good morning this hearing is called to order and we thank everyone for their participation our prayers and support go out to the people of southern california who have suffered so much in the recent deadly fires and are bracing for more this weekend according to the latest forecasts last week's twenty two fires displaced a half million people and caused at least one  billion in damages not since hurricane katrina slammed the mississippi and louisiana coasts have so many suffered from extreme weather at least one of the smaller fires appears to have been caused by a young boy playing with matches and california is rightly concerned with sorting out what started with arson from what started with lightning or power line collapse or other common causes of such fires that is not what this hearing is about global warming does not cause an individual fire or hurricane and global warming is not the cause of the california fires global warming's contribution to wildfires is more subtle and more complex and scientists and the fire fighting community are just beginning to tease out of this complex climate record those factors which may be influencing these natural disasters in unnatural ways in fact the impact of global warming on the west is more evident in places other than southern california where drought and fire appear to have been commonplace in the undisturbed ecosystem there is no doubt that a century of stifling the natural fire regime of western forests and the increasing numbers of people living in fire prone areas has made the impact of wild fires worse the questions before us today are how will wildfires change in a warming world and what can we do to reduce their impact we can learn something about a warmer future by looking at the recent past as temperatures have risen in the west the frequency intensity and area burned by wildfires has increased recent scientific studies have found that since  western fire season is seventy eight days longer there has been a fourfold increase in fires larger than one thousand acres there has been a sixfold increase in areas and acres burned and over the last century fire has increased to the point where the projections for the next century is that fire will probably burn two or three times as much land in the west as it does today some of the most dramatic increases in fire frequency and intensity are occurring in higher elevations where fire suppression has not historically been used underscoring the influence of global warming rather than past forest policies on wildfires global warming influences wildfires in a variety of ways through increased drought and reduced rainfall earlier spring snow melt and better breeding conditions for insect infestations these factors combine to create a longer and more extreme dry season resulting in tinder box conditions ripe for ignition it appears that global warming is stacking the wildfire deck making it more likely that when an erran spark flies we will be dealt a losing hand and losing to mother nature can be expensive as we learned in one of our first hearings damages from extreme weather alone have likely cost our nation eight hundred dollars billion since the s in addition to property losses fires increasingly eat up the forest service budget as they have to spend more and more to fight them in two thousand and six it spent a record two dollars fifty cents billion just for fighting wildfires data points and dollar signs aren't the only measure of the changing nature of fires in the west the men and women on the fire line have experienced the impact of warming temperatures firsthand tom boatner a thirty year fire fighting veteran and chief of fire operations for the federal government said in a recent interview we have had climate change beat us over and over the last ten or fifteen years we know what we are seeing what can congress do to help cope with this increasing threat policies that improve forest management on the edge of communities and help make these communities more resilient are crucial but not comprehensive we will ultimately reach the limit of our adaptive capacity which is why we must act now to begin to address the underlying disease of global warming not just the symptoms congress has the opportunity to send an energy bill to the president that could by two thousand and thirty reduce u s global warming pollution by up to forty percent of what we must do to save the planet this will lay the foundation for achieving more significant cuts through a subsequent cap auction and trade bill we have already set in motion changes to our western  now we must adopt smart policies that will help avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable impacts of global warming and now i would like to turn to recognize the ranking member of the select committee on global warming the gentleman from wisconsin mister sensenbrenner mister sensenbrenner thank you very much mister chairman like all natural disasters the recent wildfires in southern california have taken an enormous toll on lives and property damage with seven dead two thousand homes destroyed six hundred and forty thousand people displaced and possibly up to two dollars billion in damages wildfires have again shown that they are a deadly threat to people living in the arid west just as hurricanes  proven to be a deadly and destructive threat to people living on the atlantic and gulf coasts death and destruction aren't the only things that wildfires and hurricanes share in common they are now both used as poster children for global warming am glad the chairman has said that global warming didn't cause the wildfires unlike the comments made by the senate majority leader over in the other body a couple of weeks ago while both of these severe weather occur naturally global warming alarmists are using these natural disasters to promote regulations that will have little or no effect on the forces of nature in regards to global warming there are many similarities between hurricanes and wildfires in both cases they are complicated natural events influenced by a variety of factors and yes in both cases warmer temperatures can create conditions that would amplify the effects of these disasters but just like hurricanes there is no concrete scientific link between the southern california wildfires and global warming and even if there were members of congress would be fooling themselves to think that by passing a bill to supposedly warming they would have any measurable impact on the ground in southern california what would have a measurable impact in california and in other parts of the country are smart forestry practices liberal environmentalists have long fought to prevent management of our forestry which exacerbates many problems that make forest fires worse by allowing forests to go unmanaged it allows for grasses  underbrush dead trees and other growth to serve as kindling for these fires as the wildfires were raging last week the los angeles times reported that forest thinning helped the resort town of lake arrowhead to avoid the worst of the damage the times described the area as quote an island in a sea of destruction unquote by creating what are known as fuel breaks residents of lake arrowhead were able to see firsthand the effect of forest thinning as they watched billowing fires stop nearly dead in their tracks forest thinning produces a tangible measurable environmental benefit i wouldn't support any global warming legislation that doesn't result in measurable environmental damages there is another similarity between hurricanes and wildfires that doctor steven running points out in his testimony today just like the hurricanes the damage suffered by wildfires is often the result of where you live by the ocean and the chances of your house getting knocked down by a hurricane are much greater than those more inland the same is true of those who build in the wild land urban interface where the dangers of wildfires are greatest as the fires raged the los angeles times also posed the question of whether global warming was part of the problem the answer appears to be a qualified no quoting the journal of science the times reported that unlike the rest of the west there has been no increase in the wildfire frequency in southern california pointing out the potential problems of global warming is easy what would also be easy is preparing for natural disasters through adaptive techniques like forest thinning and fuel breaks for wild land fires the hard part is finding ways to promote the development of energy sources that don't emit co and other greenhouse gases if we can do this we would truly be doing with my distinguished friend from wisconsin about the concerns of development in fact i talked about that to one of the l a times reporters we kind of joked i have this conversation with him about every year when these  fires break out and we don't do anything about the problem with that interface in fact we have so created a problem that it is hard to characterize these as natural disasters because we make them more likely we make them worse and we intelligent forestry is not going to save us if we continue to have more development two thirds of the new buildings in southern california over the past decade were on lands susceptible to wildfires if last week's fires had burned in the same location in one thousand nine hundred and eighty there would have been sixty one thousand homes by two thousand that number had risen to one hundred and six thousand and by this year it was one hundred and twenty five thousand now we have got to get our heads around the fact that we are having a situation that we are making worse it is compounded by global warming and the federal government is actually producing malpractice we are lavishing money on fighting fires we are not spending money on disaster protection to make them less likely we save four dollars for each one dollar we put in prevention and we keep putting people back in harm's way we subsidize development we don't have reasonable regulation and then we bemoan the fact that we have these wildfires and we call them natural disasters i think that is abuse of the term it is not fair to nature  i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today to sort of deal with the big picture because if we continue to have more and more people located in the flame zone the fastest growing states are areas that are subjected to persistent drought subjected to wildfire and of course we are going to have the floods when the rain finally does come in southern california then we are going to be paying a lot of money to help people with mudslides and calling it an act of nature i really appreciate this hearing i hope we can continue to look at this through the prism of global warming because i think it is going to up the ante and maybe finally congress will vis a vis the problems we have in our national forests and some of us have actually been trying to working to change those policies and i look forward to working with you in those endeavors i frankly think the passage of the healthy forest restoration act which i know not everyone on this committee supported provided for the wild fire community planning process to allow the communities to come together and deal with the wild land urban interface and it has been quite successful where it has been implemented in communities across america and has really resulted in fuel reductions and better planning processes and that is what is needed but the bigger problem really rests on the state of america's national forests teddy roosevelt would be rolling over in his grave right now if he could see what has happened to his great forest reserves which he called for active management upon right now the one hundred and ninety two million acres  national forest system fifty two million acres are at risk to catastrophic wildfire wildfire like this depicted behind me is the egley fire burned this summer out in central oregon one hundred and forty thousand acres burn this did not come about because of homes there this came about because of a lightning strike and it burned over a prior burn one hundred and forty thousand acres were consumed these children standing here are the future  litigation because we lock it up leave it and let it burn and do nothing about it now some of us on this committee my colleague ms herseth and i worked together on the forest emergency recovery and research act which passed overwhelmingly in the house the bipartisan bill to go in after these fires remove the dead burned trees where it makes sense environmentally and where we can still get value out of the timber because we are going to use wood in america we ought to use the burned dead wood not import illegally harvested wood from across the globe which is what we are doing today in america we are using that wood harvested illegally in furniture we buy back here so changes have to occur if we are going to deal with carbon emissions if we are going to make our forests healthier if we are going to keep up with the increasing temperatures that are occurring and the forest service tells us that is am pleased that you are having this hearing today because i also represent california southern california and i am very pleased that we did not suffer this time around the enormous fires that surrounded los angeles county  yesterday we heard from some folks that came by to talk to our california delegation about how we could better manage this particular rising crisis that continues to plague areas like southern california and one that i be interested in hearing from our witnesses is what we need to do to help provide more assistance to our state forest you know wild service what plan management that we need the tools that we need i understand that the bush administration has cut back by eighteen percent on funding for the management plans that our states should have in place so i am very concerned i want to hear about that i am very interested also in how we can help distressed communities low income communities so that they have fully implemented evacuation plans and that they too understand the importance of security and understand that they are also a part of the solution and would like to hear more about that i have had the privilege of being on c span just a couple minutes ago and many people do not understand what is happening to our climate change that is occurring and the impacts and i understand that some people will say there is no correlation between the fires and global warming but we do see in southern california and other areas in the southwest where we have experienced drought like conditions for the past seven and six years and we continue to not focus on that and do preparation for these disastrous fires so i think that it is a combination of different things  both planning the forests better resources and better management at the local level and coordination with the state and federal level and of course the funding to implement that i think are very important that is all i want to say and i look forward to hearing from the witnesses  has expired the chair recognizes the gentlelady from michigan misess miller misess miller thank you mister chairman and i certainly want to thank you for holding this hearing today certainly what has happened in southern california is of utmost interest certainly to our entire nation to the entire world quite frankly and if it is not inappropriate i might just take one minute to formally put myself on the record to ask you to consider a hearing for a different topic at another time and that is regarding the great lakes we have historic low lake levels i will just take one quick minute unbelievably low lake levels that is happening in the great lakes which is one fifth twenty percent of the fresh water supply of the entire planet much of it can be attributable i think to climate change changing weather patterns some of it is man made but it is having an with the theory of global warming we will indeed see more of these large fires we will see more hurricanes we will see droughts and it is incumbent upon us to understand what is going on here to adapt and to the th chief and the first female chief of the u s forest service her long and distinguished career working in federal forestry began in one thousand nine hundred and seventy four she has extensive experience working in our nation's f throughout the west including alaska oregon colorado and washington she assumed her current position as chief of the u s forest service on february five two thousand and seven we welcome you chief whenever you are ready please begin  chairman mister chairman and members of the select committee thank you for inviting me today i will focus my oral remarks on what the forest service is doing to address interactions between wildfire and climate change first i would like to no that i am accompanied by doctor susan conard susan is the national program leader for fire ecology research right behind me and i am also accompanied by marc rounsaville who is my deputy director for fire and aviation for the agency and i also must disclose because i understand there are some baseball fans that everything i know about baseball i learned in fenway park  tell us climate change may increase the incidence and severity of wildfire in some parts of the united states decisions made today by resource managers and policymakers will have implications throughout the next century i am a forester with over thirty three years of experience but i am not a scientist still the forest service has some of the best scientists and research available on forests and climate change for example forest service scientists participated in the intergovernmental panel on climate change the ipcc they were recently awarded a nobel peace prize and they concluded that disturbances from pests diseases and fire are projected to have increasing impacts on forests with longer fire seasons and large increases in areas burned while we have much to learn about the interactions between climate change and wildfire we are taking science based adaptive management approaches today to reduce the impact of wildfires to mitigate the impacts of climate change on our nation's forests and grasslands and to improve the forest potential for mitigating the effects of climate change i was in southern california last week observing what is being done to suppress those fires and talking with fire crews and fire managers about their efforts along with the california department of forestry and fire protection and other agency the fire fighters are doing everything within their power and qualifications to contain those fires without question we are seeing more wildfires covering more acres in recent years a result of extended drought and the accumulation of fuels climate change is certainly a contributor to the factors affecting the current fire situation but more needs to be known about the details we need more information before we can conclusively answer the question of the relationship between wildfire and climate change a recent study by the department's office of inspector general found that the majority of the forest service's fire suppression costs were related to fighting fire in the wild land urban interface according to our recently published national forests on the edge just published last week almost twenty two million acres of rural private lands about eight percent of all private lands located within ten miles of the national forest boundaries are projected to undergo increases in housing densities by two thousand and thirty this coupled with climate change factors of drought and warmer temperatures will increase the complexity and the costs of fire fighting the forest service has conducted over two decades of focused climate research three decades of air pollution research and has long experience in scientific assessments that provide a firm scientific foundation for addressing the challenge of forest and rangeland management relative to climate change forest service research and development continues to study the interactions between factors affecting fire behavior and the potential effects of changing climate on fire patterns and vegetation there are important knowledge gaps we must address such as wide variability and the estimates of fire emissions while we have information for a few systems we do not have good information on all systems of how burn severity affects emissions or vegetation recovery current models of smoke dispersion need to be improved to more accurately predict the potential effects on human health we are developing improved projections of the impacts of changing precipitation patterns on forest ecosystems to help us adapt to and mitigate those changes in partnership with other land managers we are working to identify the landscape level forest conditions most likely to sustain forest ecosystems in a changing climate the i in its fourth assessment report states in the long term a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks while producing an annual sustained yield of timber fiber or energy from the forest will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit forestry can make a very significant contribution to a low cost global mitigation portfolio it is important to note that not only can forests store carbon and help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions they can also provide clean water wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities among other significant environmental and economic amenities other elements of a broad strategy include treating fuels to reduce the threat of wildfire to community and to other forest values keeping forests in forest keeping forests healthy and reforest degraded lands while recent wildfire activity reflects some of what we have experienced with climate change management of fire and vegetation and thoughtful restoration including that of burned areas can and should be part of the solution communities of vastly different interests across the country are witnessing changes in the forests they care about and they are coming together to develop guidelines to support forest restoration the forest service has focused resources on improving forest health and the resilience of ecosystems to climate change many of the approaches we use to reduce fire risk and restore fire affected systems also improve forest health and productivity and increase the resilience of america's forests to changing climate although forests are not the solution to controlling greenhouse gases forests and sustainable forest management must be part of a broad set of strategies that contribute to the solution thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues with the committee and i would be happy to answer any questions you might have the chairman thank you so much chief for being here at this time let me turn first and recognize myself and ask you do you consider wildfire a threat to public welfare wildfire you know certainly in the last several years we have seen an increase in the size of wildfires and the number of large wildfires indicate the number of fires over one hundred thousand acres those are the very expensive fires those are the very troubling fires and many of those fires are the ones we are talking about like in southern california with the nearly two thousand homes burn can say that we have measured certainly co emissions from fire we have measured carbon monoxide and methane along with other volatile gases and they should be of a concern to all of us the chairman well it is six months since the supreme court rendered its decision in massachusetts v epa asking the epa to make a ruling on whether or not co is a danger and it has yet to do so and as a result has yet to have to then make decisions as to what it is going to do about it so that really does create some problems for us i solicited some questions online yesterday and i wanted to share one with you from someone who lives in missouri he was concerned that as global warming widens the area subject to wildfire conditions it could reach into areas of his state and other states that are not used to having wild fires and are ill prepared to fight them if climate change expands the number of areas at risk of wildfires it could take many communities by surprise what areas of the country should begin to contemplate wildfires for the first time and what can be done to educate other communities unaccustomed to wildfires ms kimbell well the congresswoman from michigan mentioned the lake states and certainly we had some pretty active fire in northern minnesota this summer the northern latitudes in the more real forests are experiencing some of the greatest change with climate change and certainly we need to be paying attention and focus there the drought across the southeast united states right now in georgia tennessee kentucky south carolina we are experiencing drought and fire danger in a way that those communities are not accustomed to in october of a year the fire that burned out of the  swamp this spring and burned so many acres in florida creating not only a huge health risk but certainly destroying a lot of people's livelihoods burned a lot of private timber and fortunately when it hit some treated lands some areas where the hazardous fuels had been reduced we were able to suppress that fire but there are communities not only in the northern latitudes and in the more real forests where climate change is the most pronounced or we expect the effects to be most pronounced but certainly recently centers for disease control director julie gerberding testified before the senate on the impacts of climate change on global public health in her draft testimony she stated that because of climate change quote forest fires are expected to increase in frequency severity distribution and duration the bush administration removed that statement from her final testimony do you agree with that statement  we can demonstrate higher severity larger fires and certainly over the last seven eight years more frequent fires and a longer fire season the chairman well i thank you for that testimony i now turn to recognize i welcome your testimony today i thought it was excellent and i also appreciate the service you give to the forest service and many states especially my home state of oregon and your days as ranger up in le grande we appreciate your  leadership there i would like to follow up on several points there is an associated press story out today that says that southern california wildfires emitted the same amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as that state's power plants and vehicles do for a year some eight point seven million tons which is more than the entire power emissions from the state of washington six point five million tons clearly these wildfires do emit pollutants into the atmosphere and it seems to me that your agency needs additional resources and help to deal with mitigating these levels of fires we are seeing in recent years now can you speak to the difference for example in a  state like mine or a region like mine in sort of the arid eastern sides of the states of washington and oregon and the forest regimes there versus the western side where we don't necessarily see the same types of fire and the importance of changing the structure of those forests to make them more compatible with their natural environment that hasn't existed for one hundred years since we started suppressing fire what do you need what tools do you need does hfra work are you using it he all the federal agencies together have treated twenty five million acres of hazardous fuels that is in the original reports that set up the national fire plan there was an estimated one hundred and ninety million  forest staff able to visit with community members who had been so involved i was able to visit with the chairman of the tahoe regional planning authority i also asked our scientists to put together an complex agreements all over it is not just lake tahoe but certainly there is a certain amount of social license that will allow a lot of different activity to take place in a forest and sometimes there are things in the process that can really hold up prevent delay treatment of hazardous fuels and i think we have examples of that certainly all over the west  right okay let me give you an example in my district a fire that burned this summer outside of sisters oregon came roaring over both private land and federal started by lightning came down into an area that they had been trying to thin since i think two thousand or two thousand and one and that thinning project had been under appeal by different groups or a group finally they had gotten through the court system and the forest service prevailed and the  me that much of your agency's time is still spent in litigation and fighting appeals and in the courtrooms rather than on the ground doing the treatment that your foresters are educated to provide  and we are never going to get ahead of this one hundred and ninety million acres of area that needs some work if you are always backlogged and that same forest actually has hfra approved projects out five years and yet lacks the funding to go  the continuing effect when you work those numbers into a ten year average and then you look at your out year budget in preparing the fiscal year two thousand and nine budget i had to find three hundred dollars million to move out of other projects to move into fire suppression to meet that ten year average that three hundred dollars million comes from everywhere mister walden and does that include coming from how we maintain campgrounds and parks and other recreational activities out on the federal land that now we are having to scramble or you are closing because you don't have those resources ms kimbell and in fact it also comes from vegetation treatment mister walden all right then some vegetation treatment funding remains an issue that we need to deal with post fire recovery i think congresswoman herseth sandlin and i authored the forest emergency recovery research act it was probably among other things providing the biggest funding source to enhance the science of post fire post disaster recovery it passed the house went up where all good bills go to die in the senate i believe we need more research to be done so we get it right and we don't make mistakes but in the meantime you have a lot of long term management practices that you all know what works and what doesn't work and am i correct that you still have more than a million acres of federal forest land post fire that have not been replanted that go untreated now my understanding on this egley fire is that there are those in the environmental community who are telling the forest service they won't appeal if you don't harvest more than nineteen trees on one hundred and forty zero acres now we are still running that out  ut that is what i have been told nineteen one hundred and forty thousand acres we have had half a million acres in my state burn this year this is getting out of control we have to change federal policy or this place isn't going to get  back naturally you will hear that oh yeah don't do anything you are better not to disturb this just leave it the way it is i will tell my colleagues nobody else leaves it the way it is not private forest managers not county forest managers not state forest managers not tribal forest managers only we do this in a tribute to burned and destroyed watersheds and habitat and i just get sick of it because nobody else does this i held hearings when i chaired the forestry subcommittee tribal nations are in even in my state hauling out burned dead trees while they were smoldering not the best transportation practice but they admitted to it the state of oregon under one of the most aggressive forest management practice laws in the country if not one of the first one of the most aggressive goes in immediately after fires on their lands and does the rehab work and how long does it take you to come up with a plan to come in after a fire ms kimbell well if it is not done within the first three years then the litigated and it goes to court then it can be five six seven years mister walden right so you lose the value so you don't get the funding into your agency to do the restoration work and if you replant sooner you are going to produce a forest sooner and you are going to sequester carbon sooner  to become better managers and give the forest service better tools to make the right decision not to wipe out every i have never supported that you don't go ahead and clear cut all this stuff but there are areas where you can recover there are areas where you drop them to stop the eros they do a really good job with their bear teams coming in after a fire they will drop some of these trees horizontally to the hillside so that it will stop the erosion because otherwise this all runs into the watershed i know i have used up my time but i appreciate your testimony and the what needs to happen what do they want to have happen in the forests that means so much to them we have got some great examples of that around the country but maybe since hurricanes were mentioned this morning the work that happened in mississippi following katrina working with wild law working around a common vision of what long leaf pine restoration should look like we were able to accomplish just a huge amount of restoration work using salvage logging and other expired the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon mister blumenauer mister blumenauer thank you and i deeply appreciate chief your looking at the big picture because people are focused on southern california but it is up in the great not just endangered species but coal communities and the fishing industry because they haven't got their act together and with the climate change with development in the flame zone we are going to see this all across the country  and i do appreciate the comments from my friend and colleague from oregon because there are lots of things that communities can come together on and deal with some  absolutely noncontroversial treatment on the urban fringe and we might actually be able to extract some wooden biomass that will help with some of our other fuel issues  but i guess we can't do this if you are going to be spending more and more and more of your money that you are charged with managing  on a problem that is getting ever larger because it is not just smart forest practices that impact fighting fires the figures i have given for example you had a six hundred acre fire in the jebediah smith wilderness that costs maybe twenty thousand dollars to fight when you are dealing with six hundred acres in contrast there was a two hundred and fifty acre fire near the town wilson wyoming that cost more than ten times as much because of the proximity and there are orders of magnitude i mean i am assuming that we can be looking at orders of magnitude that are one hundred or  greater because of the infrastructure and the people involved is that correct do i have that right ms kimbell certainly it is much more expensive where you are up against community development yes mister blumenauer and you are already cannibalizing the fires when they are up against those communities mister blumenauer but they are undercutting the long term issues of health and recreation research i mean you are having to thin all of your activities with this exploding problem ms kimbell we have made some very difficult adjustments yes mister blumenauer i was struck in your testimony where you talked about the twenty two million acres of rural private land within ten miles of the core national forests that are projected to undergo very significant increases in housing density over the course of the next two decades is the fire service i mean excuse me is the forest service how could i make that freudian slip is the forest service developing some policies programs recommendations to us to deal with this impending massive complication for your already difficult task ms kimbell let me offer two different things are getting ready to we have just published this national forests on the edge we will be publishing our open space strategy next month it contains several different things one of those is that we have been working very diligently with a number of different bodies looking at things like environmental services looking at carbon carbon markets we have the science that we can bring to that discussion and we have been doing that we have been working very hard to bring science around carbon accounting science around water science around all the different things that people take for granted coming from forest lands whether they are public or private with our open space strategy  to help solve the problem not quantifying it i appreciate the research but policy recommendations that would make this problem diminish ms kimbell make it diminish i think forests are so important will find in that open space strategy quite a number of suggestions for policy considerations in there certainly there are things that we will take on as an agency but there are some things much bigger than we are as an agency that hopefully the u blumenauer thank you very much mister chairman i apologize we have a ways and means markup that is going on now but my slipping away is not any reflection on how i think this is a critical hearing and i hope that there way to focus broader attention on the wide range of issues here and i really appreciate you putting it on the chairman well we thank you for being here because you have a long career in focusing on these issues and it helps us to hear your questions and comments  but hopefully this question is appropriate here but i am just trying to understand in your testimony you mentioned about housing density and increasing housing density people moving into areas that are heavily forested and i along with the rest of the nation watched with sort of morbid fascination on the tvs watching this whole thing happen in southern california and there was a lot of talk about vegetation and undergrowth that normally would either burn off or naturally be destroyed or die am just wondering what your thoughts are about having such a significant amount of people moving into heavily forested areas and i ask that question in this context coming from the great lakes we just had a big debate here about flood insurance and many people were saying why is the federal government continuing to pay for housing that is destroyed in floods that are going to happen i mean it is no secret it is going to flood again at some point and people rebuild  anything that may be appropriate for the federal government to do to dissuade people from continuing to move into heavily forested areas that we may know are going to have a forest fire in the  well the forest service in working with the states and with local agencies has worked very diligently on firewise it is a program by which we advise local land owners local communities on different things where they might structure ordinances where they might talk about building materials and vegetation around homes and many communities have adopted those many people have implemented those around their own homes whether or not their neighbors have but certainly all that work in fire wise has been very very important at the same time we are talking about a population that is now three hundred million people and by the middle of this century maybe four hundred million people or more all those people are going somewhere and the  national forest lands provide a real draw to people seeking amenity values and so we find in this report national forests on the edge but we have a companion report that is about all of america's forests people are seeking out amenity values and locating because telecommuting is such a possibility now and wireless is available in so many places people are choosing to live in those forested environments but they need to do with the understanding of what they are moving into and with the understanding that they need to be very aware and treating the landscapes around them misess miller thank you very much yes and i yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from oregon  you i just want to follow up because the question came up about wilderness and i know we have had some fires that originated in the wilderness what can you do to manage bug infestation overstocking disease and dead trees in a wilderness area ms kimbell we do not manage natural processes in the wilderness areas by statute those are managed by mother nature mister walden and so when a fire breaks out in a wilderness area are you able i know technically you are allowed to involve aggressive fire fight tactics but generally that is reserved if there is life or casualty i mean isn't that right don't you employ different fire fighting tactics in wilderness area versus outside a wilderness  but again that is based on the values at risk we go through quite an analysis at the start of a fire to look at values at risk and then assign tactics and strategies so if you are in a very expansive wilderness area there is a gentleman here from montana who was probably breathing smoke most of this summer and they will remember the fires this summer in a number of different wilderness areas that did not have aggressive fire fighting techniques until there were significant values at risk kimbell yes there have been some examples of that and certainly in southern california because of the immediate values at risk on the very edge of the wilderness boundary there are some times where we have employed more aggressive fire fighting techniques than perhaps were experienced this summer in the bob marshall wilderness area there in montana but yes we have seen some examples because those forests within wilderness areas are undergoing all the same stresses with climate change that forests outside wilderness commend to you the terrific work of the forest service officials in the black hills national forest and the great work they are doing with their local partners including the local timber industry to pursue a number of thinning projects in the wild land urban interface just a few weeks ago in addition to having mister walden in south dakota a couple of years ago mister norm dicks chairman dicks was in south dakota just a couple of weeks ago and was also very impressed with the efforts there and looking forward to working with him and with you as relates to the budgets necessary to not only fight fires but also to continue with these important projects particularly when they do involve commercial timber sales that actually allow receipts that can continue with additional projects and the patchwork that we have in the black hills national forest i certainly empathize with the folks in southern california as you know we had a devastating fire in the southern hills near hot springs that resulted in a number of homes and other structures lost as well as a gentleman who lost his life firefighters who were injured and so i come at this being convinced by the science that climate change has led to the increased frequency the increased severity of these fires which while we haven't hammered out the precise and best solution yet on how we manage carbon by putting a price on carbon but i am also convinced that as climate change is exacerbated drought insect infestation the fuel load the timing of the snow melt that we also have to manage carbon not only to reduce the threat of the forest fires but to enhance the potential of our natural forests as carbon sequestration carbon sinks and so i wanted to probe with you an area i have been told by some that i have been working with as they are trying to partner to figure out in the black hills do we have significant biomass to support either cellulosic fuel production or for renewable electricity generation that the average amount of woody biomass just from the slash piles that exist would be sufficient to maintain some amount of electricity generation if a project was pursued there can you talk about what activities the forest service is undertaking to assess potential wood waste as a source for biomass either for fuel production cellulosic fuel production or electricity generation and  do you have any barriers currently that may inhibit moving forward if your assessments and research suggest that that would be a good source to help reduce the fuel load ms kimbell thank you and i can get into that and if i get into enough detail i am going to have to ask doctor conard to join me actually we are doing quite a bit at the forest products laboratory in madison wisconsin in looking at the opportunities for using woody biomass for ethanol and the technology is very very close there are people in georgia not forest service people private interests in georgia working on the very same or similar kinds of technologies ready to go into production just as soon as that technology is more certain a barrier right the let me back up a little further it would require not only those slash piles from needs for soil processes and wildlife habitats and those kinds of things we estimate that we can offset up to fifteen percent of the fossil fuels currently being burned with the use of ethanol now there is a measure in there though of the price of oil and so it is all all of this works together i am not an economist but all of this works together and it is dependent the efficacy of the technology is also dependent on the price of oil and its competitiveness ms herseth sandlin thank you for that response and then if you could address maybe two other issues not just in terms of the potential for biomass but then the thinning projects that are undertaken and reducing the density of the stands do you feel that you have sufficient research or you are pursuing that  demonstrates that exactly most recently an article was published in the journal of forestry by doctor susan stout who is one of our project leaders in pennsylvania and she had looked at different management regimes in the study isn't the only one there are many other studies that will demonstrate something similar we do not have science for every single forest ecosystem that we do manage and we are continuing to work on that part of science ms herseth sandlin and one final question i know you had stated on page three of your written testimony that there are important knowledge gaps that we need to address including the estimates of fire emissions that do vary widely do you have any in terms of the ap article that i believe mister walden cited in terms of the amount of emissions of the southern california fires as compared to the amount of emissions by power plants do you have any comments on the statistics cited in that associated press article in letting me ask this question when my time was about to run out but based on the knowledge gaps that i think you know there is some consensus the estimates are varying widely on the amount of emissions from the wildfires so do you have any comments specifically i don't know if you have seen the associated press article yet that compared the amount of emissions from the southern california wildfires to the amount of emissions from the power plant it cited i believe in th e state can you elaborate a bit on where you are headed with the research as it results to identifying the amount of emissions from the wildfires ms conard sure and i actually haven't seen that particular article we do have some independent estimates that we consider quite preliminary that the emissions from the southern california wildfires so far would be equivalent to about three to five percent of the fossil fuel and co emissions in the united states in a typical year so that is probably a similar number in terms of estimating emissions nationally from wildfires there are a number of different lines of work probably some of the most promising involves combining remote sensing information with information on models and measurements of full consumption in individual fires  chair recognizes the gentleman from new york mister hall mister hall i just quickly want to ask a couple of questions before our votes get called chief kimbell thank you very much for your testimony i heard or read that  wonder if you would comment on the how efficient it is to remove healthy large commercially viable trees in terms of preventing or slowing fires everything depends on the site you are working on and if your goal is to have healthy vigorous trees on the when you are finished with whatever projects you are undertaking then you are going to be looking at a number of things and one of those is available moisture it is the surrounding country what you have on that site what you anticipate might be a successful tree species or a successful individual tree into the future using the predictions of temperature moisture all of those things so it is going to vary from site to site there are some sites that would be able to support all of what some people might want to define as larger there are other sites that might be able to support a smaller number of trees if a stand starts out at six thousand stems to the acre and it can reasonably support forty large trees there is a process of elimination when you get to those forty large trees mother nature has had a very interesting way of doing that on her own and yet now we have people living in and amongst those forests so if the goal is to have a healthy vigorous forest and for some of these insects that are forest pests that is how they are classified birds are an important part of that control mechanism we are also seeing that with the temperatures many insects are having two breeding seasons in a montana multiple broods of insects that aren't part of our historical information but also we are seeing the movement of birds and just trying to figure out how those birds are now interacting with the insects th moving around there are viruses there are fungi there are other insects that are that prey on maybe the damaging insect i had a fascinating conversation with one of our researchers who had just been to eastern united states so there are a lot of natural enemies we are working with those and also examining what is happening with climate change that changes the efficacy of all of those mister hall and you would say that increased temperature because of the enormous beetle kill associated probably with climate change in idaho so i have seen this firsthand it is very painful to watch the unfolding death of our forests and what i have a real sadness about is despite your best efforts and the best efforts of the great people who work for you in these forests the policies of george bush are dooming these forests it doesn't matter what you do as long as george bush stands in the schoolhouse door and prevents congress from doing things to stop global warming these forests are going to die it doesn't matter what you do the forces are too great as long as george bush allows unchecked co emissions into the a these forests are going to die and so i have a great sadness about the position you are in trying to save that which is unsavable when the president of the united states won't help us deal with this mortal threat to these forests when i say mortal i mean mortal dead trees when you go up to northern washington you see miles of dead trees up there right now same thing in idaho i don't know if george bush has ever looked at that and i want to enlist you to really do something about this that can succeed in saving these forests so i want to ask you to do what you can to really impress upon the president of the united states how destructive his policy is to these for i want to ask you have you told george bush personally that his policies are killing the forests over which you have a stewardship responsibility but i have been very outspoken about the need to have healthy vigorous growing forests and there are a lot of different tools that we have talked about today to have healthy vigorous growing forests it is so important to be cleaning carbon emissions from the air it is so important to be sequestering carbon to have healthy vigorous forests not just on national forests but on all regimes in these areas they are going to be dead and i want to know whether would you be willing to try to get in to see the president of the united states and personally tell him and show him with pictures the devastations that are happening in these forests so that maybe he would start to work with us to solve this problem would you do that for us ms kimbell i would certainly be willing to invite the president of the united states to come visit some national forests with me and some of my expert  as far as what is happening to cause these forest fires i wanted to put in the record mister chair an article by doctor al westerling and several others from the university of california at scripps that basically looked at the fire this came out in science express on july six two thousand and six and they looked at these records and they found that the greatest increases in the fires were in the mid elevation  forest where land use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt that is an abstract of this article basically what this article suggests is that the huge increase in forest fires we are experiencing are probably more associated with climate change than anything else of increased spring and summer temperatures and earlier spring and hunting and so forth ms kimbell we have very good evidence that there are a number of birds that are changing their use patterns changing their habits fish we are very concerned about it has been estimated th degree temperature rise in the waters that support many of our trout fisheries would no longer be able to if there were a two degree rise would no longer be able to support those trout so we are very concerned about all that and have been studying it grizzly bears in the yellowstone ecosystem have used for decades the seeds from whitebark pine well whitebark pine is moving higher and higher in elevation and those lower in elevation are no longer thriving and we are very concerned about that and we have been studying that so these are all pieces of the climate change picture that we do have science resources assigned to and we need to learn we have a second panel we have three roll calls on the floor of the house we will take a brief recess and we will return in about twenty minutes