a
landscape perspective beyond geopolitical boundaries and isolated
ecosystems. Forests, woodlands and rangelands are a mosaic where the
lands, resources and communities are all interconnected. From this
perspective, we see the interdependence of resources and the need to
develop interdisciplinary strategies for balanced multiple-use
management across the entire landscape.
Several current activities and proposed programs in the
Administration's FY 2009 budget request already promote landscape-level
approaches to restoring and maintaining land health that engage a
number of Federal and non-Federal partners. Examples of key DOI
programs include the Healthy Lands Initiative and the Wildland Fire
Hazardous Fuels Reduction Program.
Healthy Lands Initiative.--One challenge DOI faces is meeting land
health goals that are required to integrate landscape-scale habitat
restoration and resource management. Through the Healthy Lands
Initiative (HLI), DOI is working collaboratively with our Federal and
non-Federal partners to restore, enhance, and protect habitats through
landscape-scale restoration initiatives and conservation planning,
allowing us to continue to fulfill our multiple-use mandates. HLI
considers the health of the land at a landscape scale instead of acre
by acre.
Initiated in Fiscal Year 2007, the Department's Healthy Lands
Initiative focuses on implementing landscape-scale habitat restoration
and conservation projects across both public and private lands. All of
the projects implemented under this Initiative promote the maintenance
or restoration of healthy native plant communities with the increased
ability to survive or adapt to anticipated changes in the environment
in the future. The Healthy Lands Initiative represents a concept for
meeting emerging challenges in managing natural resources for continued
multiple-use with flexible landscape-level approaches. Land restoration
efforts are targeted toward priority landscapes to achieve various
resource objectives, including resource protection, rehabilitation, and
biological diversity. A key component of this initiative is the
partnership aspect of HLI and working closely with our neighbors to
initiate and fund landscape-scale restoration work that allows for
continued healthy, working landscapes. The BLM leverages appropriated
funding with matching funds provided by other Federal agencies, State,
local and tribal governments, philanthropic organizations, advocacy
groups, and industry partners.
The 2009 Budget includes a total of $21.9 million within DOI to
meet land health goals, a $14 million increase over the 2008 enacted
level. BLM has the largest level of involvement in this initiative. In
FY 2009, the BLM is requesting a $10.0 million increase over the FY
2008 enacted level of funding of $4.9 million, for a total of $14.9
million for HLI. An additional $8.2 million in BLM base funding also
supports healthy lands. The BLM proposes to expand HLI to California as
an addition to the six initial project areas located in New Mexico,
Utah, South-central Idaho, Southwest Wyoming, Southeast Oregon-
Southwest Idaho-Northern Nevada, and Western Colorado. The Colorado
project area will be expanded to the northwestern part of the State in
2009.
Our approach, working with our partners to maintain healthy
landscapes, sustain wildlife and maintain continued access to the
public lands for multiple uses, supports a landscape-level approach to
natural resource management and restoration.
We would like to highlight a few of the many successes and planned
efforts that illustrate our ability to conserve the diversity and
productivity of the landscape through the opportunities we have in HLI.
The Colorado Landscape Conservation Initiative encompasses
20.5 million acres of mixed ownership, including roughly 4
million acres managed by the BLM. This area provides quality
habitat for diverse wildlife populations, including seven of
the eight remaining populations of Gunnison sage-grouse, as
well as numerous special status species. The BLM, National Park
Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service,
Natural Resources Conservation Service, Colorado Division of
Wildlife and private partners are working together to restore,
enhance, and protect habitats through conservation planning
efforts and partnerships. To enhance existing resources and
restore conditions, BLM Colorado's planned actions include
implementing habitat treatment projects, implementing effective
weed management efforts, expanding native-seed program,
pursuing conservation easements, and monitoring treatment
effectiveness. This year BLM is spending close to $400,000 to
treat 560 acres of wetlands, 12 miles of stream, 3,060 acres of
shrub, grass, woodland, and 10 riparian projects. In the Fiscal
Year 2009 President's Budget request, the BLM is requesting
almost $2 million to treat 1,380 acres of wetlands, 14 miles of
stream, 3,110 acres of forest, shrub, grass, woodland, 1,380
acres of weeds, and 27 riparian projects.
In New Mexico, the BLM is working closely with private,
state, and other Federal partners to restore desert grasslands
that are being supplanted with invasive mesquite. Removing the
mesquite from these landscapes reduces habitat fragmentation
for important species such as the Lesser Prairie Chicken and
Aplomado Falcon and improves the overall natural biodiversity
of desert grasslands. The BLM treated 40,000 acres in Fiscal
Year 2007, is planning to treat 48,730 acres in Fiscal Year
2008, and is requesting almost $3.5 million to treat 132,320
acres in Fiscal Year 2009. Additional non-BLM acreage is being
treated using other contributed funds.
BLM also engages in comprehensive land health treatments through
other base activities. For instance:
The BLM plans institutionalization of landscape level land
health treatments that characterize HLI. In Montana, the BLM is
addressing landscape-scale restoration on a 600,000 acre
watershed in the southwest part of the state. A recent forest
health assessment on a 32,000 acre area, known as the south
Tobacco Roots watershed, found that altered forest structure,
density and species composition in the mid-elevation forests,
of which both Forest Service and BLM are major land managers,
is putting these forests at high risk to insect epidemic and
catastrophic wildfire. The agencies have been working
collaboratively with private landowners, conservation groups,
and the Montana Department of Natural Resources and
Conservation to begin restoration across the watershed. The DOI
planned actions are 4,000 acres of forest restoration sales
followed by prescribed burn and 1,600 acres of juniper
treatment by prescribed burn. These treatments across the
entire watershed will restore the health, resiliency and
productivity of the entire watershed and continue to provide
high quality habitat, as well as a high quality place to live
and work for the people who live here.
National Fire Plan/Healthy Forests Initiative/Healthy Forests
Restoration Act.--Two major challenges facing DOI are addressing
ecosystem health and the accumulation of flammable fuels on Federal
lands, a major cause of fire risk. Multiple factors contribute to
wildfire, which include weather, fuel type, terrain, location with
respect to the wildland urban interface, and other highly valued
landscapes, and managerial decisions made before and during fire
incidents. As we have noted in past testimony before this Committee, we
are seeing changing temperature and prolonged drought across many
portions of the West and Southwest and an expansion of the wildland
urban interface and an increase in the number of people living there.
Fifty-seven million people now reside within 25 miles of BLM lands, and
BLM lands host approximately 58 million recreation visits annually.
As current trends indicate wildfire seasons may be lasting longer
and the burned areas are becoming large. Continued accumulation of wood
fiber, and substantial increases in highly flammable invasive species,
are converging to increase the risk of catastrophic loss from wildland
fires. The DOI, along with the Forest Service and other partners, is
addressing cost containment measures to reduce suppression costs. We
are also working hard in developing a cohesive approach among Federal
partners, local governments, private organizations and citizens to
reduce hazardous fuels and restore and maintain forest, woodland and
rangeland health. This is being achieved through various initiatives
such as the National Fire Plan (NFP), the Healthy Forests Initiative
(HFI), and implementation of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of
2003 (HFRA). To date, we have made considerable progress.
Since 2001, the DOI has worked aggressively to reduce the amount of
hazardous fuels on Federal lands and restore the health of our public
forests, woodlands and rangelands, utilizing the authorities provided
under the HFI and the HFRA. Of the 258 million acres administered by
the BLM, 69 million acres are forests and woodlands located in the 11
western states. HFI and HFRA have provided the BLM with tools to ensure
sound management practices and to implement hazardous fuels reduction
projects and stewardship contracting.
The BLM's hazardous fuels reduction and forests, woodlands and
rangelands rehabilitation activities have also been guided by the
National Fire Plan (NFP). The goals are to reduce fuels (combustible
forest materials) in forests, woodlands, and rangelands at risk,
rehabilitate and restore fire-damaged ecosystems, and work with local
residents to reduce fire risk and improve fire protection. The NFP is
being successfully implemented under the leadership of an interagency
and intergovernmental group of Federal, state and local agencies
working cooperatively to reduce wildfire risk and restore fire-adapted
ecosystems. Investments made to restore land health today can have a
profound impact on the resiliency of the treated acres to catastrophic
and expensive wildfires in the future. Many treatments, such as
thinning in forests and woodlands have an additional benefit of
improving watershed conditions, wildlife habitat, and species
diversity. Overall, the DOI has applied nearly 8 million acres of
hazardous fuels reduction treatments to forests, woodlands, and
rangelands on the public lands since 2001, using the tools of
prescribed burns, and chemical and mechanical fuels treatments, as well
as restored 1.4 million acres through other landscape restoration
activities.
The 2009 President's budget proposes $850 million to support fire
preparedness, suppression, fuels reduction, and burned area
rehabilitation needs for the DOI. This is a $42 million increase over
the 2008 enacted level (excluding supplementals). The DOI continues to
support the Healthy Forests Initiative. The budget proposes $202
million for hazardous fuels reduction program. These funds will support
more high priority fuels treatment projects. Putting forth the effort
to cooperatively reduce wildfire risk and restore fire-adapted
ecosystems now will lead to reduced fire impacts and costs in the
future.
s. 2593
The legislation calls for the Secretary of Agriculture, in
consultation with the Secretary of the Interior, to establish a
collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program to select and fund
ecological restoration treatments for priority forest landscapes.
Section 4(b) discusses eligibility criteria for collaborative
forest landscape restoration proposal nominations. One criterion is for
the proposals to be comprised primarily of forested National Forest
System land, but may also include other Federal, State, tribal, or
private land.
Section 4(c) describes the nomination process, requiring the
Regional Forester to nominate collaborative forest landscape
restoration proposals for selection by the Secretary of Agriculture.
Section 4(f) establishes a fund for the cost of carrying out
ecological restoration treatments on National Forest System land,
allowing the Secretary of Agriculture to use the fund to treat National
Forest System lands for each collaborative forest landscape restoration
proposal selected. It is unclear if the fund can be used to treat lands
outside of the National Forest System that comprise a portion of a
selected restoration project. The section also authorizes to be
appropriated $40 million for each of fiscal years 2008-2018, to remain
available until expended, and it allows interest to be credited to the
fund.
Section 4(g) states the Secretary of Agriculture shall, in
collaboration with the Secretary of the Interior and interested
stakeholders, use a multiparty monitoring, evaluation, and
accountability process for not less than 15 years after project
implementation commences. The bill also requires the Secretary of the
Interior, as a collaborator with Secretary of Agriculture, to report on
accomplishments for collaborative forest landscape projects carried out
under the authorities of this legislation.
As previously stated, we support landscape level approaches to land
health. The legislation would provide the Secretary with an additional
tool for restoration treatments for priority forest landscapes on
public lands. As noted above, however, the Department, through the
Wildland Fire Hazardous Fuels Reduction Program and the Healthy Lands
Initiative, and the U.S. Forest Service already engage in activities
proposed to be included in the bill. Moreover, the FY 2009 budget
proposes Ecosystems Services Demonstration Projects in the Forest
Service, described in greater detail in the Forest Service's testimony
today.
Of particular concern to the Administration is the creation of the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Fund. The bill requires the
Fund provide up to fifty percent of the cost of carrying out ecological
restoration. It is not clear what mechanism would require Federal
agencies to seek partner funding from non-Federal sources. Leveraging
Federal funds with non-Federal funds is a vital element to successfully
undertaking landscape level restoration projects as it facilitates
collaboration and commitment by our non-Federal partners. Under section
4(f)(3) amounts appropriated from the general fund of the Treasury
would be invested in interest bearing securities of the United States.
The Administration objects to this provision. Amounts available for
investment should be limited to funds collected from the public and not
to funds appropriated from the General Fund which are not made subject
to the appropriations process. We also have concerns that
implementation of the bill may be administratively burdensome.
Finally, we are committed to working with the Committee and the
legislation's sponsor to ensure that any legislation effectively
considers the health and restoration of forests, woodlands, and
rangelands.
conclusion
Landscape-scale restoration continues to be a high priority for
DOI. In collaboration with our partners, we have made considerable
strides in restoring thousands of acres of Federal lands along with
state and privately-owned lands under the jurisdiction of our partners.
The DOI will continue to work towards achieving priorities in an effort
to make significant improvements in the health and productivity of the
public forests, woodlands and rangelands at the landscape level. We
look forward to working with the Committee on S. 2593. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify, I will be happy to answer any questions.
Senator Tester. Thank you to both of you for your
testimony.
Mr. Chairman, do you want me to go first? I will do it
then.
Chief Kimbell, you discussed in your testimony several
restoration projects that are in the works. In Montana, we have
a few of those collaborative groups that have come up with some
good restoration proposals.
Everyone seems to like the proposals, but we are
continually told, I am continually told, that they cannot be
implemented without additional appropriations from Congress
directly to the region or district level because there's not
enough money due to fire fighting and other needed reasons.
The question is do we need to have some sort of legislation
in order for these projects to become a reality?
Ms. Kimbell. I think this bill encourages landscape level
collaboration in a way that's very complementary to the work
we're doing.
One of the larger barriers to implementing stewardship
contracting right now is really around the cancellation
liability and the fact that if--you know, we have under the
Federal Acquisition Regulations, there's some limits on length
of contracting and for a 10-year contract, the forest has to be
able to set aside enough moneys at the very start to cover the
liability in potential cancellation and that's moneys that are
taken then out of a forest's budget or a region's budget and
can't be spent on project work.
This was an issue with the White River project or the White
Mountains project. It's been an issue with any of the longer-
term timber--longer-term stewardship contracts that aren't in
an area that has an existing infrastructure.
Senator Tester. So, how often is that money used----
Ms. Kimbell. That money----
Senator Tester [continuing]. That's set aside?
Ms. Kimbell. It's held to the side. It's not yet been used.
Senator Tester. OK. So, do you anticipate it being used or
can you give me some past experiences that would conclude that
this money is used, all of it's used, half of it's used, none
of it's used?
Ms. Kimbell. If the money is not used to pay for
cancellation, then the moneys are returned to the agency's
workings.
Senator Tester. All right. Can you give me sort of an idea
of how often that happens--that it's returned?
Ms. Kimbell. It's not yet happened because the White
Mountain project is the first of these longer-term projects.
Senator Tester. OK, OK. I've got you.
Ms. Kimbell. It's still active.
Senator Tester. So, this is a new procedure that you're
using now, to set aside the money for the 10-year projects?
Ms. Kimbell. In setting aside money in case those projects
are canceled.
Senator Tester. OK. You're well aware that Beaverhead Deer
Lodge Partnership in Montana, you know, that group happens to
be made up of timber folks, environmentalists. It's a group
that, quite honestly, 10 years ago, they probably wouldn't have
been talking. They probably would have been doing something
else. So, we appreciate their efforts. They're trying to
implement 70,000 acres of restoration over 10 years.
Comparatively speaking, the Beaverhead Deer Lodge National
Forestland, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, will treat
about 2,500 acres per year, due mainly to budget constraints.
On the same forest, the Forest Service has identified about
nearly 300,000 acres that need to be treated or at least should
be open to treatment. At the rate of 2,500 acres a year, that
would take in excess of a hundred years to treat that land,
significantly in excess of a hundred years and that's just one
forest.
So, will the Forest Service be able to fund and carry out
projects like this realistically in the future?
Ms. Kimbell. Each region is going through a prioritization
of projects and I expect the Beaverhead Deer Lodge is competing
with all the other forests in Montana and Northern Idaho for
those moneys, those vegetation management moneys, at the
regional level, because no, there's not enough money for all
the forests to have projects of that size.
Senator Tester. OK. Does Congress need to start
appropriating money directly to the region or district level?
Ms. Kimbell. I would hope not in that the prioritization--I
mean, really, there are higher priorities in one place than in
another, and each region goes through a very careful evaluation
of that in allocating moneys at the regional level.
Senator Tester. Do you know how many proposals there are
out there right now similar to the 2,500 acre proposal at
Beaverhead Deer Lodge?
Ms. Kimbell. There are----
Senator Tester. In that region?
Ms. Kimbell. No, I don't have an exact number, but I do
know of proposals where people have come in and proposed a 10-
year stewardship contract to a national forest where there
isn't existing infrastructure and have suggested they would
build infrastructure, but they need to have that 10-year
commitment or more to be able to secure the loans that they
would need in order to construct some kind of milling
infrastructure and the forest has not been as responsive as
some might like because of this need to have to set aside
moneys for cancellation and the liability there.
Senator Tester. OK. So, you have goals to take care of
several different forests through your plans. The one that I
talked of before was Beaverhead Deer Lodge. It's in direct
competition with other forest restoration plans.
I would assume that at some level they all have merit?
Ms. Kimbell. Yes.
Senator Tester. So is the discrepancy in the goals of
taking care of these problems from a restoration standpoint
simply money or is it something else?
Ms. Kimbell. There are many challenges but certainly there
are many more acres of restoration need than we have funding
for.
Senator Tester. OK. Thank you very much.
Ms. Kimbell. Thank you, Senator.
The Chairman. Thank you. Let me ask, so I understand
better. You know, in a lot of our grant programs around here,
we make a grant to an agency or to an organization to do
something, and in making that grant, we ensure that they will
have funding over a 3-year period, for example, or a 5-year
period. I think that's fairly normal in some of the other
areas, not in your agencies.
But I guess what I'm trying to determine is when you talk
about these long-term stewardship contracts, you're saying
money needs to be set aside in case the contract's canceled to
cover the liability, but there is no money set aside to ensure
that the contract need not be canceled.
Ms. Kimbell. I believe that's correct.
The Chairman. So, if I were to get a long-term stewardship
contract and appropriations are inadequate, then you would just
not fund it next year and pay the liability for the 9 years
that it's not in fact going to be carried out. Is that what I'm
understanding?
Ms. Kimbell. Once we sign a contract, you know, we are
stating that we are committed to seeing through our part of
this contract. So though there may not be a fund that sets
aside 1 year's money to be able to--well, right now we don't
have the mechanism, but to be able to use it in future years,
once we sign a contract like that, we're saying this is a very
high priority for us and we will----
The Chairman. So, you don't have a practice of just
canceling these. Once you enter into them, the practice is you
stick with them?
Ms. Kimbell. We do not have a practice of canceling these.
The Chairman. But you set aside money, not in order that
you can stick with them, but in the eventuality that at some
point you can?
Ms. Kimbell. We do set aside money as per the Federal
Acquisition Regulations, but we don't set aside money for the
continued operation of our part of that contract.
The Chairman. OK. Let me ask about monitoring. You know,
the whole idea behind this landscape scale restoration, it's
somewhat experimental, and we have put in this proposed
legislation significant requirements for monitoring in order to
learn what's working and what isn't working. I mean that's the
whole idea behind it.
In the past, my understanding is that monitoring
commitments on agency projects often have not been funded and
that's an area that seems to always get sort of short shrift.
What are your thoughts, either one of you, as to the extent
of the monitoring that you're currently able to engage in on
forest restoration projects and what's appropriate?
Ms. Kimbell. As trained scientists, a lot of our people are
very well trained and very attuned to collecting data. We like
to collect data. We like to compare data. We like to measure
data and yet the tough part of that is deciding which data is
important and what data will we learn something from.
We do have monitoring plans in the Forest Service. We have
monitoring plans with our forest plans. Each project has some
monitoring attached to it. In the past, we have made those
monitoring plans far more complex than we were ever able to
carry out. We've put a lot of effort into making those
monitoring plans more reasonable and more meaningful, so that
they actually tell us something after we collect the
information.
After some of the fires this last season, we actually did
some on-the-ground monitoring and I have a report that I would
like to submit for the record that's an Assessment of Fuel
Treatment Effects on Fire Behavior, Suppression, Effectiveness
and Structure Ignition on the Angora Fire* just outside of
South Lake Tahoe where they actually did an analysis of the
treatments that were done around South Lake Tahoe and looked at
the fire behavior in those areas that were treated and this is
only one of many examples of where we think collecting that
kind of information to help inform landscape level treatments
that we're planning now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Report has been retained in committee files.
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Mr. Bisson. Senator, monitoring is a big part of making
sure that we spend the money wisely and I think that
frequently, you're correct, I think there is a lot of
monitoring that would, should, could, ought to have happened
that there hasn't been funding to do.
I feel that if we make a commitment to doing restoration,
if we are doing forest rehab, if we're doing these treatments,
that there needs to be a commitment to do the monitoring as
well, and we're currently working with the Geological Survey to
look at developing a process we can commit to, particularly on
the rehab emergency stabilization, in these projects that is
something we know we can afford and will be committed to as we
move into the future. GS is working with us on that right now.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tester. Senator Domenici.
Senator Domenici. Did you just come down after the vote,
Senator Bingaman?
The Chairman. Yes, I sure did.
STATEMENT OF HON. PETE V. DOMENICI, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW
MEXICO
Senator Domenici. I'm sorry I'm late. I did the same thing
but got sidetracked. I voted before I came up here.
I have an opening statement that I'm going to give and then
maybe if we stay long enough, I have a couple of quick
questions. If not, I'll submit them.
There are two paths that we can follow when it comes to the
ecological health of our Federal lands. The first path is one
that we have been traveling down for the last decade or two. We
know that we have a big problem but it's a thorny problem. So,
we take only small steps to resolve the issues. I fear that
path will result in millions of acres burned and billions of
dollars expended with little to show for the effort.
The other path is to get serious about undertaking the
forest restoration work needed to truly change the risk of
catastrophic fire across large landscapes. I believe that
forest landscape restoration is an important step down the
latter path, but let me suggest it is only a small step.
I expect some witnesses will have concerns with the bill. I
hope we will address as many of these concerns as possible. At
the same time, I have concerns that we in Congress are not
addressing the fundamental question of process paralysis as
aggressively as need be.
Process paralysis is what I said. When I said it, you
coughed. That's just whatever you call it; that didn't cause
you to cough? All right. But it came at a very good time.
[Laughter.]
Senator Domenici. I just wanted you to hear it. I think
Congress needs to take steps to speed up the appeals process
and to limit the time it takes to work through legislation.
Those who don't want any change have an easy way to do it
now; that is, an easy way to cause you to take a very long
period of time before you can act and sometimes, maybe most of
the time, that's the end of the process. It doesn't work.
I fear that unless Congress finds the will to take on these
two issues, much of the good I see in the Forest Landscape
Restoration Act will be lost. I can understand why you and
Senator Feinstein have some trepidation about taking these
steps and I understand that we must incrementally address
issues so that we have critical political support needed to
prevail.
It was Winston Churchill who once said, you can always
count on Americans to do the right thing after they have tried
everything else, and I think that's pretty apropos of what
happens to you all, not necessarily of your own will. That's
the way it happens.
We try everything else and then when it won't work, we come
back and try to do the right thing. Sometimes it takes too long
to get there, sometimes we've lost the right way by the time
we've got there or we have new people. In any event, it is a
great way that is being used by those of who do not want to let
us do what we must and I know there are many that resist fixing
this process, the process of appeals and litigation.
Sadly, these are the same ones that seem willing to
sacrifice our forests to catastrophes. I do not think we should
do that. I suspect that in the end, Congress would do the right
thing. I just hope that it happens quickly enough to help
rebalance the ecological integrity of our forests without
having to withdraw the balance of our Federal treasury to fight
decades of senseless and wasteful forest fires and wildfires.
Senator Bingaman, I listened to Chief Kimbell at this
morning's Interior Appropriations hearing and I have to tell
you that I'm compelled to work to find a solution to the delays
that appeals and litigation are causing and it may have to be
that I will have to do that in this bill. I hope that I won't,
but if I have to, I hope you will work with me, Mr. Chairman,
in absentia, work with me to find those solutions.
Thank you very much.
Senator Tester. Senator Domenici, you can keep the floor if
you've got questions.
Senator Domenici. Are you finished?
Senator Tester. I'm finished with mine, and I think Senator
Bingaman is finished with his.
Senator Domenici. I will submit to Gail Kimbell about four
or five questions in writing, if you will submit them for me,
and Deputy Director Henri Bisson, I'll submit two questions to
you, and Chris West, he's not here, but----
Senator Tester. Next panel.
Senator Domenici. OK. There you are. I think I'm permitted
to ask him. I'll submit some questions for him, and let's just
go right through and submit them all. I submit these en bloc,
Mr. Chairman, for them to answer in a timely manner and since
this bill seems to have very broad support, I would think the
right time means rather quickly.
How long are you giving them to respond? Two weeks or what
did we say?
Senator Tester. Two weeks is just fine by me. Is that
adequate for you? If it's a week, that's even better----
Ms. Kimbell. We believe so.
Senator Tester. Good. Thank you.
Senator Domenici. OK. Thank you very much.
Ms. Kimbell. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Tester. Senator Salazar, we have just heard from
Chief Kimbell and Henri Bisson of the BLM on the restoration
bill, and if you have any questions or if you have a statement,
you're certainly welcome to do either right now or both.
STATEMENT OF HON. KEN SALAZAR, U.S. SENATOR
FROM COLORADO
Senator Salazar. Thank you, Senator Tester and Senator
Domenici and Chairman Bingaman, the committee.
I just want to make a quick statement. I have a formal
statement for the record that I will submit for the record. I
also just want to say that for Colorado, this is a very
important piece of legislation and legislation that I fully
support.
We have 11 national forests and two national grasslands in
Colorado, as you know, Chief Kimbell, managed by the Forest
Service. We have a huge problem in my State, given that 20
percent of our lands are owned by and managed by the Forest
Service. There is a bark beetle problem which has infested our
forests in a way that is unprecedented. I have sometimes
referred to it as the Katrina of the West.
When you think about 1.5 million acres of bark beetle
infested acreage on national forests in Colorado, and when
you--recognize that about 95 percent of all the mature lodge
pole will die in Colorado in the next few years, we really are
looking at the kind of devastation that really requires us to
take proactive action.
So, I'm pleased to be a supporter of Senator Bingaman and
Senator Domenici's bill. I also am hopeful that as we address
the issue of forest health, that legislation which the Colorado
delegation had drafted to try to help us deal with the bark
beetle problem, this legislation, components of which we might
be able to include in this legislation as we move forward.
Thank you, both, and thank Senator Tester and Senator
Domenici.
Senator Tester. Thank you, Senator Salazar. Just one real
quick one that I had. Chief Kimbell, you've said that history
will judge us, the leaders, by how well we respond to climate
change.
What role do you see landscape scale restoration responding
to the climate change issue? I'll also that of you, too, Mr.
Bisson.
Ms. Kimbell. I think landscape scale looks at wildlands as
absolutely critical to how we as a Nation address the
challenges with climate change. The health, the vitality, the
vigor of our forests dictates how much carbon it sequesters, it
dictates how much carbon it processes, it helps it filter
water, all the different processes, the natural processes that
we've come to take for granted from forestlands, from
wildlands, across the country, really depend on the health and
vigor of those lands.
So, I think a landscape look to be able to address priority
needs for active management on those landscapes is really
critical and this bill does direct that kind of work and it's
going to be very important to our address in this Nation to
climate change.
Senator Tester. OK. Mr. Bisson.
Mr. Bisson. Senator, because of much of the land that we
administer is rangeland, the same issues hold true on the
rangeland ecosystem, particularly sagebrush. We think that
cheat grass invasion restoration after fire are largely the two
determinants about whether certain species get listed because
of what's happening in the sagebrush ecosystem and some of that
is tied to the changing climate and so we're very concerned
about this issue as well.
Senator Tester. OK. Thank you very much. I appreciate your
testimony. Appreciate your time for being here today. Thank
you.
The next panel, we have up Scott Simon, Director of the
Arkansas Chapter of Nature Conservancy, Chris West, Vice
President of the American Forest Restoration Council, Nathaniel
Lawrence, Senior Attorney and Director of the Forest Project,
Natural Resources Defense Council, and, finally, Howard Gross,
Director of the Forest Guild.
You guys get situated and we'll hear your testimony. I want
to thank you all for being here, to give us your input on S.
2593, and I think we'll just go right down the line. We'll
start with you, Mr. Simon, and go from there.
Welcome to you all.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT SIMON, ARKANSAS STATE DIRECTOR, THE NATURE
CONSERVANCY, LITTLE ROCK, AR
Mr. Simon. Thank you, Senator. Good afternoon, Mr.
Chairman. Good afternoon, Senator Lincoln.
My name is Scott Simon, and I'm the Director of the Nature
Conservancy in Arkansas.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify on this
bill. Thank you especially to Senator Lincoln from all your
friends in Arkansas for all the wonderful conservation projects
you do there and when we have conservation challenges for
bringing everybody together to come up with a workable
solution. We really appreciate you. So thank you.
The Nature Conservancy really appreciates the work of this
committee on this bill and strongly supports it, and I'd like
to share an Arkansas example which illustrates a successful
restoration project and illustrates why we think this
legislation will work.
Our experience in Arkansas is similar to the rest of the
country. After 70 years of fire suppression, our historically
open woods became dense causing a significant increase in
wildfires and also outbreaks of the sort of beetles that the
previous panel discussed, leading to over a million acres of
all of our oak trees dying, and it really alarmed the people of
Arkansas, and fortunately Senator Lincoln came to the rescue
and with Senator Crapo held hearings in the Senate Ag Committee
and many people from Arkansas were galvanized by these hearings
and they felt like they had to do something and so we formed a
team called the Ecosystem Restoration Team, Federal agencies,
State agencies, private organizations, this great group of
people, with the goal of developing large landscape scale
restoration projects on the ground, 50,000 acres and greater.
What we did was two things. First, the team agreed on what
we felt the woods should look like, and the second thing we did
is tried to meet other partners who were doing this work on the
ground and we picked one from the Ozark National Forest, the
Bayou Ranger District, and some people that wanted to do this
sort of work and we selected them not so much based on the
place but more based on the people and who they were because
they had significant experience, they had had successes on the
ground, and they had a vision for how they were going to open
up the woods into the future, and then we worked together on a
very simple plan which they included us in that included on-
the-ground monitoring and then went to the Forest Service and
asked them to focus and prioritize the resources to this
project which they did, which we're very appreciative of.
So, the staff on the ground got to work doing the
prescribed burns, the mechanical treatments and since 2002,
they have treated of this 60,000 acre project about 90 percent
of the lands and the results from the monitoring are very
clear. There's a significant decrease, open woods, significant
decrease in the density of the woods. There's a significant
decrease in the wildfire risk. There's a significant increase
in the abracious layer and the diversity of the site and in
general it's just a much healthier forest.
Most importantly, this project was just the beginning and
so now it consists of about a 110,000 acres that includes the
Buffalo National River, State wildlife management areas, and
numerous private landowners, and this project was really an
inspiration. It's led to six other very large projects in
Arkansas and many small ones that cover over a half a million
acres, all of them with treatments on the ground, so that today
we have nearly a 100,000 acres in the open desired condition.
The team faced several challenges, three. First, we found
that the agencies really had a very difficult time prioritizing
the projects and providing enough resources to achieve
restoration at a sufficient scale.
Second, the project was set back several years by fire
borrowing which brought everything to a halt as the Forest
Service tried to fund the fire suppression costs, and finally,
the cost of the mechanical treatments is very high because
there's no market in Arkansas, Ozarks, for small diameter
hardwood stems.
So, in summary, our experience in Arkansas reflects that
these unhealthy forests, it's not just a Western problem, it's
really a national problem, and we feel that this bill would
address many of the causes and the problems and would be a
great opportunity to get more treatment on the ground.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Simon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Scott Simon, Arkansas State Director, The Nature
Conservancy, Little Rock, AR
The Nature Conservancy is an international, nonprofit organization
dedicated to the conservation of biological diversity. Our mission is
to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent
the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they
need to survive. Our on-the-ground conservation work is carried out in
all 50 states and in more than 30 foreign countries and is supported by
approximately one million individual members. The Nature Conservancy
has protected more than 117 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of
river around the world. Our work also includes more than 100 marine
conservation projects in 21 countries and 22 U.S. states.
need for the forest landscape restoration act
Millions of acres of publicly-owned forests are in poor health,
putting people and nature at risk. These forests protect our drinking
water, help regulate our climate and shelter wildlife. But across the
country, many of our national forests and other public lands are
overgrown and choked with vegetation as a result of past land
management practices and fire exclusion. Unnaturally dense forests are
more vulnerable to severe wildfire and destructive pests such as bark
beetles which threaten forests in many places throughout the nation.
Climate change is an additional stress to unhealthy forests, with
longer wildfire seasons and winters that are warm enough for pests such
as bark beetles to keep reproducing.
Many forests in the South and Western states depend on a certain
amount of fire to maintain their health. However, fire exclusion and
other factors have altered this natural balance and caused a build-up
of trees and other vegetation that today are fueling unnaturally severe
fires. The scale of this problem is illustrated by a recent study that
showed that fire and ecological conditions across 80% of the
continental U.S. have been moderately or highly altered.\1\ Seven of
the worst ten fire seasons since the 1950's have occurred in just the
last 11 years.\2\
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\1\ Blankenship, K., A. Shlisky, W. Fulks, E. Contreras, D.
Johnson, J. Patton, J. Smith and R. Swaty. 2007. An Ecological
Assessment of Fire and Biodiversity Conservation Across the Lower 48
States of the U.S. Global Fire Initiative Technical Report 2007-1. The
Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA.
\2\ www.nifc.gov
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unnaturally severe fires put communities and livelihoods at risk
and devastate forests. In 2002 the Rodeo-Chediski burned nearly half a
million acres in Arizona and caused 30,000 people to be evacuated. Also
that year, the Biscuit fire burned 499,570 acres in Oregon and the
Hayman fire in Colorado burned 137,760 acres and 600 structures were
lost. In 2007, the Georgia Bay complex burned 441,705 acres and 9
homes.
Fire suppression costs are sky-rocketing. The USDA Forest Service
spent $1.5 billion on fire suppression in 2006. In fiscal year 2008 the
Forest Service is spending 46% of its budget on wildfire suppression
and other fire-related activities,\3\ compared to 13% in 1991. These
trends threatened to transform the U.S. Forest Service into the U.S
Fire Service. Expensive fires means agencies cannot fund their other
programs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ USDA Forest Service, Overview of FY 2008 President's Budget,
Forest Service Budget Justification.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forest treatments provide the opportunity to reduce severe fire
risk, restore forest health and stimulate local economic activities.
For forests that are unnaturally dense, removing the build up of small
trees, based on ecological principles, helps reduce the excess
vegetation that fuels unnaturally severe fire and creates the spaces
that certain tree species need to grow and thrive. The woody biomass
removed by thinning can be used by small wood processing industries to
develop a wide range of products from solid wood items like flooring
and furniture to products from waste material like electricity and wood
stove pellets. Developing new markets for the by-products of thinning
provides an economic boost to communities in rural areas that have
suffered in recent years due to the decline of wood-processing
industries.
Current treatments to thin trees and reduce fuels in publicly owned
forests are not happening at a scale which will restore forest health.
Over the past four years, federal land management agencies have treated
on average three million acres annually, an amount that represents only
two percent of the total lands that need to be treated to restore
forest health. Most treatments have not been at a scale that will
restore health to our public forestlands. Stewardship contracting is
tool that was developed to advance forest restoration, yet after four
years, the average area of land treated is only 750 acres for a 10-year
stewardship contract. These small contracts are not sufficient to
sustain the industries that process woody biomass. Only three
restoration projects over 10,000 acres have been carried out using
stewardship contracts. Under the current approach, few, if any,
projects receive sufficient funding to stimulate economic development
and create stable markets for the products of thinning treatments.
strengths of the forest landscape restoration act
The legislation will establish a Forest Landscape Restoration Fund
of up to $40 million annually, available on a competitive basis, for up
to 10 years of landscape-scale fuels treatments on National Forest and
DOI agency lands. We believe that making funding available via a
competitive process, to those projects that meet a set of national
eligibility criteria, coupled with approval by the Secretaries of
Agriculture and the Interior and advice from Science and Technical
Advisory Groups, is an appropriate process and one that builds upon
some of the most successful elements of the Collaborative Forest
Restoration Program in New Mexico. We think it is especially important
that eligible landscapes demonstrate a high level of match between the
federal investment in fuels treatment and private investment in
infrastructure and capacity building.
The Nature Conservancy uses the phrase ``enabling conditions'' to
describe how we choose among the many places we could invest. Our
organization achieves success by working in places where biodiversity
conservation matters, but we are also careful to pick places where all
indications are that success can be achieved. We believe that the
eligibility criteria in the Forest Landscape Restoration Act will serve
as an effective screen for enabling conditions.
In particular, we support the criteria in the legislation requiring
that eligible landscapes must have:
1. Science-based determination of forest health need.
2. A collaborative process in place and the scale of
landscape to be restored is 50,000 acres or more.
3. Wood-processing and restoration infrastructure is in place
or planned.
4. Collaboratively developed ecological restoration plan is
substantially completed.
5. Capacity to complete NEPA analysis is demonstrated for
some portions of the landscape.
6. Potential for cost savings in treatments and fire
suppression.
7. Evidence of significant non-federal investment in capacity
building, infrastructure or treatments.
Some have asked where the funding for the Forest Landscape
Restoration Fund will come from. The legislation appropriately targets
$40 million of the Hazardous Fuel Reduction line item to these high
priority landscapes. We believe this is a good investment. Furthermore,
the amount of increases in the Senate Interior Appropriation bills for
this line item over the past few years is roughly equal to the amount
authorized for the Fund.
We also believe that the Fund creates an incentive for land
managers to develop strong projects that meet the eligibility criteria,
even if only a few receive funding. This effect has been demonstrated
in New Mexico, where after seven years the Collaborative Forest
Restoration Program has stimulated many projects that meet the criteria
even though only small number are funded each year.
restoration experience in arkansas shows why flra is needed
The experience in Arkansas with declining forest health is similar
to other states. The story is familiar: seventy years of fire
suppression resulted in a denser forest. In the Ozark Mountains, the
increase was from an average of 52 trees per acre to 148 trees per
acre, with many areas having 300-1,000 stems per acre. These forests
became increasingly unhealthy as more trees compete for the same amount
of nutrients and water. The effect was uncharacteristic wildfires and
outbreaks of native insects and diseases that resulted in 1,000,000
acres of dead oak trees.
After a hearing held in 2002 by Senator Lincoln, to focus attention
on these indicators of unhealthy forests, Arkansas Game and Fish
Commission, The Nature Conservancy, US Forest Service, and a variety of
agency partners and other stakeholders formed a team (the Oak Ecosystem
Restoration Team) to collaborate on large-scale restoration projects.
The team agreed on the desired ecological condition they wanted to
achieve and used that as a foundation for their work together. The team
came up with a simple but elegant implementation plan that included
monitoring. Resources were purposefully concentrated initially on a
large 60,000 acre demonstration area in the Ozark National Forest,
rather than spread across the Bayou Ranger District's 280,000 acres.
The team implemented the restoration plan and achieved the desired
ecological condition on much of the landscape. Since 2001, ninety
percent of the demonstration area has had a mechanical or prescribed
burn treatment. More than a third of the acres have received multiple
treatments, such as more than one burn or a combination of mechanical
thinning and burning.
The monitoring plan has been implemented, providing the team with
data to show that the restoration treatments had the expected effects:
increased plant diversity and forage production, lower intensity fires,
fewer trees per acre, and a healthier forest. The monitoring program
was seven percent of the total cost and worth the expense. The data, in
combination with public outreach through pamphlets, presentations,
field tours for policy makers and others, and information panels at
demonstration sites, has helped convince the skeptics and build support
for this large scale of restoration.
Since the early success of the original restoration project, this
project has grown to over 110,000 acres and now includes National Park
Service, State Wildlife Management Areas, and private lands. The
restoration treatments are implemented jointly. Most importantly, the
demonstration landscape was used as an example for six additional
restoration projects. A total of 600,000 acres of treatment are in
progress in Arkansas and showing similar results, with today over
100,000 acres in the desired open oak woodland condition.
The team in Arkansas did face three major challenges in
accomplishing this work. First, the agencies have a great deal of
difficulty prioritizing projects and concentrating resources. Even
though this landscape project was identified as a priority, the team
struggled every year to keep the resources concentrated on the
demonstration project. Second, the project was set back every year by
``fire borrowing,'' when the Forest Service had to divert its project
funding to cover the fire suppression costs. Each time these allocated
funds are diverted, the work comes to a halt. The Nature Conservancy's
crews try hard to keep the projects going anyway, adding resources and
personnel to make sure the treatments continued. Finally, the cost of
mechanical treatments is high, and there is no current or historical
market in the Ozarks for small-diameter hardwood stems.
The experience in Arkansas reflects the fact that unhealthy forests
and altered fire regimes are not just a western problem. The solutions
found in Arkansas are widely applicable to fire-dependent ecosystems
across the nation. The three challenges in Arkansas are also broadly
reflective of barriers faced everywhere that landscape-scale ecological
restoration is attempted. The Forest Landscape Restoration Act will
address the key needs of such projects.
summary
The Nature Conservancy is strongly supportive of the four
anticipated outcomes of this legislation:
1) Create approximately 10 large-scale examples where
targeted investments in ecological restoration and prioritized
use of the Hazardous Fuel Reduction line item will help get
ahead of the problem of escalating fire suppression costs on
overgrown federal lands.
2) Stimulate markets for small diameter wood and biomass by
creating conditions, in the selected landscapes, for stable
levels of restoration. Once these markets are established, the
anticipated outcome is reductions in the per-acre treatment
costs.
3) Establish a positive incentive for federal land managers
to develop and implement collaborative, large-scale restoration
projects that are based on agreed-upon science, and provide
woody by-products to forest industries. That positive incentive
is access to consistent funding.
4) Finally, the legislation will create a direct linkage
between federal investment in hazardous fuels reduction,
private investment in wood processing infrastructure, and
philanthropic investment in capacity building. This would
leverage all three sources of funding to address the need of
improving forest health.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. I would be
pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Lincoln [presiding]. Thank you, Scott. We
appreciate it. I certainly appreciate your thoughtful and kind
words, and one of the things I'm so proud of are the multiple
emblems that were on that last poster which really does
indicate team work, folks coming together and really working
hard together for the good of everybody.
So, we appreciate your leadership in helping to make that
happen.
Mr. West, thank you and welcome to the committee.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER I. WEST, VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN
FOREST RESOURCE COUNCIL, PORTLAND, OR
Mr. West. Thank you, Senator Lincoln. For the record, my
name is Chris West. I'm Vice President of the American Forest
Resource Council, a forest products trade organization that
represents nearly 80 forest product manufacturers and
landowners in the Western United States.
My testimony today not only reflects the views of AFRC but
those of the Associated Oregon Loggers, Douglas Timber
Operators, and Washington Contract Loggers. Our collective
members represent loggers, sawmills, co-gen facilities and
forest landowners that are committed to the ecological and
economic and social stability of our western forest
communities.
We appreciate the opportunity today to discuss our thoughts
regarding the Forest Landscape Restoration Act.
This committee and the Subcommittee on Public Lands and
Forests has heard from a long list of distinguished forest
ecologists, silviculturists, and land managers who have stated
that we can and desperately need to get back to the business of
managing our western forests.
Current landscape conditions are a result of both manmade
and natural factors, but rather than dwelling on the past, we
believe we need to start restoring the land to conditions that
are both sustainable and resilient not only to wildfires but
also to climate change.
This Act will help improve and enhance numerous forest
values while also providing an opportunity of certainty and
predictability that forest products and biomass energy
businesses need.
Today, we are still losing mills across the West and in
many places are in danger of losing the last infrastructure.
For example, one of my members has a mill located in Central
Oregon and they've been shut down for weeks at a time due to
the lack of logs and they sit in the middle of a Federal forest
that is overstocked and in need of thinning.
The company has vested millions of dollars into small log
technology and can handle a log to five inches in diameter, but
without a predictable and consistent flow of projects, they
cannot afford to invest in state-of-the-art logging equipment,
mill technology and biomass energy facilities, and this
legislation will help provide some of that certainty that our
industry's entrepreneurs can take to their bankers and
investors.
We support the goal of restoring priority forest landscapes
through a collaborative and science-based approach. To
accomplish these goals, we need to have that meaningful
discussion, like Scott mentioned that they had at the local
site-specific level, where environmental conditions and
ecological opportunities can be fully vetted by the
stakeholders and natural resource professionals.
A one-size-fits-all approach from Washington, DC, won't
result in quality work on the ground and we're thankful that
this legislation avoids that temptation to legislate
prescriptive solutions.
We'd offer several suggestions for increasing the
effectiveness of this, and the first one deals with the
authority given to the Forest Service and BLM around
stewardship contracting.
Many of these projects will produce byproducts, saw logs,
fenceposts, fuel wood, biomass that clearly have value but
won't pay their way out of the woods. Stewardship contracting
authority allows the Federal agencies to trade goods for
services and thus reduce the cost of accomplishing the work.
Unfortunately, this authority expires in 2013 and we would ask
that under this bill it be extended.
The second issue that needs to be addressed deals with the
current Federal Acquisition Regulations and Chief Kimbell had a
discussion with Senator Tester about this, and I think they
fully discussed the issue, but there is a solution out there
and Senator Kyle has proposed legislation, S. 2442, that
addresses the situation and will fix it so that we don't have
to set money upfront, aside to cover just in case the contracts
get canceled, and so we'd ask that that language be included in
the bill.
Finally, since much of the restoration work done under this
Act will result in low-value material that may only be suitable
for biomass energy, we would ask that 2593 amend the definition
of renewable biomass that is in the Renewable Fuels Standard of
the Energy Bill that was passed in December.
The Renewable Biomass language inserted in the Energy bill
by the House of Representatives is a travesty. We have millions
of acres of Federal forests that are in desperate need of
restoration with the potentials of millions of tons of biomass,
yet the current law would not allow this material to count
toward a renewable fuel standard and without the credits
associated with that standard, investors are going to be hard-
pressed to undertake any new ventures in woody biomass energy.
That concludes my prepared remarks, and I'd be happy to
answer any questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. West follows:]
Prepared Statement of Christopher I. West, Vice President, American
Forest Resource Council, Portland, OR
Good afternoon, Chairman Bingaman, Ranking Member Domenici and
members of the Committee. For the record my name is Chris West. I am
the Vice President of the American Forest Resource Council (AFRC), a
forest products trade organization representing nearly eighty wood
product manufacturers and forest landowners in the western United
States based in Portland, Oregon. Growing up in communities across the
West, I am a second generation forester and attended the University of
California at Berkeley where I earned a Bachelors of Science in
Forestry and a Masters of Forestry in Forest & Wildlife Management
Planning. My testimony today not only reflects the views of AFRC's
membership, but also those of the Associated Oregon Loggers, Douglas
Timber Operators and Washington Contract Loggers Association. Our
collective members represent loggers, wood product manufacturers,
biomass energy producers and forest landowners that are committed to
the ecological, economic and social sustainability of our nation's
western forest communities. They also provide family-wage jobs that
fuel rural economies. We appreciate the opportunity to discuss our
thoughts regarding S.2593, the Forest Landscape Restoration Act.
This Committee and the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests has
heard from a long list of distinguished forest ecologists,
silviculturalists and professional land managers who have stated that
we can and desperately need to get back to managing our western
forested landscapes. As a result, the Committee already knows the great
need for large-scale landscape restoration across the West. Current
landscape conditions are a result of a variety of man made and natural
factors, but rather than focusing on these, we would like to
concentrate on what must be done to restore these forests. Some may
want to dwell on the past, but we strongly believe that for the sake of
our forest ecosystems, key watersheds, critical wildlife habitats and
rural communities, we need to start restoring the land to conditions
that are sustainable and resilient to not only catastrophic wildfire,
but also climate change. If we, as a society, choose to continue an
endless debate--allowing the judicial system to obstruct important
projects while these vital ecosystems are devastated by unnatural
catastrophic wildfires and insect epidemics--shame on us.
The Forest Landscape Restoration Act will help improve numerous
forest values, but more importantly it will also provide the certainty
and predictability of opportunities that forest products and biomass
energy businesses need. Today, we are still losing mills across the
West and in many places we're in grave danger of losing the last
remaining infrastructure. The current poor housing market and the
associated drop in lumber demand has resulted in a rash of sawmill
curtailments and shutdowns, but over the last decade we've lost mills
across the West, especially in the four corners states, simply due to a
lack of supply. Moreover, many of these mills were the only
infrastructure located in areas at high risk of catastrophic wildfire.
One of our member's has a mill located in central Oregon, which has had
to shut down for weeks at a time due to no log supply. This mill has
invested millions of dollars in small-log technology and can take a log
as small as five inches in diameter. It is nearly surrounded by
federally owned, overstocked and unhealthy stands of trees at high risk
of catastrophic wildfire and in desperate need of thinning. This is
just one example of how we as an industry have adapted to changing
times, utilizing the latest technology to maximize the consumer
products that can be produced from smaller trees. But without a
predictable and consistent flow of forest management projects,
companies cannot afford to make investments in new state of the art
logging equipment, small log milling technology or biomass energy
facilities. S.2593 would help provide some of that certainty upon which
industry entrepreneurs can take to their bankers and investors. This
basic fact is incredibly important and often an overlooked reality in
the discussions surrounding a forest restoration program. We must have
large landscape scale projects to implement, not only to save our
forests, watersheds and wildlife habitats, but to also save our rural
communities and the infrastructure we desperately need to do this work.
We support the stated purpose of S.2593, which is to encourage the
restoration of priority forested landscapes through a collaborative and
science based approach. To accomplish these goals, there must be
meaningful discussions at the local, site specific level, where
environmental conditions and ecological opportunities can be fully
vetted among diverse stakeholders with natural resource professionals
and research scientists' input. A one-size-fits-all approach from
Washington DC will likely result in tying the hands of land managers
and diminishing the quality of work on the ground, therefore we thank
you for leaving these decisions to the people in the field and avoid
legislating prescriptive solutions.
The Forest Landscape Restoration Act builds on a solid foundation
of earlier forest restoration legislation, specifically the Quincy
Library Group Forest Recovery and Economic Stability Act (QLG) and the
Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). QLG grew out of a local
collaborative effort to treat the forest landscape over three national
forests in an effort to reduce the size and intensity of catastrophic
wildfires. HFRA was a bipartisan effort to treat 20 million acres of
high risk forest ecosystems across the nation. Unfortunately, these two
important legislative efforts have not resulted in the large landscape
projects that our forests, watersheds, wildlife habitats and
communities desperately need.
We would like to offer several suggested improvements to S.2593
with the goal of increasing its effectiveness of meeting the stated
goals of restoring priority landscapes. First, a critical tool to
accomplishing the restoration work envisioned by the bill is the
Stewardship Contracting authority authorized by the Omnibus
Appropriations Act of 2003. In so many site specific situations, the
restoration work has bi-products, such as sawlogs, fence posts,
firewood and biomass that clearly have value but will not pay their way
out of the woods. The Stewardship Contracting authority allows the
federal agency to trade ``goods'' for ``services'' and thus reduce the
cost of accomplishing the vital restoration work. Unfortunately, the
Forest Service and BLM's authority to use this important tool expires
in 2013, therefore we request that this authority be extended under
this Act.
Second, under current Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements
there exists a government liability problem associated with Stewardship
Contracting that if not resolved will likely limit the ability of the
Forest Landscape Restoration Act to fulfill its desired outcomes.
Specifically, these regulations require appropriated funds be obligated
up-front to cover the government's potential financial liability should
a contract be canceled. Considering the Forest Service's current dismal
budget situation, this funding should be used to plan and implement
other stewardship projects rather than being set aside to comply with
an antiquated federal regulation. The Department of Agriculture's
Federal Acquisition Regulations must be amended to allow multiyear
stewardship contracts to be satisfied at the time of cancellation by
using appropriated funds. Senator Kyl has proposed legislation, S.2442,
that addresses this situation and we would ask that this language be
included in S.2593.
Finally, since much of the restoration work done under this Act
will yield low value material that may be only suitable for biomass
energy production, we ask that S.2593 amend the definition of
``renewable biomass'' in the Renewable Fuels Standard of the Energy
Bill passed last December. The ``renewable biomass'' language inserted
into the Energy Bill by the House of Representatives was completely
nonsensical and illogical. AFRC and its members work in our federal
forests, comply with the strictest environmental laws and regulations,
and produce renewable and sustainable consumer products that Americans
demand. We have millions of acres of our federal forests in desperate
need of restoration, with the potential for millions of tons of
biomass, yet current energy law would not allow this material to count
towards the Renewable Fuels Standard. Without the credits associated
with this standard, potential investors will be hard pressed to
undertake new woody biomass alternative fuel ventures.
In conclusion, we are thankful that S.2593 recognizes that each
area has its own unique values and challenges and that land managers,
stakeholders, scientists and community representatives are best suited
to plan projects through a collaborative, science-based approach. This
concludes my prepared remarks. I would be happy to answer any questions
you might have. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF NATHANIEL LAWRENCE, SENIOR ATTORNEY AND DIRECTOR
OF FOREST PROJECT, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, OLYMPIA,
WA
Mr. Lawrence. Thank you, Senator Lincoln. I'd like to thank
you and the chair and the committee for the opportunity to
appear today to give the views of the Natural Resources Defense
Council on S. 2593.
You know, we certainly urge you to pursue this bill. We
urge you to pursue the committee's commitment to restoration of
national forests. We hope that in the course of doing that, you
will consider some specific suggestions in my written testimony
about ways to enhance the chances of the bill to achieve its
very laudable goals.
In short, the bill has many very positive features that I
want to begin by flagging. It certainly shows a crucial
understanding that forest restoration needs to be founded on
and evaluated in light of the best available science that
starts with the premise that decisions about how to use public
funds on public lands are best made in a collaborative fashion
and, where possible, done in a way that creates local jobs.
It recognizes that forest restoration is a broad and
multifaceted undertaking. It's guided by the need, a very
pressing need ultimately to reduce the out-of-control costs of
fire suppression in this country in the national forests. It
calls for critical monitoring and follow-up evaluation of the
projects, and very importantly, it preserves the set of
baseline environmental protection laws that guarantee
disclosure and accountability and public participation in
public lands decisionmaking and provides a safety net of our
natural resources.
I want to focus my testimony today mostly on reasons why
it's important to have some limits on restoration projects.
Probably most importantly, thinning forests can actually
increase subsequent fires rather than reducing them.
A very vivid illustration of this was the site that
President Bush chose in 2002 for his announcement of the
Healthy Forests Initiative. He stood among a stand of small
badly burned trees and called for thinning our forests. What
escaped attention at the time was that the fire that came up to
that site started in thinned forests down below, thinned stands
down below, where it blew up and came up the hill and toasted
all of the trees there.
The reasons for this are multiple. Thinning forests creates
fuels that fan wildfires. It opens up forests in a way that
lets sun in and dries the forest interior which can cause
hotter fires subsequently, and it increases wind speeds in
forests which also dries things out, and can mean that
wildfires move more rapidly.
Now, this is certainly not to say that thinning can't
succeed. However, it does mean that it's really still in its
experimental phase. Recently, Forest Service researchers stated
very aptly that information comparing fire behavior and fire
facts on various treated versus untreated forest stands
following wildfire remains largely anecdotal and in point of
fact, I only know of two studies of commercial and non-
commercial thinning on national forests as actually done by
logging crews in the field, studying how the thinned stands
performed compared to neighboring similarly situated unthinned
stands.
One of those studies took a look at a half a dozen fires
and found that the thinning had reduced subsequent fire
intensity; the other study showed that in every case in the
fires it looked at, the thinning was associated with increased
intensity afterwards.
So, it's an experiment and it needs to be treated as an
experiment. What we do know from the science suggests a couple
of sidebars that we hope the committee will keep in mind.
First, the best results we've got for this kind of thinning
is in Ponderosa pine, particularly in the Southwest. Second,
the best results are associated with removal of small trees
without new roads and accompanied by the use of prescribed fire
afterwards to clean up, and finally, the thinning that is going
to be most accessible in the long term, in our view, would be
accompanied by vigorous efforts to make communities more fire-
wise, to make homesites and communities able to withstand fire
and the reason for that is that even a very low-intensity fire
can burn houses, as happened in the Los Alamos fire in Northern
New Mexico in 2003, when the fire entered the town as a low-
intensity fire that left many ornamental shrubs and street
trees in place but burnt many of the houses to the ground.
Until those communities are fire safe, it's asking more
than I think is reasonable of fire bosses in the field to let
fires burn, to reintroduce fires to the system, when they have
to be concerned that a fire that gets out of control is going
to turn into a community disaster.
We hope very much that the committee keeps these factors in
mind as it moves S. 2593 through the legislative process, and
we look forward to your deliberations.
I'd be happy to take any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lawrence follows:]
Prepared Statement of Nathaniel Lawrence, Senior Attorney and Director
of Forest Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Olympia, WA
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: Thank you very much for
your invitation to appear today and offer the views of the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC) on S. 2593, the Forest Landscape
Restoration Act. NRDC and its 1.2 million members and activists have a
deep and abiding interest in the welfare of public lands in general and
the National Forest System in particular. The degradation of those
lands, which this bill aims to redress, is something we have longed
worked to reduce.
We applaud your initiative, Mr. Chairman, and that of your bill's
co-sponsors, in developing legislation to promote restoration projects
for our national forests. The bill you have introduced is replete with
positive features. The bill evinces an understanding that forest
restoration needs to be founded on, and evaluated in light of, the best
available scientific advice. It also starts from the premise that
decisions about how to use public funds on public lands should be
collaboratively developed and, where possible, create local jobs. It
recognizes that forest restoration is a broad, multi-faceted
undertaking. It looks, as it should, to ultimately reducing the out-of-
control costs of wildfire suppression. It appropriately calls for
follow-up monitoring and evaluation. And critically, it preserves the
set of baseline environmental protection laws that guarantee
disclosure, accountability, and public participation in public lands
decisionmaking and provide a safety net under resource values. A
central feature of the bill is its authorization of a limited number of
projects. I would like to focus my testimony today, first and foremost,
on the reason why having limits on this kind of restoration project is,
for now at least, essential.
Members of this Committee are acutely aware that many of our
national forestlands are significantly degraded. Despite substantial
study and some demonstrable successes, however, we have only a limited
understanding of how and where to try to remedy that degradation. As a
result, in most regards, forest restoration remains a grand experiment.
It is certainly one we need to undertake, but also one to approach with
care and the knowledge that it can be done in ways that make matters
worse, not better.
In particular, we have very fragmentary data about the fire ecology
effects of forest restoration. In 2003, a U.S. Forest Service research
publication reported that ``the question of fuel treatment
effectiveness has received surprisingly little scientific attention.
Thus, neither existing theory nor available empirical evidence provides
much clarity on the question of fuel treatments and the conditions that
influence their effectiveness when tested by wildfire.''\1\ This was
echoed two years later by fire ecologists who noted that ``replicated,
empirical research on fuel reduction techniques are rare.''\2\ And
again, in 2006, Forest Service researchers stated that ``information
comparing fire behavior and fire effects on treated versus untreated
forest stands following wildland fire remains largely anecdotal.''\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Martinson, E. J. and P. N. Omi. 2003. Performance of Fuel
Treatments Subjected to Wildfires, in Omi, P. N.; Joyce, L. A.,
technical editors. Fire, fuel treatments, and ecological restoration:
Conference proceedings; 2002 16-18 April; Fort Collins, CO. Proceedings
RMRS-P-29. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain
Research Station. pp. 7-8. See also Carey, H. and M. Schumann. 2003.
``Modifying Wildfire Behavior-The Effectiveness of Fuel Treatments.''
The Forest Trust. p. 16. Available at www.theforesttrust.org/images/
swcenter/pdf/WorkingPaper2.pdf. p. 15 (``The proposal that commercial
logging can reduce the incidence of canopy fire appears completely
untested in the scientific literature'').
\2\ Stephens, S. L. and J. J. Moghaddas. 2005. Silvicultural and
reserve impacts on potential fire behavior and forest conservation:
Twenty-five years of experience from Sierra Nevada mixed conifer
forests. Biological Conservation 125:369-379. p. 370.
\3\ Cram, D.S., T.T. Baker, and J.C. Boren. 2006. Wildland Fire
Effects in Silviculturally Treated vs. Untreated Stands of New Mexico
and Arizona. Research Paper RMRS-RP-55. Fort Collins, CO. U.S. Forest
Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 1.
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In the absence of good empirical data on which to rely, there is
still, of course, a strong intuitive basis for thinning forests to
restore manageable fire regimes. Removing flammable wood should, one
naturally thinks, result in smaller fires. Our experience with
fireplaces, wood stoves, and campfires supports this. And computer
modeling of fuel loads and flame spread corroborates the idea as well.
In practice however, the picture is much cloudier. In the first
place, taking wood out of forests can actually promote hotter, faster
burning fires. Aggressive thinning that removes larger trees and
reduces canopy closure is a particular problem. It opens up forests to
sunlight. That warms and dries the understory, making it more readily
burnable. It also promotes rapid ingrowth of flammable young trees and
other plants, including non-native species. And all substantial
thinning, even just in the understory, increases wind speeds in the
forest interior. That both dries out the vegetation and leads to faster
spread of wildfire and greater fireline intensity.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Martinson and Omi, supra note 1. p. 7. U.S. Forest Service.
2000a. Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Roadless Area
Conservation Rule (``FEIS''), volume 1. Online at: http:/
www.roadless.fs.fed.us/documents/feis. p. 3-110. Collins, B.M. et al.
2007. Spatial patterns of large natural fires in Sierra Nevada
wilderness areas. Landscape Ecology 22:545-557. p. 554. Whitehead, R.J.
et al. 2006. Effect of a Spaced Thinning in Mature Lodgepole Pine on
Within-stand Microclimate and Fine Fuel Moisture Content, in Andrews,
P. L. and B.W. Butler, comps., Fuels Management-How to Measure Success:
Conference Proceedings. 28-30 March 2006; Portland, OR. Proceedings
RMRS-P-41. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain
Research Station. Online at http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p041/
rmrs_p041_523_536.pdf. p. 529. Keeley, J.E., D. Lubin, and C.J.
Fotheringham. 2003. Fire and grazing impacts on plant diversity and
alien plant invasions in the southern Sierra Nevada. Ecological
applications 13:1355-1374. p. 1370. FEIS, supra this note, Fuel
Management and Fire Suppression Specialist's Report. Online at: http://
www.roadless.fs.fed.us/documents/feis/specrep/xfire_spec_rpt.pdf. p. 21
(``Fahnstock's (1968) study of precommercial thinning found that timber
stands thinned to a 12 feet by 12 feet spacing commonly produced fuels
that `rate high in rate of spread and resistance to control for at
least 5 years after cutting, so that it would burn with relatively high
intensity;''' ``When precommercial thinning was used in lodgepole pine
stands, Alexander and Yancik (1977) reported that a fire's rate of
spread increased 3.5 times and that the fire's intensity increased 3
times''); id. at 23 (``Countryman (1955) found that `opening up' a
forest through logging changed the `fire climate so that fires start
more easily, spread faster, and burn hotter'').
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In the second place, it is a mistake to conceive of western
national forests as all overgrown thickets in need of thinning to
restore prior forest structure and fire regimes. It is, of course,
relatively easy to find thick stands of trees where selective logging,
grazing, and fire suppression have altered western forests. And in
drier sites, particularly those naturally dominated by ponderosa pine,
and particularly in the Southwest and the Eastside of Oregon and
Washington, fire ecologists have concluded that these stands are now
prone to fire intensity and severity that is abnormal and damaging to
the ecosystem.\5\ Active restoration of these sites, if we can figure
out how to do it successfully and without excessive collateral damage
to the ecosystem, is desirable.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Christensen, N, et al. 2002. Letter to President George W.
Bush. p.1. Attached to this testimony as Exhibit 1.
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However, many other sites, particularly higher elevation and wetter
forests, are adapted to intense, stand-replacing fires, and dense
stands there represent healthy forests. For instance, ``high density in
lodgepole pine and spruce-fir forests is not related to fire
suppression; it is simply a natural ecological feature of these
subalpine forests.''\6\ As a result, ``variation in climate rather than
in fuels appears to exert the largest influence on the size, timing,
and severity of fires in subalpine forests. . . . We conclude that
large, infrequent stand-replacing fires are `business as usual' in this
forest type.''\7\ Other forest types, like pinon-juniper, often
considered to be normally sparse also occur in dense stands
naturally.\8\
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\6\ Romme, W. et al. 2006. Recent Forest Insect Outbreaks and Fire
Risk in Colorado Forests: A Brief Synthesis of Relevant Research.
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO. Online at http://
www.cfri.colostate.edu/docs/cfri_insect.pdf.
\7\ Schoennagel, T., T.T. Veblen, and W.H. Romme. 2004. The
interaction of fire, fuels and climate across Rocky Mountain forests.
BioScience 54: 661-676. p. 666.
\8\ Romme, W., et al. 2003. Ancient Pinon-Juniper Forests of Mesa
Verde and the West: A Cautionary Note for Forest Restoration Programs,
in Omi, P. N.; Joyce, L. A., technical editors. Fire, fuel treatments,
and ecological restoration: Conference proceedings; 2002 16-18 April;
Fort Collins, CO. Proceedings RMRS-P-29. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Forest
Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the mixed conifer systems found in much of the West, pre-
settlement forest structure is hard to reconstruct with confidence.
However, current fire patterns seem to be largely similar to those that
pre-dated European settlement and the active management associated with
most forest health problems. Researchers in southern Oregon and
northern California, for instance, determined that in that region
``most [recent] large wildland fires have been dominated by low
severity fire, with variable proportions of moderate and high severity.
This is consistent with historical estimates inferred from stand age
structure.''\9\ Notably, they found that ``closed-forest vegetation had
significantly less high-severity fire than the burned landscape as a
whole.''\10\ In the Sierra Nevada, scientists looking at recent fires
allowed to burn in two mixed conifer wilderness areas concluded that
there is little evidence that current fires burn differently from those
of 100 to 300 years ago.\11\ Others, looking at the Rocky Mountain
region, from Wyoming through Arizona and New Mexico, concluded that
fire regimes in mixed conifer forests had likely only been
significantly affected at lower elevations, on dry slopes, and adjacent
to grasslands.\12\ Generally speaking, they concluded, ``occurrence of
high-severity crown fires is not outside the historical range of
variability'' in mixed-severity fire regimes of the region.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Odion, D.C., et al. 2004. Patterns of Fire Severity and Forest
Conditions in the Western Klamath Mountains, California. Conservation
Biology 18:927-936. p. 933.
\10\ Ibid. p. 932.
\11\ 11 Collins, B.M. and S. L. Stephens. 2007. Managing natural
wildfires in Sierra Nevada wilderness areas. Frontiers in Ecology and
the Environment 5:523-527. p. 526.
\12\ Schoennagel, T., T.T. Veblen, and W.H. Romme, supra note 7. p.
671.
\13\ Ibid. p. 673.
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Even in ponderosa pine, often taken as the paradigm case of a
forest type in need of restoration, creating open stands with low
intensity fires would match our knowledge of prior conditions in only
some places. ``Such historically sparse forests, subject to high-
frequency [low-intensity] fires, comprise much of the ponderosa pine
forest in Arizona and New Mexico but only a small fraction of the
ponderosa pine forest in the central and northern Rockies.''\14\ More
specifically, ``less than 20% of the ponderosa pine zone in the
northern Colorado Front Range appears to have been characterized by
frequent, low-severity fires. Instead, most of the ponderosa pine zone
was characterized by a variable-severity fire regime that included a
significant component of high-severity fires.''\15\ A U.S. Forest
Service publication reviewing ponderosa forests throughout the West
found that ``In most parts of the western United States there is also
insufficient evidence to support the idea that mixed-or high-severity
fires were or were not absent or rare in the pre-EuroAmerican fire
regime. Thus, programs to lower the risk of mixed-or high-severity
fires in ponderosa pine forests . . . have insufficient scientific
basis if the goal is restoration.''\16\ Similarly, Forest Service
researchers looking at dry forests in eastern Oregon and Washington
found that historically there had been ``mixed severity fire in all
subregions and across the study area . . . Instead of strong dominance
of low severity fires, we saw dominance of mixed fires of highly
variable severity, representing a virtual continuum of mixed surface
fire and stand replacement effects.''\17\
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\14\ Ibid. p. 669.
\15\ Romme, W., et al. supra note 8. p. 6.
\16\ Baker, W.L. and D.S. Ehle. 2003. Uncertainty in Fire History
and Restoration of Ponderosa Pine Forests in the Western United States,
in Omi, P. N.; Joyce, L. A., technical editors. Fire, fuel treatments,
and ecological restoration: Conference proceedings; 2002 16-18 April;
Fort Collins, CO. Proceedings RMRS-P-29. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Forest
Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 330.
\17\ Hessburg, P.F., R.B. Salter, and K.M. James. 2005. Evidence
for mixed severity fires in pre-management era dry forests of the
inland Northwest, USA. Association for Fire Ecology Miscellaneous
Publication No., 3, 89-104. p. 101.
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Beyond the potential of thinning to backfire, and the widespread
occurrence of forests where fire does not appear to be significantly
altered, a third set of factors will likely influence restoration
success. Most of the impetus for landscape restoration currently
focuses on forest structures and fire regimes. Members of this
Committee are well aware that human management and utilization has left
a broad legacy of other restoration needs as well. Accordingly, the
Forest Landscape Restoration Act wisely looks beyond the narrow issue
of forest structure and fire susceptibility, requiring that restoration
proposals address other landscape features that may call for
rehabilitation. S. 2593, sec. 4(b)(3). However, even if the only goal
were to restore manageable fire, these additional restoration needs
would have to be addressed too. This is because several other forms of
landscape damage have important implications for how forests grow and
burn.
Roads, for instance, are associated with increased fire starts.\18\
The Forest Service has found that ``in areas already roaded, fire
occurrence data for all causes, human and lightning, indicates that the
number of large fires are dramatically higher than in inventoried
roadless areas.''\19\ Grazing, too, can profoundly affect fire, because
cows and sheep crop forest grasses that otherwise would shade out tree
seedlings and carry low intensity, brush-clearing fires.\20\ Non-native
plant species also alter fire regimes, interacting with them in ways
that are both mutually reinforcing and complex.\21\
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\18\ Christensen, N., et al. supra note 5. p. 2.
\19\ U.S. Forest Service (2000a), supra note 4. p. 3-115.
\20\ Belsky, A.J. and D. Blumenthal. 1997. Effects of Livestock
Grazing on stand Dynamics and Soils in Upland Forests of the Interior
West. Conservation Biology 11:315-327. Hicke, J.A. et al. 2007. Spatial
patterns of forest characteristics in the western United States derived
from inventories. Ecological Applications 17:2387-2402. p. 2388. U.S.
Forest Service. 2000b. Protecting People and Sustaining Resources in
Fire-Adapted Ecosystems: A Cohesive Strategy. Online at: http://
www.fs.fed.us/publications/2000/cohesive_strategy10132000.pdf. p. 15.
\21\ Zouhar, K. 2003. Bromus tectorum. In: Fire Effects Information
System. U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire
Sciences Laboratory. Online at: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/
plants/graminoid/brotec/all.html. Keeley, J.E., D. Lubin, and C.J.
Fotheringham, supra note 4. p. 1370.
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Given these confounding factors, and the current use of thinning
for fire risk reduction in many forest types, it is not surprising that
the results are mixed at best. As noted above, systematically gathered
and analyzed data are still scarce (though anecdotal success and
failure stories are abundant). However, we are beginning to get
relevant information from some careful and meaningful studies.
In a few cases, review of thinned and similarly situated unthinned
stands shows success at lowering fire damage. Martinson and Omi
analyzed 6 small diameter, non-commercial and pre-commercial thins from
Montana to California, and two prescribed burns. They found that all
reduced fire severity relative to neighboring untreated stands.\22\
Treatments that removed the smallest trees appeared most effective
among the thinning plots; however, lower residual stand density did not
correlate with lower fire severity.\23\ At the Blacks Mountain
Experimental Forest both pre-commercial and commercial thinning reduced
fire effects, with the largest difference found where prescribed fire
was also used; lower stand density was related to lower damage.\24\ No
stands with only prescribed fire were analyzed for comparison, however.
More recently, Forest Service researchers analyzed treatment
performance in three large southwestern fires. They found that
treatment reduced crown damage, particularly when accompanied by
prescribed burning, though thinning did not always result in lower tree
mortality.\25\
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\22\ Martinson and Omi, supra note 1. pp. 9-10.
\23\ Ibid, pp. 10-11. See also Christensen, N., et al. supra note
X. p. 2 (``removal of small diameter material is most likely to have a
net remedial effect'').
\24\ Skinner, C.N., M.W Ritchie, and T. Hamilton. In press. Effect
of Prescribed Fire and Thinning on Wildfire Severity: the Cone Fire,
Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest. Proceedings 25th Vegetation
Management Conference, Jan. 2004, Redding, CA. Online at http://
www.fs.fed.us/fire/fireuse/success/R5/ConeFire-Skinneretal.pdf. pp. 9-
10.
\25\ Cram, D.S., T.T. Baker, and Jon C. Boren, supra note 3. pp. 7,
p, 13.
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The most striking contrary results come from a study of paired
sites on national forests in the Sierra Nevada. The researchers took a
comprehensive approach, reviewing all areas known to have been
mechanically thinning and later burned, outside of experimental
forests, between 2000 and 2005. They found that in every instance the
thinned stands burned more lethally, irrespective of the time since
thinning.\26\
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\26\ Hanson, C.T. and D.C. Odion. 2006. Fire Severity in
mechanically thinned versus unthinned forests of the Sierra Nevada,
California. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Fire Ecology and
Management Congress, November 13-17, 2006, San Diego, CA. Online at:
http://www.emmps.wsu.edu/2006firecongressproceedings/
Extended%20Abstracts%20PDf%20Files/Poster/hanson.pdf.
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Between these two extremes is the detailed analysis conducted of
the Hayman Fire in Colorado. There, the results were very mixed. The
authors found that ``each of the different types of fuel modification
encountered by the Hayman Fire had instances of success as well as
failure in terms of altering fire spread or severity,'' with prescribed
fire showing the greatest success.\27\
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\27\ Martinson, E., P.N. Omi, and W. Shepperd. 2003. Effects of
Fuel Treatments on Fire Severity, in Hayman Fire Case Study, Graham,
R.T., Tech. Ed. RMRS-GTR-114. Ogden, UT. U.S. Forest Service, Rocky
Mountain Research Station. p. 96.
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The uncertainty that these studies embody is heightened by their
temporal limitations. Restoration thinning will not be, on balance,
successful and worth the investment, if it does not lower the risk of
abnormal fire effects over a number of years. Manipulation of forest
structure could decrease fire intensity at some point, but raise it at
others. The period directly after thinning, for instance, is often a
period of heightened risk from activity fuels that loggers leave
behind. Similarly, opening forests by heavily thinning them may lower
risks at some period, but increase them during drought or after a
growth spurt among small trees and understory vegetation, stimulated by
increased sunlight. Thus the limited snapshot provided by a small
number of studies does not assure us that reduced fire impacts under
one set of circumstances will translate into landscape level success if
broadly applied.
One important exception should be noted to the very substantial
uncertainty that exists about where and how to thin for fire risk
reduction. We know quite a lot about how to make homes and other
buildings survive fires. Thinning forests away from structures is not
the answer. The Cerro Grande fire in Northern New Mexico vividly
illustrates this. Shortly after the fire, Forest Service researcher
Jack Cohen investigated the loss of 200 homes from the fire in Los
Alamos. Cohen found that the fire entered the town as a low intensity
ground fire. House after house burned to the ground while nearby trees
survived. The cause was neither big flames nor wooden roofs, but
flammable material on, adjacent to, and near the buildings.\28\
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\28\ Cohen, J. 2000. Examination of the Home Destruction in Los
Alamos Associated with the Cerro Grande Fire, July 10, 2000. Online at:
http://www.nps.gov/fire/public/pub_publications.cfm.
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Cohen and others have shown that, while homesites that are not
fire-ready are destroyed by even low intensity burns, well-prepared
ones survive even very hot wildfires. NRDC has summarized the needed
measures in a report submitted with this testimony and based on a study
led by former California State Fire Marshall Ron Coleman.\29\ In sum,
trees have to be kept thinned within a few hundred feet of homes,
vegetation and other flammable material must be pulled back from around
buildings, and the roofs, siding, doors, vents, eaves, and windows of
structures need to be designed or retrofitted to withstand heat and
sparks. When these measures are taken, home survival is very high in
any wildfire. Notably, thinning is needed across forest types in the
homesite context. The issue is not restoration of natural fire
frequencies and other ecological processes. Rather, it is reducing
flame heights near structures, regardless of how fires would normally
burn in the area absent human influences.
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\29\ Mall, A. and F. Matzner. 2007. Safe at Home: Making the
Federal Fire Safety Budget Work for Communities. NRDC. New York, NY.
Online at: www.nrdc.org/safeathome.
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Securing lives and communities from wildfire is, of course, a very
high priority in its own right. It also plays a very significant role
in forest restoration. There is no debate that forest health problems
are caused or exacerbated by fire suppression. The Forest Service has
known since at least 1930 that putting out fires aggressively leads to
bigger fires later.\30\ So forest ecologists early on opposed the
agency's ``10 a.m.'' policy of putting out all fires by early the day
after discovery, whenever possible.\31\ But sure knowledge of long-term
harm is, predictably, often outweighed by the near term threat of
disaster. As long as fire crew bosses have to worry about a fire
getting out of control and overwhelming some community, even a
relatively remote one, we should not expect to break the cycle of
suppression, threat, and suppression again that currently thwarts
forest restoration, and breaks the agency's budget. In short, community
fire preparedness is as critical an ecological issue as it is a human
safety one.\32\ And because fire suppression decisions forced by
community exposure entail enormous budget outlays, it is also a key
economic factor.
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\30\ Benedict, M.A. [Supervisor of the Sierra National Forest].
1930. Twenty-one years of Fire Protection in the National Forests of
California. Journal of Forestry 28:707-710. Weaver, H. 1943. Fire as an
ecological and silvicultural factor in the ponderosa pine region of the
Pacific slope. Journal of Forestry 41:7-15.
\31\ Cram, D.S., T.T. Baker, and Jon C. Boren, supra note 3. p. 1.
\32\ Odion et al., supra note X. p. 935 (``Treating the home-
ignition zone as described by Cohen (2000) can almost eliminate the
possibility of homes burning in wildfire. This would increase fire-
management options and perhaps ultimately further conservation
goals'').
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Several policy implications emerge from these studies.
1) Forest restoration needs to be approached as an
experiment, with caution;
2) Thinning currently appears most appropriate in
southwestern ponderosa pine forests;
3) Small tree removal is safest and most likely to restore
fire regimes;
4) Failure to burn when thinning lessens success;
5) Restoration requires addressing factors other than tree
density; and
6) Securing homesites and communities is a prerequisite to
restoration.
As the Forest Landscape Restoration Act moves through the
legislative process, NRDC hopes that you, Mr. Chairman, and your Senate
colleagues will consider refining the bill, to fully incorporate these
conclusions. Recognizing the very substantial care, thought, and
revision that have already gone into S. 2593, we would like to take
this opportunity to suggest several specific areas to look at.
First, is the issue of project size. The bill specifies a minimum
of 50,000 acres for each proposal. Sec. 4(b)(1)(B)(i). No maximum is
given. We need reasonable limits on how much of the forest landscape to
experiment with. This is partly to limit the risk from applying a
discipline in its infancy. And partly it is to ensure that as
experience is gathered, plans are rethought and lessons learned are
applied. Limiting project size will also be important in keeping by-
product utilization scaled to support restoration decisions rather than
to drive them, as a large processing facility would likely come to do
over time. From these perspectives, 50,000 acres looks more appropriate
as an upper limit than a lower one.
Second, without a commitment to monitoring, we should not expect to
learn from experience as much or as fast as we need to. The bill
appropriately calls for monitoring for at least 15 years after
implementation starts. Sec. 4(g)(4). The Achilles heel of all Forest
Service monitoring, however, is funding. Every national forest has
monitoring plans. Few if any are fully implemented. Proposals under
this bill, or funding decisions by the Secretary under sec. 4(f),
should commit to paying for the full suite of monitoring and analysis
activities needed to understand how experimental restoration plays out
over time and how to do it better next time. Congress needs to take
away the option to let monitoring slip.
Third, the bill should ensure priority for projects most likely to
meet with success. Based on what we now know, such projects will be in
lower ponderosa pine sites, particularly in the Southwest, limit
thinning--with few exceptions--to small diameter trees, include burning
as a restoration treatment, reduce road density and grazing, and
include or be coordinated with a Firewise or similar preparedness
program in local communities. The bill has, now, features which should
tend to promote such projects. These include the requirement that
strategies incorporate the best available science and that up to 12
experts advise the Secretary on ``the strength of the ecological case
of the proposal.'' Secs. 4(b)(1)(C) and 4(e)(1). The bill also mandates
that collaborative processes ``describe plans to'' among other things
use fire ``where appropriate,'' control invasive exotic species, and
maintain or decommission roads. Sec. 4(b)(3). These provisions identify
important aspects of restoration. They do not, however, assure that any
of the priorities listed above will guide selection of proposals for
funding or reliably be implemented. Congress, if it is to expect
results and use scarce funds well, should not hesitate to require these
project elements, subject to periodic re-examination by the Secretary
in light of monitoring results and scientific advice.
Fourth, the experimental nature of this work dictates that
essentially no one has a meaningfully proven track record. The proof
that a given approach works under a specific set of conditions will
only emerge over time. It is, at this point in time, not really
possible, in the relevant sense, for a project-proposing collaborative
process to have ``an established record of successful planning and
implementation of ecological restoration projects on National Forest
System land,'' as sec. 4(b)(2)(C) now requires. We therefore suggest
dropping this requirement to avoid creating a needless dispute point
during the bill's implementation.
In closing, I would like to thank you Mr. Chairman, again, for the
opportunity to offer this testimony. S. 2593 is a welcome move towards
the start of a long and careful process of national forest landscape
rehabilitation. It contains numerous provisions which will help
strengthen such work as it is undertaken. In NRDC's view, I would
stress, where new funding is found to address forest restoration, our
top priority should be on local community Firewise programs, without
which forest restoration cannot succeed. We cannot break the expensive,
self-reinforcing, and damaging cycle of fire suppression until
communities can survive fire.
I would be happy to answer any questions which you or Members of
the Committee may have.
______
Exhibit 1
September 9, 2002.
President George W. Bush,
The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.
Dear President Bush: As fire researchers and ecologists, we are
writing to you concerning the scientific basis for efforts to reduce
risks from the kinds of forest fires that have attracted so much media
and political attention in the western United States this year. As we
elaborate below, responding effectively to this fire situation requires
thoughtfulness and care. The fires are traceable to differing factors
in different regions and forest types. Some have burned in forests
where fire exclusion and land use have created unnatural accumulations
of fuels while others have burned in a relatively natural manner. The
most debated response to alleviating destructive fires in the future--
mechanically thinning trees--has had limited study, and that has been
conducted primarily in dry forest types. Thinning of overstory trees,
like building new roads, can often exacerbate the situation and damage
forest health. Whatever restoration measures are undertaken, preventing
the re-emergence of fire problems will require a commitment to manage
with fire rather than simply trying to exclude it in the future.
No single cause can explain the variety and number of fires
occurring this year in western forests. In some drier forest types,
such as the semi-arid ponderosa pine ecosystems, fire exclusion aided
by grazing and logging has produced accumulations of highly flammable
fuel well outside historical norms. However, in many western forests,
including parts of the Siskiyou (mountains of the Biscuit fire), Sierra
Nevada, Cascades, and Central Rockies, much of the undergrowth is
primarily the product of succession from past logging and other
disturbance, rather than fire exclusion alone. In other settings, like
southwestern chaparral and the lodgepole pine forests of the Rockies,
succession naturally produces highly flammable communities, and
periodic crown killing fires are inevitable and ecologically desirable.
Drought conditions such as those seen across much of the West this year
can produce extensive fires even in areas where fuel loads are
``normal.'' In all of these areas, increased human activity and
habitation on fireprone landscapes have greatly increased the chances
of ignitions and the threats to people and their property when
wildfires do occur.
We have no simple, proven prescription for meeting this challenge
throughout the West. In semi-arid ponderosa pine forests effective
restoration may result from cutting small-diameter trees in overly
dense stands. However the benefits can only be realized and maintained
in the long term through an aggressive post-restoration prescribed fire
program that removes surface fuels. The value of thinning to address
fire risks in other forest ecosystems is still poorly understood.
Although a few empirically based studies have shown a systematic
reduction in fire intensity subsequent to some actual thinning, others
have documented increases in fire intensity and severity. Models and
theories have been advanced to explain these results, but reliable data
remain scarce.
In some areas the use of prescribed fire without any ``thinning''
would be the best restoration method. Indeed, many forests in the West
do not require any treatment. These are forests that for thousands of
years have burned at long intervals and only under drought conditions,
and have been altered only minimally by 20th century fire suppression.
These forests are still ``healthy'' and thinning would only disturb
them, not ``restore'' them. In short, the variation among our forested
landscapes is much too great for one treatment to be appropriate
everywhere.
Where thinning is used for restoration purposes in dry forest
types, removal of small diameter material is most likely to have a net
remedial effect. Brush and small trees, along with fine dead fuels
lying atop the forest floor, constitute the most rapidly ignited
component of dry forests (young forest stands regenerating after timber
harvest often burn with the greatest intensity in western wildfires).
They most surely post-date management-induced alteration of dry forest
fire regimes. And their removal is not so likely to increase future
fire intensity, for example from increased insolation and/or the drying
effects of wind.
In contrast, removal of more mature trees can increase fire
intensity and severity, either immediately post-logging or after some
years. These trees provide ``insurance'' because they often survive
surface fires and can speed post-fire recovery. Even if they are
diseased, dying or dead, large and old trees and snags are important to
many wildlife species and ecosystem functions. Building or re-opening
roads to facilitate thinning will also heighten fire risks, since roads
correlate with increased numbers of human-started fires. Removing more
than small trees and constructing roads will also make collateral
damage to forest ecosystems more likely (e.g., through effects on water
quality, fish populations, and the spread of invasive species).
Therefore, where done, this kind of thinning needs particularly careful
planning and implementation. The results require faithful monitoring
and analysis before any effort to extrapolate the practice to other
segments of the forest landscape.
Forests are dynamic biological systems and their management
requires integration of approaches over time and space. Thus, whatever
remediation or restoration is undertaken in dry forests, close
attention must be paid to the future management of the treated forests.
Because of the inevitability of fire in these systems, the goal of
restoration has to be landscapes in which we can better control the
fires we do not want and promote the ones we do. However, without a
thoughtful post-treatment prescribed fire management program, the
forest will likely return to its current highly flammable state within
a decade or two, losing--among other things--the public investment made
in treating it.
The location of management treatments is similarly important.
Strategic placement of management activities such as thinning and
burning within landscapes is critical to accomplishing the most benefit
with minimal ecological impact. As an important example, protecting
buildings, powerlines, and water supplies will be most effectively
accomplished by reducing fuels near them.
In summary, fire threats in western forests arise from many causes,
and solutions will require a suite of treatments adjusted on a site-by-
site basis. Enough experience exists to suggest areas such as the semi-
arid ponderosa pine forests where we can, now, undertake corrective
action. However, neither the magnitude of the problem nor our
understanding of treatment impacts would justify proceeding in panic or
without thorough environmental reviews. Moreover, whatever treatments
we undertake must include provisions for long-term maintenance,
integration of fire, and robust monitoring.
Very truly yours,
Norman L. Christensen, Jr., Dean Emeritus and
Professor of Ecology, Nicholas School of
the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke
University; Thomas W. Swetnam, Professor of
Dendrochronology & Watershed Management and
Director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring
Research, University of Arizona, Tucson;
Don C. Erman, Professor Emeritus,
University of California-Davis; David
Perry, Professor Emeritus, Ecosystem
Studies and Ecosystem Management, Oregon
State University; Affiliate Professor,
University of Hawai'i, Hilo; Penelope
Morgan, Professor of Forest Resources,
University of Idaho; Scott Stephens,
Assistant Professor of Fire Science,
Department of Environmental Science,
Policy, and Management, University of
California, Berkeley; Philip N. Omi,
Professor of Forest Fire Science, Colorado
State University; Lisa Graumlich, Professor
of Land Resources & Environmental Sciences,
Montana State University; William H. Romme,
Professor of Forest Sciences, Colorado
State University; Paul H. Zedler, Professor
of Environmental Studies, University of
Wisconsin, Madison; J. Boone Kauffman,
Professor of Fire Ecology, Department of
Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State
University; Dr. William L. Baker, Professor
of Fire Ecology and Landscape Ecology,
University of Wyoming.
Senator Lincoln. Great. Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. Mr. Gross,
is that right?
Mr. Gross. Gross.
Senator Lincoln. Gross.
STATEMENT OF HOWARD GROSS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FOREST GUILD,
SANTA FE, NM
Mr. Gross. Thank you. Senator Lincoln and also thanks to
the other members of the committee for the opportunity to
testify here today about Forest Landscape Restoration Act.
My name is Howard Gross, and I'm the Executive Director of
the Forest Guild.
The Guild is a national organization of more than 600
foresters and allied professionals who manage our country's
forestlands and advocate for forestry as ecologically,
economically and socially responsible.
Other organizations endorsing the Guild's testimony today
are all partners in the Rural Voices for Conservation
Coalition, Sustainable Northwest, American Forests, Watershed
Research and Training Center, Wallowa Resources, and Northwest
Connections.
The Forest Guild supports the Forest Landscape Restoration
Act. The need for the bill and the landscape scale approach it
takes is well founded. The committee's heard excellent
testimony from other witnesses today and over the years about
the degraded conditions of our public lands and the lack of
adequate on-the-ground progress in addressing these issues.
So, I won't to elaborate further on that, other than to
reiterate the projects and the learning that would be funded by
this bill are greatly needed.
Regarding the programs the bill would create for infused
project eligibility criteria to endeavor to move beyond a focus
on fuels reduction and various multiple forest values, build
local business capacity and benefit rural communities.
Such criteria require that projects under this bill use a
collaborative approach, address ecosystem issues, such as
wildlife habitat, water quality, invasive and exotic species
and roads, utilize woody biomass and small diameter trees to
offset treatment costs, and develop small business incubators
and provide employment training opportunities.
The dedicated funding and 10-year program timeline defined
by the bill are critical to providing the consistent supply of
restoration byproducts for businesses to justify their
investment.
There are a number of opportunities that the Forest Guild
and its partners see for strengthening this legislation. The
first, the focus on collaboration in the bill is welcome and
very needed, but the collaborative language in the bill is a
little overly restrictive.
We recommend it be modified to allow submission of projects
from new collaborative efforts. These individuals have
significant collaborative restoration success but maybe haven't
worked together in the exact partnership that's making
application under the program.
Second, the bill does not define how a regional forester
would select proposals to nominate for this program, and we
recommend that the bill be modified to require an open and
competitive process at the regional level for selection of
proposals.
Third, we feel that the bill's eligibility criteria and the
selection criteria need to be more tightly linked. The
eligibility criteria identify several ecological and rural
economic and social objectives the project should plan to
achieve and this is really positive, but the selection criteria
should more specifically call for their consideration in the
selection of projects.
Fourth, the bill currently identifies the scientific
advisory panel that is required and a technical advisory panel
that is optional, and we recommend combining these two panels
into one required national advisory panel whose members have
the diverse scientific backgrounds that represent all the
bill's eligibility and selection criteria.
Then last but not least, we very much support the bill's
focus on multiparty monitoring and on performance measures and
outcomes, rather than simply on traditional outputs, such as
acreage treated, but these objectives would be better
supported, as would the overall purposes of the bill, if there
were greater clarity in the bill that funds can be used for
effectiveness and implementation monitoring.
I think all of the testimony today from my fellow panelists
has been really good. I haven't heard anything really
contradictory to what this bill is trying to achieve, and I
feel the committee has a strong consensus from the diverse
stakeholders that this bill, with a couple of minor
modifications, is very much needed and has a lot of support.
So with that, again thanks for the opportunity to testify.
I hope this bill does become law and I would be happy to answer
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gross follows:]
Prepared Statement of Howard Gross, Executive Director, Forest Guild,
Santa Fe, NM
Good morning Chairman Bingaman, ranking member Domenici, and other
members of the Committee. I thank you for the opportunity to testify
today about S. 2593, the Forest Landscape Restoration Act. My name is
Howard Gross and I am the Executive Director of the Forest Guild.
The Forest Guild is a national organization of more than 600
foresters, allied professionals, and supporters who manage our
country's forestlands and advocate for ecologically sound forest
practices. Our mission is to practice and promote ecologically,
economically, and socially responsible forestry--``excellent
forestry''--as a means of sustaining the integrity of forest ecosystems
and the human communities dependent upon them. The Forest Guild's roots
in New Mexico go back 24 years in building, developing, and managing
forestry-related programs with rural, forest-based communities and
partners. In addition to our headquarters in Santa Fe, we maintain
staff in Massachusetts, California, and Tennessee, and have volunteer
coordinators in five other states.
The Forest Guild is also a member of the Rural Voices for
Conservation Coalition (RVCC). RVCC is a coalition of western rural and
local, regional, and national organizations that have joined together
to promote balanced conservation-based approaches to the ecological and
economic problems facing the West. Other RVCC partner organizations
that endorse this testimony are Sustainable Northwest, American
Forests, Watershed Research and Training Center, Wallowa Resources, and
Northwest Connections.
On behalf of the Forest Guild and these organizations, I want to
thank Senators Bingaman and Domenici, as well as other co-sponsors of
S. 2593, for their leadership on forest restoration issues, for their
hard work and thoughtfulness in developing this legislation, and for
recognizing the connections between forest restoration, a sustainable
small-scale timber-based economy, and the well-being of rural
communities. Addressing complex ecological forest issues, improving
agency effectiveness and efficiency, and promoting rural well-being are
not easy tasks. We appreciate the opportunity to provide our input into
this process and look forward to working with you to further develop
this legislation to ensure it achieves its worthwhile goals.
The Forest Guild supports the Forest Landscape Restoration Act's
intent of encouraging ecosystem restoration at the landscape level with
a focus on reestablishing natural fire regimes, reducing the risk of
uncharacteristic wildfire, leveraging local and private resources with
national resources, and demonstrating how wildfire management costs can
be reduced through the use of restoration by-products while achieving
ecological objectives.
We are particularly enthused to see eligibility criteria that
address a range of process concerns and values that are important in
moving beyond a limited focus on fuels reduction and toward a more
comprehensive approach to forest restoration. For example, several key
eligibility criteria require:
a collaborative approach to developing and implementing
restoration projects (Section 4(b)(2)),
plans to use woody biomass and small-diameter trees from
restoration projects (Section 4(b)(3)(F)),
plans to develop small business incubators and provide
employment and training opportunities as means of providing
economic and capacity building benefits for rural
communities(Section 4(b)(3)(H)), and
plans that specifically address other forest values such as
wildlife habitat, water quality, and invasive and exotic
species (Section 4(b)(3)(B, C, D)).
the need for greater federal investment in forest restoration
The conditions on our western forests dictate the need for a
restoration program that takes a landscape-scale approach. The
confluence of a number of factors--particularly a century of land use
and management practices, including fire suppression, and a warmer
climate and drought over recent decades--have helped make our forests
prone to fires that are more extreme and far-ranging than historically
experienced and that are causing profound changes to our forested
ecosystems. These fire-prone conditions exist across millions of acres,
presenting the need for strategies that address both high-priority
areas such as Wildlands-Urban Interface (WUI) areas as well as larger
landscapes.
While fire plays a necessary and important role in most forested
ecosystems, many of our forest ecosystems need to be restored to more
fire-adapted conditions before fire can play that role. The fact is
that more forestland has burned in the last decade than in any ten-year
period since record keeping began in 1960. These wildfires are
consuming the U.S. Forest Service budget at an ever-increasing rate,
while the agency's overall budget has remained relatively flat. As a
result, the agency has had to allocate funding from other resource
management programs to wildland fire management in order to keep pace.
Over the last 18 years, funding for wildland fire management has
increased from 13 percent to 45 percent of the agency's budget.
Furthermore, an increasing portion of the funding for wildland fire
management is being allocated to wildfire suppression relative to fuels
reduction and forest restoration activities. A major strength of the
Forest Landscape Restoration Act is that it provides new strategies to
focus federal financial resources on restoration in high-priority
landscapes, to provide greater assurances that funding will be
available over a ten-year period (allowing for a consistent program of
restoration work on the land), and to provide greater incentives for
private sector investment to build local business capacity based on the
use of restoration byproducts, thus providing job opportunities and
other economic benefits to rural communities.
In recent years, Congress has taken several actions to address
growing wildfire and forest restoration concerns through federal
collaborative efforts with states and local communities. Each of these
legislative actions, such as the National Fire Plan, the Secure Rural
Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, the Healthy Forest
Restoration Act, and the Community Forest Restoration Act for New
Mexico, has provided model approaches and demonstration projects
through which lessons have been learned. Another one of the strengths
of the Forest Landscape Restoration Act is that it has been informed by
these models and lessons. It is addressing a major need identified
through other projects to direct resources toward collaborative
landscape-scale restoration projects and it is adopting a number of
provisions that have been useful in other programs. Thus, this
legislation is building from earlier programs and taking the next step
in developing a model to address longer-term, landscape-scale
restoration, primarily on federal lands. This is an important step
towards our vision of developing a comprehensive forest restoration
program that invests in ecosystem health across public and private
forest lands, addresses a broad range of environmental values, and
creates economic opportunities and benefits for rural communities.
We would also like to call attention to the challenge of providing
long-term funding for Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Program projects. While we are very supportive of S. 2593 authorizing
significant funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Fund, that level of funding is still subject to the annual
appropriations process. If this bill becomes law, the resulting project
proposals would be much stronger if there were greater certainty of a
long-term funding commitment from Congress and the agencies so that
businesses and communities would have greater incentive and less risk
in investing in this program.
opportunities to strengthen s. 2593
As stated earlier, we commend the Senators sponsoring this
legislation for recognizing the need for landscape-level restoration
linked with economic and social sustainability. We also appreciate the
opportunity to provide the constructive input that follows regarding
how this legislation can be strengthened.
1. Collaborative requirements need improvement.--We agree
with the need to clearly define the type of programs that will
be eligible under S. 2593, and we specifically support the
focus on projects that have been developed collaboratively.
However, Section 4(b)(2)(C) as currently written, requiring
that collaborators proposing a project must have ``an
established record of successful planning and implementation of
ecological restoration projects on National Forest System
lands,'' may be overly restrictive. Does this mean that a
collaborative must already be in existence and the ``record of
success'' must be that of the collaborative? What about
entities that come together to make application under this
legislation that individually have had significant
collaborative restoration success but have never worked
together in the exact collaborative that has come together to
propose a project?
While we understand the importance of collaborative
partners having experience and a track record, we also believe
it is important for this program to encourage new collaborative
efforts. We recommend that the project proponents' collective
collaborative experience be included as a weighted criterion in
the selection process, but we do not believe that it should be
an eligibility criterion.
2. Ensure the program is an open and competitive process.--We
support S. 2593's focus on landscape-scale and a 10-year
horizon for planning, implementation, and monitoring. However,
we believe the bill would be strengthened considerably if the
following components were added. (a) The process that leads to
a Regional Forester nominating proposals for selection by the
Secretary (Sec. 4(c)(2)) should be an open and competitive
process whereby new and existing collaboratives are given the
opportunity to propose projects. (b) Every two years there
should be request for new proposals that can be submitted to
the Regional office through an open and competitive process.
(c) The Regional offices should be encouraged to use a multi-
stakeholder proposal review committee (similar to that used by
the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program in New Mexico) to
ensure broad regional agreement on priority landscapes and
increase chances to leverage private, state, and other
resources.
Incorporating the above will (a) ensure that projects are
achieving their goals and/or adjusting to new circumstances,
allowing true adaptive management to occur; (b) ensure adequate
monitoring of the progress of collaborative efforts, and (c)
provide added incentives for collaborative groups to approach
restoration from a landscape-scale and to achieve ecological,
economic, and social sustainability.
3. Proposal eligibility criteria and evaluation criteria need
to be linked.--Connected to our recommendation 2 above to make
the selection of projects under this program an open and
competitive process, and to accomplish the landscape-scale
objectives of S. 2593, we believe that the criteria spelled out
as part of the selection process must mirror the eligibility
criteria. Currently, the selection criteria (Sec. 4(d)(2))
don't clearly match up with the eligibility criteria (Sec.
4(b)), especially criteria (B), (C), (D), (E), (H), and (I)
spelled out under Sec. 4(b)(3) that identify multiple
ecological and rural economic and social objectives that
projects should plan to achieve. These are important criteria
for comprehensive restoration projects, and if they are listed
as eligibility criteria than they should be included in the
selection criteria.
In addition, as S. 2593 now reads, Sec. 4(d)(2)(A) and Sec.
4(d)(2)(E) of the selection criteria are very similarly; the
latter section could be modified to ensure that the selection
criteria consider the eligibility criteria of Sec 4(b)(3)
above.
4. Improve and streamline the Advisory Panel structures. The
current bifurcation of the Scientific and Technical Advisory
Panels (Sec. 4(e)), and requiring the Scientific Advisory panel
(``The Secretary shall establish . . .'') but not the Technical
Advisory Panel (``The Secretary may establish . . . .'')
doesn't seem to support the integrative nature of S. 2593
(encouraging ``ecological, economic, and social
sustainability'' (Sec. 2(1))). Thus, we have three relevant
recommendations: (a) combine the two panels into one National
Advisory Panel; (b) ensure the composition of the National
Advisory Panel has diverse scientific backgrounds, include
those with expertise in collaboration and community capacity
building; and (c) enlist the National Advisory Panel to review
progress being made and reported by projects funded through
this program.
5. Clarification of use of funding for monitoring.--We
support the focus on development of performance measures and
outcomes, rather than simply traditional outputs, as well as
the strong requirements for multi-party monitoring. We would
like there to be greater clarity that funds can be used for
effectiveness and implementation monitoring. It is not
sufficient for the agencies to simply monitor process or to
just collect traditional information based on old forest
management priorities. We need make it possible to collect
meaningful information that will let the American public know
that environmental conditions are improving and that local
businesses are thriving by working to restore public lands.
6. Consider delivery mechanisms for technical assistance to
projects.--This bill is extremely innovative in many ways. The
projects selected will be pioneering new approaches to
landscape-scale restoration and the development of value-added
enterprises that will support this restoration work. There will
be a need for on-going technical assistance related to
collaboration, project design, business development, and other
dimensions of implementation and monitoring. With the loss of
the Economic Action Programs, the Forest Service has no way to
deliver this assistance in a coordinated or effective manner.
We strongly encourage the exploration of how to address these
technical assistance needs proactively. Delivering such
assistance will contribute to the success of projects funded
through this legislation and will help build a robust program
of work around comprehensive restoration across priority
landscapes.
Senator Lincoln. Thank you, Mr. Gross. Thanks to all of you
all for being here and along with the first panel to assist us
in trying to get it right. That's the whole purpose of these
hearings and certainly our work, is not to create necessarily a
work of art or at least one that we have too much pride in
authorship in but one that is a work in progress and that's
going to be beneficial to everybody and that is particularly
those constituencies that we all have that thoroughly enjoy the
forests and, of course, I grew up in the forests of Arkansas.
I grew up as a farmer's daughter but although my dad's
profession was being a rice farmer, his love was turkey hunting
in the St. Francis National Forest, and so I spent many a day
walking through that forest with him and he knew every inch of
it and loved every single inch of it. He grew up in it and as
many Arkansans, we all very much appreciate the natural
resources that we've been blessed with in our State, and I say
that not just as someone who uses them for recreation but also,
Mr. West, from our forest products industry and all of the
different groups that work very, very hard.
I was proud of the emblems there to indicate the
collaborative effort that we see and I have always been proud
of the best management practices that have come about because
everyone involved in using the forests comes to the table in
Arkansas and that's important. Whether it's our loggers or our
Forest Service, the National Forest Service, the State group or
our Nature Conservancy and all of the other different groups
that are affected come to the table and try to figure out the
best way to both preserve and use our forests in a way that's
going to be productive and sustainable for future generations
because, as I said, most of us have grown up there and so we
want to pass it on to future generations.
I have twin boys that are 11 years old and let me tell you,
if there's anything they love, it is being out there in the
woods, whether it's on the Buffalo River floating and camping,
whether it's fishing on the Little Red or the White or out in
the forest turkey hunting or just enjoying it.
So, we appreciate your input into what we're trying to do
here and very grateful for your ideas.
Just a bit of housekeeping. Just in case, want to make sure
that you all are definitely aware that there will be members of
the committee that might like to submit questions to you and
hope that you'll be prepared to answer the committee in writing
and that's something certainly we want to make sure that all
members have the opportunity to do.
I also want to thank the chairman. Chairman Bingaman is a
wonderful individual to work with and takes very seriously our
opportunities here in the committee to be able to do good
things and be progressive, and I appreciate the opportunity to
talk about this bill and again some of the successes in my home
State of Arkansas that we've had in implementing similar types
of measures and again want to thank Scott Simon, our Arkansas
State Director of the Nature Conservancy, for not only being
here today but all the leadership he provides at home.
Our office has worked a great deal with Scott on a number
of issues, including the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, which my
brother is still looking for. My father swore that that bird
was still out there and so we're all still looking to get that
photograph.
But we're very appreciative of your tremendous expertise
and dedication to wildlife issues, Scott. We really appreciate
that. We're truly lucky to have you in Arkansas and appreciate
it and look forward to continuing to work with you on this and
other pieces of legislation. We've got a lot to do.
As Scott had noted in his testimony, Arkansas undertook a
similar effort in response to an outbreak of the Red Oak bore
insects and, you know, it was amazing to me when I toured those
forests to see the devastation that could happen just from that
infestation of insects and what may have caused that in terms
of the design of the forests and not being able to keep it in
the appropriate manner that it needed to be kept in order to
avoid those types of insect infestations.
The restoration project has been a success and it proves, I
think, an important point, that forest health and fire
management is not just a western issue. I spoke about that
continually here in Washington to the extent that I got the
attention of Senator Crapo who is delightful to work with on
that and many other issues that I worked with him on and so
hopefully we've been able to put to rest the common assumption
up here that it's just a western issue.
Our forests are precious to us in the South. We're very
proud of our forestlands in the South and we want to do all
that we can to preserve it and so we do feel like we have equal
opportunities in terms of the way that we can work
collaboratively both as Westerners or Southerners or Easterners
or anything else to ensure good practices that will sustain our
forests for future generations.
So, we appreciate your testimony here today and certainly
your interest in working with us.
I would like again to ask Scott, if you could share with us
a little bit more some of the challenges that you faced in the
project that we had in Arkansas, you know, if there were any
challenges specifically that you want to make sure that we're
aware of here that we don't have to repeat, and maybe if there
are any other large cooperative restoration projects, like what
we did in Arkansas, around the country that you might
reference.
Mr. Simon. Thanks, Senator Lincoln. Thanks for your always
kind words.
The challenge is it really came down to, and it still
happens today, it's just a challenge in prioritization with all
the agencies, and it also is, you know, wanting to spread the
money around, but that when there's major fire suppression
issues, borrowing the money from all of the projects and that's
why we really support this bill because it would address much
of that.
Another neat thing which we've learned over the past few
years as we've developed and worked on our projects is that
there are many of them around the country and approximately 80
that are similar to this.
The Forest Service and the Department of the Interior
developed a process with the Nature Conservancy called The Fire
Learning Network which has been very successful and it brings
people together that are teams that are working on projects,
like this one, in other parts of the country so they don't have
to learn in a vacuum. They don't have to learn on their own.
They develop plans and their teams will have State agencies,
Federal agencies, private non-profits, tribes, timber
companies, and then they evaluate each other's work, so that
the plans are themselves successful and solid, and then they
evaluate each other's progress as the projects develop.
So that in Arkansas, that's been really key to our success,
is that we were able to get great feedback from New Mexico or
Florida or California, so we didn't have to learn it all
starting from scratch.
Senator Lincoln. Which is great, as you said, and if we can
learn from one another, it makes all the difference in the
world. We don't have to go back to ground zero.
The stewardship contracting was mentioned, I think actually
it may have been Mr. West that mentioned it or brought it up,
but you might, Scott, mention if the contracting is working or
if it didn't work or why it may have had complications in
particularly the Ozarks when we were in this effort.
Mr. Simon. Yes, ma'am. It's a really--the Conservancy
believes that it's a very good idea, but it's been--there's
been some challenges in implementing it. So, great idea, but on
the ground a lot of the potential contractors are not bidding,
and I think it's because of the bureaucratic rules related to
it.
Even though the Forest Service staff are working very well
with them, at least in Arkansas, but our small contractors look
at that process and they just say that's just too much for me
to handle. So, I don't think we have very many stewardship
contracts in Arkansas because of that.
Senator Lincoln. So, it's come to the hoops and whistles
and everything else that they have to deal with on the smaller
scale that's not even--doesn't make it that productive for them
to engage in it?
Mr. Simon. Yes, Senator.
Senator Lincoln. Great. We've been joined by Senator Craig.
So, my colleague, if you'd like to ask a few questions and I'll
save a few of mine for later.
STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, U.S. SENATOR
FROM IDAHO
Senator Craig. Senator, thank you very much. I'll be brief.
You gentlemen have been here awhile and I am late in coming,
but let me thank all of you for coming and giving your thoughts
as we struggle with this issue of how we manage our public
lands in light of some of the situations we've obviously begun
to experience over the last good number of years.
I've been involved in the forestry issue here from a public
land perspective for about 28 years, having chaired the
Forestry Subcommittee on a variety of occasions. I'm now
teaming up again with Senators Feinstein, Domenici, and
Bingaman on this Act, not unlike we did to create Healthy
Forests, and that has worked to some extent, and it has given
us greater access to our forests in the environment in which we
find them to begin to do remedies.
I would like to think that Mother Nature is kind and
effective steward of her land, but when we hand it back to her
after we've shaped it in the human image for decades upon
decades, we've created extraordinary situations and in the West
and in the Great Basin West that I'm most sensitive to, we have
a phenomenal overpopulating of trees. We have sick, dead and
dying forests as a result of a weakening health condition of
these trees, based on drought, as a problem of over population
per acre, therefore bug kill.
Senator Lincoln, a good number of years ago, in fact in the
mid 1990s, a group of our best experts in the country gathered
in Idaho just as a point of gathering and reviewed the forests
of the Great Basin West and these were the best that the Forest
Service and our colleges and our universities and land grant
schools and our forestry colleges had to offer and they
concluded that our forests were sick, dead and dying as a
general statement and that if we did not engage in active
management of those forests, that we would reap the whirlwinds
of wildfires and for the last decade, that is exactly what we
are reaping.
My State last year lost two million acres of forested
lands, of watershed and wildlife habitat. We very fortunately
avoided loss of property, but the grand old ski resort of Sun
Valley was for a period of 2 weeks threatened by wildfires and
as a result of those fires coming off from lands that are
public, forested lands, just this last week, I was out there,
and that city is now being handed a bill of $5 million for the
threat that the public lands and the stewardship of those lands
that brought about a wildfire.
It's a bit of an irony. Now that we've saved you from
ourselves, let us bill you. Pretty unique. Now we were pretty
thankful at the time, obviously, but it is kind of a new
reality today that we're experiencing that is very difficult in
part to understand and, of course, as someone on the
Appropriations Committee and the Authorizing Committee, we have
for the last good number of years tried to figure out a way to
change the old paradigm of funding because the old revenue
flow's gone from our public lands, especially our forested
lands.
It once was the cash cow that funded everything and put
money in the treasury. It was called green sales. It's called
cutting trees. But we've decided that's no longer a popular and
politically correct thing to do and as a result Mother Nature's
decided to cut them herself, but we get no revenue in return.
We just spend a lot of money trying to stop her.
Last year in my State of Idaho, well known for its
beautiful clear skies, there were probably more days of smoky
valleys and high schools that started up in the fall whose kids
couldn't go out on the field and recreate because of the forest
fire smoke settling into our valleys.
Now if that had been a private landowner burning, he would
have been stopped by the EPA, but because it was Mother Nature
burning, it was just OK, and Idahoans grow very frustrated by
all of that and so we here collectively have struggled to try
to decide how different to do that and how to deal with a
variety of ways to not only reduce the overall costs, change
the commands, do it in an appropriate way, make money go
further, a whole combination of things that are tremendously
important that we do, and, of course, this bill is another step
in our effort to increase the treatments of the Federal lands
in order to decrease the intensity or the severity of forest
fires, decrease pests and disease, such as bark beetle, and
provide for a defensible space for fire fighters, increased
tree growth and regeneration.
Last year, in our effort to try to understand what we did
or didn't do, this will give you an interesting perspective
because I and the senator are involved directly now in the
great debate over climate change and what is and what isn't and
this Congress can do something. We've got three Presidential
candidates out there at the moment that all hold a similar
position that they will bring to the presidency and we're going
to make some hard decisions about climate change.
Last year, the Federal lands released carbon into he
atmosphere to the extent equivalent to 12 million automobiles
on the road. It's a rather interesting figure, isn't it? Yet do
you hear it talked about? Is this a great concern in climate
change? I wasn't even allowed to bring a forestry amendment to
the climate change bill for purposes of sequestration. Healthy
forests, young forests are great carbon sinks. Old, dead and
dying forests aren't because they already stored blocks of
carbon and yet we're now ready to let that carbon be released
back into the atmosphere.
It's an interesting dichotomy that we're all facing at this
moment and, finally, after all these years of shutting down and
locking up, we're beginning to recognize that, yes, management,
stewardship, wise and reasonable approaches to these forest
environments are something we ought to get about the business
of doing and I guess we have to kind of crawl back into it
slowly to regain the credibility that maybe we lost with the
American public over the issue of forest management down
through the years.
Hopefully that's what this Forest Landscape Restoration Act
will allow us to do. I don't suspect that it's going to be
sweeping if it becomes law and it probably shouldn't be, but
maybe it's a few steps again down that path that allows the
public to begin to understand what we all need to do
collectively and that we really do need to allow our
professionals to manage instead of to tie them up in court and
keep them preoccupied with the legal process simply because
some group just totally disagrees and has the power of the
court to stop.
While we will do nothing in this bill about that particular
situation, Senator Lincoln, hopefully we put it all together
and over another decade or two, we'll by then have burned
probably another 25 or 30 million acres. We will be able to get
back to the business of reasonable management.
Now I don't mean to sound cynical, it's just simply a
reality of where we are and what's going on out there, and last
year, a tremendously difficult year fire-wise, billions of
dollars spent and properties lost beyond control, beyond
amazement, and lives lost, brave fire fighters always out on
the edge of risk.
So, it's a struggle we deal with. You've all been here a
long while offering your expertise and we need it as we
collectively put together policy that hopefully moves us in the
right direction to sustain this phenomenally valuable asset
that we have as our Nation's forested lands and what it does
for us.
Thank you.
Senator Lincoln. Thank you, Senator Craig. Did you have any
questions? I have a few more.
Senator Craig. I do, and I'll ask staff after a lot of
questions have been asked, some of them may have been answered.
If not, I'll submit them for response.
Senator Lincoln. Great. All right.
Senator Craig. Thank you, all.
Senator Lincoln. Thank you, Senator Craig. I just had a
couple of quick questions I kind of wanted to get to and see if
we couldn't throw them around.
I think it's been suggested both in your testimony here
today and others that instead of having two technical advisory
panels focused on specific aspects of the proposal, we should
have one advisory panel to consider proposals in their
entirety.
Any of you all have comment on that that you'd like to take
further or express anything on?
Mr. Gross. I did address that in my comments, and, you
know, the required scientific advisory panel has more of the
forest scientists on it, ecologists, and that's an important
part of evaluating the projects proposed.
The technical advisory panel is stated as being optional in
the bill, but I think the expertise that would be represented
on that panel is also important in evaluating whether or not
proposals under this bill truly take that comprehensive
approach and have long-term business benefits and benefit the
communities, too.
So, you really need that wide range of expertise----
Senator Lincoln. But you'd still combine them?
Mr. Gross. If you combine them, I think you'd get that.
Senator Lincoln. Also, I think Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Gross,
you both expressed concern about the bill's requirement that a
collaborative group have an established record of success in
planning and implementing forest restoration projects, and I
think Mr. Simon, on the other hand, mentioned that provision as
an important enabling condition or an indicator of success.
Maybe if the three of you all expand on those thoughts just
a little bit?
Mr. Gross. Sure. OK. The way the language is written now,
it requires that a collaborative proposing a project have an
established track record and my point was that there are a lot
of entities out there, organizations, businesses that have
worked in collaboration but maybe haven't worked together in
the specific collaborative that would be making a proposal
under this bill and I don't want to see them penalized or
excluded.
So, if the evaluation or the selection criteria would look
at the broad collaborative expertise that the partners have,
maybe not necessarily in working together, you know, partner A
and partner B have worked on this project and have proven they
can collaborate and be successful and partner C and D have
worked on another one and proven they can be successful, allow
them to come together as a new collaborative and don't penalize
them for that in this bill, so that this bill can encourage new
collaboration.
Senator Lincoln. OK. Mr. Lawrence.
Mr. Lawrence. Senator, it's NRDC's view that this is a
provision that could create--could turn into a friction point
that could create some controversy and some dispute among
various groups and processes that are competing for scarce
dollars here.
It's not hard to show that you have successfully
collaborated on something and it's not terribly hard to show
that you have, say, removed X number of miles of road or
improved stream conditions by putting in X number or Y number
of in-stream structures or created a forest structure that you
started out to create by going out and measuring that.
But forest restoration, as I suggested in my testimony, is
a tricky and experimental process and it's not something that
you can measure in one snapshot in time. You may undertake a
restoration project and get good results the first year after
you did it but bad results 10 years later or vice versa and for
that reason, I think that it's a little bit of an illusion to--
and maybe just sets the bar too high to suggest that
collaboratives come in and show that they've got a successful
track record at restoration.
I think these groups ought to be evaluated on their ability
to work together, on how good their plan is, whether they have
addressed, you know, in hard-nosed fashion the requirements of
having a business plan and so forth, but I think that it's
probably not helpful and probably ultimately sends people off
in a fruitless effort to show that they have actually
successfully restored forests.
That's something that I think we have to judge years from
now and not at the outset of the process.
Senator Lincoln. Scott.
Mr. Simon. Yes, Senator. The Nature Conservancy, based on
what we've seen in Arkansas and other places around the
country, just feel that collaboration and both experience were
key factors in successful projects.
So, in some way, shape or form, in the proposed
legislation, having that be part of it would satisfy our
interests which could be done in many ways, and since it's a
competitive process, the best proposals would win, would come
forward.
Senator Lincoln. Right off the top. Just a couple last
things.
Mr. West, I think you mentioned the ability to use the fuel
or whatever's left on the forest floor. I know the last several
years in the budget that has been sent to us and that ends up
coming out, lot of times the Forest Service is requesting
resources that doesn't even meet half the need of what their
management plan actually is, and I know that we've had
difficulty because we get our mouths washed out with soap up
here if we use the word ``earmark'' or we ask for anything
special and yet we hear from our, you know, Forest Service
industries, our forests, our national forest folks and others
that, you know, there's a lot more that could be done there
that's not only productive for the economy but also productive
for the Forest Service because the money that comes back as
well as productive for the sustainability of the forests.
So, I hope that we can continue to work on that. It is
definitely a place to make an investment, and I for one kind of
keep bugging them over there and they know me when I call.
But your testimony mentioned that we need to restore our
forests to more sustainable and resilient conditions, not only
in the context of wildfires but also in the context of climate
change, and certainly Senator Craig brought up the issue of
climate change.
My view is that the best climate change strategy in the
context of forest management is also to manage a healthy
ecosystem. I mean, clearly, you know, the overall ecosystem is
critically important to the forests and the forests to the
system, and I think the bill reflects that.
We would certainly want your comments on that, what you
think, and do you think the bill's on the right track from a
climate change perspective, and would love to hear from the
rest of you all on that as well.
Mr. West. We think it is, Senator, and I think to some of
the other questions, too, I think we need to focus on the
priority landscapes. That's where our first effort needs to
look at. Where are the areas that need the most immediate work,
triage-wise, and, second, do we have the resources in terms of
people and collaborative efforts to do that?
I don't want to see us get bogged down in going and
creating collaborative groups to create that and not focus on
what we really need to do.
In terms of climate, just last week at our annual meeting,
which was held outside of Portland, Oregon, we had one of the
Nation's top bioclimatologists, and what that is, I believe, a
person that studies the reaction or the relationship between
the biota and climate, and he talked about using all the
different projections of climate change from the range of a lot
of temperature change into a moderate temperature change with
different rainfalls and all those sorts of things.
His bottom line conclusion is that if we're going to have
resilient forest ecosystems in the western part of the United
States to deal with this unknown change that we're going to
get, we need to make sure that the leaf area and needle area of
our forests is related to the amount of moisture that we're
going to have in those areas and what that tells me, for most
of the inner West and parts of the South, is that we're going
to have to reduce that leaf area and needle area to survive, to
have forests that survive.
Part of that is going to be doing the things that this bill
talks about, reducing as was done in Arkansas, reducing those
thickets and getting it to a sustainable level, and when we do
that, we can be putting carbon into long-term storage in terms
of building products. We can be using some of this material
into a renewable energy source that has a very low carbon
signature and can offset those other energy sources that we're
digging up from under the ground.
Senator Lincoln. That's great. We hope so. It is kind of
the unknown until we start taking some action up here.
Anybody else want to comment on the climate change?
Mr. Gross. Sure. The Forest Guild has put quite a bit of
time in the last year into educating ourselves and our members
about the role of forests in sequestering carbon and also what
we should be thinking about in the management of our forests,
so as Chris is getting at, so we have forests 50 years, 100
years from now that reflect the climate.
I have a copy of that report I'd like to leave with you
here.
Senator Lincoln. Sure.
Mr. Gross. OK. I think, you know, if the bill is successful
in achieving the goals it sets out, achieving its purpose, then
obviously we're going to have forests that are restored to a
condition where they will persist, so that's carbon that's not
released into the atmosphere, so that's positive for climate
change, and continuing to have forests that can sequester
carbon into the future is critically important.
There's a lot of other pieces of the puzzle out there, you
know, regarding preventing forestland from being converted to
non-forest use because we lose that carbon sequestration
potential.
So, it's a complicated issue and I'd love to see the Senate
and House really take it on.
Senator Lincoln. Hopefully this bill will help us in terms
of the overall climate change issue as we move forward.
Any other comments from the panel?
Mr. Lawrence. Just briefly. Sooner or later, I'll get this
button.
You know, you're absolutely right that climate change is
the X factor. You know, as much as we have to learn about
forest restoration in general, we have vastly more to learn
about climate change in terms of the scale of climate change,
the pace at which it's going to take place, the impacts that
it's going to bring, and we don't even know, you know, for much
of the West whether we're going to get warmer forests or wetter
forests as a result of climate change.
Certainly in terms of how to respond to and hedge against
climate change, there's a huge amount that we really don't
know. I think the best scientific thinking that I have seen on
the subject suggests two things that are worth bearing in mind
in the context of this bill.
The first is that forests that are more resilient will
probably fare better as the climate changes. So that to the
extent we can do it, that rolling back management problems,
management abuses and creating forests that better accommodate
natural disturbances, including fire, is a smart thing to do.
The second is that if we have parts of the landscape that
will help us hedge against climate change, those are the large
undisturbed areas that we still have remaining principally in
the West. Those are the places which are best able to serve as
bank accounts for species and for ecological processes to
safeguard them and accommodate climate change over time where
there's little loss of kind of key components as we can hope
for.
Senator Lincoln. From all the indications we seem to be
getting, particularly most recently, I suppose, it seems as if
the repercussions of climate change are coming closer and
closer to us as opposed to the 20 or 30 years we thought we had
before we start seeing some real effects, whether it's the
melting of the caps or the glaciers and everything else.
So, it seems to be speeding up and certainly these are the
types of initiatives, I think, and programs that we need to get
started that are going to help us curb some of that. So, we
look forward to working with you.
Are there any other comments from the panel?
[No response.]
Senator Lincoln. We appreciate again your expertise. We
look forward to working with you. My hope is that we will move
forward on something and as we do, we'll certainly need your
input on that.
As I said, growing up walking through the St. Francis
National Forest, one of the things--I was with the Forest
Service when I did, and my dad was with me, and we left and I
looked at him and I said, ``Did they leave anything out?'' and
he said, ``Well, the only thing they left out was this was
pastureland about a hundred years ago.'' He said, ``You know,
forests are to be managed and that's the way that you keep them
healthy and that's the way that you keep them going.'' He said,
``Pioneers came through here and cut them down and used them
for pastureland and then we all decided it was important to
have them back in forestland and we managed it properly and
we've got an unbelievable hardwood forest now back again and we
can continue that, but it has to be managed.''
So, we'll look forward to working with you and again for
your expertise in moving forward, making sure we get it right
because it is definitely an integral part of the bigger picture
of what we want to see happening, too, and I will remind you
that, as Senator Craig and other members may have questions,
we'd love to ask you to be prepared to answer any of those
questions they may submit.
Thank you again for your time and interest. The committee's
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[The following statement was received for the record.]
Montana Logging Association, Montana Wood Products
Association, Intermountain Forest Association, Associated
Logging Contractors.
April 4, 2008.
Hon. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici,
304 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Re: Federal Landscape Restoration Act (S. 2593)
Dear Senators Bingaman and Domenici: We are writing on behalf of
the Montana Logging Association, the Montana Wood Products Association,
the Intermountain Forest Association and the Associated Logging
Contractors of Idaho, representing more than 1000 independent logging
contractors and professional forest practitioners. Our collective
members represent loggers, wood product manufacturers, biomass energy
producers/users and forest landowners that are committed to both the
ecological and economic viability of our region's forest communities.
Therefore, we appreciate this opportunity to offer our collective
comments on the above referenced legislation.
First, we would like to applaud your efforts. As you know, there
are millions of acres of Forest System Lands that are need of landscape
scale restoration efforts. The goals of the Federal Landscape
Restoration Act--even though ambitious--reflect an appropriate approach
to forest restoration. To that end, we would like to offer the
following comments:
In order for restoration activities to be successful, adequate
funds must be appropriated in addition to the current national timber
program capacity levels.
An assessment of the Agency's current capabilities to
implement such a program must be analyzed. It would be
inconsistent to require the establishment of programs that
require a certain level of capability, capacity and utilization
if those critical components are absent or marginal.
While we understand the focus on wildland fire mitigation,
we also note that the emphasis on restoration of fire-drive
ecosystems largely preclude other important restoration
projects from consideration. Insect and disease infestations,
weed and species encroachment, soil disturbance, age-class
distribution all play an important role in restoring an
ecosystem. Also, ignoring larger tree removal will not achieve
restoration and will only drive up the cost of implementation.
Therefore, we urge the expansion of the selection criteria to
include these concerns.
Restoration efforts should require monitoring with an
emphasis on adaptive management as a result of monitoring.
A risk assessment should be completed by the Agency and site
selection criteria should compliment data found in current
Forest Inventory Analysis or other fine spatial data.
Also, we strongly recommend inclusion of pre-decisional
appeals and expedited judicial review language, as provided in
the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA) Sections 105
and 106.
Since this bill promotes restoration activities with an
emphasis on biomass and small diameter tree removal, the
economies needed to achieve this goal will require a broader
landscape scale approach. As many of the pilot projects and/or
future landscape scale restoration activities may use the
Stewardship Contracting toll for implementation, we recommend
giving permanent authority tot he Stewardship Contracting tool
that is currently due to sunset on September 30, 2013.
Legislating permanent authority offers land managers and
contractors necessary assurances that restoration activities
will be sustainable. In addition, more emphasis must be given
to utilizing current local workforce and infrastructure.
Again, we commend your efforts and appreciate this opportunity to
provide comment, and look forward to working with you as this bill
progresses through congress.
Sincerely,
Keith Olson, Executive Director,
Montana Logging Association,
Jim Riley, President,
Intermountain Forest Association,
Ellen Simpson, Executive Vice Pesident,
Montana Wood Products Association,
Shawn Keough, Executive Director,
Assoc. Logging Contractors of Idaho.
APPENDIX
Responses to Additional Questions
----------
Responses of Scott Simon to Questions From Senator Domenici
Mr. Simon you mention 300,000 acres of oak dieback. I know there
have been other major examples of forests being killed and damaged by
weather events, but also insects and disease.
I know some in the public get nervous when the Forest Service
proposes large-scale salvage projects when these events occur.
Question 1. Are you comfortable that the authorities proposed in
this bill can be carried out quickly enough to address these
catastrophes before the damaged forest products lose too much value?
Answer. The dead trees on the 300,000 acres in Arkansas affected by
the oak-dieback were not salvageable so the issue did not come up.
Categorical exclusions were used on a couple of restoration units on
the Ozark National Forest's Pleasant Hill Ranger District that had not
gone through NEPA previously. The decision was faster but not
necessarily better.
Our experience in Arkansas is that projects are held up when there
is a lack of trust and that collaboration builds the trust needed to
expedite project implementation. The authorities in this bill will be
sufficient to get ahead of catastrophes if the collaboration is as
strong as the bill requires.
Question 2. Might there be additional process-streamlining that we
should consider in order to improve the ability of this legislation to
help restore our federal forests?
Answer. The Nature Conservancy's experience is that process-
streamlining is typically not needed when there is strong collaboration
and the best available science is used to design projects. We believe
that the eligibility requirements for the Forest Landscape Restoration
Act will screen out controversial projects that might get tangled up in
process requirements, and that additional process streamlining should
not be needed to implement this Bill.
Question 3. You've heard Mr. West express his concerns about the
pending termination of the stewardship contracting authority and the
need to address the Forest Service's stewardship contracting liability
issue.
Do you hold those views and would The Nature Conservancy support
attempting to address both of these issues in this legislation?
Answer. The Nature Conservancy shares Mr. West concerns on the
termination of the stewardship contracting authority and the need to
address the USFS stewardship contracting liability.
The Forest Service's written testimony on FLRA described their best
example of a stewardship contract to date, the 150,000 acre White
Mountain Stewardship Project. The stewardship contracting authority
created a tool to address forest health needs over landscapes of this
scale--the scale necessary to make significant progress in addressing
national forest health needs. We note that Region 3 was only able to
fund that one large stewardship contract and that none of the other
stewardship contracts nationally have exceeded 40,000 acres. It is our
understanding that the need for the Forest Service to set aside funds
for contingent liability is a significant barrier to large scale
stewardship contracts. We therefore see that it is possible that loss
of the stewardship contracting authority and the contingent liability
for stewardship contracts could limit the Forest Service's ability to
fully implement the Forest Landscape Restoration Act.
While The Nature Conservancy believes that these issues need to be
addressed, we are not confident that the Forest Landscape Restoration
Act is the best vehicle to address them. It is not clear that federal
legislation is needed to address the contingent liability problem,
versus modifying the Forest Service's policies for the Federal
Acquisition Regulations, or whether simply reauthorizing the
stewardship contracting authority as a sidebar to passage of the Forest
Landscape Restoration Act will encourage discussion on how to improve
the mechanism and make it a more viable tool for restoring forest
health.
______
Responses of Gail Kimbell to Questions From Senator Domenici
Chief Kimbell, one of the witnesses on the next panel is going to
address the government liability issue regarding stewardship contract
cancellations and the funding of these cancellations. We are hearing
that some Regional Foresters and Forest Supervisors are leery of 10
year stewardship contracts because of the current contract cancellation
liabilities.
Question 1. Do you think that the current system for satisfying the
cancellation of multiyear stewardship contracting is reducing the
field's willingness to utilize this contracting authority?
Answer. Stewardship contracting fosters federal contributions to
the development of sustainable rural communities, maintenance of
healthy forest ecosystems, and continuing sources of local income and
employment. The Forest Service is exploring ways to foster greater use
of stewardship contracting in a manner that also protect taxpayers from
exposure to unfunded contingent liabilities. Currently, a National
Forest seeking to conduct a stewardship contract must fund cancellation
requirements within its base allocation. This creates competition with
other land management activities on that National Forest that also
require funding.
Question 2. Considering the limitations of the biomass definition
found in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007; what impacts
will this have on your agency's ability to do large scale forest
restoration?
Answer. Renewable fuel produced from biomass removed from National
Forest System (NFS) lands generally may not be counted towards meeting
the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) because of the limitation in the
definition of ``renewable biomass'' in EISA.
Question 3. If the agency were to have the maximum number of
contracts under this authority all be 10-year contracts, and using the
stewardship contract currently being implemented on the Apache-
Sitgreaves National Forest as a guide:
How much funding might the agency have to withhold to cover its
contract liability costs for these new contracts?
Answer. Every contract is unique. The liability cost depends on the
terms of the contract, including any amount of capital investment
needed to do the work that may be included in the cost of the contract.
There could potentially be from two to six new contracts that may or
may not have contract liability requirements.
Question 4. Given the requirements for collaboration in this bill,
what other existing authorities, other than stewardship contracting,
does the Forest Service have that would optimize the authorities this
bill provides?
Answer. As stated in our testimony, we believe that the actions we
are currently taking will be enhanced by various provisions of S. 2593,
particularly if combined with the provisions of our FY 2009 ecosystem
services demonstration projects legislative proposal. The legislative
proposal will engage partners in forest restoration that restores,
enhances, and protects multiple ecosystem service benefits.
Use of the streamlined NEPA procedures in the Healthy Forest
Restoration Act of 2003, the collaborative opportunities in the Tribal
Forest Protection Act; as well as Public Law 106-291, section 331 and
Public Law 108-447, section 337, which respectively authorize the
Forest Service to enter into contracts to perform watershed restoration
and protection services on National Forest System lands in the States
of Colorado and Utah, could also be used to optimize the authorities in
the bill.
In carrying out projects using stewardship contracting authorities,
the agency has used the hazardous fuel reduction categorical exclusion
(HRFCE). That categorical exclusion could have been used to carry out
ecological restoration treatment under the bill. However, on December
5, 2007, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared the HRFCE invalid
based on the record before the court. The Circuit indicated that it
would order the district court to: (1) issue a nationwide injunction
against further use of the HFRCE, and (2) determine which activities
approved after October 8, 2004, under the HFRCE should be enjoined. On
March 24, 2008, the government petitioned the panel to revise its
opinion to clarify the scope of the injunction that the district court
is authorized to grant; that petition is pending before the court.
While the Circuit's order did not immediately enjoin use of the HFRCE,
the Chief of the Forest Service has issued instructions limiting use of
the category while the agency pursues reconsideration of the scope of
the injunction.
Question 5. What impacts will this stewardship contract liability
issue have on the ability of this legislation to carry out its purpose?
Answer. Please refer to the response to Question 1.
Question 6. What would you recommend be done to address this
problem?
Answer. We have no specific recommendations at this time, but would
be willing to work with you on a more in depth review of the situation.
______
Responses of Howard Gross to Questions From Senator Domenici
Mr. Gross, I can understand your reasoning for encouraging a more
open and competitive nomination process for these restoration projects.
However, as I said in my opening statement I do have some concerns with
some of the intent of this bill being lost to process.
Question 1. Is there a way for your suggestion to include more
stakeholders and project proposals to be incorporated in the
legislation while still maintaining a streamlined nomination process?
Answer. I appreciate the interest in keeping the process created by
this bill to a minimum so that the maximum amount of the funding can go
into on-the-ground restoration work. I feel that including language in
S. 2593 to ensure an open and competitive process at the regional level
will result in a stronger suite of proposals nationally because such a
process will stimulate innovative thinking and collaborative
discussions, and help ensure that selecting regional proposals benefits
from diverse viewpoints and ideas in addition to those within the
agencies.
Furthermore, the process by which proposals are solicited,
reviewed, and selected can be an important part of the learning that
goes on at the regional level among diverse stakeholders. While an open
and competitive process might take a bit longer at the outset of the
program--as all programs require start-up time and encounter growing
pains--it can lead to greater discussion and innovation among
stakeholders regarding restoration projects, which results in greater
capacity within the participating communities and, over time, greater
effectiveness in developing and reviewing strong projects, as
stakeholders come to understand and support the process.
Perhaps one way to have a more streamlined process at the regional
level, instead of using a Collaborative Forest Restoration Program-like
selection process, would be to use a process akin to a pre-proposal
process that is more conceptual in nature but still ensures all
interested stakeholders have an opportunity to interact with the
agencies regarding potential projects. A limited number of selected
pre-proposals could then be developed into full-blown proposals
submitted by the Regional Forester to the Secretary.
Also related to ensuring that the program foster an open process
(and is broadly supported and successful in leveraging additional
resources), it is important that the Regional Forester seek stakeholder
input and reach consensus of establishment of priority landscapes. This
process need not be burdensome or resource intensive. Also related to
streamlining the process, combining the Scientific and Technical
advisory panels into one National Advisory Panel that includes diverse
representation would be more efficient than keeping them as two
separate panels.
Question 2a. Could you elaborate on your recommendation to clarify
the use of funding for monitoring? While monitoring will certainly be
an important part of these restoration projects, I do not want
monitoring to consume too much funding and therefore detract from the
implementation of these projects?
Answer. As in my answer above, I appreciate the interest in
maximizing the funding that goes into on-the-ground restoration work.
However, I think that funding from the Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration Fund should not only be permitted to be used for monitoring
but that having a monitoring component should be a required eligibility
criterion of proposed projects. Monitoring is important not only from
the standpoint of ensuring that the work committed to was actually
performed, it is also needed to assess project effectiveness and
understand if the work performed actually achieve project goals.
I believe that we all acknowledge and truly appreciate that the
landscape-scale restoration program this legislation would establish is
cutting-edge and the projects it would fund would be innovative and
require a certain degree of experimentation. As such, long-term
effectiveness of funding spent for projects under this program and
similar ones in the future will be enhanced by ensuring that the
results of projects enabled by S. 2593 are monitored and the data
collected are made public and used for adaptive management.
Question 2b. Mr. Gross, are you at all concerned with the
definition of biomass found in the renewable fuels section of the
energy bill we just passed last year?
Answer. Yes. The definition excludes woody biomass derived from
federal lands as a feedstock from the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).
This exclusion could restrict options for and thus the ability of
collaborative efforts in rural communities surrounded by federal
forests to engage in ecological management activities.
Question 3. If this definition, as some believe, will restrict
forest restoration opportunities on federal land; how might the
potential effectiveness of this law be impaired?
Answer. The definition limits the biomass utilization options
collaborative groups can use to support forest restoration on public
lands. The success of S. 2593, if passed into law, centers on the
ability of collaborative efforts within rural communities to build
capacity around forest restoration and stewardship. Excluding woody
biomass derived from federal lands from the Renewable Fuels Standard
could limit the growth potential of community-scaled forestry
enterprises and undermine the investments some forestry enterprises
have already made. Producing feedstock for renewable fuels may not be a
viable option for all collaborative groups that could benefit from S.
2593. However, for those collaborative groups where it is viable, the
restriction could be a barrier to success.
______
Responses of Christopher I. West to Questions From Senator Domenici
Question 1. Mr. West, we continue to lose mill infrastructure in
the West--this reduces the ability to restore landscapes in a cost
effective manner. What can be done to reverse this trend? How will this
bill help?
Answer. You are correct, we continue to lose mill infrastructure
and without loggers, sawmills and cogeneration facilities, it will be
very difficult to address the forest health crisis facing our federal
forests. The most important solution to reversing this trend is making
sure there is a predicable, sustainable and comprehensive supply of
federal land management projects on which companies can operate.
S.2593, with its proposed large scale projects, would supply a
predictable and sustainable level of work.
Question 2. From an industry perspective, can you tell us what
components of a landscape restoration project are necessary to ensure
local mill infrastructure stays in business?
Answer. Large scale projects to remove hazardous fuels and restore
forest health can be planned in way in which receipts for merchantable
timber can help pay for the removal of unmerchantable small diameter
tress or biomass. These types of projects make the most of taxpayer
dollars and allow more projects or more work to get done on the ground.
This would also result in multiple years of work, feeding local mills,
biomass plants and ensuring loggers and other employees in the
communities have good family-wage jobs. The big unknown is whether the
funding will be appropriated and/or allocated to these projects.
Question 3. Mr. West, regarding your concerns over stewardship
contracting; what do you believe the consequences will be if the
stewardship contracting authority sunsets in 2013?
Answer. Since the expiration date is just slightly over 5 years
away, many if not all projects that would be planned and executed under
the provisions of this Act (assuming passage this calendar year) would
just be commencing on the ground activities. Therefore if the
stewardship contracting authorities are not extended, most if not all
of the landscape restoration projects would be service contracts. These
projects would cost the federal government more per acre, waste
valuable resources that could be used to make wood products and/or
renewable energy and would result in decreased employment opportunities
in rural communities.
Question 4. Do you believe that the current procedure for
stewardship contracting liability is satisfactory for implementing this
legislation?
Answer. Not at all. S.2593 must be amended to include the language
contained in Senator Kyl's S.2442, which addresses the serious problem
associated with the antiquated Federal Acquisition Regulations.
Another problem exists in the private sector bonding arena, where
surety companies tend to avoid underwriting performance bonding for
more than seven years. At this time, we don't have a legislative
solution to this predicament; it will have to be something that
potential federal contractors will have to work out with their bonding
companies.
Question 5. What would you recommend be done to improve this
process?
Answer. See answer to question number 4.
Question 6. What will be the consequences if the government
liability and stewardship contract cancellation issues are not
resolved?
Answer. Fewer federal dollars would be available to plan, prepare
and implement restoration projects and therefore fewer at-risk
landscapes will be treated.
Question 7. Do you have any recommendations for us to consider
regarding what to do about the current definition of biomass in the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007?
Answer. The biomass definition inserted by the House of
Representatives precludes all federal forests and most non-federal
forests from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). We would support
Congress passing legislation that would amend that definition with the
one that the Senate passed last summer in its version of the Energy
Independence and Security Act.
______
[Responses to the following questions were not received at
the time the hearing went to press:]
Questions for Henri Bisson From Senator Domenici
Mr. Bisson, I know the BLM would like a larger role in the
implementation of this bill and has expressed concerns about trying to
expand its focus beyond forested federal lands.
Question 1. Would it be possible for the Bureau of Land Management
or even other agencies within the Department of the Interior to request
sufficient funding for landscape restoration line items so that if
authorized the Bureau of Land Management could play a larger part in
federal land restoration envisioned by this bill?
Question 2. Given your agency's concerns about expanding the scope
of this bill to increase its focus to the grassland and sage ecotypes,
as well as dealing with the invasive species issues those ecosystems
suffer; are there specific modifications to this bill that your agency
can recommend to improve it?