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THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE

CENTENNIAL

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 22, 2005

Serial No. 109–11

(

Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture

www.agriculture.house.gov

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio,

Vice Chairman

RICHARD W. POMBO, California

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

MIKE PENCE, Indiana

SAM GRAVES, Missouri

JO BONNER, Alabama

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

STEVE KING, Iowa

MARILYN N. MUSGRAVE, Colorado

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., LOUISIANA

JOHN J.H. ‘‘JOE’’ SCHWARZ, Michigan

JOHN R. ‘‘RANDY’’ KUHL, JR., New York

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

——— ———

COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota,

Ranking Minority Member

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina

JOE BACA, California

ED CASE, Hawaii

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

STEPHANIE HERSETH, South Dakota

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

JIM COSTA, California

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa

RICK LARSEN, Washington

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

WILLIAM E. O’CONNER, JR., Staff Director

KEVIN J. KRAMP, Chief Counsel

JOHN HAUGEN, Communications Director

ROBERT L. LAREW, Minority Staff Director

(II)

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Goodlatte, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth

of Virginia, opening statement ............................................................................ 1

Gutknecht, Hon. Gil, a Representative in Congress from the State of Minnesota, opening statement ................................................................................... 3

Peterson, Hon. Collin C., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Minnesota, opening statement ............................................................................ 3

WITNESSES

Bosworth, Dale, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture .... 4

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 41

Helms, John, president, Society of American Foresters, Bethesda, MD ............. 17

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39

MacSwords, Leah, president, Southern Group of State Foresters, on behalf

of the National Association of State Foresters, Washington, DC .................... 19

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 52

Sample, V. Alaric, president, Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Washington,

DC .......................................................................................................................... 21

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 48

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THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE CENTENNIAL

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in room 1300

of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Bob Goodlatte (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Members present: Representatives Moran, Jenkins, Gutknecht,

Johnson, Osborne, King, Neugebauer, Boustany, Kuhl, Foxx, Peterson, Holden, Etheridge, Baca, Butterfield, Cuellar, Melancon,

Costa, Barrow, Davis, and Chandler.

Staff present: William E. O’Conner, Jr, staff director; Bill

Imbergamo, Ben Anderson, Jennifer Daulby, Callista Gingrich,

clerk; Lindsey Correa, Rob Larew and Tony Jackson.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB GOODLATTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH

OF VIRGINIA

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. This hearing of the House Committee on Agriculture to review the centennial of the U.S. Forest

Service will come to order.

This morning we have an unique opportunity to look back on policy choices made a century ago and reflect on how well we have

taken care of the legacy left us by the fathers of forest conservation. President Teddy Roosevelt and our Nation’s first Chief of the

Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, were keenly aware that they were

helping to shape a forest inheritance that would endure and, they

hoped, contribute significantly to the country.

On July 1, 1905, the Bureau of Forestry completed its transition

into the Department of Agriculture and was renamed the USDA

Forest Service. Gifford Pinchot was named its first Chief. Pinchot

was a visionary, and his vision was clear on two points.

First, he believed firmly that the objective of forest conservation

was to benefit mankind. He noted that ‘‘Conservation is foresighted

utilization, preservation and/or renewal of forests, waters, lands

and minerals for the greatest good of the greatest number for the

longest time.’’

Second, Pinchot realized that conservation involves policymakers

taking responsibility for the policies they create, noting that ‘‘the

vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we

make ourselves responsible for that future.’’

As the Agency’s first Chief, Pinchot stressed that his foresters

were to make their choices with an eye towards the greatest good,

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and to do so with the greatest efficiency. His simple focus set the

tone for an institution that quickly became known as a ‘‘can do’’

Agency. The National Forest System grew rapidly at first, from 56

million acres to 172 million acres by the time Pinchot left the

Agency in 1910.

The Agency took on additional roles in the ensuing years; with

the passage of the Weeks Act in 1911 the Forest Service began acquiring tax forfeited lands in the eastern United States which have

become our Eastern National Forests. In 1924, the Forest Service

took on the responsibility of working with our Nation’s private forest landowners to promote conservation on private lands. Over the

years, the Agency has also taken on an important role as a leader

in the forestry and forest products research.

In 1960, Congress passed the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act,

reaffirming the goal of managing our national forests for multiple

objectives, including production of timber and provision of grazing.

The laws of the 1960’s and 1970’s presented the Agency with new

challenges; to more thoroughly analyze potential outcomes, more

thoroughly engage the public in the planning process, and to conserve both wild places and wild animals. While the multiple use

mandate has always created inherent tensions among users of public lands, laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and

the Wilderness Act have sharpened these conflicts and made them

legal, rather than philosophical, questions. The resulting legal disputes have worked their way through our court system up to and

including the Supreme Court, and in the process have reinterpreted the laws we have passed.

While conflict is a natural result of the Forest Service’s multiple

use mandate, it should not be the only result. As I noted when the

House passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act,

Our forest management laws, environmental laws, and procedural laws do not

work well together. They create a process that only highly trained legal minds can

comprehend, and while claiming to encourage citizen participation, they often

achieve just the opposite.

So we stand at the centennial mark for an Agency with a proud

conservation heritage, and ask ourselves how well we have followed

Pinchot’s two principles; have we managed our public forests for

the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time?

Have we taken responsibility for the future of conservation?

Starting tomorrow, the Forest Service’s century of conservation

will be celebrated during the Smithsonian Institutions’ National

Folk Life Festival. As the Agency enters its second century, I will

introduce today, along with Ranking Member Peterson and others,

a House resolution to mark this year as its official centennial. The

resolution recognizes the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture for 100 years of dedicated service and caring for the Nation’s forests; and acknowledges the promise of the Forest Service

to continue to care for our natural legacy; and encourages the Forest Service to deliver multiple use benefits efficiently as the Agency

enters its second century.

That will be a great challenge. The Chief has just presented me

with a copy of the rules and the regulations and instruction for the

use of the national forest reserves. When the Department was created, the Agency was created July 1, 1905. It is all of 130-some

3

pages. Today, you could fill rooms with the regulations and court

decisions and so on that the Department has to operate under and

the Forest Service has to operate under. The ranking member said,

would that we could get back to something as basic and simple as

that. That, I think, should be part of our objective, but in any

event, recognizing that heritage that was given to us at the outset

and working to achieve responsible legislation that puts us on a

target to meet Gifford Pinchot’s goals of 100 years ago, worthy

goals of this committee and of the Agency.

Today, we have the distinct pleasure of hearing from Pinchot’s

successor as Chief, Dale Bosworth, who is serving as Chief in this

centennial year. Following the Chief, we will hear from three distinguished leaders in forest conservation. I have asked each of you

here to reflect on the last century, and provide us with your views

on how the Forest Service can continue its conservation leadership

in the next.

At this time, it is my pleasure to recognize the ranking member

of the committee, the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Peterson.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. COLLIN C. PETERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to take

this opportunity to commend you for holding this hearing today to

mark the 100 year anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Forest

Service.

Now, when the Congress established the Forest Service in 1905,

it did so, as you said, with the intention that the Agency should

provide quality water and timber for the Nation’s benefit. Over the

last 100 years, the mission of the Agency has been expanded to

provide for additional multiple use benefits of the national forests,

including sustained yield of renewable resources such as water, forage, wildlife, wood, and recreation.

The U.S. Forest Service is the largest forestry organization in the

world. It is responsible for the management of public lands, known

collectively as the National Forest System, and these lands comprise 81⁄2 percent of the land area of the United States, and they

are located in 44 States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. In

total, there are 155 national forests and 20 grasslands. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today and hear them talk

about where the Forest Service has been, where it is presently, and

where it sees itself going in the future.

Now, Mr. Chairman, again I thank you for holding this hearing

and look forward to hearing from the witnesses.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota, the chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee, Mr. Gutknecht.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GIL GUTKNECHT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to thank

you for having this hearing.

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I think, even among some of my constituents, they are surprised

to learn, sometimes, that the national forests are actually managed

by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and I think that is important and we need to at least remind ourselves and our constituents

that, for many, many years, the Federal Government has regarded

trees as crops. And the question, I think, before this committee and

ultimately before the administration is how well we do in terms of

managing those crops. And we hope to hear more today, but I can

assure that we are going to do all we can to make certain that we

provide the kind of oversight that will encourage the folks at USDA

to do the best job possible of managing this very valuable national

resource, and I again thank you for having this hearing.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

We are now pleased to welcome Mr. Dale Bosworth, Chief of the

Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Chief, we are

pleased to have you with us again and look forward to your testimony. You are complete statement will be made a part of the

record.

STATEMENT OF DALE N. BOSWORTH, CHIEF, FOREST

SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will just

summarize my statement. I do appreciate the committee holding

this hearing, and I would like thank you, Mr. Chairman and the

members of the committee for inviting me here. I think the occasion of our centennial does give us an opportunity to look to the

past and reflect on our history, but probably more importantly, to

have an eye to the future, in terms of looking at where we ought

to be going over the next 100 years.

But first I would like to just say that I am particularly proud of

our Forest Service employees and the Forest Service retirees, the

many Forest Service retirees, that are still out there helping the

Forest Service achieve our mission. And we are proud of what we

have accomplished over the years, but probably prouder of what

the Nation has accomplished, as we set in place an ethic of conservation of natural resources in this country, and it is on this

ethic that we have based our Forest Service mission. And I would

like to just state what our Forest Service mission is. Our mission

is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s

forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. And we often shorten that up by saying caring for the

land and serving people.

Now, that mission statement is inherently ambiguous, and that

is probably good because it does provide us the flexibility that we

need to adjust to changing times, to adjust to changing social values, to changes on the landscape, and I think that our Forest Service history bears that out.

If you go back to the early beginnings, even before the Forest

Service was formed, in the late 1880’s, that was a time of pretty

much unrestrained exploitation of our natural resources. The result

was many wildfires that ravaged communities and ravaged forests.

We had floods that wiped out rivers. Species like elk were almost

extinct. And then, in 1891, the Forest Reserve Act was passed and

that allowed forests to be set aside for public purposes. And then,

5

in 1905, those forest reserves that at the time were in the Department of Interior, were transferred to the Department of Agriculture

and to the newly formed United States Forest Service.

Those early years, the focus was mainly on just figuring out

where the boundaries were, and hiring new rangers to patrol those

areas and to get the areas under management. It was generally a

time of custodial management. In the late 1920’s and the 1930’s,

we were in the Great Depression and the Forest Service took on

some additional social responsibilities. We put people to work

through the Civilian Conservation Corps, thousands and thousands

of unemployed people, and we were asked to restore eroded landscapes in the Dust Bowl, to plant windbreak trees. And then with

World War II, we were asked to help supply the war effort.

And then we moved into the post-World War II housing boom,

and from the period of time from the 1960’s through the 1980’s, it

was the time of big timber for the Forest Service, where we were

sort of defined by the amount of timber that we produced. And we

were asked by every Administration to continue to produce that

amount of timber, with good support from Congress. In the 1960’s

and 1970’s, as was pointed out earlier, multiple use and effort to

balance those uses, changing public values brought a lot of new

laws, and there was additional competition for the limited land

base of the national forests, and that led to some significant polarization and conflict that to some degree still is with us today.

My view is that the 1990’s were sort of a period of transition for

the Forest Service and that was a good thing, and we moved to a

more ecosystem-based model of management, and that sort of leads

us to what I would like to talk about, what I believe are the four

big threats facing our Nation’s forests and grasslands.

The first of those is the buildup of fuels in our forests and the

resulting wildfires. And thanks to the committee, you played a significant role in the passage of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act,

which I believe is probably the most significant forest management

legislation in a generation, and we are implementing that legislation diligently.

Another great threat, in my view, is invasive species. Those are

insects and diseases and weeds that have come from some other

continent that don’t have any natural enemies in North America

and therefore they wipe out, in some cases, our native ecosystems.

Another great threat is the loss of open space. We have working

farms, working forests, and working ranches that are lost to subdivisions at the rate of 4,000 acres a day, and that has a huge effect, again, on our native ecosystems, upon wildlife, fish, clean

water and clean air.

And then the fourth threat is what I refer to as unmanaged

recreation. More and more people want to go to their national forests and have a good time, and we want them to come. We just

have to do a good job of managing that recreation so that the next

generation can also have the same kind of opportunities to enjoy

the solitude in the national forests like we do.

And there is a number of other challenges, I think. We have a

huge backlog of work to complete, replacing culverts, upgrading facilities, where we have unhealthy watersheds, to restore those. But

despite all these challenges and some missteps that we have

6

learned from, I think the Forest Service has amassed an amazing

record of accomplishment.

Since 1905, nearly 500 billion board feet have been harvested

from National Forest System lands. That is enough to build something like 50 million homes. And we still have almost half of the

National Forest System that has no roads in it, it has never been

logged. It is still a safe haven for threatened and endangered species, for plants and animals. It is a place for people to recreate, but

more important, it is a place where people can take home memories, memories of the first time that their child saw an elk bugling

on a ridge top. It is a place where you can still provide for goods

and services, for products and services, and it is still a source of

clean air and clean water. Something like 60 million Americans get

their drinking water from National Forest System lands.

And our research branch has developed many innovations and

much knowledge about managing forests, and that has benefited

the public, both private landowners as well as other agencies. Our

State and private forestry branch works very well with State foresters so that they can assist private landowners. And working together with State foresters, developed the Smokey the Bear fire

prevention campaign. Smokey is one of the most recognized icons

in the world today. We have restored lands that we acquired that

were cut-over wastelands in some cases and they are now in a condition that many people think they are pristine and wild and have

never been touched, and they are beautiful treasures today.

So now, looking ahead to the future, I think we just have to continue to sustain our resources and all the good resources that the

National Forest System and the other forestlands provide, things

like clean air, like clean water, like wildlife habitat, like the remote

recreation experiences, and forest products. We need to better engage the public and continue to better engage the public in conservation through a broader outreach. Conservation has been limited to some degree to people in rural places and primarily to white

people. It needs to be broadened to urban people and people with

different ethnic backgrounds, so we can broaden the whole circle of

conservation. And partnerships are going to be the key to our future, our ability to work with other organizations to meet both

their needs as well as our needs in the area of forestry. Now, perhaps the greatest achievement of all, though, in my view, is that

we have been able to provide goods and services, technical assistance, and scientific information for all of our Nation’s forests, and

I think, leave a wonderful legacy for our children and a model for

other Nations.

So thank you. I would like to thank the committee again for your

role in shaping the statutory framework and providing the oversight that allows the Forest Service to be wise stewards of the

public’s national forests and grasslands, and to help non-Federal

forest landowners in the managing of their lands as well. I am

proud to be the 15th Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, representing

over 30,000 dedicated employees here at today’s hearing. I have

drawn inspiration from their tremendous dedication to conservation, and I thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I would

be happy to answer any questions.

7

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bosworth appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Chief.

For most of its history, the Forest Service has been the ‘‘can do’’

Agency in the Federal Government. Whether it was fighting

wildfires or producing timber, the Agency always found a way to

get it done. You recently talked about ‘‘analysis paralysis’’, which

has been created, at least in part, by overlapping and conflicting

legal mandates, regulations, and court orders. But do you agree

that these challenges have been tougher than those experienced in

the past, and what can be done to alleviate some of the gridlock,

or even better, get back to this nice, simple handbook you had 100

years ago?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, first, I do believe it is more difficult today

to get work done on the ground, for the obvious reasons of more

rules and regulations, but also because there is a lot more people

that care about their national forests today than maybe did 20 or

30 or 50 or even 100 years ago. When I was a district ranger back

in the 1970’s, the job of a district ranger was much easier than it

is today, because there is less competition and we had fewer rules,

and so the job was just somewhat easier. We have been working

hard in the last several years in trying to deal with some of our

rules and regulations and modernize those to meet today’s challenges and the challenges of the future, and a lot of our regulations

were written for the past. They were written 20, 25, 30 years ago

for the kind of management that was taking place then. Now we

are facing the four threats that I was talking about, and we need

to modernize our rules and regulations so that we can deal with

those, and we have made a number of changes in our rules and

regulations to be able to meet that. We are not there yet. We are

going to continue to evaluate all these different rules that we have

and procedures that we have in the Agency, to make sure that they

work for us so we can get on the ground and work with the public

and get the job done. So I think we are making progress and we

are going to continue to work at it and continue to make progress

in being able to streamline our work.

The CHAIRMAN. With the current budget situation, I am concerned that the Agency needs to focus on becoming more efficient;

however, we have seen some alarming trends in the opposite direction, including vastly increased firefighting costs, greatly reduced

outputs of commodities such as timber and grazing. Given your remarks about the changed role of the national forests, is it realistic

for Congress to expect that land management will be able to pay

for itself on public lands in the future?

Mr. BOSWORTH. I doubt that, at least in the near future, I don’t

think that it will pay for itself. And the reason I say that is, I

mean, I guess it could if we wanted to change our direction. If our

focus was only, for example, on only harvesting timber and trying

to get the most value for that, and not on providing recreational

opportunities and solitude, and not providing for habitat for threatened and endangered species and some of those things, then we

could decrease our costs and we could increase the amount of

things that we produce, but we would be missing some other

things.

8

Also, there is a lot of parts of our mission that don’t bring a lot

of income, things like managing wilderness areas, like recreation

brings some, but not a lot. We graze cattle on national forests. If

we significantly increased the cost per AUM, that would bring

more dollars in. I think our real challenge is to be as efficient as

we can, do always do the work in the lowest cost form that we can,

and continue to be efficient. You mentioned wildfires as an example

of significantly increasing costs. That is true, our costs have gone

up in fighting wildfires, but probably our cost per acre has not increased anymore significantly than the other kinds of costs. It is

just that we have much larger fires today, and so we are ending

up with ——

The CHAIRMAN. When you take the steps necessary to prevent

forest fires by thinning acreage and so on, you can create a lot of

commercially usable product, can you not, if it is done properly?

That would help to defray some of that reduced, first of all, reduce

the cost of fighting the fires by reducing the number of fires, but

also reduce the cost of the entire process by generating some return

on that.

Now, there are some extremist organizations, like the Sierra

Club, that have an official national policy of not having any commercial harvesting of timber in our national forests. Can you tell

us what a policy like that, if it were actually implemented in the

national forests, would have, both on the environment of the forest

and on the economics of maintaining the forest?

Mr. BOSWORTH. I mean, I think that would be a huge mistake.

I agree completely that the best way, for example, to reduce costs

and have healthy forests is do the appropriate kind of thinning,

and often that is removing some of those smaller and medium-sized

trees and leaving the right number of trees and species and reintroducing fire into a lot of these forests in a controlled way, so

that fire can play a role, but within more of a condition that is

healthy. And when you remove some of those trees that need to be

removed, we ought to be able to utilize those, I believe. They can

be chipped, they can be used for lumber, for lots of different purposes. In some cases, it costs more to remove them than the value

of the tree. But the overall cost to get the forest into the healthiest

condition is reduced. For example, if we couldn’t sell that, it might

cost us $500 or a $1,000 an acre to get the land in the condition

we want. By being able to sell that, we might get the cost down

to $100 an acre; in some cases, down to $10, $5 an acre. That

makes sense to me and it is a good way of utilizing some of our

natural resources; creating jobs.

The CHAIRMAN. Thanks, Chief.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Holden, is recognized for

5 minutes.

Mr. HOLDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Chief,

for your testimony and for the job that you do filling the shoes of

a pretty famous Pennsylvanian, Governor Pinchot.

I just have two quick questions. Aren’t there any actions that you

believe that this committee could take to assist with the further

implementation of the Healthy Forest Act?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, we have been at a point of implementation

now about a year and a half, and I just want to make a comment

9

before I completely answer the question, is that for years and years

we got additional laws and additional regulations tightening things

down and reducing the flexibility. The thing that is probably the

most significant about the Healthy Forest Restoration Act is that

it started loosening some things up; started better defining the

level of analysis that needs to be done in order to make a decision,

and I think that is extremely significant and very helpful. I am not

sure that we have been in the implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act long enough to be able to answer your question

specifically, but I can tell you that we would be very happy to work

with the committee and to work with you as we evaluate that and

see what kinds of adjustments we might need in the future to

achieve what we are all desiring.

Mr. HOLDEN. How about with private land ownership? Is there

any action that the committee can take to ensure that private landowners stay on their land and manage it sustainably? Anything

else, incentives or anything else?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, there is some tools that we have right now,

tools like the Forest Legacy Program, where we are able to achieve

or to acquire conservation easements working with the State foresters, and then we turn those conservation easements over to the

State to manage and to administer, and this is only with willing

private landowners, and that is one tool that we have. And the others are to try to find ways that private landowners can have their

land profitable enough so that they are able to and so they would

rather keep it intact, and that may include harvesting timber in

the most efficient, or being able to provide for other kinds of services, wildlife habitat, recreation and some of those kinds of things,

where private landowners can make a little bit of money from

those; then they might want to be able to keep that land intact.

And so we work, again, with the State foresters in working with

those private landowners to achieve that and we are going to continue to do that.

Mr. HOLDEN. All right, thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Kansas is recognized.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is somewhat surprising that the gentleman from Kansas would ask anything about the

forests, but we do care a lot, not only about trees across the country, but grazing in national grasslands is an important component

of our State’s heritage and economy.

The status of grasslands, the future of the permitting process,

the opportunity for grazing, just your general comments about

where we are in the world of national grasslands and grazing my

ranchers.

Mr. BOSWORTH. We are very proud of the fact that we manage

national grasslands as well national forests and as you stated, we

do have national grasslands in Kansas. I think the future is good

for grazing on grasslands. There is going to continue to be different

views about how much that ought to be and how the best way is

to maintain healthy grasslands. We want to make sure that it still

provides habitat for wildlife and opportunities for the public to

enjoy them, but I don’t think those things have to be in conflict.

I think that those things can be brought together and I believe that

10

multiple use applies to the grasslands like it does to the forests,

where people can graze and we can have all the other uses, too. So

we are going to continue to work with particularly the local people

and continue to find good ways to continue with the grazing.

Mr. MORAN. Well, Chief, thank you very much. I do represent an

area of Kansas that includes the Cimarron National Grassland,

and the relationship between the grazers and the Department of

Agriculture, the National Forest Service, has been one that has

been, in my opinion, just an awfully good relationship, the cooperation, conversation and dialogue, and I appreciate the National Forest Service’s relationship with the folks who care about the National Grassland in Kansas. So thank you, sir.

Mr. BOSWORTH. Thank you.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Gutknecht.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have made several trips. In my part of Minnesota, in southern

Minnesota, we don’t have any national forests, but we do have two

very important national forests in northern Minnesota, the Chippewa and the Superior, and I have made several trips us there to

meet with folks who have interests up there, and I have to tell you

that the reports that they give me are not particularly good, OK.

And I want to come back to this because we do want to work with

you, but let me just give you an example.

To pursue what the chairman asked about, in terms of just some

numbers, when we established in 1905 the Forest Service, they had

500 employees to manage 56 million acres of forest. Today, the Forest Service has 30,000 employees to manage 193 million acres.

Well, I guess most of us are pleased that we have increased the

acreage, but when you talk about efficiency and you see these relatively large, well, very large increases in the number of Federal

employees, I guess one of the questions that I would ask; you used

the term efficiency several times. How do you define efficiency?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, first, my view is that we need to get the

work done for the least cost, in a way that provides the outcomes

that people want from their national forests and grasslands. And

if we do it for the least cost or less cost, we are improving our efficiency. There are many differences between, obviously, between

today and 100 years ago when we had the use book. Just the job

of writing an environmental impact statement and analyzing alternatives and meeting the requirements of the Endangered Species

Act and the list goes on, requires that we have different specialists,

people with different professional backgrounds, working in an

interdisciplinary way to make sure that our actions are going to

minimize the environmental consequences of any decision we might

make. And of course, those things increase the costs to some degree. So my view is that we had expected to have more costs as

things get more complex. One hundred years ago, people believed

that they could always go over the next ridge to get what they

wanted, and you can go to the next drainage, and if we need to

harvest timber or we need to graze cattle, there is always another

ridge you can go over to accomplish that. In today’s world, with the

11

number of people that we have today, there is more competition for

the resources on the national forests. So the number of people has

increased significantly, but the land area doesn’t increase.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, one of the concerns we have in northern

Minnesota is that some of the paper mills up there would like to

expand, but they are literally sitting and making a decision as to

whether they will expand or contract their operation, based on how

much fiber is available. And this is a very important thing, because

we worry here in Congress about the loss of manufacturing jobs.

The manufacturing jobs in the paper industry in northern Minnesota work out to over $60,000 per year per person, and these are

manufacturing jobs which, unfortunately right now, if don’t manage these forests and allow more cutting of our national forests,

and right now, the numbers that I have show that we are actually

cutting less than 1 percent of the annual growth. And in some respects, that is a sad statistic, because what that means is more of

these very good manufacturing jobs are going to go to other countries and we don’t want to see that happen.

So I just want to publicly invite you and the Secretary—I have

already invited the Secretary up to northern Minnesota to meet

with some of the folks who depend on our national forests and depend on it in very, very serious ways. And I do understand that

the litigation and requirements are different today, but I still get

the sense that there is an awful lot of this fear or almost paranoia

within the Forest Service about moving forward. In fact, I used this

example once in awhile, of what used to be in the Union Pacific engineers railroad manual. And what it said in one paragraph was

that if two trains should approach each other on the same track,

both shall come to a complete stop and neither shall advance until

the other has passed. And that is what I see happening too often,

not only with the Forest Service, but with a lot of Government

agencies. We literally have trains sitting there looking at each

other, and we are not letting the contracts for stumpage, and the

net result is, we are going to lose some very, very good manufacturing jobs that we can’t afford to lose in places like Minnesota.

So we want to work with you. We know you have got a difficult

job. We know that the staff that is working out there has a difficult

job. But it starts at the top, it starts with us and it starts with you

to set the tone, that we expect these forests to be managed efficiently, we expect these forests to be utilized, and we expect the

folks in the Federal Government to work with local people in those

areas to make certain that that national resource is being used appropriately.

Mr. BOSWORTH. I would like to respond to a couple of comments

here. I would definitely agree that we do need to work together. I

have been to the Superior National Forest and visited with folks

a couple of times. I guess I would like to point out that fiscal year

2004, our last fiscal year that we completed, the Forest Service met

all of our timber harvest targets and actually exceeded what our

targets were that we got from Congress and the administration. We

exceeded, significantly exceeded our fuels treatment expectations,

about 115 percent of what we believed we were funded and what

the targets were. We exceeded the number of miles of road, or of

trail maintenance, that we had expected to get done and what our

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funding showed. So there were a number of areas, in terms of what

our folks, what we allocated, the targets that we got both from the

administration and from Congress, and they exceeded that. I am

pleased with that. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t more that we

can do and more efficient than we can get, and to continue working

with people in development of our forest plans to make sure that

what we are doing is what people want.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Neugebauer.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bosworth, following up on Mr. Gutknecht’s comments about

efficiency, what are some of the things that the Forest Service is

doing from a technology standpoint of protection of fires, of fighting

fires, of managing the forests themselves? And I guess one of the

things that comes to my mind is, other areas of Government were

using satellite technology for managing crops, for example, in some

of the areas that I represent. Can you elaborate on some things

that the Forest Service is doing as far as from a technology standpoint?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, there is probably a lot of things we are

doing that I can’t even think of, but let me just tell you a few that

I am very aware of, because technology has significantly improved

our ability to deal with fires. I mean, at one time, we would have

a fire, part of the difficulty is in a large fire, even knowing where

it is at, because you have so much smoke that you can’t really tell

where the boundary of the fire is, and using things like GPS technology, these are flying or people walking around the perimeter of

the fire, we are going to have it mapped instantly. We use satellite

imagery to have daily updates on exactly where the fire is, based

upon infrared imagery, and so we can get that and have that information to the fire command team, by the time the crews, the morning crews, are ready to go out on the fire at their fire camp at the

location of where they are headquartered and their fire camp has

been set up. We use the technology now to help map where the

smoke is going so that we can work with the public better in terms

of what to expect and in terms of how much smoke is going to be

affecting people’s health. So there is a number of those kinds of

things that we are doing and it gets better all the time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I think one of the questions along the same

lines is, in particular, with the Healthy Forest initiative of going

in and managing those areas that have dense buildup of foliage

and so forth that make them higher-risk, are you able to use technology from satellites and fly over to determine exactly and pinpoint where some of these buildups are, or are you still driving the

forest roads, or how are we doing that?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, we still ground truth, but we—to make

sure that the information we have is correct. But we use satellite

imagery, again, to basically map the forest vegetation and interpret

that imagery to look at the areas that would be the highest risk

for wildfire. We have a pretty good indication right now nationwide

of how many acres we have that are at high and moderate risk of

fire that would be unnatural, and that is where we put our emphasis in terms of fuels treatment, particularly when they are around

communities. So that would be one indication.

13

Another area where we are using the technology and getting better is to be able to strategically locate the kind of fuel treatment

work that needs to be done. If you have, for example, a 100,000

acre watershed, that doesn’t mean you have to treat 100,000 acres.

If you locate those treatments in the right place, then you can protect that whole drainage, that whole watershed, as well as the community. So it might only require 25,000 acres of treatment instead

of 100,000, which would save money, protect the community and

protect the watershed. And it is the technology, particularly satellite imagery, that really helps us with that.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Recently, in my district, I was at a manufacturing plant, Air Tractor, who makes airplanes that are used in

firefighting, and one of the things that they indicated to me is that

the Forest Service was using a lot of pretty old equipment in a lot

of ways to fight fires with, and that today there are ones that the

service is in need of updating their fleet, but also maybe changing

their fleet to be more efficient and being able to get to some of

those particular areas in a quicker manner in a more concise area.

Can you give me some elaboration on that?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, most of the heavy air tankers that we use

for retardant we contract with private contractors for those and

that is a pretty old fleet, there is no question about that. And as

a result, we ended up grounding most of that fleet for a period of

time. We have a lot of it back in the air now. We replaced, when

we grounded those aircraft, we replaced them with helicopters,

with heavy-lift helicopters, that did a very good job for us; they are

just more expensive. But they are very precise in terms of the way

they can drop water on a particular exact spot, where the air tankers aren’t quite as exact. We have developed a long-range plan for

the kind of aircraft that we need for the future, the mix that we

need between heavy-lift helicopters and air tankers and what kind

of needs that we have in terms of those air tankers, and we will

be working with private contractors and others as we evolve into

a more modern fleet.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Do you see you are moving more to

outsourcing of that, or do you think there is still a need to have

a certain amount of that within the Forest Service, or can we

outsource all of it?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, all of the air tankers currently, and the

heavy-lift helicopters, are privately owned and they are contracted,

which we contract with those. We do have some aircraft in the Forest Service that are used for smoke jumpers and for helicopter repelling crews, in fact, even most of the helicopter, for repelling

crews, are contract, but we do have some private aircraft for smoke

jumpers.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King.

Mr. KING. I thank the chairman. And, Chief Bosworth, I want to

thank you for your testimony today and the service to the Forest

Service. It is something that I have watched really all my life to

some degree and even though I represent Iowa, without a single

national forest in it. So that really is why I am here in one way,

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in admiration of the work that is been done by you and the people

work with and under you.

But something in your testimony caught my attention, and as I

look back through the printed testimony, I didn’t find that portion

of it, but it says, in the printed testimony, in the 1980’s, the National Forest System produced to 20 to 25 percent of our Nation’s

timber needs annually. If I remember right, you, in your testimony,

verbally embellished that some and named the number of houses

that had been built with that and also the number of acres of timber that were untouched. Could you restate that for my reference?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Yes. The estimate I have is that 500 billion

board feet, this would be over our 100-year history now, the whole

100 years, that approximately 500 billion board feet of timber was

harvested from the national forests, and that that would equate to

about 50 million homes that could be built with that amount of

timber.

Mr. KING. And yet, how much of the national forest is still untouched?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Almost half of the National Forest System has

no roads or has never been harvested.

Mr. KING. OK, thanks for refreshing me on that. I didn’t catch

it all as it went by and it was interesting data that I think, it puts

it in a perspective, the contribution the national forests have made

to this country and the resource that has been managed. And it

brings me to the next question and that is that I recall being out

to Yellowstone in about 1976 and taking a look at the forests out

there, and then coming back after the forest fires, and I believe

they were in 1988?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. KING. And I can probably calculate the year, because it had

been 12 years since. We were there in 2000, the last time, and I

saw the timber, the regrowth, and I just need an understanding

from, I suppose, a fellow from Iowa’s perspective. How long does it

take for that timber, and it will never be the same old growth it

was, but it will be a new old growth, how long does it take for that

to mature to the point where it doesn’t, where you can actually

have a real timber there? It seemed like it was slower than I

thought, in 12 years.

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, of course, it is going to vary some, depending upon the growing sites and types, but a lot of the country

around Yellowstone is higher elevation, a lot of it is lodgepole pine

and spruce and fir, and so it does take longer. But lodgepole pine

forests, they are natural way of managing themselves is really

through fire, and so what happens, they have tight pine needle and

pine cones, and so when you get the heat from fire, that allows the

pine cones to open and the seeds to distribute. So often, fire is a

necessary part of managing those ecosystems. And generally, 100,

120 years, a lodgepole pine will burn again. I mean, in their natural condition. But they never get real big, either. The trees are not

large trees, the lodgepole pine aren’t. And that is a lot of the kind

of country around Yellowstone.

The difficulty is that when you move down to some of the lower

elevations and you have some of these drier areas, they are more

historically, they had fires that burn maybe every 15 or 20 years

15

rather than every 100 or 150 years. And when we have removed

fire from those ecosystems by putting the fires out, we have gotten

a whole lot more trees there than what you should have. And so

when we have fire in those areas, they burn kind of like Yellowstone did, but they shouldn’t. The Yellowstone fires were more natural, and the ones down at the lower elavations are not and they

are the problems.

Mr. KING. Well, and I appreciate that. So the generations of trees

can vary substantially, but lodgepole, up to 100, 120 years, then,

it will be how I should think of it in that concept.

Mr. BOSWORTH. Generally, that would be correct.

Mr. KING. As one who has outlived a lot of trees in my lifetime,

I recognize they are a regenerating resource. So I, for the record,

ask you this question, and I will never get the chance to ask this

again. Do you agree or disagree with this statement: where there

is smoke there is fire?

Mr. BOSWORTH. I have seen a lot of smoke where I couldn’t find

any fire.

Mr. KING. Thank you very much, Chief. I appreciate it. I yield

back, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Jenkins, is recognized.

Mr. JENKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr.

Bosworth, for being here, and let me say, first of all, that I think

you are doing a great job in the U.S. Forest Service.

Mr. BOSWORTH. Thank you.

Mr. JENKINS. With all the conflicting viewpoints that you have

to entertain in doing your job, I doubt that there a very few of us

who would be doing nearly as well as you are doing today.

I want to talk to you first of all about one species. I want to talk

about the American chestnut tree. It is my understanding that

there are several universities that have come, over a long period

of time, that have come very close to creating a form of the American chestnut tree that we can now put back in the woods and that

will resist the blight that made it extinct. The chestnut tree, I

think, is one of the great losses that we have suffered in this country. The food was valuable for human beings and practically every

critter that lived in the woods. The wood was very versatile in its

use. It provided woods for homes, for barns, for furniture and most

everything that the early settlers came to depend on. I would like

to ask what the role, as we come to the point where we can reintroduce the American chestnut and perhaps have it thrive, what is

the role of the U.S. Forest Service going to be? How are you going

to—in our forests, how do you plan to reuse the American chestnut

tree?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, first let me say that I was talking about

the four great threats and I said invasive species is one of those,

well, the American chestnut is a great example of what can happen

when you get an invasive insect or disease from some other continent and it wiped out the chestnut, as you well know. And a huge

loss to the American people, in my view, when that happened. The

Forest Service has had an important role in trying to help develop

chestnuts that would, and to bring the American chestnut back,

and we work with private organizations and universities with our

16

research, and I think we have had an important role in developing

an American chestnut that would be able withstand the chestnut

blight.

There are trees now that are being planted and they are growing.

As a result of some of that work, the work from the American

Chestnut Foundation that we work closely with, in fact, I think, on

Arbor Day we planted an American chestnut in the White House

lawn, and I think that is symbolic and significant. And I believe

that maybe our children’s children will see forest with American

chestnut back in them, like people back in the early 1900’s were

able to see, but it is going to take a long time. We will be working

with the State foresters and we will be working with private organizations, and on the national forests, to help both propagate, develop and get the trees out there in the ground, and then monitor

and study those to make sure that we are getting what we need

to from them.

Mr. JENKINS. Thank you. Now let me ask about the, as Mr. Gutknecht did, about the national forest in his State. The Cherokee

national forest is located in Tennessee. A good portion of it is located in the congressional district that I represent. The Cherokee

is made up of about 640,000 acres, I believe. And in 2004, I have

heard that about one percent, about 650 acres, were actually cut.

Mr. BOSWORTH. There were actually what?

Mr. JENKINS. Were actually cut for timber.

Mr. BOSWORTH. I would have to check those figures and get back

to you. I just don’t know how many acres would have been harvested on the Cherokee.

Mr. JENKINS. And then if we come to clear-cuts, which, without

any question in my mind, provide valuable habitat for, especially

roughed grouse, but deer, every form of wildlife, then it is a small

fraction of the amount that was actually cut. Now, have we come

to this place because of what you described as analysis paralysis?

Or why is such a very small portion of the Cherokee cut each year?

Mr. BOSWORTH. Well, the first thing that we do, I mean, our forest plans guide the amount of timber that we are going to harvest,

or basically the number of acres where we are going to have timber

harvested. You mentioned clear cutting. A lot of the clear cutting

that we do is for purposes like turkey habitat, roughed grouse habitat, to try to improve habitat for other non-game species.

At the same time, those acres provide wood supply, and the forest plan dictates how much we are going to do of that. I will say

that you are correct, that some of the analysis problems and some

of the situations where we go to court, it takes longer to get the

projects out than what it used to. We have to make sure that from

the threat of endangered species standpoint, that we are doing the

right kind of protection for threatened and endangered species.

Those are just some of the examples of the things that the forest

supervisor and their folks are dealing with.

On the other hand, I think that the Cherokee National Forest is

doing a pretty good job of trying to find that balance of people who

want to recreate. There is a lot of folks around the Cherokee that

like to take horses. I mean, there is tremendous number of equestrian use, for example, on the Cherokee National Forest today. And

there is also people that like to ride off-highway vehicles back into

17

the national forest, and so we are trying to provide for those needs

and balance that with the amount of wildlife habitat improvement

and the amount of timber production that we can do. But I will

check the figures specifically and I would be happy to get back with

you on that.

Mr. JENKINS. OK. My time has expired. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.

Butterfield, is recognized.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to

thank the witnesses for coming forward today, and I apologize. I

think I am going to reserve my questions at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. I thank the gentleman.

If there are no further questions, Chief, we thank you very much

for your contribution today. As you know, we both congratulate you

on 100 years of accomplishments and encourage you to restore

some of that process that we had a number of years ago that we

seem to have gotten bogged down on now, and the balanced use of

our national forests seems to be out of balance and we hope that

you will take the lead in helping to restore some of that balance

to make sure that both the environment and the public use of the

forests themselves and the resources of the forests are all made

available for the benefit of our citizens.

Mr. BOSWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and in working together, maybe we can get back closer to that use book that guides

our management.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I will keep this right with me.

Mr. BOSWORTH. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

We would like to invite our second panel to the table, Dr. John

Helms, president of the Society of American Foresters, from Bethesda, Maryland; Ms. Leah MacSwords, director of Kentucky Division of Forestry and chair of the Southern Group of State Foresters, Frankfurt, Kentucky, on behalf of the National Association

of State Foresters; and Dr. V. Alaric Sample, president, Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Washington, DC.

We are pleased to have all of you with us today. We will remind

you that you are full statement will be made a part of the record,

and ask that you limit your remarks to 5 minutes, and we will

start with Dr. Helms. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF JOHN A. HELMS, PRESIDENT, SOCIETY OF

AMERICAN FORESTERS, BETHESDA, MD

Mr. HELMS. Well, thank you for the welcome, Mr. Chairman, and

thank you members of the committee. I really appreciate the opportunity to provide some testimony on the USDA Forest Service and

its progress over the past century, and what might be some of the

opportunities for the future. I am currently president of the Society

of American Foresters and I am representing them today, and I

would like to thank the committee for its continuing support of forestry and forests, and this is both on public and also on private

land.

Throughout the past century, the Forest Service has had many

successes in land management, and these are probably most notably in the first two-thirds of this, when the Agency established and

18

implemented what are probably best described as an extraordinarily competent management practices to make the needs of the

public. Currently, we are in a situation of administrative complexity. We have issues of forest health, we have issues of wildfire, and

these are making successes a little more difficult to achieve in the

latter part of the few decades.

In considering the future, I would like to focus on three areas

that I really find are enormously important. Now, the first of these

is that it is imperative that the Forest Service enabled to professional manage the Nation’s Federal Forests, and meet in perpetuity

the diverse needs of the people. And this is from the extremes of

a sustainable wood supply through to wilderness, and this has to

be done a balanced ecologically sound way.

But I will comment that, today, with conflicting and overlapping

legislative mandates, the Forest Service does not really have a

clear mission or a vision guiding its management. And as the demands of the Federal Forests change, the Forest Service’s legislative mandates have become increasingly complex, and they have

become conflicting and also outdated. Now, I don’t think the situation will be really resolved until Congress closely examines these

conflicting mandates and clarifies the missions and the goals of the

National Forest System, in the light of today’s changing political

attitudes.

Our understanding of forests has changed dramatically since the

concept of multiple use was put into place. The shift to ecosystem

management and sustainability is not reflected in current mandates of the Agency. And while the idea that the Forest Service

should provide a balanced variety of goods and services from these

lands, and this still is desirable, this is probably better founded on

the broad principles of sustainability, which are based on the fundamental interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic processes and values. And I think that with an articulation

of a new congressionally designated mission, the Agency can once

again rebuild its trust with the public with whom they serve.

And as an interim measure and to begin to move forward, I suggest that Congress consider authorizing and testing different approaches to sustainable land management through the use of pilot

projects. And I know this is not a new idea, but it is an important

mechanism that allows the examination of alternative approaches

to adaptive management, prior to adapting on a broader scale

across the country. And a good example of this, perhaps, is stewardship contracting.

The second issue I would like to bring to you is that the State

and private forestry functions of the Forest Service are critically

important. The United States is remarkable in the world in having

such a diversity of forest ownerships that include Federal, State,

industrial, private nonindustrial, and tribal. And these forests provide the bulk of our domestic supply of forest products and cover

most of our watersheds, and I suggest that it is the nonpublic

lands, however, that are the most vulnerable to conversion, fragmentation, and parcelization. There may also be reasons to think

more boldly and develop better Federal-State partnerships, as

being done, for example, with the Clean Air Act and the Clean

Water Act. The States have a particular interest in Federal lands,

19

and it may be worth looking at greater opportunities for State partnerships across all Federal land issues.

And the third priority areas I would like to mention is forest research and development. In these times, where we have the greatest needs for information, it really seems surprising that the number of Forest Service scientists has declined 50 percent in the last

20 years, from about 985 scientists in 1985 to about 468 today. And

this precipitous decline in research capacity seems quite indefensible, given the enormous and expanding demand for new techniques

and understanding that is needed for sustainable forest management. And because the Forest Service research, it can probably

never have all the scientists it needs. Greater emphasis should be

placed on increasing high-quality collaboration with other research

bodies throughout the country.

So in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I will comment that, over the

last 100 years, the Agency’s prime concerns have evolved through

custodial, through utilitarian, and through the stewardship approaches. But given the supreme importance of sustained, healthy,

and diverse forests is literally to the Nation’s welfare. The Forest

Service must have a clear mandate, clear and consistent laws and

regulations that guide management, provide leadership in management and conservation across all forestlands in the country, and

have a research of sufficient capacity to permit the best possible

decisions and development of forest policy. So thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and the committee, very much for this opportunity to

provide testimony. I will be glad to address any questions you

might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Helms appears at the conclusion

of the hearing.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Helms.

Ms. MacSwords, welcome and we are pleased to have your testimony as well.

STATEMENT OF LEAH W. MACSWORDS, DIRECTOR, KENTUCKY

DIVISION OF FORESTRY, AND CHAIR, SOUTHERN GROUP OF

STATE FORESTERS, FRANKFORT, KY, ON BEHALF OF THE

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE FORESTERS

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the National Association of State Foresters.

The State foresters have a long history of working with the Forest Service, and when we look back we recognize that the greatest

accomplishment of the Agency during its first 100 years has been

to bring a forest ethic to all of the forests in the Nation, by instituting a professional scientific and systematic approach to protection

of our forests, regardless of ownership.

In 1911, when Congress passed the Weeks Act to authorize the

purchase of land east of the Mississippi for the protection of navigable waterways and their watershed, this of course led to the purchase of burned over and denuded land and the establishment of

the Eastern National Forest, including the Daniel Boone National

Forest in my home State, Kentucky, and the George Washington

and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia.

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The 1924 Clark-McNary Act authorized a Federal grant program

with the States for cooperative fire protection on all forestlands

across the country, and establish funding for States to implement

reforestation and assistance programs for private landowners. Our

wild land fire protection program is second to none, and together

we have strengthened our knowledge, skill, and experience to protect the Nation’s forests and grasslands from wildfire. The National

Fire Plan has not only increased funding for wild land fire programs, but has also affirmed that wild land fire protection program

is a cooperative effort across agencies and ownership and serves all

the country.

The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 provided the

Forest Service with broad and comprehensive authority to support

State forestry agencies in helping the Nation’s 10 million private

forest landowners manage and protect their forests. These efforts

provide the educational, technical, and financial assistance to realize the public goals of sustainable forestry. They include, among

others, the Forest Stewardship Program, cooperative fire assistance

grants, and urban and community forestry, and they have established an excellent track record of protecting water resources, restoring fire-adapted forests, managing wildlife habitat, and improving quality of life.

The greatest hindrance to accomplishment of these program

goals is lack of adequate funding, and we believe that funding for

cooperative forestry programs has been especially hard hit. In fact,

some programs have never received any funding, such as the Watershed Forestry Assistance Program that was authorized in the

2003 Healthy Forest Restoration Act. This program would provide

States with the recourses to improve water quality by undertaking

watershed forestry restoration projects in priority areas and improving State forestry best management practices programs. Unfortunately, Congress has never appropriated any funds for this program. The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act provided the Forest

Service and States with direction and focus for the landowner assistance programs. Given the funding difficulties, we believe a new

approach to State and private forestry programs is needed.

Last September, Chief Bosworth challenged NASF to help the

public understand the benefits that come from the few well-placed

Federal investments in State and private forestry. Together with

the Forest Service, we sponsored three regional meetings over the

past few weeks to develop a shared understanding of public benefits from non-Federal forestlands. These findings from the meetings

will be available later this summer and will provide guidance to

the Forest Service, NASF and other stakeholders. We believe that

a strong focus on providing clearly definable public benefits will

better shape the future of State and private forestry. State forestry

agencies and the Forest Service have a long history of working together, and we have a strong interest in the direction of the Forest

Service as we embark on the second century of our partnership.

And I wish to close by noting that the most compelling forces

shaping the Agency’s role and direction will not come from within,

but rather from new and global issues that are already shaping our

policy. Greenhouses gas markets, the increasing value of clean

water, and the global economy will all shape the Agency’s direction

21

in the future. The strong relationship between NASF and the Forest Service will help us to better serve the public as these changes

take place. I thank you again for the opportunity to testify today

and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. MacSwords appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Dr. Sample, welcome.

STATEMENT OF V. ALARIC SAMPLE, PRESIDENT, PINCHOT

INSTITUTE FOR CONSERVATION, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. SAMPLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Over the past 100 years, the Forest Service has risen to many

new and many unanticipated needs. The Forest Service is now

serving an America that is greatly changed from a century ago;

from a population 76 million in 1900 to more than 286 million

today; from a mostly rural population to one that is 85 percent

urban; one that was mostly eestern European people of ancestry

and is now a diverse mix of races, cultures, and outlooks.

Globalization has fundamentally changed forestry in the U.S. and

will continue to do so in coming decades. Billions of dollars in capital once invested in U.S. forests have been taken out and reinvested in fast-growing plantations, mostly in the southern hemisphere. Production capacity in the global forest sector is geared less

to mature economies, like that in the United States, and increasingly toward rapidly growing markets in Latin America and Asia.

With timber prices in the U.S. projected to remain relatively flat

for many years to come, some of the most valuable and productive

forestlands in the U.S. will be barely able to compete on either

price or quality with low-cost wood coming from the southern hemisphere plantations.

What does this mean to the future of the Forest Service and of

U.S. forests? First, the biggest threats to sustainability in U.S. forests will not come from the pressure for timber harvesting. The biggest threat to sustaining biological diversity, water quality, wildlife

habitat and other values from U.S. forests will be the loss of the

forests all together to forest fragmentation and the conversion of

forests to development and other non-forest land uses. Three-quarters of U.S. forests are privately owned, which means there are

costs to the owners; property and State taxes as well as the expense of protecting and managing the forest itself. These costs are

increasingly difficult for many private forest landowners to bear,

especially in times of weak timber markets and declining real

prices. As a result, more and more land each day is being cleared

for development and for all intents and purposes is being lost as

forests forever.

Private forests offer a steady stream of public benefits, values

and uses that we are only now beginning to fully appreciate. Discovering creative new ways to directly or indirectly compensate private forest landowners for these benefits will be key to ensuring

that landowners can continue to keep their forests enforested. The

U.S. Forest Service is helping lead the way in this field, cooperating closely with State governments, conservation organizations,

local communities, and forest landowners.

22

These challenges to protecting important public conservation values on private lands brings a fuller appreciation, I think, for the

role of the national forests themselves and a wide array of services

and uses that they provide for all Americans on a daily basis. The

public spends an average of less than $16 per acre annually to conserve and sustainably manage 192 million acres of national forest,

providing benefits to all Americans and ensuring that this essential

natural resource asset will still be there for generations of Americans to come. By any measure, Americans are getting a good value

for what they invest.

But globalization is having its effects on the national forests as

well. This decline in U.S. timber values in markets has contributed

to a loss of economic infrastructure in forest management in communities all over the country, making it difficult for the Forest

Service to accomplish even its most basis stewardship responsibilities; maintaining the long-term health and productivity of the national forests themselves. We have seen this in the increase in insect and disease outbreaks, the buildup of hazardous fuels, or frequent wildfires, especially in the intermountain west.

At the end of the day, the U.S. Forest Service is still the most

capable organization in the world, in terms of conservation and

sustainable forest management, in research, in technical assistance

to State governments and private landowners, and in demonstrating sound forest management. What the Forest Service has done in

its first century provides a model for other countries that are just

now themselves beginning to turn that corner from unsustainable

exploitation of their forests to sustainable forest management. The

Forest Service of the future will face many challenges, some of

which we can’t even anticipate anymore than Gifford Pinchot anticipated today’s challenges 100 years ago. But at the start of its

second century, I believe the Forest Service has matured as an organization, I believe they have internalized many of the lessons

from their mistakes as well as their successes, and they are stronger as a result. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be happy to

address any questions that you or other members of the committee

might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sample appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]

Mr. GUTKNECHT [PRESIDING]. Well, thank you very much, and my

thanks to you and to the staff for having you folks here to talk to

us briefly today.

One of the questions that was raised by several of you is this

issue of sustainability, and perhaps we should ask some of the folks

from the State forests, because what we hear from some of my folks

back in Minnesota is that, in some respects, our State foresters are

doing a better job of managing their timber than we are, and any

of you be willing to talk about and compare that? I mean, do you

cut trees in Kentucky?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Yes, we do. Let me share with you are a couple

of examples in the difference in harvesting on State-owned land

versus harvesting on the national forests, and the example that

comes to mind, in the late 1990’s, all of the South was struck by

an infestation of southern pine beetle and it pretty much devastated our pine trees across the south, including the Daniel Boone

23

National Forest in Kentucky and in my own Pennyrile State Forest.

What happened was, we as a State Agency could go in and do

salvage harvesting on our State forests and while the trees still

had economic value, and we used those receipts from those harvest

sales to support the infrastructure on our State forests. The Daniel

Boone National Forest was not quite so fortunate, because they

were mired in litigation over whether or not they could harvest and

they essentially lost some valuable timber and some money that

could have been gained, had they been able to harvest out those

damaged pines in a timely manner.

We also suffered from several ice storms. And again, I could go

in on a State Forest and harvest the damaged timber quickly,

while it still had economic value, while storm-damaged areas on

the Daniel Boone had to wait a lot longer before they could begin

to harvest some of the damaged timber there.

But I think one of the things that I would like to point out, when

we talk about resources on State forests, it is not necessarily the

State-owned forests, it is all the forests that are owned by private

forest landowners. So when there is not harvesting going on on national forests, then forestry industry looks to that resource that is

provided by our private forest landowners, and that is why it is extremely important that we continue to have a strong program that

supports our 10 million forest landowners across the country.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I wonder if either of the other two our testifiers

would be willing to talk about that, because that is essentially the

assessment that we get, is that our national forests are tied up in

so much red tape that it really, it almost becomes counterproductive. Do you share that view and are you willing to work

with us to try and get rid of some that red tape?

Mr. HELMS. I think the perception is quite accurate. My understanding is that a surprising amount of the Forest Service budget,

something like 40 percent, goes into planning. And when you add

the issues of planning with the need for public participation and

to accommodate appeals, these activities dominate the attention of

the Forest Service to the detriment of being able to actually deal

with the issues of management issues that are on the ground.

And so we have got ourselves caught, with all the best of intentions, of developing statutes that put emphasis on planning and

emphasis on public participation, expecting that these would help

us all with the problems at that level, but it hasn’t worked out that

way. And so it is an extremely difficult issue as to how to encourage, obviously, public participation and provide opportunities for

appeal, but not allow these processes to get in the way of actually

look after the resource itself, which is the prime function of the

Agency.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Dr. Sample?

Mr. SAMPLE. I guess I would agree with the assessment as well.

I think it is important for us to recognize that the situation that

we are facing today didn’t develop overnight. And I think the State

forests and the national forests have really come from a somewhat

different place over the last 30 years or so. The Forest Service has

learned some difficult lessons over its first century. The 1910 fires

in the northern Rockies that burned up several million acres, sevVerDate 11-SEP-98 10:02 Aug 02, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\109-11 HAGRI PsN: HAGRI
24

eral communities, and took a lot of lives, was a very harsh lesson

for the Forest Service in its preparedness to fight fire, and they

committed themselves to becoming the very best firefighting agency

in the world and they have. Their response to some of the issues

over forest management that began cropping up in the 1970’s and

really sort of hit critical in the 1980’s and the early 1990’s, really

undermined a lot of the public trust in the Forest Service, and the

Forest Service has taken awhile to rebuild that trust. So I think

they are coming from a somewhat different place.

There is an innovative sort of approach to this that the States

actually have pursued, some States have pursued, with independent third-party assessments, where someone that really has no dog

in the fight, if you will, comes in and assesses independently the

quality of the forest management. Several States have done this on

their forests and have a great deal of success with putting the results of those assessments out there to their citizens to prove to

their citizens that they really are doing a very good job of managing their forests. The national forests are only beginning to investigate that right now as a possible mechanism for helping to, again,

continue rebuilding that trust in the Forest Service and their ability to manage the national forests.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, my time has expired, but thank you very

much for your testimony.

My colleague from Minnesota, Mr. Peterson.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I defer to Mr. Butterfield.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Butterfield.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,

Mr. Peterson, for yielding your time. I want to thank you for the

work that you do on this committee and I want to thank the chairman of this committee. I realize that he had to step away for a few

minutes, but I want to thank Chairman Goodlatte for all that he

does for the forest advocates and the forest interests in this country. I am one of the newer Members of Congress. I was elected last

year and so I am new to this committee, and so I am in the process

of learning so much about forests and forest management. And I

just want to thank you, each one of you, for coming forward today

and giving us your testimony.

Before coming to the Congress, I was a judge and I was in the

court system for 30 years. I did not have a full appreciation for

what you do, but since coming to the Congress, I have developed

a great appreciation and admiration for what you do in your work.

And so I am continuing to learn, so I just want to thank you for

your testimony. I have read all of your testimonies and it is obvious

to me that each one of you feels very strongly about your work, and

I just want to thank you for that.

Let me ask Dr. Helms the first question. You seem to suggest,

both today and in your statement, that we have legislative mandates that are somewhat conflicting and overlapping. Am I correct

in assuming that you feel that many of our legislative mandates

are overlapping?

Mr. HELMS. That is correct.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Yes. Would you advocate wholesale changes to

these legislative mandates, or do you think they can be tweaked

and corrected without any wholesale changes?

25

Mr. HELMS. Well, that is difficult to respond to because we have

three prime statutes, the Organic Act of 1897, and then the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, and the National Forest Management Act, and these are addressing issues of the management of

the forestlands, but they are not entirely consistent in their directives, and probably more importantly, these about 30 years old, or

in the case of the Organic Act, obviously 100 years old. And they

probably don’t reflect public priorities and concerns that exist now

because they have become outdated from that time. And so I think

the Congress has a very difficult task of trying to work out whether

to replace these entirely, and then what to do with acts such as Endangered Species Act, which has sort of overarching objectives that

sort of trump the directives of the previous statutes.

But I think the prime issue is twofold. One is to take a look at

the extent to which new legislation is needed to replace these outdated ones and secondly, to make them current with public priorities and concerns. So it is an exceedingly difficult concept and that

is something that I think Congress needs to grapple with.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Well, I am sure, if you would take a poll of

this committee, you would find a difference of opinion, even on this

committee, as to whether or not we need to make wholesale

changes and whether we need to go in and reconcile the four major

acts that we deal with.

Let me ask the other two witnesses the same question, if you

could briefly address it. Do we really need to get into this and

make wholesale changes, or can we as a Congress reconcile the

overlapping nature?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, the National Association of State Foresters believes, in terms of those statutes that deal with cooperative forestry programs and programs for private forest landowners,

you probably don’t need wholesale changes. You probably need

some tweaking, you certainly need some funding, but we believe

that the authorizations are there and the mandates are there to do

the kind of work to protect our and assist our private forest landowners, and we just need to move in that direction.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. I am told that many Congresses ago, and of

course I was not here, but that Congress very painstakingly enacted all of these pieces of legislation down through the years, and

need to find some way to avoid wholesale changes in the regulations if we can, if it makes sense. Yes.

Ms. MACSWORDS. I will tell you that there are about 187 different Federal programs that have some sort of dealing with forests. They are not all under the purview of the Forest Service. One

place that it might be worth looking is at all of the programs and

see how they need to be reconciled.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. All right. Dr. Sample, would you like to respond?

Mr. SAMPLE. Yes. As a lawyer, I think you will appreciate a book

that is probably on most desks of the Forest Service, the principle

laws relating to Forest Service activities. It is about that thick and

very fine type and very thin paper. It is quite a body of law that

the Forest Service has to pay attention to. I guess I would just urge

the Congress to maintain a flexible approach in its legislative guidance to the Forest Service. And heading the Pinchot Institute, I get

26

to think an awful lot about things that happened 100 years ago.

And 100 years ago when national forests were formed and Gifford

Pinchot was providing leadership in that, there was no concept of

biological diversity as we know it know. There was no concept of

sequestering carbon credits with the Forest Service, sequestering

carbon for reducing greenhouse gases.

So we don’t know what we are going to be dealing with as challenges 10 years from now or 50 years from now or 100 years from

now. So I would urge a flexible approach that allows the Forest

Service to adapt to a really quickly changing set of needs and responsibilities.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you. I believe my time has expired.

Again I want to thank each one of you for coming forward today

and giving us your testimony. I have found, since I have been in

the Congress, and I have only been here for a year now, that this

probably the most bipartisan committee in the Congress. And so if

you would work with us, we will work you and we will make some

commonsense decisions that all of us can live with. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the gentleman

from Minnesota, Mr. Peterson.

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In my district in Minnesota, we manufacture the only domestic

snowmobiles in the country, ATVs, and this may be out of your

purview, but what is your position on using snowmobiles and ATVs

in national forests?

Mr. HELMS. I think it is largely a matter of how much and

where. A small amount of use on a small limited area, of course,

it is probably not going to be creating an impact. The issue that

you have brought up here, I think, pertains to all sorts of forest

use. It is a matter of what happens when a particular activity becomes dominating and impacting the values and needs of other

users of the system. So it is an issue of how much and where.

Mr. PETERSON. You are not against it as long as it is not causing

problems?

Mr. HELMS. Not at all.

Mr. PETERSON. Ms. MacSwords?

Ms. MACSWORDS. What we find in States with too much restriction on ATV use on national forests or even State-owned forests,

for that matter, it forces ATV riders to go to private forestlands,

where they may not be welcome. And this is one of the largest complaints that we hear from our landowner associations across the

country, is the use of ATVs on private forestlands, because they assume that they are there for public use even though it is under private ownership. So there does need to be a balance on the publiclyowned lands so as not to impact those that are privately owned.

Mr. SAMPLE. I guess I would just add that this was one of the

big differences in perspective between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot a hundred years ago when the Forest Service was being

formed. The Forest Service’s approach was to welcome public uses,

whether it was grazing and wood production all the way through

recreation or wilderness use, to welcome those uses, but then to

manage those uses so that they would be sustainable in the long

run, and I don’t think ATV use is any different from that. I think

27

the Forest Service wants to welcome those users and help those

users to find ways to use the national forests in ways that will sustain that use and other uses over time.

My experience in working with the associations that really represent ATV users is they are very eager to work with the Forest

Service to find ways that they can continue to use the national forests without damaging those resources.

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN [PRESIDING]. Thank you. Dr. Helms, can you give

me a few examples of pilot approaches that Congress might authorize on the national forests?

Mr. HELMS. I would like to comment on the importance of this

approach first, in that it enables experimental approaches to management that takes advantage of the differences in forest types and

the differences in societal needs across the country. Because in a

pine forest, management in one part of the country, such as the Alleghenies, probably has little relevance to the way in which you

might approach forest management in a totally different part of the

world, such as in the Sierra Nevada.

So the advantage of the pilot approach is that it enables the

Agency to test alternative kinds of management that are sensitive

to local community needs, and address issues that pertain to that

particular forest type, and literally in a testing pilot mode, where

it is not going to be adopted unless it works. We need to have experience in how to do this in a wide variety of areas, and we have

got some good examples of this.

The ones I happen to be familiar with is the Quincy Library

Group in California, which had a lot of difficulty in moving ahead

with what initially seemed, really a good partnership approach to

the management of land. Another one is the Sierra Nevada Framework, which can move ahead in a pilot approach. So I think the

concept is one that is really very worthwhile looking at because of

the flexibility it provides, and before one gets involved in a broadscale nationwide policy.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Ms. MacSwords, have the recent

record wildfires seasons on public lands disrupted delivery of State

and private forestry programs, and are there any in particular that

have been severely impacted?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Yes, Mr. Chairman, they have. What we saw

a few years ago with the raging fires out west and where the expenses were extraordinary, the Forest Service had to borrow about

$50 million from other Forest Service programs, those programs

that directly serve State forestry agencies and private forest landowners. One in particular would be that comes to mind is the Forest Land Enhancement Program, and that is where the $50 million

was borrowed, and only $10 million was returned back into that account.

What we also saw was that there were some States, especially

those in the Northeast area, that didn’t get their Federal funding

for certain of their programs because of the timing of the borrowing. So it has a great impact on how we operate our State agencies,

because we do depend on the funds from the Forest Service to assist us with our programs.

28

The CHAIRMAN. As you know, I have long been a supporter of the

Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis Program. The program was particularly important in the Southeastern part of the

United States where land use is very dynamic. What is your assessment of how well this program is working nationwide and in

the southeast?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, Mr. Chairman, if you had asked me that

question a few years ago, I would have a very different answer, but

I am pleased to say today that in the South we are pleased with

the progress that the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program has

made. We are seeing the inventories conducted and reports issued

in a much timelier manner. And you are right, the information that

we get from the FIA Program is critical to us, not only in the way

we use our own resources, but in the way we attract forest industries into our region. It provides the necessary information that we

need to conduct our business and to work with private forest landowners.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Sample, you mentioned that timber harvest

is not the biggest threat to the integrity of either our national forests or our Nation’s extensive private forestlands. You noted that

weak markets for timber, in fact, are creating a disincentive for

private landowners to reinvest in their woodlands, and I wonder if

you can elaborate on Federal policies that can help mitigate, if not

reverse, those trends.

Mr. SAMPLE. I don’t think we are going to do much about changing the broad sweep of global markets. They have taken on a momentum of their own. It is part of the cost of, I guess, being a participant in the global economy. But I think there are some things

that are within our purview that we can either protect or enhance

that will greatly increase the incentives for good forest management and for forestland protection or conservation on private lands.

Conservation easements right now are under tremendous threat

from the possibility of Federal tax incentives associated with those

easements being revoked, and that would really take out of our

quiver one of the most important arrows that we have for helping

private forest landowners to be able to reduce their tax loads and

be able to protect their forestlands. So that is something that is before the Joint Committee on Taxation right now.

The other I think is an important opportunity for this committee

in the upcoming farm bill. Chief Bosworth mentioned some of the

efforts that the Forest Service is leading to try and find new ways

to essentially compensate private forest landowners for the many

public values that they provide on their lands, whether it is water

quality of wildlife habitat.

There is a great deal of discussion right now in this are of ecosystem services and how we can somehow come up with creative

financing mechanisms that will allow private forest landowners to

be compensated in some way. And these are not necessarily more

cost sharing programs or are federally-funded financial incentive

programs. Things like the treatable carbon credits represent a potentially huge new source of private capital coming into private forest landownership from private capital markets, not just in the

United States, but throughout the world. This is something that we

basically invented during in here in the United States, this notion

29

of a cap in trade approach to reducing emissions of pollutants that

we don’t like.

In 1990 and the Clean Air Act amendments, this was done with

sulfur dioxide and it was tremendously successful. We reduced sulfur dioxide much more quickly than anyone anticipated and at a

fraction of the cost. I think there is some opportunity there that

may be dealt with in the discussions surrounding the farm bill conservation title in particular that may give the Forest Service some

tools they don’t currently have to encourage conservation on private forestlands.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is very interesting. If you would, as

the opportunity arises over the next 2 years, as we work towards

completing that next farm bill, share any of those ideas with the

committee, we would welcome them and I would repeat that to all

three of you. I have a keen interest in our national forests. I have

about 1.2 million acres of national forestland in my eastern United

States district. So anything that you can share with us that would

help to improve the farm bill and improve the quality of the Forest

Service or our programs for private landowners, we are interested

in having your input as we move forward.

And at this time, it is my pleasure—does the gentleman from

North Carolina have questions? You have done yours. Well, thank

you very much. Very good. Well, Mr. Butterfield and I have a keen

interest in our eastern forest, but we are going to give the last

word to our western forest with the gentleman from California, Mr.

Baca.

Mr. BACA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the

witnesses for being out here.

One of the first questions, and I know that it was it asked earlier

about the endangered species and like anything else, I do agree

that they are outdated and we have got to do something about that.

But looking at the revision that needs to be done and hearing

MacSwords indicate that we needed to borrow $50 million and

some, do you believe, then, that in dealing with the endangered

species and dealing with what we need to deal with in dealing with

forests, with national forests, do you believe that we are underfunded at this point? If we are really to look at the demands of

changing some of the legislation, looking at demands and needs

and especially what happened in California with a lot of the fires

that we had there in that area, and when I looked an manpower,

it is that we really didn’t have a lot of the manpower and that we

even had to, I guess, get individuals to come in even from Canada,

in terms of our airplanes that we needed during that period of

time. Do you believe that we are underfunded at this point and

that we should really look in terms of something that would happen in terms of the future, Ms. MacSwords?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, as coming from an eastern State that,

during the horrendous wildfires in the West, we send crews to help,

I think there needs to be a better mechanism for how fire is funded

so that the Forest Service doesn’t have to borrow from other critical

programs to pay for the fire costs. So I guess, in answer to your

question, yes, it probably is underfunded, but there has just got to

be a better way than taking from programs that support private

forest landowners or urban community forestry or research or

30

whatever to fund fire, and we would hope that you would figure out

a way to do that.

Mr. BACA. And how are we doing in reimbursing wherever we

borrow the money to make sure that we apply not only the manpower, the services, and are we doing it in a timely manner when

we have to borrow?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, we call it ‘‘borrowing’’.

Mr. BACA. OK.

Ms. MACSWORDS. That is not what we call it.

Mr. BACA. Then what we are doing is stealing?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, we are taking and sort of with the promise to pay back, but they can only pay back, or they can only move

funds back into those programs if funds are available. If they are

not available, then they are just not there.

Mr. BACA. So we never probably replenish the monies that we

took from somewhere?

Ms. MACSWORDS. They were not, no, they were not 100 percent

replenished. So we all had, on the State level, had to make some

adjustments because of those lack of funds. And the Forestland Enhancement Program was one of the critical ones where we had willing landowners on the ground ready to do management activities

and they could not get the funds through that cost share program

to conduct those activities.

Mr. BACA. And what effect does it have in manpower?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, the effect on manpower ——

Mr. BACA. Or woman-power, whatever the case may be.

Ms. MACSWORDS. I mean, if you are talking about State forestry

agencies and our own employees, it is a little bit disheartening

when our foresters are out working with the landowner who wants

to do forest management, needs that cost share assistance to conduct those activities and we have to say it is just not available, it

is not there anymore, it had to be used to fight fires out west. And

that is a little disheartening, because I have got a waiting list of

private forest landowners that could use that cost share money if

it were available.

Mr. BACA. But under emergency situations, we are able to respond, though, right?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Under emergency situations for fire?

Mr. BACA. Yes.

Ms. MACSWORDS. Under emergency situations for fire, the Forest

Service does respond and the States respond to help. I think what

we need to look at is, there are other kinds of emergency situations

that impact our forests beside fire. I mean, we have got several

major forest health threats that could be just as devastating to our

forest, both the national forests and private forests.

Mr. BACA. So what you are saying, though, that we are not able

to respond in those cases?

Ms. MACSWORDS. That is correct.

Mr. BACA. OK, thank you very much.

Mr. Helms, can you explain how you envision public land management paying for itself, which is question number one? And what

activities do you see as being able to pay for themselves, and what

activities would lend themselves to this concept?

31

Mr. HELMS. Probably public land management could never pay

for itself in its entirety, but it is quite likely and perhaps desirable

that revenue obtained through such activities as thinning forests or

grazing contribute to the overall cost. But I think the important

issue here is to recognize that on public lands, the objective is to

manage these lands in a sustainable way that produce a whole

suite of services and values.

And timber harvesting should be viewed as a vegetation management technique, designed to help put the Federal forests in a condition of health and sustainability. And revenue from those vegetation management treatments, such as thinning, could quite well

and legitimately be used to offset costs. And this is distinct from

the forests being regarded as revenue-generating, simple in and of

itself, where you are managing the forests to produce revenue. I

think this has a difficulty in public perception. But the vegetation

treatments themselves are ones that are designed to create the forests, in a forest, healthy and sustainable structure.

Mr. BACA. OK, thank you very much. I know that my time has

run out, but know that if Mr. Osborne was here, he would yield me

the additional. Mr. Chairman, one additional question, if I may ask

Mr. Sample.

The CHAIRMAN. You are welcome to.

Mr. BACA. Thank you very much.

Mr. Sample, do you envision any kind of environmental backlash

occurring with respect to energy or development on national forests?

Mr. SAMPLE. Well, depending on how the Forest Service is able

to accommodate this major push right now for particularly energy,

leaseable energy, oil and gas, I know there were photographs that

actually made their way into the Washington Post not too long ago.

I believe it was actually BLM lands, but it was sort of a long-angle

airplane shot looking out over a plain that looked a Northern Virginia subdivision about to go in, with all the streets and cul-de-sacs

in there. It was just an amazing matrix of oil and gas development.

Clearly, that intensity of development would have major affects on

that whole range of other values and uses that are important on

the national forests, but I think it is one of those things that is

going to have to be looked at and balanced with those other important values and uses.

I think, maybe just to extend on Dr. Helms’ comments, these values that are out there, I don’t think we are ever going to see national forests pay for themselves on a dollar-for-dollar basis. But

some of the recent events, like New York City trying to replace the

value of forests that they had had in their forested watersheds, and

realizing that it was going to require investing almost $8 billion in

water treatment facilities, in order to simply replace the services

that they had been getting from their forested watersheds, they

turned around very quickly and repurchased forest areas that they

had sold back in the 1970’s, when they were in a big financial crisis, because they recognized that, in their case, those forests very

genuinely represented $8 billion, because that is what it would

take to replace them.

So I think it is important for us to keep in mind that almost 90

percent of all the rainfall that lands in this country lands first on

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a national forest and becomes absolutely essential to agriculture, to

industrial uses and municipal uses. That value alone would justify

the National Forest System and the average of about $16 an acre

that we spend on the national forest each year.

Mr. BACA. Thank you very much and thank you very much, Mr.

Chairman, for allowing me to ask the additional question. Thank

you.

The CHAIRMAN. My pleasure. I thank you.

We had a Tennessee-Kentucky horserace and I believe the gentleman from Tennessee won by a nose coming through the door, so

I will recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and I apologize

for running late. Both Mr. Chandler and I have been—we have two

committees, both meeting at the same time, the Transportation

Committee, which we were trying to move out some legislation

today, that it was important, obviously, to attend both of these and

then meet at 11:00. I have tried to be two people at once and sometimes having three daughters, I have been successful and want

each of them to know that I have been the same daddy to all three

of them, but that is difficult to understand. But each of them, you

have to treat as if they are certain special. So the committees that

we—apparently, we don’t have to do that with our committees, but

it is good to be here this morning.

And this is something that I have a great deal of interest in. Ms.

MacSwords, is that your name? Did I say it right?

Ms. MACSWORDS. You did.

Mr. DAVIS. I live in Tennessee. The Daniel Boone National Forest

connects now with the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Park, which you are probably familiar with it also, and part

of that is in Kentucky as well, which is about 125,000 acres that

has been set aside for recreational use as well as for preserving

that area or conserving the area there that, many years ago at the

turn of the century, the 20th century, it was pretty much denuded

by a tremendous amount of timber cutting, and when you look at

Stearns, Kentucky and Stearns Coal and Timber Company, you realize some of the great resources that we had there before the harvesting, and I am not obviously opposed to harvesting natural resources. Our family owns property along the Cumberland Plateau

and on the western escarpment of it, which has some pretty good

timber on it, so we try to manage it. I do applaud Kentucky’s efforts and their forest management plan. In many cases, Tennessee

has adopted that we are actually, in some cases, many of our larger

timber holders are saying that you have to be a master logger before you are authorized to cut the timber on property that we own.

Now, having given you a little bit of history, I do believe that

sustainability of our hardwoods in the Cumberland Mountains,

where I represent, and I represent all the entire Cumberland Plateau from Kentucky down to Georgia; that has become a major industry for us. When the announcement was made recently that the

furniture industries are closing down and shutting down in North

Carolina, it made a huge ripple to Byrdstown, Tennessee, where

Mullins Lumber Company has been a major supplier of hardwood

timbers for the furniture industry in North Carolina. So sustainVerDate 11-SEP-98 10:02 Aug 02, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\109-11 HAGRI PsN: HAGRI
33

ability of those forests and being able to be sure that the economy

will not be impacted if we don’t have sustainable forest products.

I was on a study committee recently in Tennessee when I served

in the State senate and we traveled to an area in Natchez Trace,

where, in the early 1930’s, 1935, it was just a field and it was deeded over and transferred to the State forestry department, and it

was then about 65 years old this thing. In 85 years, this will be

tourist and timber; in essence, clear-cutting. That would have given

us something different than probably what we have talking about.

Clear-cutting, that had occurred because the entire land had been

cleared and been into pasture fields. When it went to the State, obviously, it reseeded itself. There was no reseeding plan of putting

pines or anything else, it just came up on its own. And what appears to be, then it was 1997, so we are talking about it has been

what, 6, 7 years. With another 15 years, we will going to be actually able to harvest that because it is ready to harvest.

My hope is that our foresters throughout the Nation will look at

all the different management plans and one of those, I think, would

obviously be clear-cutting as well as some of the select cutting that

we have. And when I look at the initiative that was passed concerning wildfires, that seems to be the only initiative that we have

addressed here in Congress. Should we go further than we have?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS. And I did a lot of rambling. I apologize.

Ms. MACSWORDS. And I followed it.

Mr. DAVIS. You are pretty good, then.

Ms. MACSWORDS. I think what Congress could do to, in this instance, is to direct the Forest Service to be more responsive to the

State’s need, and I say that because I have heard a lot of discussion today about the national forests and what is happening in national forests, but when you look at forest ownership patterns

across the State, there are far more acres in private hands than

there are owned by the Federal Government. And they don’t operate in a vacuum. There is not this green boundary line that whatever happens on the national forest doesn’t affect anything else and

vice versa. So we need to be looking at our forests, the large-scale

landscape.

So when you talk about what is happening in the Cumberland

Plateau and all over Kentucky and all over Tennessee, we are a

good hardwood State. Fire on the national forest has a tendency to

spill over to fire on private lands, and it is those State agencies

that have to come in and put it out. Now, bugs and critters and

diseases, they don’t stop at the boundary line and we have to work

together to protect all of that resource.

So while we are talking about sustainability measures on the national forests, we need to be sure that we are also talking about

sustainability of the rest of the forests as well, because it is those

private landowners practicing sustainable forestry on their own

land that is going to contribute to the economy in your district, in

Representative Chandler’s district, in all the committee members’

districts. If you have got private forest landowners, they need to be

able to make a living from their forests, and they need to be able

to keep them healthy to protect water, watersheds, clean air. It

doesn’t just stop with what is happening on the national forests. So

34

your direction to look at the entire forest landscape would be most

helpful in how we address these forest resources in the future.

Mr. DAVIS. I know my time is about up, but if I could have just

another moment?

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 1 additional

minute.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Years ago, in the early 1930’s, as a result of the Soil Conservation Service bringing about a knowledgeable plan to farmers on

how we could conserve our soil, we now see agriculture production

by about 1 percent of the population of this country, where then it

was probably 30 or 40 percent that actually lived on agriculture

and produced the products. We have seen a tremendous amount of

production increase. It is my hope that the State foresters that you

represent and the national associations will realize that it is, as

you have said, that it is the private landowners that, amongst

themselves, are not able to do the studies that are necessary. And

I think our national forests and our State forests are ideal places

for sustainable forest management practices to be established, and

my hope is that that is what this group will continue to do.

Ms. MACSWORDS. And you are absolutely right and you have

touched on an issue that in the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s, even

into the 1960’s, the private forest landowner was traditional agriculturally oriented. We don’t see that as much today. We are not

so much a rural society as we once were and we have a lot of private forest landowners who are not in the agriculture business.

They are not in the farming business. They may not even live on

that property anymore. So it is critical that we address the needs

of this changing demographics and landownership so that they understand the value of this forestland that they own and they are

willing to keep it in forest as opposed to selling it for development

and having it lost forever.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Chandler, is recognized.

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn’t know whether the gentleman from Tennessee would ever relinquish the floor,

but it is very nice to have the opportunity to be here with Ms.

MacSwords, my fellow Kentuckian. And I apologize for being here

late. I would have liked to have been here to give you proper introduction as the only Kentuckian on this committee, but I can outdo

the gentleman from Tennessee. I had three committees meeting all

at once, rather than two, and it gets a little difficult.

I want to congratulate you and all of your cohorts in Kentucky

on the way you manage our forests. Clearly, our forests are critical

to the State. They are absolutely beautiful and we are very, very

proud of them. I don’t have a great deal of national forests in my

district, but I do have some of the Daniel Boone National Forest

in Estill County and Powell County. And I know you are familiar,

probably, with every mile of that forest. But it is something that

we are all very, very proud of and I commend you and commend

the Forest Service for what they do on behalf of all of our citizens.

I would actually like to ask a question of Dr. Sample, something

that intrigued me in his testimony. I understood your testimony,

35

Dr. Sample, to say that you felt like the Forest Service had lost the

trust of the public, and I thought that was an interesting notion

and I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit to give

some idea about why you believe the Service has lost the trust of

the public and what needs to be done to regain it.

Mr. SAMPLE. Well, what I was talking about was some of the controversies that really began in the 1960’s and really sort of came

to a head in the 1970’s, in large part, produced the National Forest

Management Act of 1976, one of the really core pieces of legislation

that guide the Forest Service’s activities.

Up until that point, the Forest Service was one of those, it was

probably the most respected and admired Agency in the all of the

Federal Service. I still have copies of Life Magazines from the

1950’s with Smokey the Bear and whatnot on there.

Mr. CHANDLER. Every child wanted to be a forest ranger, too.

Mr. SAMPLE. Absolutely. That is what got me into it. But I think,

with the response to the issues over clear cutting and timber harvesting, impacts that people felt that a level of timber harvesting

on the national forests by the late 1980’s, actually approached 12

billion board feet a year, that that was having unacceptable impacts on other resources and yet, in their perception, the Forest

Service wasn’t really responding to that, and they had to be

dragged into court and forced to do it. And so we have this record

of 20, really almost 30 years of just intensive litigation against the

Forest Service. Here again, formerly one the most admired and respected agencies in Government.

So I think what I was trying to express was that in that era, a

great deal of public trust was lost. Questions were raised about the

appropriateness of the Forest Service’s management of the national

forests. And I think, over time, they have built back that trust, but

it has taken a long time. It is like missing a mortgage payment,

you can pay your mortgage on time every month, month after

month and everything is great. You miss it once and it takes you

a long time to establish your credit record again. And I think that

is the way it has been for the last couple of decades with the Forest

Service. Where they are right now I think is in a very good position. I think they are coming back around to where a very broad

cross-section of Americans with a lot of different interests in uses

and values on the national forests are seeing the kind of valuable

role that the Forest Service can play and does play.

Mr. CHANDLER. Well, I have a great deal of sympathy for the

Forest Service because you find yourself playing referee, and find

yourself in the middle of competing interests quite often, and that

is not always a popular place to be, and I think some of us on this

panel are somewhat familiar with that kind of position. But I commend you and I hope that you all continue to do the good job that

you are doing, because it is so critical to all of us. It is critical to

what we leave to our children and our grandchildren. You are protecting the future and it is all about stewardship and I think it is

just very special. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cuellar, is recognized.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

36

Let me ask you a question. From your perspective, and this goes

to all three of you all, what should be the vision of the Agency?

And I know that you are on the outside, but looking at the Agency,

what should be the vision of the Forest Service, the vision, and

what should be some of the specific objectives, and what are some

key performance measures that we ought to be looking at to measure the work? And there might be some contradictions, but in your

opinions, you know, what should be the main goal of the Forest

Service, No. 1? Number 2, how do we measure, I mean, what are

the key measures that we as legislators, to provide oversight, we

should be focusing on?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, from the perspective of the National Association of State Foresters, I mentioned it earlier, that the Forest

Service should have a broader vision of all forests. I mean, they say

that, but I am not quite sure that it is always clear in their actions;

that there is always so much focus on what is happening on the

national forests. And that needs to be expanded to include all forests. Because, like I said, they don’t operate in a vacuum. What

happens in one area can, in a short period of time, impact across

the country.

So if they would look at what is happening with their vision of

all forests and design their programs so that it crossed the boundary, so that if a Forest Service employee is working on a national

forest, it is OK to work with private landowners, I mean, for crossing the boundary, if you will. And give equal importance to the national forests, to their State and private forestry programs, and to

research. They say it is equal, but sometimes I am not always convinced that it is; that it has that cross-connection that it needs to

make the Agency more efficient and more effective in protecting

our forests.

Now, the specifics of strategic planning, if you wanted to look at

how successful this was in the end, is if we, in the end, have

healthy sustainable forests and that threats are addressed quickly,

whether it be fire, whether it be insects, whether it be disease,

whether it be the damage that is the result of a hurricane or an

ice storm or other forces of nature, if it can be responded to quickly

and effectively, regardless of ownership of those forests, then I

think you will have a successful program.

Mr. CUELLAR. Do you as, and I will use this word loosely, as a

consumer, a potential consumer, of the Forest Service, I mean, if

I were to ask you right now, what is the vision, what are the key

performance measures, what do you see right now? And I am not

being critical of the Forest Service, one of the things I will be talking a lot more is about performance-based budgeting, results-oriented, what is the mission, what is the vision, what are the performance, what are the benchmarks. Just in a snapshot, just at the

moment, what do you see as a consumer? As a customer.

Ms. MACSWORDS. As a consumer and as one that has to report

performance measures to the Forest Service, what I find difficult

is that it is awfully hard to count individual activities and be able

to show that is a measure of success with healthy sustainable forests. In other words, it is difficult to say I talked to 10 landowners

and be able to translate that into these are the number of acres

37

that are being actively managed. So it is hard to find that performance measure.

Mr. CUELLAR. Right.

Ms. MACSWORDS. Especially when you are dealing with forests

which are sort of a long-term venture in a short-term world. You

need an answer with every budget cycle. And we may not see the

results of our activities and how effective they were in having a

sustainable forest for 10, 15, 20 years down the road. So that is a

tough one, and I know the Forest Service has been wrestling with

it, and certainly State agencies have been grappling with this

issue; how do we show we are effective in what we do with a year

or a 2-year or a 3-year budget cycle on a resource that takes 10,

20, 30, 50, 120 years, in some cases, to show growth in that resource?

Mr. CUELLAR. Are the measurements that you are seeing right

now, is that more on activity, measurement of activities, or measurements of outputs or results?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Well, I know that they are working right now

to change the way they look at activities and outputs and measures, and that is probably a question that is best answered by the

Chief, because States are kind of waiting now to see what are we

going to be asked to report. And we are more than willing to participate in any way that we can, and we have had input into the

changes that they are making in their own performance measuring.

Mr. CUELLAR. I am sorry. You do have input or you don’t?

Ms. MACSWORDS. Yes, we do.

Mr. CUELLAR. OK.

Ms. MACSWORDS. We have seen copies of their proposed changes

and the National Association of State Foresters and State forestry

agencies have been providing input. But clearly, our concern is that

whatever we are asked to measure is in fact something we can

measure and that it will accurately reflect what is actually happening on the ground. And it is a tough issue. It is not like you can

say I am supposed to make five widgets today and here are my five

widgets. I have got to be able to show that I have protected and

have managed hundreds and thousands, and in Kentucky it is

along the line of 11.9 million acres of forestland, and I have to be

able to show that and that is a tough one.

Mr. CUELLAR. Anybody.

Mr. SAMPLE. Sure. The Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960

requires the Forest Service to manage the national forests and I

think, even broader in their other responsibilities and how they

interact with the State and private forestlands to really focus their

efforts on end results. The Multiple Use Act says you will manage

for a whole variety of uses, the combination of which is not necessarily going to give the greatest dollar return, but the end result

is, you protect the basic underlying productivity of the resource, so

that whatever it is needed for 50 years or 100 years from now, the

basic underlying productivity of the resources therein has been protected.

The Forest Service has been experimenting since the mid–1980’s,

I believe, in various approaches to end-results budgeting and ways

to work more creatively with OMB and with the appropriations

committees to focus on end results. What is that we really want as

38

a condition at the other end of the pipeline, and are there more efficient ways of doing that? And I think they have demonstrated, actually through a series of pilot studies, that there are some tremendous efficiencies available by taking out a lot of the extreme detail

of extended budget line items. You think about a district ranger

out there on the ground who has to keep track of his or her time

in any one of 175 different budget line items and charge their time

appropriately, it just doesn’t happen. So I think there are some opportunities that perhaps have not been fully explored for the Forest

Service and Congress and OMB to come to terms on a much more

efficient approach that is oriented to positive end results.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that I would

like—thank you very much to you all. I appreciate it. One of things

I would like to talk to is ask if the chairman and the committee

would consider as we bring some of the agencies, for them to just

outline in one page their mission and what are their performance

measures, because, I mean, for us to perform budget oversight, and

that is what I think we are doing here, we have been doing when

we have these meetings, it will be nice to know what direction we

think the Agency should go to and what key performance and have

a dialogue as to some of those performance measures.

One of things, and I did my dissertation on this in the State of

Texas, and one of things I see sometimes, agencies, I mean, when

they start measuring things, they are measuring activities and it

is really not that important; counting how many pencils you have

as opposed to how many trees have been planted or whatever the

goals might be. But I would ask that the chairman and the committee to consider asking agencies, when they come in, to bring, and

I am not picking on the Forest Service, but I mean in the future,

as you consider some of those performance measures, I think it

would provide a lot more dialogue if we see some of those performances for committees to interact with agencies.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is a very good suggestion, and as we

work toward the next farm bill, we may ask some of the agencies,

when they come into testify, to give us their list of accomplishments or lack of accomplishments, as the case may be. I thank the

gentleman.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank all of our witnesses for contributing to this historic hearing. As I noted, I will introduce a resolution later today honoring the Forest Service for their accomplishments and recognizing 100 years of existence, and urging them to

seek ways to continue to deliver their multiple use mandate efficiently. I appreciate the efforts of the professionals in the Forest

Service as they seek to the implement a complex web of laws and

regulations in an increasingly challenging environment. I believe it

is up to us as the Congress to set clearer policies and to take responsibility for the future of our forests. And I want to thank all

of our witnesses for their contribution today.

Without objection, the record of today’s hearing will remain open

for 10 days to receive additional material and supplementary written responses from witnesses to any question posed by a member

of the panel. This hearing of the House Committee on Agriculture

is adjourned.

39

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]

STATEMENT OF JOHN A. HELMS

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony today on the USDA Forest Service, its progress over the past century

and opportunities as we look to the future. As President of the Society of American

Foresters (SAF), whom I represent today, I would like to express our thanks to the

committee for its continuing support for forestry and forests, both public and private. SAF represents over 16,000 professionals who work everyday as stewards of

both public and private forests that each and every individual in our society relies

on for the essentials of life. Throughout the past century, SAF has grown up with

the Forest Service, starting from the very beginning when Gifford Pinchot first led

both organizations. SAF throughout its history has been greatly involved in policy

debates surrounding the Forest Service and the Federal lands. A recent example of

this involvement is an SAF task force report titled Forest of Discord: Options for

Governing Our National Forests and Federal Public Lands (1999) which depicts

some of the current problems facing the Agency and outlines recommendations to

improve management of the Federal lands. SAF continues to partner with the

USDA Forest Service as we have from the very beginning, to achieve our common

goal: making sure this country’s forest resources are managed to benefit current and

future generations.

The Forest Service has had many successes in land management throughout the

past century. These successes are marked by many challenges as well. In the early

years, the Agency was commonly regarded as the prime example of a well functioning Federal agency. As such, probably the greatest success of the Agency in the first

part of the century was establishing and implementing management practices to

meet the needs of the public on the 192 million acres of national forest system

lands. The phrase—to meet the needs of the public—is particularly important and

should remain the cornerstone of the Agency’s mission. Today, this concept is

fraught with many challenges. Until recently, not only has the Forest Service applied the best available science to the management of the national forest system

lands in efforts to keep them healthy and resilient, they have, at the same time,

strived to meet the continuously changing expectations of the people for whom these

lands are managed. Currently though, the Forest Service faces severe issues related

to declining forest health, invasive species, and increasing risk of wildfire making

the successes seen in the first part of the century difficult to attain in the latter

half.

In the early days of the Agency, the Congress and the public demanded a timber

supply, range allotments, and protection for water resources. Then came needs for

fire protection and many other concerns until today where the Agency seeks to meet

often competing expectations for such needs as forest products, watershed protection, wildlife and fish habitat, grazing leases, recreational opportunities, and aesthetic beauty. Recently, however, these growing public expectations have become increasingly challenging.

Today, with conflicting and overlapping legislative mandates, the Forest Service

does not have a clear mission or vision guiding the management of the national forests. As the demands on Federal forests change, the Forest Service’s legislative

mandates have become increasingly complex, conflicting, and outdated with laws

such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the National Environmental Policy Act

of 1969, the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960, the National Forest Management Act of 1976, and regulations as well as continual court challenges and decisions. This situation will not be resolved until Congress closely examines these conflicting mandates and clarifies the mission and goals of the national forest system

in light of today’s growing and changing public attitudes.

This problem is manifested with today’s multiple-use mandate for these public

lands. At the time it was established the multiple-use framework for these lands

made sense. However, as society’s relationships with its forests becomes more complex, this framework has been interpreted to mean all things for all people on all

lands. The idea of providing diverse goods and services from the national forest system lands is still a laudable goal. However, our understanding of forests has

changed dramatically since this concept was put into place. We have seen a significant shift from simply providing for all these uses to managing for healthy, resilient

forests with provision of tangible uses becoming secondary to ensuring that forest

systems function in a balanced manner. This shift to an ‘‘ecosystem management’’

40

or ‘‘sustainability’’ approach is not reflected in the current mandates for the agency,

particularly in the outdated Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960.

Because of this shift, Congress needs to examine whether the multiple use framework for national forest system lands should remain the Agency’s prime focus.

While the idea that the Forest Service should provide a balanced variety of goods

and services from these lands remains desirable, perhaps this is better founded on

principles of sustainability. This concept is based on the fundamental interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic processes and values. Each of these

is a critically important component for ensuring that forest resources can be sustained over time. In lieu of applying this principle we see Federal forests as a currently unsustainable resource with significant forest health and protection issues.

Until the mission and purposes of Federal lands are clarified and a framework for

management is provided, the Nation’s forests will never be sustained for the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.

With the articulation of new congressionally designated mission, the Agency can

begin to rebuild trust with the public whom they serve. Other challenges exist such

as shrinking budgets, retiring personnel who are not being replaced with those having similar integrated education unique to the forestry profession, and limited public

understanding of renewable resource use and management as the population becomes increasingly urbanized. However, clarifying the Agency’s mission and purpose

is a critical prerequisite to enabling the Agency to truly ‘‘protect the land and serve

the people’’.

As an interim measure to begin moving forward, Congress should consider authorizing the testing of different approaches to sustainable land management through

the use of pilot projects. Although not a new idea, it is an important mechanism

that allows examination of alternative approaches to adaptive management prior to

adoption on a broader scale. Stewardship contracting is one recent example of a

pilot program that was tested, found useful, and applied on a more widespread

scale. We continue to learn how to perform stewardship contracting better, and

hopefully, with Congress’’ help, we can take those lessons and improve the law. The

Forest Service has a unique capacity to use the pilot approach because of its distinctive functions of both research and practical on-the-ground management that directly or indirectly affects the 749 million acres public and private forests. No other

Federal land management agency has these unique functions within their domain

to the extent occurring in the Forest Service. The concept of pilot projects integrates

the decentralized nature of the Agency, permitting local and site specific needs to

be addressed and helping with public interactions at the local level.

There may also be reasons to think more boldly about whether the correct implementation model is being applied. The Nation has developed a Federal/State partnership in the implementation of such landmark environmental measures as the

Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Surface Mining Reclamation Act. Yet

there has been an assumption that Federal land policy should only be developed and

implemented at the Federal level. Recent changes of the Roadless Rule recognize

that states have a defined interest in Federal lands and it may be worth looking

at greater involvement across all Federal lands issues.

In considering the future I’d like to focus on three areas that I find enormously

important for their potential to have dramatic affect on the stewardship of forest

resources, both domestic and international. These are: sustainable stewardship of

Federal forests to meet the diverse needs of society, the role of the Agency in providing leadership in State and private forestry, and the need for a dynamic research

arm to provide the knowledge base necessary for science-informed decision making.

First and most importantly, the Forest Service must serve as professional managers and stewards of the Nation’s Federal forests. Throughout the world, history

has shown that the health and welfare of society is dependent on the health and

welfare of forests. This requires the Agency to have a Congressionally-mandated

mission and a dedicated and adequately-sized professional staff. It is imperative

that the Nation’s Federal forests be professionally managed to meet in perpetuity

the diverse needs of the people—from sustainable wood supplies to wilderness—in

a balanced, ecologically sound way. To pay for the costs of sustainable management,

the Forest Service needs to revisit Gifford Pinchot’s basic concept that public land

management should pay for itself. While this certainly won’t happen overnight and

some activities understandably won’t be able to pay for themselves, it is a worthwhile goal where feasible and should not be ignored.

Second, the State and Private Forestry functions of the Agency are critically important. The United States is unique in having such a diversity of forest ownerships

including Federal, state, industrial, private non-industrial, and tribal. In particular,

the Forest Service can assist the states and the private sector in reaching the more

than 10 million family forest landowners. In total, the State and private forestry

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functions of the Forest Service have the potential to influence over two-thirds of this

country’s forests as compared with the one-quarter affected by the national forest

system. These private forests provide the bulk of our domestic supply of forest products, cover a much larger portion of watersheds, supply millions of jobs and fuel

economies in rural areas across America, serve as habitat for wildlife and fish species, and offer growing recreational, hunting, and fishing opportunities. It is these

forest lands, however, that are most vulnerable to conversion, fragmentation and

parcelization. Unless all forest lands are well managed and meet owners’’ economic

and personal needs, their conversion to other uses will dramatically impact the overall health and welfare of the Nation. Congress could enhance the development of

better linkages and integration among forest land ownerships to ensure that society

benefits from the diverse functions these lands provide. We appreciate the work that

this committee and you, Mr. Chairman, have done to emphasize forests in the

broader natural resources arena and hope we can continue to assist you in this endeavor.

The third priority area is the forestry research and development function of the

Forest Service. In these times of greatest information needs we have a Forest Service research arm that has had a 50 percent decline in numbers of scientists—from

985 scientists in 1985 to 468 today. This precipitous decline in research capacity

seems quite indefensible given the enormous and expanding demand for new techniques and understanding needed to deal with the complex interaction of biological,

managerial, and social issues involved in sustainable forest management. The Forest Service research arm can probably never have all the scientists needed to address all these complex resource issues alone. Consequently, greater emphasis

should be placed on increasing high-quality collaboration with other research bodies

such as the forestry schools, private industry, non profits, and others. In addition,

to make the best use of scarce resources, the Forest Service could establish better

connections with the users of forestry research, making this information accessible

and usable by on-the-ground practitioners.

Over the last 100 years, the Agency’s prime concerns have evolved through custodial, utilitarian, and stewardship approaches. Given the supreme importance of sustained, healthy, diverse forests to the Nation’s welfare, the Forest Service must have

a clear mandate, clear and consistent laws and regulations that guide Federal forest

land management, provide leadership in management and conservation across all

forest land owners, and have a research arm of sufficient capacity to permit the best

possible decisions and forest policy development.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony and contribute

to discussion as part of the 100th year celebration of the USDA Forest Service.

STATEMENT OF DALE N. BOSWORTH

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify on the occasion of the Forest Service Centennial. This anniversary commemorates not only the proud history of our agency, but

also the fundamental concept of conservation. One hundred years ago, on February

1, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law a bill passed by Congress assigning the management of the Nation’s forest reserves to the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Forestry. On July 1, 1905, the newly named Forest Service

began operations with some 500 employees and a visionary leader, Chief Forester

Gifford Pinchot.

I am proud to be the fifteenth Chief, representing over 30,000 dedicated employees at today’s hearing. I have worked for the Forest Service for nearly forty years,

and was raised in a Forest Service family, so I’ve known Forest Service employees

all my life. I’ve seen them go through some ups and downs as times have changed,

and I’ve drawn inspiration from their tremendous dedication to conservation.

It all began in 1891, when Congress changed the policy of disposing public lands

for private purchase and gave the President power to set aside forest reserves for

public purposes. This revolutionary idea set the United States apart from all other

nations in the world.

The 1897 Organic Act initiated management goals for the forest reserves that included improvement and protection, securing favorable water flows, and providing

a continuous supply of timber. When the Forest Service was created in 1905, there

were 60 forest reserves (they were renamed national forests in 1907) covering 56

million acres. Today the Forest Service manages 193 million acres in the national

forest system, with 155 national forests, 20 national grasslands, and one Tallgrass

Prairie in 44 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We have the leading research and development organization for forest and rangeland sciences. We are also

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responsible for promoting the sound management of all the Nation’s forests, both

public and private, by offering support and assistance for state, tribal, and private

forestry. And, because today’s forestry issues are increasingly global, we have strong

international programs.

As we look to the future, it is appropriate to consider the Forest Service mission

statement: ‘‘To sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests

and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.’’ While this

statement may seem clear, it is inherently ambiguous. Different people may attach

different meanings to the words, and differing needs can, and often do, create conflict. However, the ambiguity inherent in the Forest Service mission has given us

the flexibility needed to adjust to changing times. Unless we can adjust to change,

the Forest Service cannot sustain the changing landscapes we care for, nor can we

meet the changing needs of the people we serve.

Forest Service history bears that out. In the past century, we have been through

several very different eras of national forest management in response to society’s

needs, and now we are moving into a new one.

A century ago, our Nation faced a crisis caused by the unrestrained exploitation

of our natural resources. The opening of the West in the years following the Civil

War brought tremendous change to relatively pristine landscapes. As railroads

opened the West, the natural resources along their tracks were often overused. In

many cases, unregulated timber operations and overgrazing resulted in severe erosion. Elk and other game were hunted to near extinction. Wildfires consumed forests

and communities.

The conservation era grew out of that crisis. In the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a bureau of forestry was created to work with private landowners to improve forestry techniques and to promote systematic studies of commercial forest

trees. These functions would later become the State and private forestry and research branches of the Forest Service. The national system of forest reserves established in 1891 became the basis for today’s national forest system. When management responsibility for the forest reserves was transferred from the Department of

the Interior to the Forest Service in 1905, the new agency published the Use Book,

which provided management guidelines for resource use. Among the regulations for

timber cutting, grazing, fire fighting, and land uses was the now famous statement:

‘‘where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided

from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.’’

With the active involvement of Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, President Theodore

Roosevelt expanded the national forest system, which grew from 56 million acres in

1905 to 172 million acres in 1910. After the 1911 Weeks Act authorized purchase

of private lands, the national forest system expanded further into the eastern and

southern United States. It is difficult to imagine now, but most of these treasured

forests were acquired as abandoned cut-over, farmed-out, or mine-wasted lands.

The next era was one of social responsibility in response to the Great Depression.

To reverse erosion that brought about Dustbowl conditions, the State and private

forestry and research branches helped plant shelterbelts in states from North Dakota to Texas. Every national forest had at least one Civilian Conservation Corps

camp, giving jobs to thousands of young unemployed Americans. The CCC helped

to control fires, restore landscapes, and they built a tremendous amount of infrastructure, including roads, trails, cabins, campgrounds, ranger stations, and lookout

towers.

World War II brought an end to the CCC and the Nation began a new effort to

supply wood and other materials for the war. The Forest Service research branch

expanded its mission to fulfill military needs, developing synthetic rubber, for example. During this time, the Forest Service worked with State foresters to establish

the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign to protect forests from fire. The

Smokey Bear fire prevention campaign was born of this partnership.

The end of World War II ushered in a new era with a focus on timber production.

The national forests were needed to provide wood for a growing housing demand.

From the 1960’s through the 1980’s, every administration, with strong congressional

support, called for more timber from the national forests. By the 1980’s, the national

forest system produced 20 to 25 percent of our Nation’s timber needs annually.

Under its multiple use mission, the Forest Service also protected and delivered numerous other values, goods, and services, including range for livestock, clean water,

fish and wildlife habitat, wilderness areas, and recreation opportunities.

The postwar period also saw the development of a system of multifunctional research centers and experimental forests supporting forest and range management

needs. The State and private forestry branch made advances in forest protection and

enhancement through pest and fire control.

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Beginning in the 1960’s, recreation use grew; the demand for resources increased,

ecological concerns expanded, and public values began to change, bringing about a

series of new laws. These laws included the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of

1960, the Wilderness Act of 1964 and an array of environmental legislation in the

1970’s, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the National Forest Management Act.

These new laws provided greater access to the courts for citizens when they did

not agree with Forest Service management decisions. The Forest Service learned

that the public wanted more of a say in forest management and they wanted us to

focus more on delivering values and services like wildlife habitat, clean water, wilderness and heritage resource protection, and recreation.

By the 1990’s, under the combined pressures of delivering multiple goods and

services, including large amounts of timber, while preserving other values, the Forest Service’s ability to meet public expectations was overwhelmed. During this transitional period, the Forest Service began moving toward a new ecosystem-based

model of land management. This transition was challenging but necessary.

It was necessary to address four issues that pose grave threats to the well-being

of our Nation’s forests in the 21st century. Whether Federal, state, tribal or private

forest lands, I believe the public’s attention should be focused on what I call the

Four Threats.

First is fire and fuels. In several of the last few years we have witnessed fire effects that are far outside the historic range of variability, with our worst fire seasons in 50 years. Wildfires have led to the loss of dozens of lives and thousands of

homes, and we’ve had record firefighting costs. In the last Congress, this committee

played a major role in passage of the first major legislation affecting national forest

management in a generation, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which responds

to the threat to ecosystems from wildfire and fuels. The Forest Service has given

implementation of this act high priority, and in fiscal year 2004, we met or exceeded

our goals for the treatment of hazardous fuels within the wildland-urban interface.

Second is the spread of invasive species. While not as dramatic as wildfires,

invasive species can be as devastating economically and ecologically, and the rate

of new introductions has been increasing. The Forest Service recently released a

strategy to guide invasive species work through four program elements: prevention,

early detection and rapid response, control and management, and rehabilitation and

restoration.

Third is the loss of open space. Every minute, America loses more than 3 acres

of open space to development, resulting in fragmentation of valuable habitat that

many plants and animals need to survive. Loss of ‘‘wide open spaces’’ diminishes

the cultural heritage that is part of the American tradition.

Fourth is unmanaged outdoor recreation. In many places, recreational use is exceeding our management capacity and damaging resources. The unmanaged use of

off-highway vehicles is a prime example of this problem.

The Forest Service has focused on these threats over the past several years, and

we are making strides to address them. At the same time as we focus on these, we

also have a large backlog of work to complete, including the repair of roads, culverts, and aging facilities; remediation of abandoned mines; and restoration of

unhealthy watersheds.

Beyond these threats to our Nation’s forests, we face larger conservation challenges. Today we live in a global economy, and market dynamics are challenging

some longstanding assumptions about delivering goods and services from forests in

the United States, whether public or private. As noted in the 2005 U.S. Department

of Agriculture Trade Forecast, it is likely that importation of wood products will to

continue to grow. This has some serious potential implications, such as contributing

to unsustainable logging practices in other countries, reducing the industrial infrastructure needed to process wood in the United States, and even increasing incentives for forest landowners to sell land for development, resulting in additional loss

of open space.

Although traditional approaches such as conservation easements can play a role,

other incentives may also be helpful for private landowners to stay on the land and

manage it sustainably. Of course, maintaining national forests and grasslands for

their intrinsic value to society also provides a public good. These issues are complex,

and we will be working on them in the years to come.

The Forest Service is at a crucial moment in history. The challenges I have outlined will set the agenda for its next century of service. The Forest Service is

uniquely positioned to meet these challenges through its strong traditions of collaboration, science, and flexibility.

During our centennial year, the Forest Service has taken the opportunity to reflect on where we have been, our role today, and where we are headed in the next

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century. We’ve held a series of Centennial forums throughout the Nation involving

hundreds of Federal, state, local, tribal, and private individuals and organizations,

culminating in a Centennial Congress held in January of this year. It commemorated an event in January 1905, when a similar group of people gathered in Washington DC for the first American Forest Congress. Recommendations from that first

Congress resulted in the creation of the Forest Service.

The Centennial forums have helped us learn more about what the American people want of a future Forest Service. We received hundreds of comments, which we

are still sorting through, though some major themes emerged. They included finding

ways to serve an increasingly diverse population; increasing accountability and developing new business models to maintain organizational flexibility; focusing on biomass utilization; addressing recreation challenges brought by increasing demands;

integrating science and technology; and increasing partnership and collaboration to

work across jurisdictional and ownership boundaries.

In whatever the Forest Service ends up doing, it is clear that the American public

wants us to work with others in facilitating a collective commitment to conservation.

Today, the Forest Service is focused more than ever on improving what we call community-based forestry.

We are taking several approaches to refocus our efforts toward community-based

forestry. The President’s Healthy Forests Initiative includes an array of activities

to improve the health of forests at risk from fire, insects, disease, and other threats.

It involves communities, states, tribes, and citizens working together through development and implementation of community fire plans.

Stewardship contracting is another great way to involve the community in managing the land, by working together with successful bidders to outline desired landscape outcomes, and reinvesting the proceeds into restoration work.

The new planning rule, on which this committee recently held a hearing, will encourage more effective public participation by reducing the time it takes to complete

a plan from about 7 years to about 3 years. It will also allow us to focus on issues

in the future more quickly and with more flexibility to incorporate the best available

science into planning as we learn. The process includes independent third-party audits and increases our accountability and the transparency of our monitoring process, something the public and interested communities have asked for.

The Forest Service is improving some of our processes to make them more responsive to current conditions by reducing gridlock. We are also transforming our business operations to provide more effective, efficient administrative services for employees and the public at a lower cost, so that we can invest more fully in our primary resource mission and to address future needs.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, you have asked me to reflect upon

the Forest Service’s greatest achievement in its first century. In my opinion, our

greatest achievement is undoubtedly the Nation’s forests and grasslands themselves, both public and private, and all that they encompass. They are a safe haven

for many plants and animals, a refuge for citizens seeking recreation and rejuvenation, a provider of products and services, an economic engine, a source of clean air

and water, and a legacy for our children.

One hundred years ago, our Nation looked into the future and decided to set aside

public lands for the public good. Through restoration and sustainable management,

with the tools that the Forest Service uniquely provides, these lands have become

more treasured than our predecessors could have imagined. Our legacy to the future

is to continue that conservation ethic with others, here in this Nation and around

the globe. We commit ourselves to the tasks ahead with hope and optimism, because

we believe that this Centennial is a new opportunity to join together with others

in a collective commitment to conservation.

I look forward to continuing to work with the committee. I appreciate the committee’s role in shaping the statutory framework and providing the oversight that has

allowed the Forest Service and its dedicated employees to be wise stewards of the

public’s national forests and grasslands over this past century. I will be happy to

answer any questions you might have.

ANSWERS TO SUBMITTED QUESTIONS

You said the Forest Service is ‘‘transforming [its] business operations to

provide more effective, efficient administrative services for employees and

the public at a lower cost.’’ Can you elaborate on this and list what specific

steps are being taken? Do you have an estimate on how much money these

steps would save?

The Forest Service Business Operations Transformation Program (BOTP) consists

of implementing a new national information resources management organization,

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redesigning our budget and finance function, and streamlining the way in which we

support our human resources. In keeping with the Forest Service Strategic Plan and

the President’s Management Agenda, we are using a combination of tools including

competitive sourcing, process reengineering and the centralization of certain business operations.

We are committed to more cost-effective business operations so that we can get

a larger percentage of our overall budget to the ground. The key benefits of this

project include:

• More time for regions and field offices to focus on land management issues

• Reduced indirect costs to focus on Forest Service mission

• New technology will help speed up and simplify processes

• Access to consistent and accurate budgetary, cost and performance information

We will gain these efficiencies while reducing the number of personnel (full time

equivalents) performing the functions by nearly half—from about 2903 to about

1651. Based on the respective Business Case for each effort, we anticipate annual

savings for each of the three efforts will be:

Information Resource Management $30 million

Budget and Finance $36 million

Human Resource Management $25 million

The new, centralized organization, located in Albuquerque, NM, will be fully

staffed and functional in early FY 2006. We have again accomplished our goal of

achieving an unqualified, ‘‘clean’’ audit opinion in FY 2004. This third consecutive

unqualified audit opinion demonstrates that the agency is making positive strides

in financial and performance accountability and sustainability.

This topic also came up during the Forest Service’s Centennial Congress.

Will recommendation No. 5 from this event—Increasing Accountability/New

Business Models (Fostering an Innovative, Flexible, and Accountable Organization)—be implemented?

The Centennial forums helped us learn more about what the American people

want of a future Forest Service. We received hundreds of comments, which we are

still sorting through. As evidenced by our work in the Business Operations Transformation Program, our strategic planning, and the Performance Accountability System, we are already moving toward a more accountable organization.

Many of the themes in your testimony can also be found in the Forest

Service’s Strategic Plan for fiscal year 2004–08:

• In the strategic plan, you commented that the Forest Service has ‘‘a performance and accountability report, which details the ways that people

benefit from [your] work.’’ Could you highlight the findings of this report?

• The Fiscal Year 2004 Forest Service Performance and Accountability Report is

posted in its entirety on the Forest Service internet site: http://www.fs.fed.us/

plan/par/2004/. The report measures the Forest Service’s performance against the

targets set in the USDA Forest Service Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2004–08. In

2004, the Forest Service:

• Developed new tools under the Healthy Forests Initiative and Healthy Forests

Restoration Act to reduce process gridlock, including established stewardship contracting categorical exclusions that enable priority fuel treatment and forest restoration to proceed quickly and revised the administrative appeals process specific to

fuels and forest health projects.

• Achieved significant hazardous fuels reduction.

• Saved an estimated $20 million as a result of a service-wide Information Technology Competitive Sourcing Study.

• Initiated business process reengineering for our Human Resources and Financial

Management Staffs.

• Issued a proposal for a national approach to motorized use on the national forests and grasslands to enhance recreational opportunities for the public and better

roads, trails, and areas.

• Adopted and used the Office of Management and Budget’s Program Assessment

Rating Tool to assess the performance of our wildland fire management program,

the Forest Legacy Program, programs for improving and maintaining national forest

land, programs addressing invasive species, and our land acquisition program.

• Created a Partnership Office to focus on strengthening and building partnerships integral to the sustainability of the Nation’s forests and grasslands.

• Entered into an agency wide memorandum of understanding with the Bureau

of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and private conservation

organizations to improve access for hunting and fishing opportunities on Federal

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lands and to increase the availability of information about such opportunities to better serve hunters and anglers.

The financial and performance data presented in this report are complete and reliable. This report also documents our progress toward complying with the Federal

Managers’ Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA). Except for areas of improvement identified in this report, the Forest Service is providing reasonable assurance that our

systems of internal control comply with FMFIA’s objectives. Additionally, based on

the work performed during fiscal year 2004, the agency’s financial management systems comply substantially with the objectives of FMFIA, with the exception of any

financial system nonconformities identified in this report. The ‘‘Management Controls, Systems, and Compliance with Laws and Regulations’’ section of this report

presents findings from the Office of Inspector General and the agency’s planned actions to resolve those challenges.

We have an obligation to the American people to deliver the mission as efficiently

and effectively as possible. With continued sharp focus on financial, budgetary and

performance accountability, we will meet that obligation.

Does the Forest Service do similar performance and accountability reports on its employees?

The Forest Service is working toward developing a framework for specific performance agreements as part of each individual employee’s performance plan. See

the answer regarding the Performance Accountability System, below.

It also said that ‘‘a Forest Service Competitive Sourcing Program Office

has been established and is conducting studies to provide for private sector

competition.’’ What is the status of this office and its studies?

A. The Competitive Sourcing Office in the Forest Service is operational. The agency has completed competitive sourcing studies that encompass over 1350 FTEs; the

largest single study focused on information technology (IT). All of these studies have

been implemented. The agency is in the process of updating its ‘‘Green Plan’’, which

will outline future options for additional studies.

The document also mentioned the Forest Service ‘‘is achieving budget

and performance integration by developing a Performance Accountability

System. The system, to be implemented in fiscal year 2005, will help the

agency accomplish strategic plan goals.’’ What is the status of this system?

The President’s Management Agenda (PMA) states that the American people

should be able to see how government programs are performing and compare performance and cost across programs. In 2003, the Office of Management and Budget

(OMB) formally directed agencies to connect budget decisions with performance, and

the Forest Service is moving forward with determined effort.

In developing the Performance Accountability System (PAS), the Forest Service

conducted a benchmarking study in 2002 to investigate how other organizations accomplish a specific task and identifying best management practices. State agencies

studied included several in Minnesota, Arizona, Texas, Ohio, and Louisiana. Federal

agencies reviewed included the U.S. Coast Guard, Natural Resource Conservation

Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and U.S. Air Force.

The Performance Accountability System (PAS) is an integrated decision-support

and reporting tool that aligns the Forest Service’s information assets, performance

budget, financial resources, and program activities with the purpose for which this

agency exists—to sustain the Nation’s forests and grasslands.

PAS will provide a means for national leadership and program managers at all

organizational levels to identify and communicate the management objectives of the

Forest Service, and how each contributes to the agency’s long-term goals and objectives. It also will identify the key performance measures that will be used to track

progress throughout the fiscal year and report results of programs and projects. All

units in the agency will use PAS to link the purpose of the projects and activities

they are planning to Forest strategic goals and objectives—goals and objectives that

are consistent with programmatic and unit-level planning objectives.

The program of work for each unit will be developed, summarized, prioritized regionally, and rolled up nationally to demonstrate how we will accomplish missioncritical objectives within the constraints of our annual budget. Information from

PAS can then be used to formulate an initial performance budget and associated

budget justification. These products will be form the basis for the agency and departmental request to the Office of Management and Budget. Once Congress acts

on the budget and agency funding is received, the various levels of the organization

receive their allocation. The initial performance budget and programs of work are

then reviewed and revised to reflect the allocation in a final performance budget and

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entered into the work planning system (WorkPlan) for implementation. This final

performance budget and program of work will also become the basis for specific performance agreements as part of each individual employee’s performance plan.

SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE SUMMARY

• WorkPlan

• July 2002—WorkPlan Releases 1.0 deployed

• July 2005—WorkPlan Release 3.0 (ties activities to SP goals/objectives)

• July-September 2005—WorkPlan populated for FY06

• Performance Accountability System (PAS)

• Fiscal year 2005—Prototyping and development of dashboards and scorecards

• Fiscal year 2006—Use by selected units for system testing and performance

monitoring

• Fiscal year 2007—Full agency use of PAS

Finally, where is the Forest Service at with streamlining and improving

organization and cost effectiveness, as identified by the five initiatives of

the President’s Management Agenda?

The Forest Service is actively engaged in all five PMA initiatives: strategic management of human capital, competitive sourcing, improved financial management,

expanded eGov, and budget and performance integration.

The Forest Service is now implementing a major change in the way it does financial management. It was completed through a rigorous business process reengineering (BPR) effort which, among other things, consolidated financial functions that

were spread across the country. The agency has also embarked on a BPR that will

result in major change in the management of its human resources functions. Both

of these BPR efforts will result in significant organizational effectiveness while

being done at a lower cost.

As mentioned above, the Forest Service recently implemented a competitive

sourcing IT study. It, too, will save money and increase effectiveness. Further, ongoing efforts underway in the areas of eGov and budget and performance integration

will continue to lead to gains by the agency in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

The Forest Service has a large backlog of infrastructure repairs, including roads and facilities. Has the agency compiled a list of these projects?

Do you have an estimate on the total cost? If these projects are not address,

what will be the effect on our national forests?

Yes, we have compiled lists of roads and facilities deferred maintenance projects.

Here is our most recent estimate of the cost of backlog of deferred maintenance

work only; these figures do not include capital improvement costs.

Facility Type/Cost in millions of dollars

Buildings and administrative facilities: $463

Dams: $28

Heritage sites: $10

Range: $464

Recreation facilities: $178

Roads and bridges: $5,280

Trails: $107

Wildlife, fish, T&E species: $6

Total: $6,536.

Road maintenance and reconstruction work will be focused primarily on critical

health and safety needs and watershed protection measures. The agency will continue to emphasize public safety in order to assure road user safety on the existing

roads open to passenger cars and on roads passable only by high clearance vehicles.

Priorities that determine the mileage of roads maintained in each category will be

developed at the local level. Doing this will allow us to meet emergency needs, critical annual health and safety maintenance needs, and critical deferred health and

safety needs on the most important roads. When non-priority roads are closed by

natural events, such as floods, landslides, and blow down, they will likely remain

blocked to traffic. Opening such roads would not be a priority unless they become

critical for public access or accomplishment of resource projects.

The agency anticipates that there will be two primary areas of effects for the facilities deferred maintenance backlog:

1. Deferred maintenance will accumulate at an accelerated rate due to a large

amount of reconstruction money being used to modernize and repair existing infraVerDate 11-SEP-98 10:02 Aug 02, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\109-11 HAGRI PsN: HAGRI
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structure, and a reduction to reconstruction funds will decrease the amount of work

completed.

2. Replacement of infrastructure that has reached the end of its useful life or have

already exceeded their life will proceed at a slower pace.

We are using facility master planning and developed recreation site master planning efforts to identify the optimum location, size and number of facilities we can

sustain into the future.

STATEMENT OF V. ALARIC SAMPLE

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to testify before you and the other

members of the House Committee on Agriculture regarding the centennial of the

U.S. Forest Service. I currently serve as the President of the Pinchot Institute for

Conservation. The Pinchot Institute is a nonprofit center for research, education and

technical assistance on matters relating to natural resource conservation and sustainable forest management. The Institute was dedicated in 1963 by President John

F. Kennedy at Grey Towers National Historic Site in Milford, Pennsylvania. Grey

Towers is the former home of Gifford Pinchot, founder and first Chief Forester of

the U.S. Forest Service. Through the generosity of the Pinchot family, Grey Towers

National Historic Site is now the home of the Pinchot Institute, as part of a successful and productive partnership with the U.S. Forest Service stretching over more

than 40 years.

On the occasion of the centennial of the establishment of the U.S. Forest Service

in 1905, this committee has asked me to reflect upon how the agency has performed

in its first century, and what I believe will come of the agency in the next. Given

the time available, my observations will be very general, of course, and cannot do

justice to the agency’s accomplishments and prospects that are provided through numerous more scholarly studies that have been published in recent years. The U.S.

Forest Service came into being because the Nation needed such an organization, and

the Forest Service fulfilled that need with style and distinction. Over the past hundred years, the U.S. Forest Service has risen to new and often unanticipated needs,

with dedication and a commitment to serving the common good of the Nation—what

founding Chief Gifford Pinchot referred to as ‘‘the greatest good, for the greatest

number, in the long run.’’

PAST PERFORMANCE

The work of the Forest Service has been a source of debate and occasional controversy, from the day it was created, right up until the present. This is to be expected in an agency attempting to balance the competing and often conflicting interests of a diverse and staunchly democratic nation, over resources as valuable and

productive as the National Forest System. If we Americans are fortunate, we will

still have the privilege of debating with one another for yet another hundred years,

over the best use of the national forests. The important thing is that, thanks to the

vision of the founders of the national forests, and a century of stewardship by the

U.S. Forest Service, these lands and resources will still be conserved and

sustainably managed, for future generations as well as those that have gone before.

Since the U.S. Forest Service was established by Congress through the Transfer

Act of 1905, the agency has successfully met every major challenge with which it

has been faced. Some of these challenges have been formidable.

While the Forest Service was still young and relatively inexperienced, it was galvanized into action by the devastating wildfires of 1910, which burned millions of

acres in Montana and Idaho, destroyed numerous communities, and cost hundreds

of lives. In response, the Forest Service virtually invented many of the wildland firefighting techniques and technologies used all over the world. As we know today, the

Forest Service was almost too successful in taming wildfires. Through research on

the important roles that fire plays in the ecological functioning of forests and grasslands, the Forest Service is discovering new ways to appropriately reintroduce fire

into forest landscapes now made more complex by the shifting boundaries of

wildlands and urban communities.

When the necessity arose, the Forest Service helped meet the need for wood, first

to help ensure victory in the second world war, and later to meet the surging demand for housing during a post-war economic expansion that lasted well into the

1960’s. As with firefighting, the Forest Service was almost too successful in wood

production, and were slow to respond to changing needs and social values, and to

new science that brought a deeper understanding of the effects of timber harvesting

on wildlife, water quality and other important forest values. The Forest Service enVerDate 11-SEP-98 10:02 Aug 02, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\109-11 HAGRI PsN: HAGRI
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dured sometimes intense public criticism, and lost some of the luster it enjoyed

when it was widely regarded as the most successful, effective and respected agencies

in all the Federal service.

In going from youth to maturity over the past century, the Forest Service has

picked up its shares of the nicks and scrapes that come with age and experience.

But like the marks in fine leather, these are proof of authenticity. It is not in the

personality and culture of the Forest Service to shy away from the difficult challenges. Like people, organizations that have never failed at anything are organizations that have not tested themselves, not put themselves on the line, and not attempted bold steps in hopes of making significant progress. At the end of its first

century, the Forest Service still stands as a model to the rest of the world, generating new forest science to address an array of new challenges to the well-being of

forests, providing technical assistance to other forest owners of all kinds, and demonstrating forest management that, in spite of the current crop of issues, is a model

of sustainable forest management.

FUTURE PROSPECTS

The U.S. Forest Service is now serving an America greatly changed from a century ago—from a population of 76 million in 1900 to 286 million today; from mostly

rural and agricultural to 85 percent urban and industrial; from mostly western European ancestry to a diverse mix of races, cultures and outlooks. The people of the

United States need the national forests and a strong, effective U.S. Forest Service

today more than at perhaps any time since the agency’s establishment.

Global market forces have fundamentally changed forests and forestry in the U.S.,

and will continue to do so in the next two to three decades. Forestry, like every

other segment of our economy, has been profoundly affected by economic

globalization. Forest industry has consolidated and greatly increased its foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing parts of the world, bringing down prices for consumers, but also making it less economical to grow wood in the U.S., or even to own

and manage forest land. Billions of dollars in capital once invested in U.S. forests

have been taken out and reinvested in fast-growing plantations, mostly in the

Southern Hemisphere. Production capacity in the global forest sector, including USbased companies, has geared itself toward rapidly growing markets in Latin America and Asia.

With timber prices in the United States projected to remain relatively flat for

many years to come, there is no business case to be made for new investments by

the forest products industry in U.S. timberlands. Several leading U.S. forest economists recently stated that even the well-managed Douglas-fir forests on corporate

timberlands in the Pacific Northwest’some of the most valuable and productive forests is the U.S. will barely be able to compete on price or quality with low-cost wood

coming from Southern Hemisphere plantations. We will continue to see U.S. companies divesting their timberlands by the millions of acres in order to deploy that capital more effectively in forests elsewhere in the world.

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FORESTS

What does this mean for the U.S. Forest Service, and indeed for all forests in this

country? First, the biggest threat to sustaining America’s forests is not from pressure for timber harvesting. Timber harvesting on the national forests is a tenth of

what it was two decades ago. And while markets remain weak even for timber on

private lands that is far more accessible and generally of higher quality and form,

it is highly unlikely that we will see any pressure for increased harvest levels on

national forests from the major forest products companies in the US. Demand will

continue to come primarily from smaller regional firms serving regional forest products markets.

The biggest threat to sustaining biological diversity, water quality, wildlife and

other values from U.S. forests will be the loss of the forest altogether, to forest fragmentation and the conversion of forest land to development and other nonforest

land uses. Three-quarters of U.S. forests are privately owned, which means there

are costs to the owners’ property taxes, severance taxes, estate taxes, and inheritance taxes, as well as the expense of protecting and managing the forest. These

costs are increasingly difficult for many private forest owners to bear, especially in

times of weak timber markets and declining real prices. As a result, more and more

forest land each day is being cleared for development and, for all intents and purposes, lost forever as forest.

When we lose an acre of forest, we are losing far more than its productive potential to grow wood on a sustainable basis in perpetuity—though that is enough.

America’s forests are its greatest single guarantor of adequate supplies of clean

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water for agricultural, industrial and municipal purposes. The public value this represents is almost incalculable, though some recent examples—such as New York

City’s avoiding an estimated $8 billion in drinking water treatment costs by better

protecting its forested watersheds upstate give some hint of the magnitude of values

at stake.

These forests represent other important public values as well habitat for wildlife

of all kinds, including many rare and local species; opportunities for hunting, fishing

and many other recreational activities that are important not only individuals but

to local economies. Just as Gifford Pinchot could not have imagined some of the values that we find important on the national forests today, there are surely other important functions and values that forest ecosystems provide that we do not yet recognize. These values may not become apparent to us until they have been lost, and

are then irreplaceable at any price.

Through critical efforts like the Forest Legacy Program, the U.S. Forest Service

is cooperating closely with State governments, local communities, and forest landowners to ensure that landowners can continue to ‘‘keep their forests in forest,’’ and

continue to provide the steady steam of public benefits, values and uses that we are

only now beginning to fully appreciate.

The U.S. Forest Service will continue to play an essential role in helping landowners to conserve and sustainably manage their forests, as they have for decades.

Cooperative programs with State governments and universities aid forest landowners with technical assistance, research and cost-sharing programs for insect and

disease control, fire protection, invasive species control, habitat conservation, water

quality, and the development of new markets and sources of income. Like the public

conservation values that these State and private forestry programs protect, we cannot take them for granted, fully realizing their contributions to the Nation’s public

interest only after they are gone.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL FORESTS

Confronting these enormous challenges to protecting important public conservation values on private lands brings a fuller appreciation for the value of the national

forests themselves, and the array of services and uses they provide for all Americans on a daily basis.

Currently, the public spends an average of less than $16 per acre annually to conserve and sustainably manage 192 million acres of national forest, providing benefits to all Americans, and ensuring that this essential natural resource asset will

still be here for generations of Americans yet to come. By any measure, the public

is getting good value from their investments in the U.S. Forest Service.

Communities adjacent to national forests get especially good value. They are the

most direct beneficiaries of the clean water, recreation resources, wildlife, and other

values that contribute to the local economy and quality of life. The expenses for protecting and managing these local resources are shared with 286 million Americans,

85 percent of whom live in metropolitan areas and may never actually step foot on

a national forest. There are challenges for local communities, especially in working

with national forest managers to maintain a balance of uses, but for most communities, proximity to a national forest continues to be an enormous economic and environmental asset that should not be taken for granted.

The national forests, though publicly owned, have not been immune to the effects

of changes in the global markets in the forest sector. The decline in U.S. timber values and markets has contributed to the loss of the economic infrastructure for forest

management in communities all over the country, making it difficult for the Forest

Service to accomplish its most basic stewardship responsibilities: maintaining the

long-term health and productivity of the forests themselves, and the broader

ecologic, economic and social context in which they exist. We have seen this in the

increase in insect and disease outbreaks, and the buildup of hazardous fuels, especially on national forests in the intermountain West. Less apparent but no less serious is the steady deterioration of an extensive system of unpaved roads, many of

them on steep slopes and erodible soils, that have not been maintained as designed,

and are degrading water quality in some of the same rivers and streams that are

so important to salmon habitat, or habitat for endangered aquatic species such as

bull trout.

In response to the declining timber harvest levels starting in the late 1980’s, the

Forest Service developed, tested, and proved new policy mechanisms to allow Federal natural resources agencies to contract for land stewardship services. These

stewardship contracts enabled agencies to develop contracts multi-year, multi-task

and end-results orientedthat allowed agencies to address ongoing land stewardship

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needs, while providing a more reliable basis for communities to invest in a sustainable economic infrastructure.

The U.S. Forest Service in increasingly recognizing that reliability of raw material

supply is as important as volume, and that it is the key to supporting sustainable

economic development on local communities. Using new policy tools now under development, the Forest Service will work in closer cooperation with managers of

neighboring Federal, state, tribal and private forest lands to collectively provide a

more stable, reliable supply of raw materials as a basis for private reinvestment in

local communities and economies.

Increasingly, these investments are focused as much on energy as on wood products. The changes taking place in today’s global energy markets are far more fundamental than in the short-term energy crisis of the early 1970’s, and portend a

long-term shift in U.S. approaches to development of domestic energy supplies, energy-conserving technologies, and renewable energy resources.

This will create many new challenges for the U.S. Forest Service, to accommodate

energy development on national forests without unacceptable impacts on other forest resources. But it may also represent important new opportunities for biofuels development, and the creation of new markets and resource values that can help support land stewardship activities. In many ways, the future challenges and opportunities in forest management will be determined as much by national security and

energy policy as by traditional forest policy.

LESSONS LEARNED

An assessment that offers no suggestions for improvement is no assessment at all,

since there is always room for any individual or institution to improve. In its first

century, the U.S. Forest Service has made its share of mistakes and misjudgments.

Some of these, such as its unpreparedness for the 1910 fires in the northern Rockies, galvanized the agency into action and helped make it one of the most respected

and admired of all public agencies of the time. Others, such as the agency’s response

to the public controversy over clearcutting on the national forests in the 1970’s, cost

the U.S. Forest Service dearly in terms of its credibility with the public and with

Congress. Public trust and confidence are invaluable assets to any organization that,

once lost, are only slowly regained. In many communities across the country, the

Forest Service is still rebuilding the public trust it once had, and it has further to

go in some communities than in others.

Changes will be needed to equip the Forest Service to face new challenges and

emerging threats to the conservation and sustainable management of forests. The

Forest Service’s ‘‘process predicament’’ is well known, and the agency has yet to take

full advantage of authorities it already has to reduce process barriers to effective

forest management. Decentralized decision making historically has been one of the

Forest Service’s greatest strengths, and a reversal of the centralizing tendency of

its policy and planning processes over the past several decades is needed. Local forest managers must have the authority to make timely and reliable decisions that

fit the local situation, while still operating within a general policy framework that

ensures that the long-term national interest in the productivity of these natural resources is protected. Cost-cutting measures that result in the closing of local offices

such as ranger districts only put more distance between the Forest Service and its

local communities, making it more difficult for the Forest Service to understand

local circumstances, and increasing the likelihood that mistakes will be made. To

some extent, this is an internal question of resource allocation within the Forest

Service, but it is also a question of increased Congressional support that will provide

the Forest Service with the resources it needs to sustain important working relationships with local constituents.

Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has outlined what he regards as the four

major threats facing U.S. forests: wildfires, invasive species, unmanaged recreation,

and forest fragmentation. Fortunately, the U.S. Forest Service does not have to take

on these challenges single-handedly. Over the past century, substantial capacity has

developed within State and tribal governments, forest industry, private landowner

associations, and nonprofit public interest conservation organizations. The independent, ‘‘can-do’’ culture of the Forest Service has served the Nation well in the agency’s

first century, but the challenges of the next century cannot be met in the same way.

The Forest Service is striving to develop the tools and perspectives needed for the

agency to work in more effective partnerships with cooperating organizations, from

the national level to local communities. If the Forest Service’s own success is to be

judged by the extent to which emerging conservation challenges are addressed, then

it has no choice but to learn to work in close cooperation with other public, private

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and nonprofit organizations that may not be content to cede leadership to the Forest

Service alone.

The Forest Service has for a century been a leader in forest conservation. It is

now learning new approaches to leadership, based on enabling and equipping Americans of all kinds to take steps that will ensure the sustainability of our forest resources through increased understanding of forests in their ecological, economic and

social context. Given the magnitude of the challenges facing America’s forests, and

the fact that three-quarters of the country’s forests are in private ownership, mastering this kind of facilitative approach to fostering personal responsibility and individual action will be essential to the Forest Service’s continued leadership.

At the end of the day, the U.S. Forest Service is still the most capable organization in the world in the conservation and sustainable management of forests. Forest

Service Research and Development has helped create much of the scientific basis

for forest protection and management, and is still leading the way in addressing

new scientific challenges such as controlling invasive forest pests and pathogens, or

understanding the potential impacts on our forests from global climate change. Its

periodic national-level assessments provide an essential snapshot of the conditions

and trends in our forests, and serve as the basis for an ongoing national dialogue

on progress achieved and improvements needed.

Forest Service State & Private Forestry is striving to meet the evolving challenges

to conservation and sustainable forest management on private lands, creating innovative approaches to making forest stewardship economically viable in the long run.

The U.S. Forest Service’s remarkable ability to work with State and local governments to foster continued public benefits from private forest lands while respecting

the Constitutional rights associated with private property is having a positive and

constructive influence on countries such as China, which is only now deciding what

private property rights should be held by an individual, and developing countries

in other parts of the world that do not have the history that the U.S. does for protecting land tenure rights of all citizens rich or poor.

Similarly, the Forest Service’s management of the National Forest System continues to be an inspiration to developing countries that are pressed to utilize their natural resource assets in order to support economic growth and raising their standards of living. It was only a century ago that the U.S. was itself a developing country, a blink of an eye in terms of world history. Yet with the foresight and commitment of Gifford Pinchot and his contemporaries, the U.S. was able to make the transition from unsustainable forest exploitation to sustainable forest management, and

avoid much of the long-term deforestation that has plagued other countries and ultimately impeded their economic progress. Our national forest System provides a

model institutional, legal and policy framework that can be adapted to the particular biophysical, economic, cultural and political characteristics of other countries

around the world.

The Forest Service of the future will face many new challenges, some of which

we can’t even anticipate. At the start of its second century, the Forest Service has

matured as an organization, and internalized the lessons from its mistakes as well

as its successes, and is stronger as a result. Whatever may come in the decades

ahead, the U.S. Forest Service has a strong foundation on which to build. It will

meet the challenges of the future as it has addressed each of its challenges in the

past with unparalleled expertise and a commitment to what the Forest Service’s

first Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot described as ‘‘the greatest good, for the greatest

number, in the long run.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to address any questions that you or

others members of the committee may have.

STATEMENT OF LEAH W. MACSWORDS

Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. On behalf of the National Association of State Foresters, I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify

today on the Centennial celebration of the USDA Forest Service.

The National Association of State Foresters is a non-profit organization that represents the directors of the State forestry agencies from the states, U.S. territories,

and the District of Columbia. State Foresters manage and protect State and private

forests across the U.S., which together encompass two-thirds of the Nation’s forests.

This year the Forest Service is celebrating its 100th year of service to the citizens

of this country. State Foresters have a long history of working cooperatively with

the Forest Service—first in fire protection, and then expanding to forest management, wildlife habitat conservation, and protection of clean water. Looking back on

this long relationship, it is clear that perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the

Forest Service during its first 100 years has been to bring a forest ethic to the all

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the forests in the Nation by instituting a professional, scientific, and systematic approach to forest protection of all the nations’’ forests, regardless of ownership.

HISTORY OF COOPERATION

In 1911, Congress passed the Weeks Act, which authorized the purchase of land

east of the Mississippi River to protect navigable waterways and their watersheds.

This Act led to the purchase of burned-over and denuded land and the establishment of the eastern National Forests, which include the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky, the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia,

and the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. In addition, the Weeks

Act established funding and direction for watershed programs and cooperative fire

protection with the states on lands impacting navigable streams. The 1924 ClarkMcNary Act further expanded these authorities by authorizing a Federal grant program with the states for cooperative fire protection on all forestland across the country. The Act also established funding for states to implement reforestation and cooperative assistance programs for private landowners.

From its beginnings in the first quarter of the 20th Century to its culmination

with the National Fire Plan, this country’s wildland fire protection program—led cooperatively by the Forest Service and the State forestry agencies—is second to none

in the world. Together, we have built up an institution of knowledge, skill, and experience that protects the Nation’s forests and grasslands from wildfire. Most recently, the National Fire Plan has not only strengthened funding for wildland fire

programs, but has also affirmed that the Nation’s wildland fire protection program

is a cooperative effort across agencies and ownerships and serves all areas of the

country.

After much debate, it was decided in 1919 that State forestry agencies, rather

than the Federal Government, should have the legal responsibility for cooperative

assistance and regulatory programs for private lands. Building from earlier authorities, the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 provided the Forest Service

with broad and comprehensive authority to support the efforts of State forestry

agencies to help the Nation’s 10 million private landowners manage and protect

their forests. The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act has subsequently been updated and strengthened through the 1990, 1996, and 2002 farm bills. These cooperative programs support the educational, technical, and financial assistance to landowners to ensure that the public goals of sustainable forestry are realized. They include, among others, the Forest Stewardship Program, cooperative fire assistance

grants, and the Urban and Community Forestry Program, and have established an

excellent track record of protecting water quality, restoring fire-adapted forests, and

managing wildlife habitat.

CHANGING NEEDS

Over time, the resource protection and management needs of private lands have

changed. In the post-war era, many states focused their cooperative assistance programs on reforestation of lands that had been cut over to fuel the war and the subsequent building boom. The current programs in the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act are focused on the sustainable production of timber, protection of water

quality, improvement of wildlife habitat, and conservation of working forests. While

these factors are still important, the current suite of programs needs to be better

integrated and targeted to achieve maximum outcomes across the landscape. These

changes do not necessarily have to be made through changes to the legislation, but

could instead be implemented by adjusting existing program regulations to meet the

needs of the future.

As of today, there are 187 Federal programs across all agencies that affect private

forestland. While many of these programs are focused on issues other than forest

management, there are still a number of programs throughout a variety of Federal

agencies that do have measurable effects on landowners. I urge the committee to

examine options for program consolidation that would help to better achieve overall

program goals across the Federal agencies.

The greatest hindrance to accomplishment of the Forest Service mission through

assistance to states is lack of adequate funding. While we in the State and Federal

forestry arena are certainly not alone in loss of funding over the past several years,

I believe that funding for the cooperative forestry programs has been cut especially

heavy. If fact, some cooperative forestry programs have never received any funding.

An example is the Watershed Forestry Assistance Program that was authorized in

Title III of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. This program would provide

states with the resources to undertake watershed forestry restoration projects in priority areas and to improve State forestry best management practices programs. UnVerDate 11-SEP-98 10:02 Aug 02, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\109-11 HAGRI PsN: HAGRI
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fortunately, Congress has never appropriated any funding for this program. A second example is the Community and Private Lands Fire Assistance Program

(CPLFA). This program was originally funded under the National Fire Plan and focused on assisting communities with planning and carrying out hazardous fuels reduction work. Since its reauthorization in the 2002 farm bill, it has received no

funding, undermining the ability of communities to carry out fuel reduction projects.

GREATEST CHALLENGES

Unlike private and State lands, management of the National Forest System has

been slowed by regulations that, while well-meaning, often prohibited forest managers from carrying out projects in a timely manner. I have seen this happen many

times in my State of Kentucky. In the late 1990’s, many areas of Kentucky, including the Daniel Boone National Forest, experienced large outbreaks of the southern

pine bark beetle, causing high levels of mortality in pine stands across the state.

To further compound the problem, severe ice storms during the winters of 1999 and

2003 knocked down many more trees. This influx of downed timber in the forests

created an abnormally high fire hazard that needed to be dealt with quickly.

The standard approach for forest managers to mitigate this type of hazardous situation is to quickly harvest and remove the downed and dead trees to both reduce

the fire hazard and to naturally stimulate forest regeneration. Due to the excessive

levels of analysis and bureaucracy that Federal forest managers had to wade

through, much of the dead and downed timber on the Daniel Boone Nation Forest

decayed beyond the point of salvageable value by the time the agency was ready

to complete the timber sale. In contrast, the Kentucky Division of Forestry completed several salvage timber sales on the State forests in the time that it took the

Forest Service just to get their sales approved. Environmental impacts from the harvest, once completed, would generally be the same, regardless of ownership. However, the environmental risk on National Forest System lands has often been increased by delaying the harvesting and restoration work, thus increasing the fire

danger. The State system of analysis has proven to be much more efficient and

could serve as a model for Federal lands management.

Congress passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA) as a mechanism to streamline the approval process for forest restoration projects that focus on

removing excess hazardous fuels, and to facilitate other restoration projects. The Act

helps to put scientific forest management back in the hands of the professionals who

know the resource best. NASF supports all titles of HFRA and we request the committee’s assistance to ensure that the agency is given the resources to successfully

implement all six titles of the Act.

FOREST SERVICE ROLE IN LEADERSHIP

The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act provides the Forest Service and—

through cooperative agreement—the states with direction on the focus of the landowner assistance programs. Most of the landowner assistance programs in the Act

are reauthorized every few years through the farm bill. Based on the lack of Congressional support for many of the current landowner assistance programs, it is

clear that a new approach to State and Private Forestry programs is needed.

At the NASF annual meeting last September, Chief Bosworth challenged the

State Foresters to help the public understand the great benefit that can come from

a few well-placed Federal investments in State and private forestry. Chief Bosworth

suggested we engage people who own or care about forests, water, and wildlife to

help build a broader understanding of the work that landowners do to deliver the

wide range of benefits that come from their lands and enhance the public good. Together with the Forest Service, NASF sponsored three meetings over the past few

weeks to develop a shared understanding of public benefits from non-Federal

forestlands, to define what landowners and constituent groups want from non-Federal forestlands, and to identify appropriate roles in assuring the sustainability of

public benefits. The findings of these meetings, which we titled Non-Federal

Forestlands: Partnerships for the 21st Century, will be available later this summer

and will provide guidance to the Forest Service, NASF, and other stakeholders.

State Foresters believe that a strong focus on providing clearly definable public benefits will better shape the future of State and private forestry. We will remain actively engaged to help lead the programs in this direction over time.

Research and development within the Forest Service has a long history of providing research to the broad array of forestry sectors, including the public, academic,

and private sectors. As a partner with the Forest Service research programs, NASF

places great value on the work being conducted at the six Forest Service research

stations, especially the long-term research for which the agency is so well known.

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One of the most valuable research programs the Forest Service conducts is the

Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. This forest monitoring, inventory, and

mapping program provides the entire forestry sector with comprehensive data on

the status, condition, and trends of forests across the country. States use the data

extensively and often work cooperatively with the Forest Service to gather the data.

The FIA program is run out of the six separate research stations, resulting in differences in program implementation across the country. We applaud the Forest

Service for its recent efforts to manage the program more consistently and encourage the agency to further these efforts.

The Forest Service also helps to support forestry research at land-grant colleges

and universities through the McIntire-Stennis forestry research program, which provides dedicated funding for forestry research programs. The McIntire-Stennis funding is very important to maintaining research programs at many of these schools,

and efforts to move the program to exclusively competitive grants would seriously

undermine the long-term research now being conducted. Competitive grants work

fine for two- or three-year research projects—commonly performed by graduate students—but fall far short of adequately addressing the needs of long-term or localized

forestry research projects. I urge the committee to maintain support for this program.

The State forestry agencies and the Forest Service have a long history of working

together cooperatively. Many of the programs the states implement are funded and

supported by the Forest Service, mainly through the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978. Therefore, State Foresters have a strong interest in the direction

of the Forest Service as we embark upon this new century of our partnership.

I wish to close by reminding the committee that the most compelling forces shaping the agency’s role and direction with the states will not come from within, but

rather from new and global issues that are already shaping our policy. Greenhouse

gas markets, the increasing value of clean water, and global markets will all shape

the agency’s direction in the future. The strong relationship between NASF and the

Forest Service will help State forestry agencies and the Forest Service to better

serve the public as these changes begin to take place.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I would be happy to answer any

questions you may have.

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