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S. HRG. 114–503 

DISCUSSION DRAFT ENTITLED THE ‘‘WILDFIRE 

BUDGETING, RESPONSE, AND FOREST MANAGEMENT ACT OF 2016’’ 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON 

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JUNE 23, 2016 

( 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

COLIN HAYES, Staff Director 

PATRICK J. MCCORMICK III, Chief Counsel 

LUCY MURFITT, Senior Counsel and Public Lands and Natural Resources Director 

ANGELA BECKER-DIPPMANN, Democratic Staff Director 

SAM E. FOWLER, Democratic Chief Counsel 

BRYAN PETIT, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Alaska ................... 1 

Cantwell, Hon. Maria, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from Washington .................................................................................................................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Bonnie, Robert, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, 

U.S. Department of Agriculture .......................................................................... 12 

Rice, Bryan, Director, Office of Wildland Fire, U.S. Department of the Interior ......................................................................................................................... 23 

Goldmark, Dr. Peter, Commissioner of Public Lands, Washington State Department of Natural Resources ........................................................................... 47 

Altemus, Julia, Executive Director, Montana Wood Products Association ......... 51 

Humphries, Becky, Chief Conservation Officer, National Wild Turkey Federation ........................................................................................................................ 60

Nelson, Peter, Senior Policy Advisor for Federal Lands, Defenders of 

Wildlife .................................................................................................................. 70 

Nichols, Eric, Partner, Alcan Forest Products and Evergreen Timber ............... 80 

Pimlott, Ken, Director, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection ........................................................................................................................ 86

ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED 

Alaska Forest Association: 

Statement for the Record ................................................................................. 195 

Letter to Mr. Earl Stewart dated February 22, 2016 .................................... 201 

Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce Presentation ............................................ 216 

Alaska Miners Association: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 231 

Letter to Mr. Forrest Cole, Forest Supervisor, Tongass National Forest, 

dated May 13, 2013 ....................................................................................... 232 

Alaska State Chamber of Commerce: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 237 

Altemus, Julia: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 51 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 53 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 178 

Barrasso, Hon. John: 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 238 

Bonnie, Robert: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 12 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 15 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 150 

Cantwell, Hon. Maria: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 3 

Chart entitled ‘‘National Prioritization of Hazardous Fuel Treatment 

Areas’’ ............................................................................................................. 5 

Chart entitled ‘‘Recent Highest Cost, Loss, and/or Damage Forest Fires 

in Relation to Native Ponderosa Pine Distribution (2000–2014)’’ ............ 7 

Chart entitled ‘‘Timber Impacts Broken Out by State’’ ................................. 11 

City of Craig, Alaska: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 240 
Page

IV 

City of Ketchikan, Alaska: 

Letter and Resolution No. 16-2622 for the Record ........................................ 241 

Coose, Dick: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 244 

Daines, Hon. Steve: 

Map entitled ‘‘Lands Suitable for Timber Management, Flathead National 

Forest’’ ............................................................................................................ 36 

Discussion Draft entitled the ‘‘Wildfire Budgeting, Response, and Forest Management Act of 2016’’ ........................................................................................... 108 

DuRette, Butch and Jackie: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 245 

First Things First Alaska Foundation: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 246 

Goldmark, Dr. Peter: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 47 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 49 

Response to Questions for the Record ............................................................. 177 

Hardwood Federation: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 247 

Heatherdale Resources Ltd.: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 249 

Humphries, Becky: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 60 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 62 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 180 

Josephson, Brenda: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 250 

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 1 

Letter to Secretary Thomas Vilsack, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

dated July 1, 2010 ......................................................................................... 251 

National Association of State Foresters: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 256 

National Parks Conservation Association: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 258 

National Water Resources Association, et al.: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 261 

Nelson, Peter: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 70 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 72 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 181 

Nichols, Eric: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 80 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 82 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 182 

Pimlott, Ken: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 86 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 88 

Chart entitled ‘‘Tree Mortality, Northern Fresno County’’ ........................... 103 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 193 

Resource Development Council for Alaska, Inc.: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 264 

Rice, Bryan: 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 23 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 25 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 167 

Sivertsen, Bob: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 265 

Society of American Foresters: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 266 

Southeast Conference: 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 269 

U.S. Senate (Senators Enzi, Wyden, Murkowski, Cantwell, Crapo, McCain, 

Flake, Barrasso, Merkley, Daines and Tester): 

Colloquy on Wildfire Funding dated August 6, 2015 .................................... 270 
(1) 

DISCUSSION DRAFT ENTITLED THE ‘‘WILDFIRE BUDGETING, RESPONSE, AND FOREST 

MANAGEMENT ACT OF 2016’’ 

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2016 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m. in Room 

SD–366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa Murkowski, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. The Committee will come to 

order. 

We are meeting this morning to receive testimony on the legislative discussion draft entitled, ‘‘Wildfire Budgeting, Response, and 

Management Act of 2016.’’ 

I want to thank those who joined Ranking Member Cantwell and 

me to release this draft on May 25th. Senator Wyden, you and Senator Crapo have been working on the wildfire issue for a very long 

time. We thank you for your leadership. Senator Risch joined us 

too. So we have had a good, strong team with this draft. We have 

taken public comments on it, and we are taking the next step today 

because I think we recognize we face some serious challenges in an 

area that needs to be addressed. 

People across the country are realizing that wildfires are a growing crisis. We certainly know in Alaska the devastation that 

wildfires bring to our state. About half of the ten million acres that 

burned last year were in Alaska. We have already seen over 200 

fires this season alone, so there is a recognition that it is a real 

problem. It is a growing problem, and resolving it will require a 

comprehensive approach that addresses both wildfire funding and 

forest management. We need to do both at once because we know 

the wildfire problem is not just a budgeting problem. It is also a 

management problem. 

I have worked through the Appropriations process to provide 

temporary fixes to ensure that our firefighters and forest managers 

have the resources that they need. I added $1.6 billion for wildfire 

suppression to last year’s Omnibus, $600 million above the average 

cost over the past ten years, likely enough to prevent fire borrowing this year. 
2 

Last year’s bill also included targeted increases in hazardous 

fuels reduction and timber programs that will help mitigate wildfire hazards and keep our forested rural economies going. 

It was close to two weeks ago that we reported the Interior Appropriations bill for the next fiscal year. It, again, includes full 

funding for wildfire suppression as well as a substantial commitment to prevention and forest management efforts. I am proud of 

that work, but I will also be among the first to say that our yearly 

appropriations bills are just temporary solutions. They get us from 

one year to the next, designed to hold us over as we develop longerterm solutions. 

Our draft bill includes a fiscally responsible fix to permanently 

end the destructive practice of fire borrowing. This is where agencies raid non-fire programs like recreation, wildlife and timber to 

pay for firefighting. Our fix requires Congress to provide resources 

to the agencies up front, enough to cover 100 percent of the average 

annual cost of firefighting over the past ten years while allowing 

for a limited cap adjustment in those truly catastrophic fire years. 

In low fire years, we allow the agencies to invest left over suppression funds in prevention projects. 

Ending fire borrowing is something that members on and off the 

Committee have called for, so this is not just a Western issue. Just 

this week Senator Schumer complained that fire borrowing takes 

federal dollars away from efforts to fight the emerald ash borer and 

other invasive species in New York. Under Secretary Bonnie told 

this Committee last year that fire borrowing has significant and 

lasting impacts across the entire Forest Service, not to mention its 

negative impacts on local businesses and economies. 

Yet despite widespread agreement that we need to end this 

unsustainable practice, the Administration is not yet willing to embrace our bipartisan proposal to do just that. Instead, it insists that 

Congress should fund just 70 percent of the ten-year average of 

suppression costs. A proposed cap adjustment would pay for the 

rest as well as any costs above the ten-year average. Congress has 

rejected this idea every year that it has been proposed. 

The Administration claims that it will use the difference between 

70 percent and 100 percent for forest restoration and other measures that allow you to get ahead of the problem, but regrettably, 

the President’s budget request for the Forest Service simply does 

not bear this out. Using the 70/30 split, the Forest Service would 

move about $273 million off budget next year, but the Administration does not seek to plus up wildland preparedness or vegetation 

management. Those accounts are flat. It did not seek to increase 

forest health management on federal lands. That request is actually down. Both the National Forest System budget and the Forest 

Service overall budgets are down. This just does not comport with 

the reality here. 

You can begin to see why wildfires are also a management problem. Healthy, resilient forests are fire resistant forests, yet despite 

knowing the value of fuel reduction treatments in mitigating wildfire risks, increasing firefighter safety and restoring the health of 

our forests, active management is still often met with a series of 

discouraging and sometimes insurmountable obstacles. 
3 

High up-front costs, long planning horizons and difficult regulatory requirements are impeding our ability to implement treatments at the pace and scale that wildfires are occurring. Our discussion draft would take steps to reduce these hurdles without 

abandoning important environmental protections by building on 

authorities within the existing Healthy Forest Restoration Act. 

We focus and expedite environmental reviews by limiting the 

number of alternatives that need to be analyzed for collaboratively 

developed projects, including those contained in community wildfire 

protection plans. 

Our bill also pilots a new emergency environmental assessment 

for native ponderosa pine forests which are highly susceptible to 

burning, in order to reduce the risk of the large, destructive and 

expensive wildfires that are, unfortunately, becoming the norm. 

Addressing the management problem would not be complete 

without attention to our nation’s largest national forest, and that 

is the Tongass in Southeast Alaska. When it comes to the Tongass, 

I think we recognize that there is not always going to be agreement. But I hope that we can at least agree that that transition 

to a program focused on predominately young growth timber needs 

to be real and not just something that looks good on paper. 

The Forest Service needs to do what is right and undertake what 

the Tongass Advisory Committee, the TAC, called for in its recommendations. They called for a comprehensive, stand level inventory to address the uncertainties that exist in the supply, volume 

and timing of the available young growth to support a transition. 

On January 21 of this year the TAC reiterated the importance 

of an inventory calling it the number one priority investment, because modeling is not good enough for a clear picture of when 

young growth will come online. A successful transition will only be 

possible if it is grounded in strong science and backed by comprehensive data. The point of our Tongass provision in this draft 

is not to delay the transition that is already underway but to allow 

for a meaningful inventory to take place before the land plan is 

amended. 

The last thing that I want to highlight is our emphasis on federal 

engagement with state and local fire agencies and other partners. 

This is critical to mitigate risk to communities and to manage and 

respond to wildfires. The investments we authorize will help communities become fire adapted which is an important piece of the solution to escalating wildfire suppression costs in the Wildland 

Urban Interface. 

I would like to close by thanking my colleagues for working with 

us on this discussion draft. I intend to advance it to the Senate 

floor as soon as possible, and I would hope that members of our 

Committee will recognize what is at stake here and join me in the 

effort. 

With that, I turn to Senator Cantwell. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you for 

having this hearing this morning. I think this is a culmination this 

morning of a lot of hard work on this discussion draft, more than 
4 

two years, and if you include the work by our predecessors, probably two or three more years before that. I am so glad that our colleagues, Senator Wyden and Senator Stabenow, are both here because of the roles that they have played on this issue as well. 

I, too, could start with some statistics. Last year, ten million 

acres burned, 4,600 houses were destroyed, and obviously, we very 

sadly observed fatalities with our firefighters. 

We are going to hear from Commissioner Goldmark, who is here 

from our state. He is going to tell us in more detail about all of 

that, but I appreciate him being on the second panel. 

Instead of going over more statistics, I would like to spend some 

time talking about what I think we should do to reduce the risk, 

reduce the intensity and reduce the cost. 

Scientists are telling us that these seasons, these fire seasons, 

are both longer and hotter. An April report from Headwaters Economics said that a one-degree increase in temperature change, one 

degree, results in a doubling of firefighting costs, a 25-percent increase in the number of wildland fires and a 35-percent increase 

in the number of acres burned. So just one-degree of temperature 

change will make our national fire problems even more complex. 

I believe we must effectively address the root cause of the problems with fire risk and fire budgeting. If this is the new normal, 

we need better strategies to deal with the problem. I am glad that 

Under Secretary Bonnie and Mr. Rice are here to talk about some 

of those strategies today, because I do not think the temperature 

change we are seeing is going to stop. I think we are going to have 

continued risk. 

Our efforts need to be guided by scientists, and the science is 

telling us that we need policies that will make our at-risk forests 

more resilient to fires and keep our firefighters safer and protect 

our western communities from the impacts of wildfire. We have 

seen the huge economic impacts of this in the last couple of years 

with the Colville Tribes alone losing over $0.5 billion of timber revenue. 

The Director of CAL Fire will be joining us on the second panel, 

and Chief Pimlott’s testimony discusses at length the need to treat 

the fuels that have built up on national forests. The discussion 

draft includes a Pine Pilot, as the Chair said, and I think it is a 

key provision that any Western Senator should be interested in. 

As part of this, I say federal land management agencies need a 

new strategy for firefighting. They need the tools to complete their 

jobs. We need to be proactive in reducing fire risk, and the discussion draft today contains a number of tools for doing that. 

I want to talk about the Pine Pilot in specific. That section directs the agencies to focus their efforts in areas that are most at 

risk. We have printed out a couple of charts that hopefully we can 

show to people that this science is built on. 

The Forest Service, as you can see, has ranked the different 

parts of the national forest based on fire risk. The most at-risk are 

in the red areas. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
5 
6 

The next chart was made by the former head of wildfire management for the Forest Service. He published in academic papers the 

close correlation between ponderosa pine forests and the large fires 

that we’ve been experiencing. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
7 
8 

Scientists are telling us that restoring the health of the ponderosa pine forest, through thinning and prescribed fire, is the best 

way, most effective way, to deal with this issue. After merging 

these two maps, the result that we have identified is about two 

million acres that we want the Forest Service to place a priority 

on treating. These two million acres are simultaneously the most 

at-risk for fire, the place that projects have the largest impact in 

reducing fuels and the places that are best supported by the 

science and the public. 

In this pilot we would provide the tools to the agency, such as 

long-term contracts to individual mills and preferences for crosslaminated timber, so that we are actually securing more sustainable buildings. These tools will help us get this work done and will 

help us in, I believe, a much more proactive discussion than the 

discussion that happens after the fire. 

We need to do fuel reduction in the places that make the most 

sense. Implementing this program would change the fire risk to our 

most vulnerable forests. The science is showing that it can happen 

and there is actually video on the web that proves it. 

The Spokane Tribe just recently published a video of their recent 

fuel treatment and how it fared last year in the Carpenter Road 

fire. I recommend it to anybody who wants to look at that. In the 

Carpenter Road fire, the fuel treatment was effective. They actually installed time-lapse cameras in the pine forest where the fire 

burned through in the treated areas and untreated areas. The 

video shows compelling evidence of the value that this Pine Pilot 

could have to both BLM land and National Forest System land. 

More broadly, of course, there are other provisions of this bill 

that I think we also need to implement. But to me, with one-degree 

temperature change driving the challenge, this is the most important. The scientists are saying that this kind of investment actually 

reduces the size and severity of the fires. I think that that is what 

we need to try to target. 

Other provisions in the discussion draft include community preparedness, $600 million would be authorized to help at-risk communities. I know that my colleagues from the West understand 

this, but whether you are talking about Twisp or Wenatchee or the 

Yakama reservation, these communities are at-risk and they need 

help and support. We need to make sure that small communities 

who are on the front lines of fighting these fires have some immediate capital ready to do what we call hasty response. 

We also have a section in the draft requiring the use of a new 

technology—to deploy GPS and drones. Wildfire Today refers to 

this technology as the ‘‘Holy Grail of firefighting.’’ For the first time 

ever incident managers would be able to see, in real time, the location of the fire and their crews. 

Dozers and other equipment will be treated more communally; 

we will work together effectively ensuring that agencies use all the 

firefighting equipment available. That can do wonders in helping to 

engage in what has, again, been defined in Washington State by 

various entities as ‘‘hasty response.’’ 

Last year, as I traveled through the state thinking that I was 

going to be reviewing the previous year’s fire season, obviously as 

we know a huge new fire season opened up. Community after com-
9 

munity, including a round table we held with Representative Cathy 

McMorris Rodgers, this issue could not have been clearer from my 

constituents. Work together cooperatively so that those on the front 

lines who have the tools to do some immediate response don’t all 

of sudden get stopped at a property line. It does not make sense 

to hear DNR or Forest Service say you do not have the right to 

cross. 

Figure it out because there is so much capacity where people 

want to help and coordinate, and I know we can do it. I know our 

community came together in the aftermath of Oso and the Federal 

Government, the county government and the local government 

worked diligently to try to find those individuals impacted by a 

devastating landslide. I am sure that we can do the same in fighting our wildfires. 

The discussion draft also helps ensure communication infrastructure remains functioning during wildfire season. Again, this was an 

issue where emergency centers in communities have been activated 

but no broadband communication exists, no one can get access to 

emergency broadband equipment until the emergency is declared 

by the Governor or the President, which is like filing paperwork 

and sending it away for a month of deliberation. At that time they 

are still trying to communicate! We have to come up with plans to 

help and this draft includes them. 

Now I am ready to declare fire borrowing ‘‘the great debate.’’ 

This senator is agnostic as to how we solve it, but I do have a couple of principles in general. 

First, we cannot rob Peter to pay Paul. The Forest Service needs 

both the amount of money to fight the fires and they need the 

money dedicated to do fuel reduction. We have to produce a draft 

out of here, Madam Chair, that gives them the ability to do both. 

On the implementation of the pine forest, I would just say, Washington State invested $18 million in 2014 to rebuild salmon 

habitat, but most of it was burned up in 2015. So we need to have 

dedicated funds to protect our investments, the Federal Government’s investments. We are going to deal with the fire problem. 

We have to have both dedicated funds to doing fuel reduction and 

dedicated funds to fighting the fires. 

Today firefighting constitutes 50 percent of the Forest Service 

budget and reports say that the proportion will go to 67 percent 

over the next ten years. That means over $700 million less for 

those non-fire accounts if we continue to try to solve it this way. 

I hope that we will all work together. I look forward to Under 

Secretary Bonnie’s comments on how we are going to solve this because we are having a shift in temperature that demands a new 

response. 

Senator Murkowski and I have received a number of letters on 

this draft. A number of groups want more things included in the 

bill. I personally want a more robust controlled burn section. This 

is a very complex issue, and I know many of my constituents do 

not want to see smoke in their communities. We understand that, 

but trying to manage wildland fires in the dry, hot months of August is the wrong idea. We need the flexibility to do it in the wetter 

months of the Pacific Northwest, not when the fuel is so built up 

and our conditions are so dry. So we need to work together on that. 
10 

A number of groups want draft provisions removed like the 

Tongass piece, and a number of groups have provided feedback on 

how to make sections more useful, like discussions on the Pine 

Pilot. All I know is that we have to come together to solve this 

issue. 

I appreciate so much, as I said, my colleagues here today. They 

have been working on this issue for several years as well and want 

to benefit so many impacted communities. 

I would like to submit also this chart that would show where the 

board feet of potential pine forest reductions would come from by 

state and so my colleagues could see this. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
11 
12 

Senator CANTWELL. This is not something, Madam Chair, that I 

come to easily. But I think this is a better path forward than the 

route we have been going: in the aftermath of a fire trying to decide what to do with salvaged logs. 

If the Federal Government is going to be spending between $2 

and $3 billion a year on fighting fires because of the increasing 

risk, we need to do something to reduce the risk and I think this 

is a suggestion worth considering. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Cantwell, I appreciate the 

level of detail there. 

We will now turn to our first panel. We will have two panels this 

morning. I know that there is much to be put on the table, so we 

will proceed immediately to it. 

On the first panel we are joined by Mr. Robert Bonnie, who is 

the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment for 

the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as Mr. Bryan Rice, 

who is the Director from the Office of Wildland Fire at the Department of the Interior. 

Gentlemen, welcome to the Committee. I must tell you that I was 

very disappointed that we did not receive your testimony until at 

least 11 o’clock last night. I think for colleagues that were quite 

anxious to see the direction and the comments of the Administration, to not be able to receive them until early this morning when 

folks came in, is unacceptable. You can do a heck of a lot better 

and I just need to start the hearing, unfortunately, with an admonishment that I think the Committee deserves a little more respect 

from the Administration in terms of your statements. 

With that, Mr. Bonnie, if you would proceed. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BONNIE, UNDER SECRETARY FOR 

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Mr. BONNIE. Thank you. 

Chairwoman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell and members of the Committee, thank you for having me here today and 

more importantly thank you for scheduling this hearing on an issue 

of such vital importance. 

Everything that the Forest Service does, everything, is being negatively impacted because of the ever growing proportion of the 

agency’s budget spent fighting fire. 

Two decades ago the agency spent one-sixth of its budget on fire. 

Today it routinely spends more than half of its budget on firefighting. 

Non-fire staff in the agency has dropped by 39 percent since 

1998, meaning we have fewer staff to restore forests, provide recreation, manage wildlife habitat, you name it. 

Investing in forest restoration is critical to addressing the wildfire threat. Since 2009 the Administration has increased the number of acres restored across the national forest through thinning, 

prescribed fire and other means. And by investing in collaboration 

and landscape scale management, we’ve increased timber production by 20 percent. 
13 

Yet over the long term the agency won’t be able to sustain these 

gains, much less further increase the number of acres we restore 

unless Congress fixes the fire budget. 

The good news is that there’s broad agreement among diverse 

stakeholders, Republicans and Democrats, that this problem needs 

to be fixed. And while wildland fires might be thought of as a 

Western problem, the truth is that the budget impacts to the Forest Service are felt everywhere the agency works, East, West, 

North and South. 

Fixing the fire budget problem requires doing two things. 

First, we must end fire borrowing so that when the agency exhausts its fire suppression budget, as it does in most years, it 

doesn’t have to transfer dollars from non-fire programs to fund firefighting. While Congress typically reimburses the agency for the 

transferred funds, fire borrowing, nonetheless, disrupts the agency’s ability to get work done. 

The second problem, the growth of fire suppression expenditures 

and the erosion of the rest of the Forest Service budget, is actually 

far more debilitating to the agency than fire borrowing. Let me explain. By law the Forest Service has to fund fire suppression based 

on the average of suppression expenditures over the previous ten 

years. Yet the costs of firefighting are rising dramatically due to 

longer fire seasons, increased fuel loads and development into the 

Wildland Urban Interface. So every year the Forest Service must 

set aside more money for fire. 

Over each of the last two years the Forest Service has trans- ferred more than $100 million from its non-fire programs to firefighting. That money wasn’t borrowed. As long as fire costs keep 

rising, as they surely will, that money is permanently moved out 

of our non-fire programs and into firefighting. 

So if we want to restore forests to reduce the threat of catastrophic fire, we have to solve the second problem. If we want to 

increase recreational access or fix our $300 million backlog in 

trails, we have to solve it. If we want to address the 66 million 

dead trees we have standing in California right now, we have to 

solve this problem. 

The bipartisan Wildfire Disaster Funding Act solves both problems by allowing the Forest Service to access disaster funds when 

it spends 70 percent of its suppression budget. This both prevents 

fire transfers and allows the agency to invest additional resources 

in forest management. 

But there are other ways Congress could address the second 

issue as well by providing additional capacity to the agency. For example, you could cap the suppression budget at 100 percent of 2015 

levels and take the additional money that Congress has currently 

investing in firefighting and devote it to restoration or recreation 

or what have you. 

With a comprehensive budget fix the Administration could support efforts to provide the agency with additional forest management tools to increase the pace and scale of restoration. Such provisions should be built on collaboration among stakeholders and have 

strong environmental safeguards. 

The forest management provisions Congress passed in the 2014 

Farm bill struck the right balance and demonstrated it was pos-
14 

sible to pass legislation with both forest, industry and conservation 

support. 

Finally, let me address the Tongass National Forest. For decades 

the Tongass has been mired in controversy. USDA and the Forest 

Service have invested in collaboration through the Tongass Advisory Committee in order to find a path forward that sustains the 

viable timber industry while transitioning away from old growth 

timber harvesting over the next 15 years. We oppose provisions delaying the amendment. Most importantly, I want to stress that we 

look forward to working with this Committee and others in Congress to put together a legislative package that fixes the fire budget 

and provides balanced tools to increase forest restoration and management. 

Thank you and I’m happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bonnie follows:] 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bonnie. 

Mr. Rice, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF BRYAN RICE, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF 

WILDLAND FIRE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

Mr. RICE. Good morning, Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to come in today and provide the testimony from the Department of the Interior regarding the Wildfire Budgeting Response 

and Forest Management Act of 2016. 

For introduction, the Department of the Interior Office of 

Wildland Fire works with the bureaus within the department that 

have wildland fire responsibility and we provide the leadership, the 

oversight, focusing on budgets and policies that affects nearly 500 

million acres across the Department of Interior’s land base. 

We appropriate. We work closely with other federal agencies, 

states, tribes and our external partners as well as organizations to 

provide strategic leadership and support as well, focusing on the 

tenants of the cohesive strategy as well as implementation of Secretarial Order 3336, Rangeland Fire Management. 

The Department would like to express thanks to our partners in 

Congress for support for the Wildland Fire Resilience Landscapes 

program. That continued support is a critical step forward as we’ve 

recently received over 75 preproposals for this next year that has 

nearly $74 million of requests. 

This, on the heels of the 2015 fire season being the costliest on 

record and burning the most acres since we’ve been recording since 

1960. And as in past fire seasons, the wildfire risks that we’re seeing in this season is going to be highly dependent upon weather as 

well as other human factors. 

We’re seeing cumulative impacts from climate change, drought, 

invasive species as well as our other factors and they’re creating 

this landscape for more susceptibility to devastating wildfire. 

With an ever expanding Wildland Urban Interface and the inherent complexities associated with it, the need for partnerships is 

continuing to grow. 

We’re also continuing to make proactive investments in fuels 

management and those resilient landscapes activities across the 

landscape to better address the growing impact of wildland fire on 

communities and the public lands. 

The resilient landscapes activity is coordinated with and supported by those resource management programs within the fire 

management bureaus of the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Those programs are also working in concert with tribes, states and other organizations that are involved. 

On another note that I’d like to highlight, the Department is 

showing leadership in providing training and job opportunities for 

our veterans that are coming back and wishing to continue their 

service in working in natural resources or other natural resource 

management programs. We’re taking great pride in those men and 

women that are coming back to serve, and DOI’s Bureau of Land 
24 

Management has provided Wildfire Firefighter 1 and 2 training for 

over 400 veteran volunteers over the last year. 

In regards to the draft bill, the Department continues to support 

an approach to fixing the fire funding that ends transfers, recognizes that catastrophic fire is a natural disaster and ensures that 

our efforts to suppress those catastrophic fires does not diminish 

our efforts to create more resilient landscapes. 

The Department strongly opposes Section 201 in Title II as currently written and looks forward to working with the Committee to 

find language that identifies standards that meet the goals of overall safety, interoperability and efficiencies. 

The Department is also leading many activities focusing on UAS, 

unmanned aerial systems, that seek to provide firefighter and public safety while ensuring operations are continued and carried on. 

We have examples from 2014, 2015, most recently here in 2016 on 

the North fire in New Mexico where we have UASs that are providing real time mapping capabilities as well as infrared video. 

In regards to the last title and focusing on some of the other land 

management activities, the Department is focused on ensuring 

strong environmental safeguards are maintained and to further 

support increased resilience in landscape across the DOI Bureaus. 

In closing, the Department of the Interior works closely with our 

federal, tribal, state and local partners and last, we will continue 

to improve interagency forest and rangeland management while 

importantly upholding our trust responsibilities. 

This concludes my statement and I’ll be happy to answer any 

questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rice follows:] 
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Rice. 

We will begin with a round of questions. Let me begin with you, 

Mr. Bonnie. 

I want to start with the Tongass inventory because I will tell 

you, I am quite disturbed by the statement in your written testimony. You, kind of, glossed over it in your oral remarks here this 

morning, but you make a statement that says that the requirement 

for inventory would be, ‘‘contrary to the recommendations of the 

Tongass Advisory Committee, as well as causing an unnecessary 

delay.’’ 

I am really stunned by that statement. When you look to Forest 

Service’s own website, when you talk about the Tongass inventory 

and the plan amendment, you, on your website, say an inventory 

is needed to address the uncertainties. The plan amendment needs 

to have credible information to accurately predict the timing and 

supply of young growth. This can only be obtained by a comprehensive stand level inventory. 

The statement from the Secretary in the July 2013 Secretarial 

Memo emphasizes that the transition must take place in a way 

that preserves a viable timber industry that provides jobs and opportunities for residents of Southeast Alaska. We all agree on that. 

On January 21, the TAC said there are a number of investments 

that need to be made. The number one priority investment is a forest inventory because modeling is not good enough for a clear picture of when young growth will come online during the next 15- 

year period. So for you to say that this is contrary to the recommendations of the TAC just does not comport with what the 

TAC has said and said very, very clearly, as well as what you have 

on your own website and the Secretary’s own memorandum. 

What’s up? 

Mr. BONNIE. So we are carrying out an inventory right now, as 

you know. 

The CHAIRMAN. I understand. 

Mr. BONNIE. In parallel with what the TAC recommended in 

their final report. 

The level of the inventory that, I think, you’re talking about is 

unnecessary for us to arrive at a decision on the plan amendment. 

What we need is— 

The CHAIRMAN. Who has decided that that is unnecessary to do 

a comprehensive inventory to arrive at a decision at the plan level 

on this amendment? 

Mr. BONNIE. So the inventory that we’re carrying out now will 

give us information that will allow us to do stand level projects and 

other things. I think we have the information we need right now 

to do a broad plan level amendment. 

The CHAIRMAN. So— 

Mr. BONNIE. What the inventory is helpful in doing is allow us 

to plan sales. 

The CHAIRMAN. The inventory has been recognized as necessary 

to provide for that level of certainty for the plan. Forest Service 

recognizes it. The TAC recognizes it. To suggest that we know 

enough now that we can just move forward with the plan that requires a complete transition in just 16 years belies the concern 

from everyone saying we need to understand where we are in the 
33 

growth stage, in terms of the availability for harvest. We recognize 

that an inventory in the Tongass is tough because the Tongass is 

a tough area, but in order to have a plan that is based in reality, 

everyone recognizes we need to understand what we are dealing 

with with the trees here—where they are located, the volume available and the quality. 

Are you going against the TAC recommendation then? 

Mr. BONNIE. No, we’re, I think, we’re in line with the TAC recommendation. They asked us. They were very concerned about implementation. They asked us to move forward with the inventory 

we’re doing now. As you know, we’re doing it in partnership with 

the state. And so, I think we’re very much in keeping with what 

the TAC has asked. 

The CHAIRMAN. But what you are suggesting to me here, in your 

words, is the requirement to inventory, and I will use your statement here, ‘‘All 462,000 acres of young growth sites on the Tongass 

before issuing a record of decision will cause an unnecessary delay 

would be contrary to the recommendations of the Tongass Advisory 

Committee.’’ 

I will just take you back to the statement from the TAC itself 

on January 21 that says the number one priority investment is a 

forest inventory because modeling is not good enough for a clear 

picture of when young growth will come online during the next 15- 

year period. 

Know that the reason that we have included this requirement 

within this draft legislation is to follow out the intent of the TAC 

as well as what Forest Service has been saying all throughout this 

discussion, that we need to understand what we have in terms of 

available young growth so that we can make sure to use the Secretary’s words, that we preserve a viable timber industry that provides jobs and opportunities for the residents of Southeast. 

I am going to turn to Senator Cantwell now. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Under Secretary Bonnie, and 

thank you for your testimony this morning. 

I wanted to go over this issue of fuel reduction, because it is so 

important to so many of us. This issue about fuel reduction by limiting NEPA considerations is one thing that, kind of, hits at me. 

I know your testimony for the Administration also talked about 

that, and I hoped you could elaborate on that point. 

Mr. BONNIE. So I think what we said all along is that we, with 

a comprehensive fix, are happy to look at provisions to look at forest management on the national forests. Those provisions need to 

have strong, environmental safeguards, they need to be based on 

collaboratively designed projects and we think that those two 

things can be really important in allowing us to move forward with 

those types of tools. And so, any provisions that we look at, I think 

those are going to be important. 

We recognize the need to get more work done. And critical to 

that is thinking about larger landscapes, as you talked about, but 

also working in collaboration so that we can reduce litigation risk 

and so that we can move forward with these projects more quickly. 

Senator CANTWELL. That language would be problematic if it 

stayed in the draft? NEPA? 
34 

Mr. BONNIE. So I think what we would suggest, if you’re talking 

about the action/no action section, I think what we would suggest 

is making sure it’s got strong, environmental safeguards. It needs 

to be discretionary, not mandatory. I think the language right now 

is mandatory and I think that’s problematic. And we’d suggest, 

maybe, adding a third alternative as well. 

Senator CANTWELL. Okay. 

Then on the Pine Pilot, in general, what are your thoughts on 

it as a fuel reduction tool? 

Mr. BONNIE. So, I think you were thinking exactly right about 

thinking about large landscapes and thinking about how we get 

fire back into these ecosystems. And so I think that’s important. I 

think the title collaboration is important. I think environmental 

safeguards are important. I’ve told your staff that I think we’re 

anxious to work with you all on it. There’s some provisions I think 

we have questions about and concerns about but are willing to 

work through that. 

Senator CANTWELL. Okay. 

Mr. Rice, on reducing risks by doing some fuel reduction, what 

are your thoughts about the Pine Pilot? 

Mr. RICE. Thank you for the question, Senator. 

I think for many of the projects, specifically the Pine Pilot that 

you’re referring to, the Department, in many instances, will defer 

to USDA to address many of these issues as it is focused on Forest 

Service lands. 

But the overriding themes, as you’ve pointed out in several cases 

so far, of ensuring environmental safeguards, strong environmental 

safeguards are in place and further developing landscape resilience 

is important. 

Senator CANTWELL. Well, there is no secret here. I have discussed this issue with various people. This is about whether we all 

can get comfortable with the response to what is happening. Can 

we all agree? 

I am hearing from scientists in my state, at the University of 

Washington and others, who are saying these pine forests are going 

to burn down. I would prefer to keep them, but if they are going 

to burn down, guess what? I don’t get to keep them. 

I can get them managed. I can get the fuel reduced. I can put 

the products from these treatments in Cross-Laminated Timber 

(CLT). I can make sure that the mills stay open by giving them 

long-term contracts so that they can continue to process the products from these treatments. 

To me that is a win/win/win situation because if I don’t get to 

keep the pine forests because they are going to burn down, I would 

rather have some of it reduced and save the Federal Government 

dollars, secure our communities and actually be proud of the management of our forests and the use of our timber products for CLT. 

I guess it is really a question of whether both your agencies 

agree with these assessments that have been presented here today 

about the forests and temperature increases. Is this the hazard 

that we are facing? Do either of you have a comment about that? 

Mr. BONNIE. There’s no question we’ve got to get more restoration done. Many of our forests look differently than they did 100 

years ago because we’ve taken fire out. That, combined with cli-
35 

mate change, as you spoke about, is changing the nature of the 

fires we’ve seen now. They’re making them more destructive and 

larger and restoration is a key to reduce the severity of those fires. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Senator Daines? 

Senator DAINES. Thank you, Chair Murkowski and Ranking 

Member Cantwell. 

I gratefully put forward this draft. This is tireless work, and I 

like the bipartisan spirit that made this possible. 

Secretary Bonnie, it is good to see you again. 

I must say I am particularly dismayed and outraged this morning. We had breaking news coming out of Montana that hit us. The 

Twittersphere lit up as just yesterday Weyerhaeuser announced it 

is closing two mills in Columbia Falls, Montana this summer. 

One hundred Montanans are going to lose their jobs. These are 

good paying jobs on top of another 100 job cuts that were previously announced. 

The company said they have been running below capacity because of an ongoing shortage of logs in the region. I want to put 

to rest this nonsense I hear from folks who are opposed to forest 

management saying the reason the mills are closing in Montana is 

because of lack of demand. That is absolutely false. The issue is 

lack of logs. And by the way, it is not lack of available timber. 

Some of our mills today in Montana are getting logs over 500 

miles away. We go to other states to get logs. We go to another 

country. We go to Canada to get logs. 

It is ridiculous. It has got to end. This body needs to act to help 

save, right now, our forests through healthy, more forest management practices and these jobs. 

I want to draw your attention to the Flathead National Forest 

which surrounds much of Columbia Falls. The map behind me, the 

section in orange are the acres suitable for timber harvest in the 

forest. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
36 
37 

In fact, if you look at where the red circle is, that is where the 

Weyerhaeuser operation is at. 

We just put this map together, literally, last night when we got 

news. Nobody saw this coming. We knew that our timber industry 

has been very clear, that they cannot get logs. Now we just saw 

100 Montanans lose their jobs as the results of this. 

But if you look at that map, there are about 700,000 acres of 

suitable timber for harvest there we could get to in national forest. 

That is the colors on that chart. That is all within 100 miles of that 

Weyerhaeuser operation. 

Despite the hard work of the Flatheads Forest Service workers, 

the volumes off this harvest coming off this forest, the nearby national forest, is not anywhere where it can and should be. 

The latest mill closings are deeply unfortunate. They are also not 

surprising. Over the past generation, since I was a kid growing up 

in Montana, we have lost two-thirds of our mills. We had over 30 

when I was a kid. We are down to ten. 

Here is one more to put on the list. We have lost 40 percent of 

our wood products workforce, 4,000 jobs. The irony is that we are 

told with this job loss we go into other committee hearings telling 

the importance to keep PILT and SRS going forward here so our 

counties that are surrounded by federal lands, who have lost their 

natural resource base, no longer have a tax base to fund their 

schools and their teachers and their infrastructure. And we have 

these dying communities. 

In fact, a family up in Eureka, which is Lincoln County just 

nearby where this plant closing occurred, a couple years ago was 

having dinner and they said basically we describe Northwest Montana as poverty with a view. That is what is going on. 

So we have previously discussed the impacts of litigation in Montana, and we have had hearing after hearing after hearing as we 

talk about getting to one of the core challenges if we are going to 

fix this problem and move forward toward responsible timber harvest, we need to have some reforms in litigation. 

There are currently, listen to this, there are currently 21 projects 

under litigation. Thirteen of these were developed using collaborative processes, and recent objections filed by these fringe environmental extremist groups do not represent the 80 to 90 percent of 

most Montanans. They are stopping these projects, and they are 

signaling there is going to be more litigation that lies ahead. 

So my question with that as a background. As the Committee 

continues to work on this draft, I am convinced we can find common ground on meaningful litigation reforms such as expanding 

HFRA’s balance of harms protections and closing loopholes that 

fringe groups have exploited in the courtroom as we have seen in 

the Cottonwood vs. Forest Service case. For instance, strengthening 

the objections process and establishing a pilot arbitration authority. 

Can I get your commitment to work with us, to work with me 

and other members of this Committee, toward finding consensus on 

such solutions that can be incorporated into this emerging legislation? 
38 

Mr. BONNIE. So, we’re happy to work with you on forest management reforms. My concern about litigation is whether or not we can 

maintain a middle so that we can move something forward. 

Senator DAINES. Do you believe that litigation is a— 

Mr. BONNIE. Litigation is a challenge and it’s a big challenge in 

your part of the world. There’s no question. 

Senator DAINES. So can I get your commitment to work with us 

to find some common ground? 

Mr. BONNIE. We’ll continue to work with you and I’ll just say understand— 

Senator DAINES. But that is not a yes. Can I get a yes that you 

will work with us on— 

Mr. BONNIE. Absolutely, we’ll work with you. 

Senator DAINES. Thank you. I appreciate that because we are to 

the point now, I mean, this is something when your phones are 

ringing and you are seeing 100 Montana families losing jobs because of lack of logs when you are surrounded by timber. Something has got to change here. 

Alright, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Daines. 

Senator Heinrich. 

Senator HEINRICH. First I want to thank the Chair and the 

Ranking Member for their work on this issue. This issue of how we 

fund our forests and our management of our forests is critical to 

communities across the West. It is absolutely critical in many communities in New Mexico. 

As we speak right now, the Doghead Fire continues to burn in 

the East Mountains, not far from my home in Albuquerque actually. Last week we lost 24 homes and 21 other structures when 

that fire raced out of the mountains and into a subdivision. It is 

only thanks, really, to luck and favorable winds and the very hard 

work of our firefighters on the ground that the structure losses 

numbered in the dozens and not in the hundreds and that we had 

zero loss of life. Thank goodness. 

This fire actually overlaps with a collaborative forest project 

which includes partners like the Nature Conservancy, the Pueblo 

of Isleta, the Chilili land grant. Even though the NEPA process review on this project was completed back in 2012, the Forest Service 

did not have the funds to pay to do the actual work in the forest. 

It took two more years for the project partners to come up with the 

funds to start the work and still only 7,000 of 12,000 acres in the 

project were treated before the fire was ignited. So it is hard not 

to think about how things might have been different if this entire 

area had been successfully treated and restored before the fire 

broke out last week. 

I know we all wish the Forest Service could approve projects faster, more efficiently. But the fact is that project approval is only the 

first hurdle in getting work done to make our forests healthier. 

Without a robust and stable budget, all the process streamlining in 

the world doesn’t get trees cut. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and to hearing what they have to say about the issues, but we cannot wait any 

longer to get large-scale forest health projects implemented in New 

Mexico, and for that matter, across the West. 
39 

Under Secretary Bonnie, I want to ask you a question. The fire 

program at the Forest Service is consuming a larger percentage of 

the overall forest budget every year. Last year, for the first time, 

the Forest Service spent more than half its budget on fire activities. In 2025 the fire program is expected to consume two-thirds of 

the budget. Obviously this cuts out money. It crowds out money for 

non-fire related programs, recreational programs, personal firewood 

use permits (which are so important in New Mexico), road and trail 

maintenance, forest restoration and watershed health. 

I want to ask you, does this draft that we are discussing today 

do anything to address the growth over time in that 10-year average? 

Mr. BONNIE. No, it doesn’t. It just addresses the first problem I 

talked about in my testimony, fire borrowing. 

Senator HEINRICH. So if we fix the fire borrowing but do not fix 

the growth in the 10-year average and do not take into account the 

continued changes we are seeing in climate, what does that mean 

for the non-fire programs at the Forest Service over time? 

Mr. BONNIE. So, I think, as you point out, the biggest impediment right now to the Forest Service getting more work done, more 

restoration work, is a lack of capacity. Thirty-nine percent fewer 

employees across the agency in the non-fire side versus the fire 

side of the organization, and it’s affecting everything, again, as you 

point out. 

To your specific point on restoration, if we want to get more work 

done, we have to solve this problem. 

Senator HEINRICH. We have got to figure this out because we 

have projects all over in forests across New Mexico where the community has come to a generalized consensus about what needs to 

be done. The relationships with the Forest Service are positive. 

People generally agree on what we need to be done and oftentimes 

much of the planning has been done. But we can’t get the needed 

funding because we are spending it all on firefighting. We have got 

to find a way to move that back over time. 

Before my time expires I want to ask you a little bit about the 

Ponderosa Pine/Mixed-Conifer Pilot Project. The draft project describes eligible projects as hazardous fuel reduction projects. Under 

the current draft would that include prescribed fire as well as mechanical thinning or do we need to clarify that? Because obviously 

the idea is the first wave you go in and thin mechanically and that 

has a certain cost to it and then the second wave, hopefully, you 

maintain that by restoring fire into a fire-based system at a much 

lower cost to the taxpayer. 

Mr. BONNIE. We would read that it does include that but clarification, I think, would be welcome. 

Senator HEINRICH. Great. 

It looks like my time has expired, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Heinrich. 

Senator Wyden. 

Senator WYDEN. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Let me 

commend you and the bipartisan leadership for all the effort that 

went into the draft. This is not an easy lift, and I very much appreciate— 

The CHAIRMAN. You know that. 
40 

Senator WYDEN. I do indeed. 

Madam Chair and colleagues, ending the plague of fire borrowing 

is now the longest running battle since the Trojan War and it is 

time to bring this to an end. 

Madam Chair, I note this is a little unorthodox, but I want to 

give a little history on this on behalf of Senator Crapo and I. As 

you know, the two of us have worked together on this and with 

you, our proposal to end fire borrowing now has the support of 258 

organizations and given the history on this, I especially appreciate 

your desire to get this done before the next fire season. 

In terms of advancing that effort, I would just like to put into 

the record that we have had 11 of us a year ago saying we were 

going to get it done and to your credit, you have picked up on that 

proposition and that now is clearly the time to get this done. 

Now I want to make sure we are clear on the major issue—the 

mix of ending fire borrowing and improving forest management. 

The Chair and I have talked about this often because I have been 

supportive of management efforts as has Senator Crapo. The concern is that if you take on too many difficult management issues 

you will not end fire borrowing, and that has been the history. 

It seems to me the Chair and the Ranking Member on our side 

are saying here is where we would like to begin the discussion. We 

just want to make sure we end up getting something done. We 

want to get something done. 

As the Chair and I have talked about, getting something done is 

also a bicameral effort because I thought we were pretty close last 

year to finally getting it done, and it broke down in discussions between the Senate and the House. 

So on the fire borrowing issue I just want to make sure we are 

clear on the Administration’s position. I believe the Administration 

believes that to deal with fire borrowing you have to freeze, and I 

use that word specifically, you have to freeze the amount of money 

that is spent on fighting fire at a fixed number, like the current 

10-year average. If you don’t have a freeze or something that resembles a freeze, we are not going to get this done. Do you all support the concept of a freeze? 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes. 

We’ve talked about both a freeze and the 70 percent in your legislation as ways to do exactly what you’re talking about. 

Senator WYDEN. How about your colleague? What is his view 

with respect to this? 

Mr. RICE. Thank you, Senator. 

I’m in the same place. I think the Administration’s proposal of 

70 percent as well as looking at the 1 percent of fires and categorizing them as catastrophic wildfire and focusing on that element 

that will give us the flexibility to focus on landscape restoration. 

Thanks. 

Senator WYDEN. So, that is your take on what we need to do to 

fix fire borrowing. 

Now as I have indicated, I support management as well. I mean, 

clearly management is a central part of this, and it is certainly 

going to be a central part of getting any kind of agreement with 

the other body. 
41 

Mr. Bonnie, what are the bipartisan opportunities for management reforms in your view? In other words, the Chair and the 

Ranking Member represent all of us in these discussions with the 

House. We are going to be working with you on this because we 

want to get it done this time. We are going to make it happen before the serious fire season. The other part of the Congress is going 

to insist on some management reforms. What are the kind of management reforms you could support in those discussions? 

Mr. BONNIE. So I think you and many others here worked on the 

2014 Farm bill and some of the provisions in there. They require 

collaboration. They require environmental safeguards. 

And I think using that as a basis and looking for things that, to 

use your language, something that Congress and the Administration can get done. That, and I think there is common ground that 

we can find across the conservation community, industry and elsewhere. 

Senator WYDEN. My time is up. 

Could you get to the Chair and the Ranking Member and the 

rest of us on this Committee, the specifics of what management reforms the Administration would support in addition to the effort to 

end, finally, once and for all, the fire borrowing because that is 

going to have to be part of actually getting this done? 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes. 

Senator WYDEN. And can we have that within two weeks? 

Mr. BONNIE. We’ll try. 

Senator WYDEN. Well we better have it within two weeks because the fire season is on us, and there are not many days left 

in the Congress. Two weeks? 

Mr. BONNIE. I’m on it. 

Senator WYDEN. Alright. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Wyden. I appreciate you 

pushing for the specifics. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, it is my intention to 

be moving this proposal in a relatively direct manner. We don’t 

have a lot of legislative days remaining before we conclude for midJuly recess, so I would reiterate the request from Senator Wyden 

and ask that you be most expeditious within these next two weeks 

with specifics. 

Let’s turn to Senator Gardner. 

Senator GARDNER. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for 

holding this hearing on the Wildfire Budgeting and Forest Management Act. 

Welcome to the Committee, thank you very much for being here. 

Thank you to Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, 

Senators Wyden, Risch and Crapo for the work on this discussion, 

is it a draft, and to reaffirm my commitment to all of us and the 

U.S. Forest Service to address this very critical issue. It is something I hear about from county commissioners, legislators, every 

time I go back to Colorado, the importance of addressing this issue. 

Colorado, as well as many Western states, who have mostly on 

this Committee have talked about today, I am sure, the impacts, 

significant loss, that can occur from a forest fire, issues of funding 

and staff to manage the forests, the big issue and of course, with 
42 

over 14 million acres of national forests and grasslands. Whether 

it is grazing, timber or recreation, it is all affected by drastic impacts we have had from budget reductions and other things on how 

we currently fund wildfire suppression. 

I want to turn to you, Mr. Bonnie. Thank you for being here, and 

thanks for your commitment to working with my office on these 

issues. We have got to find an end to this fire borrowing practice. 

Just this past week we have seen a wildfire balloon in Northwestern Colorado. It is the Beaver Creek fire. It is not what many 

people think when they hear Beaver Creek. It is a different area 

than Beaver Creek, Colorado, but it is up on the Wyoming/Colorado 

border area. Our office has been in touch with the Forest Service 

officials and local offices, and I am very thankful for the work the 

firefighters on the scene are doing at this time. 

I know a couple, at least two, of other fires are also burning in 

Colorado as we speak, so this is an important issue in real time. 

In the context of wildfire borrowing and fire suppression, I am 

acutely concerned that the recreation program in the country’s 

most heavily visited national forest, the White River National Forest. Reports have shown that this forest has lost over 40 percent 

of budget and staff in the last five years while the recreation use 

has continued to increase. Again, it is the most heavily visited national forest. 

One of the most negative effects of this trend is that the agency 

is unable to be a responsible partner to deliver recreation to millions of visitors. The White River is home to several world class ski 

resorts. The industry generates tremendous economic benefits to 

the Treasury, the states and local communities. 

During the Forest Service budget hearing for the FY 2017 budget 

request I asked Chief Tidwell how the agency planned to address 

this issue in the White River National Forest. Since then he has 

agreed to meet with me and ski resorts in early July to further address this question. I very much appreciate that commitment. 

I would ask you if you were aware of any plans to address the 

immediate issues with the White River National Forest? 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes, I think as you know, I think we used to have 

eight full time staff members that worked directly with the ski industry there, and I think we’re around two now. And you’re absolutely right. We’re not providing the level of service we need to be, 

and it’s the same capacity problem. 

So I’ve been in touch. Folks from the ski industry have talked to 

me. Absolutely willing to engage and be creative about how we can 

solve this problem. 

Senator GARDNER. Very good, I appreciate that. 

Turning now to another area of Colorado, the Durango and 

Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Southwestern Colorado. It is 

an incredible railroad, a great part of our history, a crown jewel in 

Colorado and really, the West. But because it is a coal-fired old 

railroad they are required to have firefighting capabilities in place 

to address any spot fires that might come up, and these firefighting 

capabilities that they possess include water tanks and pumps following the train, men trying to combat fires and a helicopter that 

is on standby to make water drops. 
43 

While the railroad is rightfully responsible for addressing fires 

that come up along the railroad right-of-way, it is my understanding that they are prohibited from fighting fires which come up 

beyond their rights-of-way in the forest service land and must, instead, just report it instead of actually using their resources to help 

fight it. 

On November 17, 2015 I asked questions at this Committee during a hearing on wildfires. We talked about certification issues, 

trained wildland fire entities and how they could be empowered to 

fight fires before they get out of control when they are spotted. 

Section 201 of the discussion draft would require a single system 

for credentialing both federal and state certified wildfire aircraft 

and provide interim acceptance of both standards. It is my hope 

that Section 201 will assist in addressing the Narrow Gauge Railroad situation, at least in Colorado. 

Could you talk a little bit more about the Forest Service’s policies 

toward partnership with private entities like the Durango and 

Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in combating wildfires? 

Mr. BONNIE. So we do a lot of work with contractors, obviously, 

to provide helicopters. The vast majority are through contractors. 

The caution I will raise on the certification issue has to do with 

air safety. We have, we’ve had a number of accidents, and so the 

standards we set are very important to the Forest Service. Safety 

comes first. So happy to work with your office on the issue. I think 

the flag I would raise is we just want to make sure whatever we 

do, we’re being as safe as we can. 

Senator GARDNER. Thank you, I look forward to ongoing conversations. Again, thanks for the work that you are doing in Colorado as we speak. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Gardner. 

Senator Franken. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for 

the work that you and Senator Cantwell have done. 

Last year Chief Tidwell testified to this Committee on the interaction of wildfire and climate change. As the Chief shared, science 

has shown that climate change is one of the major factors leading 

to the recent trends of longer fire seasons with wildfires and 

wildfires that are larger and more intense. In fact, fire seasons are 

now, on average, nearly 80 days longer than they were in 1970, 

and wildfires burn twice as many acres today as they did 30 years 

ago. 

Our climate is warming and we are experiencing unfamiliar and 

unprecedented conditions. Drought may be the new normal. 

Invasive species and insect outbreaks may be the new normal. 

Larger than average fire seasons may be the new normal. 

Under Secretary Bonnie, in your opinion, to what extent has climate change driven the increases in fire suppression costs that we 

have been seeing? 

Mr. BONNIE. There’s no question it’s had a significant impact. 

We’re seeing larger, more catastrophic fires. It’s not the only thing. 

Also, because we’ve taken more natural fires out of these ecosystems, we’ve built fuel loads up. Because we have more develop-
44 

ment in the Wildland-Urban Interface, costs have been driven up. 

But you throw climate in the mix and the trends are not good. 

Senator FRANKEN. So clearly, climate change has a cost, and this 

cost is having a serious impact. 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes. 

Senator FRANKEN. On your agency. 

Unfortunately, my colleagues across the aisle seem to be in denial about the real cost of climate change and for some of them 

whether climate change even exists. 

Do you expect the costs to rise as climate change continues to get 

worse? 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes, and Forest Service scientists believe we’ll double the acreage that we’re burning annually by mid-century, more 

than double, actually. 

Senator FRANKEN. In Minnesota non-native invasive species 

threaten the health of our forests. Minnesota has about one billion 

ash trees and is home to the largest concentration of ash in the 

country. Unfortunately, the invasive emerald ash borer has already 

destroyed tens of millions of ash trees throughout the U.S. since it 

was first detected in 2002. Under Secretary Bonnie, I want to 

thank your agency for the work that you are doing at the Forest 

Service’s Northern Research Station to combat emerald ash borer 

in my state and throughout the country. 

But I am concerned that the growing cost of wildfire suppression 

is draining your budget and hindering some of this and other great 

work that the Forest Service is doing outside of fighting wildfires. 

In fact, the Forest Service has, as I think has been mentioned in 

this hearing, 39 percent fewer staff in non-fire positions today than 

it did less than 20 years ago. 

Mr. Under Secretary, as you know, it is not uncommon for funds 

or even staff to get transferred mid-season to fight wildfires. The 

bill we are discussing today addresses the fire borrowing issue but 

it does not fix the fact that wildfire suppression costs continue to 

grow and erode the overall forest budget. Isn’t that right? 

Mr. BONNIE. That’s right. 

Senator FRANKEN. Okay. 

Thankfully Minnesota typically does not experience the catastrophic fires we see out West, but the ever expanding costs of 

wildfire suppression still significantly impacts my state. I want to 

make sure that any wildfire legislation addresses the needs of Minnesota so that we, too, can tackle our most threatening issues like 

the emerald ash borer and protect our cherished resources. 

One thing I would like to see in any comprehensive wildfire legislation is finding a market for hazardous fuel and forest waste. 

Communities are increasingly built in the Wildland-Urban Interface in heavily wooded areas where they are at risk from economic 

damage from forest fires. We know that. We are removing hazardous fuel like underbrush and immature trees. It can help reduce 

the severity of wildfires and mitigate economic damages, especially 

when this is done right, around communities near or within our 

forests. 

I see an opportunity to help pay for the removal of hazardous 

fuels by using this waste as a source of electricity for nearby communities. This could simultaneously reduce fire risk and bring eco-
45 

nomic benefit. Combined heat and power and other facilities that 

use woody biomass are ideal options. 

As my time runs out, Under Secretary Bonnie, once it is cut, 

what is done with hazardous fuel today? 

Mr. BONNIE. Well, in so many places we’re paying people to remove them. To your point, if we had greater markets for hazardous 

fuels, we’d actually be able to get more work done. The Forest 

Service is making investments here, but there’s more to do and the 

budget constraints we’re operating under makes it more difficult. 

Senator FRANKEN. I know I am over, but can I ask this one last 

half a question? 

The CHAIRMAN. Wrap it up very quickly. 

Senator FRANKEN. Okay. 

In your experience what are the major road blocks to using hazardous fuel for biomass power which, as we are saying, could help 

both mitigate fire risk and play a role in clean energy generation? 

Mr. BONNIE. Well, one of the challenges is just the lack of markets and cheap natural gas and other things. So, it’s going to require investment. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Franken. 

Senator King. 

Senator KING. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I am trying to figure out relationships here between fires, climate 

change and management of the forests. My impression is, and I 

think your chart indicates this but I may be wrong, that part of 

preventing fires is more intensive management of the forests. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes. 

Senator KING. Yet the increase in fires is, kind of, a vicious circle. The increase in fires is sopping up so much of your budget you 

do not have the money left to do the management which then 

makes fires more likely, which then takes more of the budget. Is 

that the dynamic that is in play here? 

Mr. BONNIE. We can’t do the management at the scale we need 

in order to confront the problem. That’s right. 

Senator KING. So we really need to be talking about different 

ways of funding the fire danger that does not eat up the rest of 

your budget. 

I met with Secretary Vilsack this week and I cannot remember 

the exact figures but, as I recall, the fire budget is basically eating 

up everything else. 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes, we’ll typically spend more than half of our 

budget every year now just on firefighting. If you add in other fire 

costs it can go north of that. 

Senator KING. I think he said that 15 or 20 years ago it was like 

15 percent of the budget. 

Mr. BONNIE. About a sixth of the budget in 1995, one-sixth. 

Senator KING. And now it is over half. 

Mr. BONNIE. Yes. 

Senator KING. The point I am getting at and I think you confirmed is that to the extent that that happens, it crowds out spending on other forest management, for example, clearing the under-
46 

growth, selective thinning and that kind of thing. That, in turn, 

makes more fires, and fires more likely. 

Mr. BONNIE. That’s exactly right. And in states like Maine where 

you don’t have as much federal land, we’re working with your state 

foresters to provide help to them so they can work with private 

landowners and those budget funds are less as well. 

Senator KING. Madam Chair, that is all I have. 

But I think this is a very important issue, and I know you recognize we are inadvertently making the problem worse by not providing sufficient funds for the management of these lands. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator King. 

I think the discussion was/is important, recognizing that when 

you borrow from other accounts to pay for suppression that does 

not work. It is not sustainable, so making sure that we get the fix 

right, I think, is very important. 

Mr. Bonnie, I have multiple questions that I would like you to 

answer for the record including one that is specific to the issue of 

an updated projection for total suppression resources needed based 

on that 10-year average. So you will see that. 

Again, if you can provide responses as quickly as possible to the 

Committee, that will be greatly appreciated. 

I would like to do another round, but we have six witnesses on 

the second panel that we want to make sure that we get to before 

the noon hour, so we will excuse both of you and thank you for appearing before the Committee this morning. 

Mr. BONNIE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. As the next panel is finding their seats, I will introduce each of you to the Committee and I will offer apologies on 

behalf of other colleagues on the Committee this morning. As Senator Risch, who was here just a few moments ago, whispered into 

my ear, I have three different committees that are meeting at the 

same time here this morning. Please do not take this as an indication of lack of interest, but you can only be at one place at a time 

or at least that is what we believe. 

I would like to welcome the second panel before the Committee. 

We will lead off this morning with Dr. Peter Goldmark, who is the 

Commissioner of Public Lands at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. It is nice to have you here. He will be 

followed by Ms. Julia Altemus, who is the Executive Director of the 

Montana Wood Products Association. She will be followed by Rebecca Humphries. Ms. Humphries is the Chief Conservation Officer 

at the National Wildlife Turkey Federation. We appreciate you 

being here this morning. Mr. Peter Nelson is with us. He is a Senior Policy Advisor for Federal Lands for the Defenders of Wildlife. 

Welcome. Mr. Eric Nichols is a constituent from the State of Alaska. He is a partner at Alcan Forest Products. Rounding out our 

panel is Mr. Ken Pimlott, who is the Director for CAL Fire. Again, 

welcome to each of you. 

I would ask that you keep your comments to less than five minutes. Your full statement will be included as part of the record, but 

again we want to be able to get through everyone’s testimony and 

have an opportunity for a few questions before we have to conclude 

just around noon. 
47 

Dr. Goldmark, if you would like to lead us off? 

Thank you all. 

STATEMENT OF DR. PETER GOLDMARK, COMMISSIONER OF 

PUBLIC LANDS, WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES 

Dr. GOLDMARK. Good morning, Chairman Murkowski, Senator 

Cantwell, members of the Committee. 

To begin with I’d like to thank Senators Cantwell, Murkowski, 

Wyden and Crapo for their leadership and dedication to improving 

response and resources for wildfires. I appreciate the invitation to 

appear before you today. 

My name is Peter Goldmark, and I am the Commissioner of Public Lands for the State of Washington. Elected directly by the people of my state, I am charged with managing and protecting Washington’s natural resources. 

For over 150 years, citizens of our state have looked eastward for 

help and partnership from Congress on critical issues. Today, one 

of those critical issues is wildfire, and I appreciate this opportunity. 

That responsibility that I bear includes leading our state’s firefight against wildfire and overseeing forest health across all jurisdictions and all ownerships. Recently it has been a heavy responsibility to bear. We have lost about 3.5 percent of Washington State 

to wildfire over the past two catastrophic years, and most terrible 

of all was the death of three young firefighters who died protecting 

homes during the Twisp River fire last August. The impact on our 

people and the landscape has been horrific to witness and difficult 

to bring to the halls of Olympia or the halls of Washington, DC, 

in the damage and danger and trauma to our people. 

In Washington our extreme climatic conditions have created a 

hotter, drier landscape. Our forests are sick and ripe for wildfire. 

For too many years investments in forest health, thinning and fuel 

reduction have not kept pace with the amount of risk on the landscape. We know what we need to do to allow Washington to remain 

the Evergreen State. We must aggressively treat and manage our 

forests using fuel reduction treatments and prescribed fire when 

appropriate. 

There is broad community and scientific support for accelerated 

forest restoration. I encourage you to develop the Pine Pilot concept 

discussed in Title III, Subtitle D, to achieve the needed faster pace 

of restoration. We depend on our forests for clean water, wildlife 

habitat, jobs and carbon storage. They are a resource to conserve 

and protect, not to squander. 

Since I took office in 2009 I’ve secured almost $25 million in 

state investment to build resilient forests. Sadly, federal investment has not kept up. This legislation under consideration would 

end the practice of fire borrowing that robs from prevention and 

fuel treatment programs; however, it does not address the continued structural erosion of the Forest Service land management 

budget by rising fire costs. 

A different budget formulation that eliminates use of the 10-year 

average of suppression costs or at least freezes it in time, is crucial 

to a realistic federal wildfire budget policy. Failure to fix this problem will trap us in a cycle of more costly fires. Others before me 
48 

have acknowledged this. You, Senator Murkowski, you, Senator 

Cantwell, know full well this problem. 

I’m speaking, of course, in support of this draft proposal including a particular concern to me is that credentials for firefighters 

and aircraft must be standardized to ensure safe and rapid response when wildfire threatens. We must expand the use of drones 

and particularly, retardant aircraft, to keep fires small. A location 

tracking system will help keep fire crews safe. Expanded use of 

Firewise programs and fire-risk maps will give communities the 

knowledge and tools to prepare for wildfire, and improved telecommunications infrastructure will help people who live in fireprone areas keep track of evacuations and road closures if wildfire 

threatens. 

I believe we are at a critical moment. These last two wildfire seasons are a brutal warning. We must now do the vital work, as described in this discussion draft, to prepare for and respond to wildfire. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Goldmark follows:] 
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Goldmark, we appreciate your 

considered remarks. 

Ms. Altemus, I hope I am pronouncing that right. 

STATEMENT OF JULIA ALTEMUS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

MONTANA WOOD PRODUCTS ASSOCIATION 

Ms. ALTEMUS. That is correct. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good, thank you. 

Ms. ALTEMUS. Good morning. My name is Julia Altemus. I’m the 

Executive Director of the Montana Wood Products Association and 

a member of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition Policy Committee. I want to thank you for this opportunity to testify today. 

We appreciate the efforts of this Committee, including the Chairwoman, Ranking Member as well as Senators Wyden and Crapo to 

tackle the tough issues facing the Forest Service. We are committed to finding workable solutions to the problems of the federal 

forest management and fire borrowing and stand ready to work 

with the Committee. 

The Montana Wood Products Association represents the wood 

manufacturing industry in Montana. Our industry is the state’s 

primary manufacturing sector with roughly 7,500 direct and indirect jobs, a payroll of $319 million and sales of $900 million. 

Roughly two-thirds of Montana’s timber base is managed by federal agencies. In the last quarter century, we have lost 30 mills including the two yesterday and roughly 4,000 jobs as a direct result 

of litigation and declining federal timber sales. None of our remaining mills are run at full capacity and all depend on a sustainable 

supply of federal timber. 

According to forest inventory analysis data, Montana’s federal 

forests grow 567 million cubic feet of wood fiber annually. Five 

hundred ten million cubic feet, or an astonishing 89.9 percent, suffers annual mortality as a direct result of insect and disease. We 

only harvest about 4.5 percent of the annual growth and 5 percent 

of the mortality each year leading to chronic buildup of fuels for future wildfires. 

Unfortunately, the Forest Service lacks authorities to plan and 

implement needed management projects in a timely fashion. Badly 

needed forest thinning, restoration and vegetative treatments can 

take years to get through NEPA only to meet opposition by fringe 

groups critical of timber harvest. 

The 2014 Farm bill provided some tools to address these issues 

and Region One is very creative in their approach and is moving 

as expeditiously as possible but to date only one project is pending 

a decision, four have completed NEPA, seven are under analysis 

and 19 are on deck. 

With 82 million acres identified by the Forest Service as high 

priority landscapes nationally, we fear that the new tools in the 

2014 Farm bill are not enough to address the challenges we face. 

Therefore, we applaud the Committee’s commitment to solving 

some of our toughest challenges, providing our federal partners 

with a suite of tools and opportunities to increase the pace and 

scale of resource management and restoration is one of our top priorities. 
52 

Our written statement makes specific recommendations but we 

offer the following thoughts. 

Under Title I, we appreciate the budgetary relief provided by this 

Title but would urge you to consider freezing the 10-year average 

at the 2015 levels and expand the use of wildfire risk reduction 

projects to lands in Fire Regime IV. This is particularly important 

for the work in the Northern Rockies as these landscapes traditionally lack age class diversity. There’s 181,000 acres in this age class 

in Region One, 175 of those acres are in Montana alone. 

Under Title III, we are concerned about provisions limiting the 

use of streamlined NEPA in lands designated as critical habitat. 

Montana has roughly 3.6 million designated acres within the suitable base much of which is susceptible to catastrophic fire but it 

is important to add these lands to the mix. 

The need to treat fuels in dry and wet forest types is the same, 

communities surrounded by forest types that experience low frequency, high intensity wildfire are at the same for loss of life and 

property. Of the three things that drive wildfire, fuel, topography 

and weather, the only driver we can modify is fuel. 

The above-mentioned provisions address NEPA, timeliness and 

pace and scale. What it does not address is how to confront legal 

challenges affecting project implementation. 

Montana has suffered the effects of the timber wars for decades. 

In order to break the gridlock, local people representing diverse interests have gathered to find solutions to tough issues. Over the 

years roughly 30 collaboratives have formed. They’re working together within a zone of agreement that includes restoring ecological 

function, offers economic stability and honors social values. 

Even so, fringe groups continue to challenge projects in court. 

Currently, there are 220 million board feet of timber in litigation, 

45 million board feet in a notice of intent to sue and 202 million 

board feet over objection. This will impact 51,000 acres. Projects 

under litigation alone affects 44,000 truckloads of logs and thousands of jobs. Montana Wood Products Association suggests judicial 

reforms are needed. 

I’m about out of time so I will be happy—they’re in our written 

statement. I’ll be happy to offer that for further discussion. 

In closing, we do want to thank you for all your effort in bringing 

this draft discussion to us, and we know that the Forest Service is 

working hard to solve these problems, but they do need your help. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Altemus follows:] 
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Altemus, we appreciate the specifics that you have offered the Committee. 

Ms. Humphries, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF BECKY HUMPHRIES, CHIEF CONSERVATION 

OFFICER, NATIONAL WILD TURKEY FEDERATION 

Ms. HUMPHRIES. Thank you. 

Good morning, Chairwoman Murkowski. My name is Becky 

Humphries, and I am the Chief Conservation Officer for the National Wild Turkey Federation. In a prior life I was also the Agency 

Director in the State of Michigan that oversaw the management of 

a four-million-acre state forest system and the Wildlife Chief. 

The National Wild Turkey Federation is a nationwide, non-profit 

but we do on-the-ground conservation work. We were originally 

formed to restore the wild turkey to its original habitat in this 

country, but we now have shifted into save the habitat, save the 

hunt, and through this initiative we are a large partner with the 

U.S. Forest Service. 

We have state chapters in every state of the nation, and we also 

have a team of biologists and foresters that work on the landscape. 

We had one of the first stewardship agreements. We have a formal 

partnership with the U.S. Forest Service that was signed in 1986 

and continues today, and we’ve delivered thousands of projects 

across the United States. 

We’re a leader in stewardship contracting and even though we 

don’t have a mill and do anything with the wood products, but 

through stewardship contracting we’re consistently listed as one of 

the top ten timber buyers in the country. And a few years ago we 

were number five. 

We strongly support the discussion draft we have before us 

today. We appreciate the Committee is considering both a fix to fire 

borrowing and active management of our forests, because we feel 

very strongly that they go hand in glove. We must fix both if we’re 

going to be successful. 

We strongly applaud active management. Wildlife biologists 

across this country know that diversity is the key to really good 

wildlife habitat out there. Wildlife takes food, water, shelter and 

space in order to live and active management creates that diversity 

on that landscape. 

Lack of proper management has resulted in species declines and 

in the Eastern United States, 59 percent of the birds species depending on young forests have declined over the last two decades. 

We have species like the golden winged warbler that’s now a candidate for the Endangered Species Act. Ruffed grouse, that used to 

be very, very prevalent, have disappeared in the Midwest and in 

the Eastern United States. And the wild turkey population is declining. The gopher tortoise which is a keystone species and is 

found in pine savannahs is really, represents 360 other wildlife 

species on the landscape that it is needed by that habitat. 

In the Western U.S. we see similar situations where we manage 

for old growth we may benefit only 14 species, but while there are 

over 70 species that are dependent on those young forest types and 

we need to do more for those species. 
61 

The U.S. Forest Service allocates funding and guidance to provide such young habitat but fire borrowing, as we’ve heard today, 

and our broken management system preclude us getting that work 

done. The pace of creating young forests needs to greatly increase 

if we’re going to be successful. 

We appreciate the proposed fire borrowing fix. We have, as we 

look at the fire system on budgets you’ve heard today, over 50 percent of it is going into fire suppression efforts. There are real consequences to this. 

When we look at some of the fire systems over the fires activities 

that have occurred, we’ve seen over 60 percent on some of our fire 

areas that are most fire prone and those have severely hampered 

our efforts. 

The rolling 10-year average as outlined in the bill is an improvement for sure, but we really need to freeze it, as we’ve talked 

about, so that we don’t continue to erode the money that’s available 

to do active management. We request the Committee consider 

using as a benchmark, the 10-year, the last 10-year average for 

that and freeze it at that amount. We acknowledge that that’s the 

jurisdiction of the Budget Committee and we ask you to move forward and work with them on trying to find a resolution to that. 

We strongly support collaboratives and the provisions in those of 

action/no action. We really think that can affect state agency’s 

management capabilities on wildlife. And the National Wild Turkey Federation partners with every state wildlife agency across the 

state and that state/federal cooperation is really, really important. 

We think it will enhance that. 

We support collaboratives that qualify for expedited NEPA review, restricting alternatives reduces the overhead and it helps 

break some of the gridlock and the paralysis that we see in our system. 

Management needs to be returned to the professionals. 

In moving forward on a couple items, we strongly support the 

ponderosa pine forest and the dry sites and what we can do to help 

move that forward. We think that’s good. 

Also, Tongass National Forest, we think it’s reasonable and prudent to do that inventory. We don’t want to slow down that process 

but we do think that maintaining our markets and the local economies is very important. 

Overall, we strongly applaud your efforts to move this forward. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Humphries follows:] 
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Humphries, we appreciate it. 

Mr. Nelson, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF PETER NELSON, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR 

FOR FEDERAL LANDS, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you. Thank you, Chair and Senator Daines. 

My name is Pete Nelson. I’m a Senior Policy Advisor at Defenders of Wildlife where I manage our National Forest Policy Program. 

Thank you for inviting my testimony today. 

I’ve been professionally involved in National Forest science, policy and management for nearly 20 years. I’m a member of the Federal Advisory Committee overseeing implementation of the Forest 

Service’s 2012 Planning Rule, and I’m also a member of the 

Beaverhead-Deerlodge Collaborative Working Group in Southwest 

Montana. 

We are in a new era of wildfire. A warming climate is drying out 

Western forests and leading to more and larger wildfires and a 

longer fire season. Just look at California and New Mexico today. 

However, existing policies and approaches are not adapted to this 

new reality. The wildfire budget is a prime example. The current 

budget structure is not capable of responding to today’s wildfires 

and its costs spiral out of control. The wildfire budget consumes the 

very programs that are essential to sustaining communities and 

forests over the long-term. Without a comprehensive fix to that 

problem, anything else we try will be futile. 

We also need to make our forests more resilient to wildfire. A 

failure to do so risks losing all of the values they provide. 

And while we appreciate improved planning for at risk communities, wildfire risk mapping, prioritization within the Wildland 

Urban Interface, other management provisions in the discussion 

draft do not work and may, in fact, do more harm than good. 

You can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s thinking. Proposals to bypass NEPA and undermine public and judicial review 

are outdated and ineffective. We need innovative approaches to forest restoration. 

Producing defensible restoration projects requires smarter, not 

less, analysis, and we simply can’t legislate our way to good decisions. 

NEPA shortcuts aren’t likely to yield better outcomes on the 

ground. For example, limiting analysis to action/no action alternatives may ignore better solutions while increasing the likelihood 

of making uninformed decisions. We can’t afford taking that risk 

in places like community drinking watersheds for the sake of expediency. 

Meddling with NEPA is also divisive. A letter submitted to the 

Committee by dozens of conservation organizations, many of which 

are involved in collaborative restoration, highlights opposition to 

the discussion draft and specifically the controversial nature of 

some of the forest management and NEPA provisions. Such shortcuts can undermine ongoing collaborative restoration activities. 

I’m concerned that if we raise the level of controversy over forest 

restoration, we make the entire public lands management system 

more caustic, less resilient and diminish values for people, communities and forests. 
71 

We need to build an approach to forest restoration that is adaptable to today’s complex challenges. As someone who has been involved with forest collaboratives, I don’t see a NEPA problem. I see 

a capacity and restoration planning problem. We need the resources and incentives to plan and implement forest restoration at 

a scale that can significantly improve conditions and achieve 

project level efficiencies. The success of the 4FRI project in Arizona 

demonstrates that large, landscape-level restoration programs can 

be accomplished under existing authorities. Other stand-out examples of this approach include the Blue Mountains Forest Resiliency 

Project in Oregon and the Blackfoot Swan Landscape Restoration 

Project in Montana’s Southwest Crown. 

The proposed Ponderosa Pine Pilot Program reflects this new resiliency thinking. It makes sense to prioritize restoration in a forest 

type where we have a good understanding of restoration needs, 

science and practices. It also makes sense to prioritize risk reduction in the right places, like the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). 

Unfortunately, the pilot program goes down the wrong road in its 

use of an emergency circumstances framework for planning and implementing projects. The proposal authorizes the designation of 

preemptive emergency treatment zones where the normal rules for 

NEPA and judicial review don’t apply. This may be unworkable. 

First, we don’t think this scheme can be effectively applied because we simply don’t have the scientific ability to predict where 

or when the next big wildfire will occur for the purposes of declaring an emergency situation. In addition, while we agree that grave 

risks to public safety warrant emergency response, non-imminent 

threats to other values do not justify jettisoning normal decisionmaking and judicial review standards. 

We also oppose the inclusion of the unrelated Tongass transition 

provision in a wildfire policy bill. The provision blocks a needed 

transition out of controversial old growth logging and toward a 

more diverse and resilient regional economy. It is inappropriate for 

Congress to upset a robust planning process when 165,000 individuals and organizations have participated in that effort. The Forest 

Service has the information to proceed with the plan amendment 

and now is the time for transition. 

Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nelson follows:] 
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. Nichols, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ERIC NICHOLS, PARTNER, ALCAN FOREST 

PRODUCTS AND EVERGREEN TIMBER 

Mr. NICHOLS. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. 

I’ve spent 40 years, the last 40 years, in the private side of the 

timber industry here. Twenty-five of those years have been in Alaska, the last 14 years as owner of timber companies in Alaska, buying and harvesting timber sales from land owners, including the 

U.S. Forest Service. 

The industry today is on the verge of going away due to lack of 

consistent timber supply. All federal and state timber sales are 

being delayed with litigation or appeals by environmental groups 

opposed to all timber harvest. 

The U.S. Forest Service, the timber industries, the communities 

of Southeast Alaska and even some conservation groups, all say 

they want a timber industry. The problem is you cannot have a viable timber industry without a land base for growing and harvesting 

timber. 

Prior to 1976, five million acres of the Tongass was managed for 

timber. By 1980, this was reduced to three million acres. The 2008 

plan further reduced it to 663,000 acres, and now the new plan 

amendment will take it down to 251,000 acres of young growth forest. I was told by a conservation person, we do not have the timber 

available today because we cut it all. 

There are 16.8 million acres on the Tongass. Commercial grade 

forests make up 3.6 million acres. Four hundred twenty thousand 

acres have been previously harvested, and I think my math is pretty correct that we have 3.2 million acres of old growth timber remaining in the Tongass. 

The plan of the amendment will restrict the industry to 251,000 

acres of young growth and a small volume of old growth for niche 

markets. This is seven percent of the commercial timber acres and 

a little over one percent of the Tongass National Forest. 

The Forest Service and I think the State of Alaska have done a 

very good job in protecting our tourism. We have over one million 

people a year coming to Ketchikan on cruise ships, our salmon runs 

are strong with the fishing industry doing very well. We have no 

endangered species in the forest. But we have a timber industry 

with one small sawmill, four timber harvesting companies left and 

a handful of micro sawmills. 

Our rural communities are not doing well. From 2000 to 2014, 

22 of the 32 communities in Southeast Alaska have lost population. 

The plan amendment will forever change the timber industry in 

Southeast. Once it is in place it never gets better for the industry, 

only more restrictions as time goes forward so it cannot be undone. 

The plan has to work or there will be no timber industry. 

So to have a viable timber industry we have to have a consistent 

supply of economically viable timber sales. It’s pretty simple, but 

not when you have declining land base for growing and harvesting 

timber and a rugged remote area with high cost and now only market commodity product to sell. 
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My issues with the U.S. Forest Service. It does not know how 

many of the 250,000 acres of young growth we can harvest economically or legally. When we look at the Tongass, we look at the 

fall down acres. With the 250,000 acres we have changing regulations from when this was cut originally. 

We lose lands to visual constraints, additional fish streams will 

be found, carstone limestone islands will have to be protected, overly steep slopes cannot be cut a second time, additional protection 

for wildlife. We’re also going to get fall down to do the economic 

viability, small isolated patches of timber suppress small timber 

stands, high elevation, high real costs and oil decreased. 

My fear is with the significant number of acres lost to fall down 

and especially in the old age class stands that we’ll harvest with 

very few restrictions. My fear is the timber industry cannot be feasible with this amendment so it’s best to finish the cruise, rerun 

the miles and see how much actual sustainable economic timber 

will be available. 

I would like to finish my testimony with the words from President Theodore Roosevelt who signed the legislation creating the 

Tongass National Forest. This is what he had to say about forest 

policy. ‘‘You can never afford to forget for a moment what is the 

object of a forest policy. That is not to preserve the forest because 

they are beautiful, though that is good in itself, nor because they 

are refuge for the wild creatures of the wilderness, though that is 

good in itself. But the primary objective of our forest policy, as a 

land policy of the United States, is the making of prosperous 

homes.’’ 

Government legislation, rulemaking and administration of our 

national forest no longer resembles what these national forests 

were created for and set aside for management by the government. 

Our land management is broken and not serving the people well. 

It has to be fixed by sound forest management and not politics. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nichols follows:] 
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Nichols, we appreciate it and appreciate your traveling a long way. 

Mr. Pimlott, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF KEN PIMLOTT, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA 

DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY AND FIRE PROTECTION 

Mr. PIMLOTT. Thank you. 

Good morning, Chair Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell and 

Senator Daines. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on 

not only on behalf of California but my peers around the country 

through the National Association of State Foresters. 

As California’s Chief of CAL Fire and State Forester, we’re responsible for the protection of over 31 million acres of wildlands 

within the state. That’s about one-third of the land base in California, and as we know is going currently on right now in the state, 

significant fire challenges. 

While it’s no different across the West and the rest of the country, although land bases may differ, net 2014 statistics indicate 

that 80 percent of the fires fell within the jurisdictions of state and 

private lands and that of the state forestry agencies. So the states 

around the country, no different than in California, play a significant and key role in dealing with fire and forestry issues. 

I think the Committee obviously has a very clear handle on the 

fire and resource management and forest health challenges in the 

country. That’s been clearly indicated this morning. 

Again, I will just emphasize that in California, the fire problem 

and forest management problem is real. As I speak we have five 

major fires now burning in the state and 4,600 firefighters on the 

fire line. Just in the last week we’ve responded to over 250 fires 

and that’s 2,000 fires just since January 1st. 

We’re still within a significant drought which has gone on for the 

last five years, and like we talked about earlier in this hearing, 

record kinds of fires. We talked about that in Washington State. 

We’ve seen that in Colorado. California, just last year, had two of 

the top ten most damaging fires in the state’s history. 

The fire challenge, the fire problem, is only getting worse, not 

just drought, changing climate, unmanaged or under-managed forests throughout the state both on federal and private lands are significantly, excuse me, contributing to the challenges that we’re facing. 

When fires burn, 20,000 acres burn in just five hours. Those are 

the conditions that we are facing and will continue to face as we 

go into, again, another potentially disastrous fire season. 

In California this is exemplified now by significant tree mortality. Secretary Vilsack announced yesterday that over 66 million 

trees in the central and southern Sierra have now succumbed to 

epidemic levels of insect mortality. We’ve seen this throughout the 

West in a number of Western states and now California has taken 

that challenge exponentially with multiple counties declaring localized or county level disasters. And then in October of last year, 

Governor Brown declared a statewide emergency proclamation to 

deal with this disaster. 

We’re looking at this and collaborating through multiple means 

trying to address immediate life safety threats, but it’s involving 
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landscape level projects and activities with partners at all levels of 

government. Using tools such as the Good Neighbor Authority 

under the Farm bill allow us to reach across boundaries, to collaborate and get the biggest bang for the buck and leverage everything 

that we have to get the most work done and to make the biggest 

difference that we can. 

Fixing wildfire funding is key to all of this. As Under Secretary 

Bonnie indicated this morning and others, we continue to borrow 

money from other program areas that are critical to getting ahead 

of the problem. While we must maintain a robust response capability across this country, we can’t under fund our federal agencies 

on the front end, we must ensure a strong response. The back end 

of this is when they continue to take money to keep that going 

from other programs, we’re only going to continue to perpetuate 

lack of good forest management, lack of reducing fuels and continued fires like we’re seeing right now. 

Discussions through this legislation, others regarding NEPA. 

Right now, California has over 125,000 acres of actually NEPAready projects in just three impacted national forests. We need the 

ability to leverage additional funding to get more work done in 

those areas and certainly would like to go forward and look at opportunities, working through the NEPA process, to see if we can’t 

do more work and work through NEPA to get more work done and 

have the capacity to do just that. 

Looking at the Pine Pilot. It is critical. Much of the area being 

impacted in California are mixed-conifer forests. A significant component of those forests are ponderosa pine. We welcome the opportunities to look at a pilot project that addresses that. 

Fire risk mapping is also critical. We’ve worked as a state, along 

with many other states, in addressing and using that information 

to develop hazard maps and to identify land use planning potential. 

So certainly look at the opportunity to work together on that. 

And last, I will close with the, just recognizing that fires know 

no boundaries. So we, as organizations and first responders, state, 

federal or local should know and need to know, no boundaries. 

California learned that a long time ago when we had separate 

communications frequencies, separate terminology and we’re working together. So it’s very true, looking forward, working on joint 

process to look at processes and criteria that are agreed to by all 

agencies when we’re sharing resources across boundaries. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pimlott follows:] 
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Director Pimlott. 

Again, thank you to each of you for your contribution before the 

Committee today. 

I will yield first to Senator Daines. 

Senator DAINES. Thank you, Chair Murkowski, Ranking Member 

Cantwell, for having this hearing today. 

Julia and Peter, welcome as two fellow Montanans. It is good to 

have you both here. 

Julia, I wanted to echo your testimony about how devastating excessive regulations and unending litigation has been to Montana’s 

wood products workforce and the health of our forests. My earlier 

comments regarding this devastating news coming from 

Weyerhaeuser last night, I think, really illustrates what is going on 

in Montana. 

Your observation that we are harvesting only 5 percent of dead 

trees and 4.5 percent of the annual growth is startling, especially 

considering that nearly seven million federally-controlled acres in 

Montana are at high risk for wildfires. 

My question is could you elaborate on how increasing active 

management is critical to both protecting wood product jobs and, 

importantly, reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires in Montana 

and across many parts of the West? 

Ms. ALTEMUS. Thank you for that question, Senator Daines, I 

would be happy to address it. 

Increasing management in Region One, specifically Montana, so 

the economic analysis for a million board feet is usually 11 jobs are 

created for every one million board foot that’s harvested. Now you 

can’t just multiple that by, you know, the board feet that are or the 

inventory that’s sitting on the landscape because a lot of those 

loggers are going to—they’re going to their work and they’re going 

to move to the next project and do the work. But it would impact 

hundreds of jobs. We’re usually short, you know, 60 to 80 million 

board feet of timber a year. Just increasing it 60 to 80 million 

board feet, we would raise the capacity of the remaining mills to 

100 percent when right now, as I said, they’re running at 50 percent, one shift 60 percent. So, it’s not a lot that we need. But it’s 

critical that that raise is critical. So that addresses just the economics. 

But as far as getting at that seven million acres of dead and 

dying, it will continue to grow. It will continue to burn, and we will 

continue to eat up a majority of the fire budget if we don’t address 

those issues. 

Senator DAINES. So you have looked at the discussion draft. 

What provisions do you believe would be most helpful? 

It is already management and thereby creating the jobs, improving habitat, protecting the watersheds. I mean, we work with a lot 

of conservation groups, wildlife groups, the Rocky Mountain Elk 

Foundation, others, that want and are pushing for these kind of revisions. What do you think is most helpful? 

Ms. ALTEMUS. Thank you, Senator. 

Well, again, you know, impediments to a success are certainly 

the capacity of the Forest Service. So they’re under Title I, as far 

as the fire borrowing goes. If there were additional monies of 

unspent fire money that we could put back into hazardous fuel re-
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duction projects, that would be very, very helpful. That’s number 

one. 

Under Title III, some of the provisions, like the no action/action 

provision is, I believe, important. It works under HFRA. It works 

within the collaborative context as well so that one is important. 

I would suggest and in part of our written testimony is to add provisions under 106 of HFRA as far as balance of harms. That has 

been proven in court. That’s not part of the discussion draft, but 

I would encourage you to look at that and add it. 

I’m not sure about the pilot. I mean, in Montana we do have dry 

pine, you know, we have mixed conifer and dry, mountain ponderosa pine forests, but honestly we have a lot of lodgepole pine. 

That’s where the majority of our issues are. So, as I said in my testimony, dry forests are at risk, but wet forests in low frequency, 

but high intensity fires are also at risk. And so we would encourage 

you to think about that, changing those fuel loads as well. 

Senator DAINES. Thanks for the input on that. 

I want to talk a little bit about litigation relief and the need for 

it. 

In your testimony you indicate that the hundreds of millions of 

board feet are encumbered by litigation. If Montana loggers and 

mills had faster, uninhibited access to that type of volume, roughly, 

how many Montana jobs could be sustained or possibly created? 

Ms. ALTEMUS. Well, as I said in my testimony, just under litigation alone we’ve got about 44,000 truckloads that could be impacted. Not all of that is under preliminary injunction. Some can 

move forward. A lot of it is not being advertised. 

But if we could at least acknowledge that we have a problem, because it’s been difficult for some folks in Congress to acknowledge 

or in the Forest Service to acknowledge that we have a problem, 

and then work together to find a path forward to resolving that 

that doesn’t require opening up equal access to justice or other 

things. 

There’s other things that we can do that I have in my written 

testimony that, I think, are good for discussion. 

But as far as the jobs, again, you can’t just do that multiplier, 

but it would be probably in the neighborhood of 300 or 400 jobs. 

Senator DAINES. Right. 

Ms. ALTEMUS. And we lost 500 last year. 

Senator DAINES. Yes. 

Ms. ALTEMUS. And we’re going to lose 200 this year. 

Senator DAINES. Thank you for quantifying it out. 

Peter, thanks for coming from Montana. I do appreciate your 

participation in working with the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Collaborative Working Group. I have been a proponent of collaborative efforts. Thank you for that. 

As I previously noted, there are 21 active lawsuits going on in 

Montana with 13 on projects that were developed through the collaborative process and nearly all of them involve groups that are 

not part of the collaborative process. They are fringe groups that 

come in here after the fact. 

Notwithstanding your concerns, I respect them, with some of the 

management proposals put forth in this draft, do you acknowledge 

that litigation is a problem in Montana and has undermined the 
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work of collaboratives and has slowed important restoration work 

to our national forests? 

Mr. NELSON. Thanks, Senator. 

It’s good to be around so many Montanans. 

We have challenges. We have challenges in Montana, and we 

have challenges nationally. Many of them are capacity related. 

On the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, I think, we’re limited in our ID 

team’s ability to go out and analyze, get projects ready. We’ve seen 

all sorts of capacity and resource challenges there. People are frustrated. I’ve worked with members of your staff, members of the 

Montana Wood Products Association and the Forest Service are 

frustrated. People are frustrated. 

Senator DAINES. Just so you know, you work in a collaborative 

process. 

Mr. NELSON. I do. 

Senator DAINES. I appreciate that. Again, we have got 13 of the 

21 lawsuits are again— 

Mr. NELSON. Collaborative process. 

Senator DAINES. Do you think litigation encumbers us? 

Mr. NELSON. The collaborative processes can lead to better decisions, more durable decisions. 

Senator DAINES. Does the litigation encumber that? 

Mr. NELSON. Winning decisions. 

Senator DAINES. Is the litigation, do you think it slows us down 

or encumbers us, the collaborative process? 

Mr. NELSON. Litigation plays a role in the system and— 

Senator DAINES. So you say it does not slow us down? It is not 

slowing us down getting the collaborative projects approved and— 

Mr. NELSON. Compared to what may normally happen, I suppose 

it does. You could say that it slows us down. But you know Montanans care about their public lands. We need to keep these processes open. This is a challenge. We have—people are frustrated. I 

hear that from you, and I hear that. We want to get the work done. 

We’re working with the Farm bill authorities. We have a CE moving up outside of Butte. We’re trying to get work done. People are 

rolling up their sleeves. This is not easy. We’re committed to doing 

this work. 

My fear is that if we come in too strong on this we’re going to 

see more conflict, in fact. And so, I just have to urge caution. 

Senator DAINES. Okay. 

Mr. NELSON. About where you’re going with that line of questioning because caution is— 

Senator DAINES. Well the disruption right now is we have collaborative processes. They are moving through. The disruption is 

after we have moved through long, collaborative, unifying processes, fringe groups come in at the end and file suits and basically 

stop all the progress we have made of collaboratives. That is the 

frustration. 

Mr. NELSON. Collaboratives have to develop winning solutions 

that are durable, based on best science and can move forward and 

be implemented. That’s the strength of the collaborative process. 

Senator DAINES. I am way over my time. 

Mr. NELSON. It allows us to do that. 

Senator DAINES. I yield back to the Chairman. 
101 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Daines, I allowed for additional time 

here. 

Mr. NELSON. I appreciate the exchange. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think the bottom line is that litigation delays, 

and sometimes litigation is intended to do nothing more than 

delay. I think my friend and colleague from Montana sees that. We 

certainly see that in Alaska. You express frustration. Boy, be on 

the receiving end of it. 

Senator Cantwell. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I want to thank Mr. Nelson for his comments about NEPA and 

the challenges that we would face if we made the changes that are 

in the draft, that it could lead to more complexity than we realize. 

I certainly understand the Senator from Montana’s frustration 

because we have a lot of collaboratives that have worked in our 

state too. I want to give Senator Daines something before you 

leave, but you can—I will leave it right here so that we don’t— 

okay, you can grab it right now. Thank you. 

I think the issue for me is this research that has been done on 

the Pine Pilot. I don’t know if Mr. Pimlott or Mr. Nelson or Mr. 

Goldmark, you want to comment on—not that I am excluding anybody else from commenting on it, but Cal Poly University released 

some findings on how much of the fire risk you would reduce by 

reducing some of that fuel. Their number was so large that I don’t 

even know how to get my head around it. It is pretty hard when 

you think about what happened in the Carlton Complex to think 

that just some fuel reduction might have prevented 100 million 

acres in one afternoon from being destroyed. Nonetheless, we now 

have some research that does show that this kind of fuel reduction 

is making an impact. 

So I wanted to hear about any of those real-life examples that 

you know about. Dr. Goldmark can talk about the Carpenter Road 

fire in Wenatchee where we made some forest improvements ahead 

of time. Mr. Pimlott, are there any of these areas where you have 

actually seen the fuel reduction work? What the researchers are 

trying to highlight in this science that was released by the University is that if treatments are done strategically, you are reducing 

the size of the fire. And knowing that the conditions are so explosive, I think this is what we have to aim for. And so, I didn’t know 

if you wanted to give some, maybe, real-life examples of that. 

Dr. GOLDMARK. So thank you for that question, Senator Cantwell. 

We’ve had many large fires, as you know, in the State of Washington, and both the fire seasons of 2014 and 2015 have set new 

records. As a matter of fact, I have recently toured the Tripod fire 

which occurred in 2006, a 180,000-acre fire that cost $180 million 

to suppress. In that fire, which was a very large fire, as well as 

the Carlton fire and others where there has been active management before the fire, it has a demonstrable impact on the severity 

of the fire. In many cases, the fire doesn’t even penetrate those 

areas that have been managed. It is not a guarantee, but the single 

best thing that we can do in advance of fire is to do the fuel reduc-
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tion work and the prescribed fire work to take away the fuel that 

the fire would need to pass through that forest. 

So, I’m wholly supportive of the Pine Pilot Project. I think restoration is one of the critical steps that we must take to help make 

our forests more resilient. 

Senator CANTWELL. Do you have an idea of what some of those 

restoration projects might have done? It is hard to categorize, but 

they are coming up with a pretty big number. They are saying you 

could have as big as a 50 percent reduction in the fire by doing the 

right kinds of treatment. Is that something, Mr. Pimlott, that you 

think? 

Mr. PIMLOTT. I think it is certainly a possibility, and I think the 

language in the discussion draft really is an opportunity for us to 

test that model. 

I think absolutely, having been a Forester for 30 years now, 

preaching active engagement in forest management. We’ve got several examples in the Sierra where thinning from below, thinning 

that reduces the number of smaller trees in the forest stand, has 

actually kept the fire to a lower intensity, which not only protected 

the forest, but communities. 

And earlier I failed to show a slide, but and you may have trouble seeing it from up there, but a picture tells a thousand words. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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This is the Central Sierra a year ago and just this spring, and 

what you’re seeing is tree mortality. Almost an entire mixed-conifer, ponderosa pine stand completely decimated, not by fire yet, by 

insect mortality. 

And so, forest management, particularly thinning and this pilot 

project, can have us start looking. It’s not just reducing the fire intensity, but it’s active forest management for forest health which 

reduces the impact and potential for epidemic insect outbreaks, 

et cetera. So absolutely engaging in forest management, including 

the pilot project. We’d certainly love to see some pilot projects in 

California. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Cantwell. 

We have gone over the time that I had promised we would be adjourning the panel, but I do have a question for Mr. Nichols and 

this relates to the TAC recommendations relating to the inventory. 

You served on the Tongass Advisory Committee, so I am going 

to rely on you for a little background on how the transition and the 

inventory, really, came together within those discussions. 

In my questioning to Mr. Bonnie I made clear, or read the statement from the TAC, about the inventory being the number one priority. He seems to suggest, and actually he did state, that the Forest Service will have all the data that it needs to guarantee the 

success, apparently, of a young growth transition by the end of this 

summer’s survey on Prince of Wales and indicated that there can 

be this parallel track, if you will, that the inventory has begun. We 

appreciate that, but that it can go alongside the forest plan amendment process. 

Can you please speak to why it was important that the TAC recommend a comprehensive stand level inventory? Also, further to 

the point, has anything changed since January 21 when that statement was pretty conclusively made that it remains the number one 

priority? Then is it possible that the Forest Service will have all 

that it needs in terms of an inventory when it completes the review 

this summer? 

Mr. NICHOLS. You know, I spent 18 months on the TAC, so it 

seems like a lifetime to me, but basically there were two pieces to 

that. 

The first piece was we knew there was going to be fall down 

acres. When you look at the old growth stands they lose about 60 

percent of the stand’s acres when they try and put a timber sale 

together. So we knew we would have some acres lost in the young 

growth. We’d spent some time in the field with a fish biologist. She 

showed the streams that were logged through in the beginning that 

will have to be protected. So we know we’re going to get some fall 

down. So we knew in our models we could not get an answer from 

the Forest Service on what kind of fall down to use. So in our modeling that we did, we did no fall down acres. So we used the 

250,000 acres the Forest Service has. That was the first point. 

The second point was the conservation community was pushing 

hard for absolute dates on ending old growth, and we couldn’t give 

it to them. We did not have the information because one of the 

things that we agreed to in this TAC was that for every acre of 
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young growth we would stop harvesting acre old growth. But that 

went vice versa too. The vice versa was that for every acre of young 

growth you did not get you had to do more old growth. So for the 

first time there was, kind of, a leverage there on both sides of that 

there. 

So the TAC, when Bonnie came to Ketchikan, the TAC knew we 

had to have a better inventory. There just was not enough information there. 

I attended a meeting here last week. The Forest Service has 

50,000 acres of information on 250,000 acres. They’re blowing that 

up over the other 250,000 acres. The land is highly variable. They 

will tell you it’s highly variable. They do not have enough information. 

The TAC position was that we needed that information from an 

inventory because we had to make final decisions on when to stop 

the old growth harvest. And we just couldn’t do that. We just did 

not have enough information to make that decision. 

The other thing is the acres left in this plan amendment are so 

low that if we lose part of those acres to this fall down or to the 

uneconomic ability, there will not be a timber industry. There will 

not be enough acres left of harvestable timber to be able to maintain any kind of industry in Southeast Alaska. 

The CHAIRMAN. So that is the reason why we have to get this inventory correct? 

Mr. NICHOLS. You only have one time. We can’t undo it. 

As you guys have seen in all this federal legislation, it never gets 

undone. So if we make a mistake now, there will be no timber industry. The communities in Southeast Alaska will suffer greatly 

because of it. 

The CHAIRMAN. So the TAC continues to recommend a comprehensive stand level inventory. That has not changed? 

Mr. NICHOLS. That has not changed a bit. 

The CHAIRMAN. And as far as this parallel track that has been 

suggested that we can move forward with the forest plan amendment process while at the same time conducting an inventory. Does 

that work or not work? 

Mr. NICHOLS. Well, from the industry side what I see out there 

today is that the TAC made some very strong recommendations. 

The Forest Service only took part of those recommendations. They 

did not take them all. The timber sales they’re working on today 

do not follow the TAC recommendations, so there was going to be 

a downfall in the amount of young growth available as they don’t 

intensively manage or intentionally harvest these stands. So what 

we see since the TAC recommendation today is that the Forest 

Service has still not implemented the on the ground, the recommendations that we’ve made, and those are difficult recommendations. And that’s what’s going to determine whether this 

thing will work or not. But right now we do not see where there 

is a will to get the recommendations in place. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Well, we are going to continue to push to make sure that we 

have a firm understanding. 

It has been suggested that somehow or other my motivation is 

to delay the forest plan amendment, delay it indefinitely. My inten-
106 

tion is not to delay the plan. My intention is to make sure that that 

plan is based on the true facts on the ground, a true, honest understanding as to what our inventory is that will allow us to base the 

decisions on good, grounded science that will allow us to get it right 

because, as you have suggested, we have got one opportunity to get 

it right. 

I appreciate the work that you and others have done on the TAC. 

I know it is not easy. I know it has been difficult, but I appreciate 

the good work. I also appreciate you recognizing that, in fact, all 

the recommendations from the TAC were not put into play. Again, 

thank you for what you have done in helping to advance these very 

important issues. 

With that, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the extra time that 

you have given us and the Committee as well. 

As we continue to work to refine this draft proposal we would 

certainly welcome and encourage your continued input if members 

have questions for the record. We will make sure that we get them 

out to you quickly. 

Again, thank you for being here. The Committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:17 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 
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