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94–732 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–688

REVIEW OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HEALTHY

FOREST RESTORATION ACT OF 2003

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTRY, CONSERVATION, 

AND RURAL REVITALIZATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 24, 2004

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.agriculture.senate.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi, Chairman 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho 

JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

THOMAS A. DASCHLE, South Dakota 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

ZELL MILLER, Georgia 

DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

HUNT SHIPMAN, Majority Staff Director 

DAVID L. JOHNSON, Majority Chief Counsel 

LANCE KOTSCHWAR, Majority General Counsel 

ROBERT E. STURM, Chief Clerk 

MARK HALVERSON, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

HEARING(S):

Review of Implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 ........ 01

Thursday, June 24, 2004

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS 

Cochran, Hon. Thad, a U.S. Senator from Mississippi, Chairman, Committee 

on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry ............................................................. 21

Crapo, Hon. Michael, a U.S. Senator from Idaho, Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Forestry, Conservation, and Rural Revitilization, Committee on

Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry .................................................................. 01

Baucus, Hon. Max, a U.S. Senator from Montana ................................................ 10

Coleman, Hon. Norm, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota ........................................ 03

Lincoln, Hon. Blanche, a U.S. Senator from Arkansas ........................................ 08

Talent, Hon. James, a U.S. Senator from Missouri .............................................. 12

WITNESSES 

Panel I 

Calvert, Chad, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals Management, 

U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC ............................................ 07

Rey, Mark, Under Secretary, National Resources and the Environment, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC .................................................... 05

Panel II 

Cope, Robert, Commissioner, Lemhi County, Salmon, Idaho, representing the 

National Association of Counties ........................................................................ 28

Daly, Carol, President, Communities Committee and Member, Society of 

American Foresters .............................................................................................. 30

Sledge, James, L., Jr., State Forester, Mississippi Forestry Commission,

Jackson, Mississippi, representing the National Association of State

Foresters ............................................................................................................... 26

Panel III 

Crouch, James R., Jim Crouch Associates, Russellville, Arkansas,

representing Ouachita Timber Purchasers Group, Ozark/St. Francis

Renewable Resource Council, and the Lake States Federal Timber

Purchasers Group ................................................................................................. 37

Kennamer, James Earl, Senior Vice President of Conservation Programs, 

National Wild Turkey Federation, Edgefield, South Carolina ......................... 40

Partin, Tom, President, American Forest Resource Council, Portland, Oregon . 38

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Rey, Mark and Chad Calvert ........................................................................... 50

Page

IV

PREPARED STATEMENTS—Continued

Cope, Robert ...................................................................................................... 65

Crouch, Jim ....................................................................................................... 86

Daly, Carol ........................................................................................................ 82

Kennamer, James Earl .................................................................................... 97

Partin, Tom ....................................................................................................... 92

Sledge, James L. ............................................................................................... 60

DOCUMENT(S) SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Jeffrey Hardesty, Director, Global Fire Initiative the Nature

Conservancy .................................................................................................. 108

Gary Mast, President, National Association of Conservation Districts . 104

(1)

REVIEW OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 

HEALTHY FOREST RESTORATION ACT OF 2003

THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2004, 

U.S. SENATE,, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTRY, CONSERVATION, AND RURAL

REVITALIZATION, OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION AND FORESTRY,, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room 

SD–562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Michael Crapo, 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee], presiding. 

Present or Submitting a Statement: Senators Crapo, Cochran, 

Coleman, Talent, Lincoln, and Baucus. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL CRAPO, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

IDAHO, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTRY,

CONSERVATION, AND RURAL REVITALIZATION, COMMITTEE 

ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

Senator CRAPO. The hearing will come to order. This is a hearing 

of the Subcommittee on Forestry, Conservation, and Rural Revitalization. We are here today to review the implementation of the 

Healthy Forest Restoration Act. It has been nearly a year since the 

Committee held its first hearing on the act and over just 6 months 

since this important legislation was overwhelmingly enacted into 

law. 

There was and is a clear need for this legislation, and I am 

pleased that I was able to work with so many of my colleagues on 

this Committee and in the Senate in a bipartisan manner to get 

the much-needed bill through. Throughout the debate on this legislation, we talked about the wide scope of the problem: 190 million 

acres of Federal land at high risk to catastrophic wildfire; millions 

of trees being ravaged by insects and disease and that these are 

not geographically isolated problems. They are nationwide concerns, concerns that have a direct impact on neighboring lands. 

Despite the scope of that problem, some have the impression that 

with the passage of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, we have 

solved the forest health crisis. This is an important step in the 

proper management of our forests, but it is not a silver bullet. The 

2004 fire season is expected to be another difficult year. The 

drought facing our country continues to exacerbate the fire risks, 

and many States in the West are expected to have another above 

normal fire season. 

I raise this to make the point that we will have large fires this 

year, and we will have large destructive fires the year after and the 

2

year after that and the year after that. Addressing these threats 

is a long-term goal. I’ve also heard from many in my State who understand how large this crisis is and who are anxious to see 

projects in their communities and in their forests. 

We will get this straightened out here in a second. The authorities under this bill will help and are crucial to addressing the 

threats on private and public lands, but the bill will not be implemented overnight. Another point to keep in mind is that we were 

cautious in this bill not to override environmental laws. The agencies must continue to fully comply with the Endangered Species 

Act, the Historic Preservation Act and other applicable laws. Those 

of you with experience with the ESA know that it does not make 

any activity easy to implement. 

Given the hurdles, the agencies are making good progress in implementing this legislation. I appreciate the overall efforts on fuels 

reduction under this authority, under the Healthy Forest Initiative 

Authority, and the many projects that have been underway since 

before these authorities were provided. However, we, Congress and 

the public, must continue to pressure and oversee the agencies to 

ensure aggressive and proper implementation of all aspects of this 

bill. 

It has been my experience that the more open and inclusive the 

process, the more accepted it is by the public. With that philosophy 

in mind, I appreciate the efforts the agency have undertaken to collaborate with the public. I note the interagency Website that the 

agencies have developed to serve as an easily accessible clearinghouse of information for the public, and it is my hope that they will 

continue to place a priority on www.healthyforests.gov as an important link to the public. 

The role of the communities in addressing forest health cannot 

be understated. As such, I am pleased that one of our witnesses 

today is Commissioner Robert Cope from Lemhi County, Idaho. 

Commissioner Cope has been a leader in the Idaho State Fire Plan 

working group. That group has worked to get more and more Idaho 

categories to develop county wild land-urban interface fire mitigation plans. Somebody could make an acronym out of that one. 

These will be important in working with agencies on fuels reduction projects, and I am pleased that Idaho is a leader in identifying 

threats from wild land fires and creating local solutions. I appreciate your being here today, Commissioner Cope. 

I also want to commend the Society of American Foresters, the 

National Association of State Foresters, the National Association of 

Counties, the Western Governors Association and the Communities 

Committee of the Seventh American Forest Congress for their work 

in developing a handbook to guide local community efforts in developing their wildfire protection plans. 

Many of the groups that developed this plan are here today, and 

I want to take a moment to thank them for their leadership in the 

development of this handbook. I expect that this handbook will be 

a vital tool for communities looking to prepare for fire risks. 

I am pleased today to have Mark Rey, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment at the Department of Agriculture and Chad Calvert, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land 

and Minerals Management at the Department of the Interior here 

3

to testify on the implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration 

Act and the progress that they have made in implementing this act 

since it was signed into law last November or December, and I am 

particularly interested in hearing what progress has been made in 

managing the small diameter materials that come off of our forests. 

The growing loss of infrastructure is troubling, and I am curious 

about what is being done to help develop markets for this material. 

Following their testimony, we will hear from individuals representing those affected by this legislation. I look forward to their 

insight and will introduce them when we bring up their panels. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today, and I 

look forward to an informative hearing. Senator Lincoln, who is 

very interested in this hearing, will be here shortly, and when she 

does, we will interrupt and allow her to make any opening statement that she would like to make. I see that Senator Coleman is 

arriving, so, Senator, I am going to wrap up here in just a minute 

so you can get prepared for your opening statement if you would 

like. 

While Senator Coleman is taking his seat, let me just give a few 

instructions to the witnesses: you all should have received an instruction letter, and that letter should have indicated to you that 

we would like for you to keep your oral testimony to 5 minutes. We 

have a little machine here that counts down and tells you what 

your time is, and the red light starts blinking when your time has 

expired. 

I want to encourage you to pay attention to that, because we 

would like to have enough time to have dialog and give and take 

with the Senators who are here. I can assure you that if you are 

like most witnesses, your 5 minutes will expire before you have 

said what you want to say. Please be assured that we would like 

you to still wrap up and just conclude whatever thought you are 

on when your time expires, and we will have time for questions 

and answers, and if there are things that you did not get to say 

during your 5 minutes, you will have an opportunity during the 

question and answer period. 

Your written testimony is all a part of the record, so you do not 

need to worry about asking to make your written testimony a part 

of the record, and your written testimony is going to be very thoroughly and carefully reviewed, in fact, many of us have already 

read it. 

With that, Senator Coleman, do you have any opening statement? 

STATEMENT OF HON. NORM COLEMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

MINNESOTA 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank 

you for holding this hearing and for your leadership and also for 

the bipartisanship displayed by you and my very good friend, Senator Lincoln, with whom I have worked so closely on many farm 

bill-related issues. This critical legislation would not have ever 

happened, so thank you both for your strong leadership and for the 

spirit in which you have made all of this possible. 

I want to thank the members of the panel for appearing today 

to discuss the progress of this legislation. This Healthy Forest ResVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:13 Dec 01, 2004 Jkt 094732 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94732.TXT TOSHD PsN: TOSH
4

toration Act is a solid piece of legislation. It takes common sense 

steps to improving our nation’s forests. At times, forest health is 

frequently described as a Western U.S. issue, but the reality is it 

is a concern to all of us and certainly a concern to me, because in 

my home State of Minnesota, we have two national forests, the 

Chippewa and the Superior. These forests span 5.8 million acres 

across Northeastern Minnesota. 

Over the past few years, Minnesota has seen its share of forest 

health problems. On July 4, 1999, heavy rain and straight line 

winds in excess of 90 miles per hour blew down trees and caused 

severe flooding over the more than 600 square miles of the Superior National Forest. In 2002, forest mortality exceeded net growth, 

and spruce budworm infestations have resulted in the death of onethird of the balsam fir in Minnesota. 

According to the Superior National Forest, the potential still exists for an extreme wildfire event in the blowdown areas that could 

threaten visitors and communities outside of the wilderness. These 

risks will reduce incrementally with the completion of prescribed 

burn units over the next several years. This brings me to an important point that I want to stress: the Healthy Forest Restoration Act 

will fix these problems over a period of many years rather than 

many months. It will take the coordination of local, State and Federal officials along with detailed planning and patience, but I know 

that everyone is up to the task. 

In Minnesota, we have seen many organizations continue to work 

together ever since the blowdown which we talked about in the 

Committee hearing of overwhelming magnitude. Folks have come 

together; they have developed strategies and tactics to prevent future disasters. This was originally possible because special exemptions were issued from the Council on Environmental Quality to 

work in high risk areas. 

The implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act will 

continue to help reduce procedural delays to projects that reduce 

fire danger and address forest health problems. I am pleased that 

the legislation accomplishes this, and it does so in a way that involves the public throughout the process. 

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act will better enable forest 

managers across the country to prevent future disasters by removing barriers that discourage cooperation. The Superior National 

Forest has recently almost doubled their staff of experienced fire 

specialists and increased fire safety training for all its employees. 

They have worked aggressively to reduce fuels, first in the highestrisk urban interface areas; to integrate buffers by treating locations 

of concentrated blowdown fuel on National Forest lands to slow the 

spread of wildfire. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to have my complete statement entered into the record, and I would just close by saying that the nation’s forests are living systems, and we have to restore, manage 

and protect them. These principles will not only help to wildfires; 

they will ensure that we have clean air and water, quality fish and 

wildlife resources and strong communities for generations to come. 

I look forward to hearing from the panelists, for their views and 

suggestions. Again, thank you. 

5

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Senator Coleman, and 

your full statement will be made a part of the record. 

I should have said to the witnesses one last bit of instruction, 

and that is that if you are like me, sometimes, you will forget to 

pay attention to the clock, and if you get to going too far over, I 

will just slightly tap the gavel up here, and that should help you 

to remember to take a look at that clock. 

With that, we have already introduced our first panel, and Mr. 

Rey, why do you not begin? 

STATEMENT OF MARK REY, UNDER SECRETARY, NATIONAL 

RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. REY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for the opportunity to testify on the administration’s progress in implementing 

the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003. President Bush signed 

this legislation just about 6 months ago on December 3, 2003, and 

we are all grateful for the swift action by the Congress, by this 

Committee under your leadership for the swift action in passing 

this important piece of legislation to provide the Federal agencies 

with additional tools to deal with wildfire risk. 

The Act complements administrative reforms that have been put 

into place under President Bush’s Healthy Forest Initiative. These 

reforms facilitate hazardous fuel treatments and ecological restoration projects on Federal lands. The Act is also complemented by another important authority provided by Congress early last year to 

expand the use of stewardship contracting by both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. 

In the 7 months since Congress passed the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, the Departments have taken a number of actions to 

implement it, including issuing, in February of 2002, an interim 

field guide that was jointly prepared by the Forest Service and the 

Bureau of Land Management to assist Federal land managers to 

better understand what would be required to implement the 

Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and I will provide a copy of that 

field guide for the Committee’s record for this hearing. 

We have also developed a variety of awareness and training tools 

for agency employees, including a Web-based Forest Service Internet site with overview training on the Healthy Forest Initiative 

and the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and other relevance information including on stewardship contracts, endangered species regulations, collaboration on multiparty monitoring, biomass information, and model environmental assessments. 

We have also made available to the public a wide variety of materials on the Healthy Forest Initiative and the Healthy Forest 

Restoration Act on the World Wide Web in the Website that you 

mentioned. 

Let me talk a little bit about what we are doing to implement 

each of the titles of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. Title I provided us with expedited procedures to conduct fuels treatment 

work and forest restoration work on Federal lands administered by 

the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. All of the 

implementing regulations and guidelines for Title I projects have 

been developed and sent to the field for review. 

6

Year-to-date, the Federal agencies have treated 88 percent of 

their target acres with a little over a quarter of the year left to go, 

so we will exceed the fuels reduction targets we set for ourselves 

this year, and at the end of the fiscal year, after all is said and 

done, we will have treated about 4 million acres of Federally-managed forest and rangeland, and that will be an all-time record. 

Title II provides information and resources to help overcome barriers to the production and use of woody material produced on fuels 

reduction and forest restoration projects. Within the next couple of 

weeks, we will announce the results of the 2004 grant solicitation 

process for the Biomass Research and Development Act, which was 

modified by Section 201 of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and 

this action will generate a significant increase in woody biomass related research. 

The results of our ongoing research on the utilization of woody 

biomass are provided for you and some examples of new applications that I brought from our wood products laboratory in Madison, 

Wisconsin. The materials there are self-explanatory. The filters you 

see there use juniper, which has very little other commercial value, 

but it turns out to be an excellent filtering agent in a variety of 

industrial applications. 

Title III authorizes the Forest Service to provide technical, financial and related assistance to private forest land owners aimed at 

expanding their forest stewardship capacities. The Forest Service is 

working with state foresters and Indian tribes to develop separate 

guidelines for the State Watershed Forestry Assistance Program 

and the Tribal Watershed Forestry Assistance Program. 

The Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior announced during a 

forest health conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, 2 weeks ago the 

formation of a series of partnerships to help implement Title IV 

and other titles of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act in the southern United States. Among these are the Forest Service partnerships with southern universities and State forestry agencies to conduct two landscape scale applied research projects on the Ozark/St. 

Francis National Forest to address infestations of the southern 

pine beetle and the red oak borer, which threaten forest health in 

that region. 

The Natural Resources Conservation Service has been designated 

to administer the Healthy Forest Reserve Program authorized 

under Title V of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and the regulations implementing that title will be issued shortly. Finally, with 

regard to Title VI, the Forest Service has developed and published 

the Forest Early Warning System for forest health threats in the 

United States, which describes for the first time in one place the 

nation’s system for identifying and responding to forest health 

threats, including Websites to obtain further information. I will 

provide a copy of the Early Warning System for the Committee’s 

record at this hearing as well. 

In conclusion, we have been hard at work implementing all of the 

titles of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and with these new 

authorities, we will exceed the target we set for fuels reduction this 

year, which is the highest target and highest accomplishment that 

the Federal Government has ever maintained in this area. 

Thank you very much. 

7

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey can be found in the appendix on page 50.] 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Mr. Rey. We appreciate 

your work. 

Mr. Calvert. 

STATEMENT OF CHAD CALVERT, DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY, LAND AND MINERALS MANAGEMENT, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you. 

First, I want to thank the Subcommittee for the hard work on 

the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and particularly you, Mr. 

Chairman, for your leadership in getting that act through the Congress. 

I will just elaborate on what Mr. Rey has said and maybe go 

through some of BLM’s particular accomplishments. With regard to 

training, following the issuance of the field guidance, the Department of the Interior put together a larger guidance document that 

is available on the Web to help field managers understand all of 

the tools that were contained not only in the Healthy Forest Restoration Act but the administrative tools from the Healthy Forest 

Initiative. 

We have had a series of satellite training seminars with all of 

the field managers; to date, more than 90 of the field managers 

have completed that training. We have also cooperated very closely 

with our Department’s contracting officers, who have held a series 

of outreach meetings that have included community participants, 

the BLM and the contracting officers to help them walk through 

the process for putting together successful stewardship contracts. 

In fact, we had three of those in Idaho this year: one in Idaho 

Falls, one in Post Falls and one in Grangeville. 

The Department is also working to propose a woody biomass utilization rule that will allow an option for service contractors to remove woody biomass as a part of service contracts, where it is ecologically appropriate, and in accordance with the NEPA documents 

and the law, of course. 

With regard to Healthy Forest Restoration Act projects, our 2005 

project list was approved this spring, and the BLM expects to use 

the tools in the Healthy Forest Restoration Act on approximately 

170 of those projects, covering around 90,000 acres. As an update 

on our 2004 fuels projects accomplishments, for the Bureau of Land 

Management, we have so far completed to date 306,000 acres of 

treatments in non-WUI, which is around 70 percent of our target 

for 2004 and have completed almost 150,000 acres in the WUI, 

which is approximately 83 percent of the target, and I am proud 

to let you know that the State of Idaho is leading for the BLM on 

fuels treatments and has accomplished over 75 percent of their 

2004 targets. 

I want to walk through a couple of the stewardship contracts, because that authority is something that the BLM really sees as 

being a key to the success of accomplishing fuels reduction. The 

BLM is prepared to let 37 contracts in 2004 and has plans to clear 

and let an additional 70 contracts for 2005. There has been a lot 

of interest. The BLM is working to set up workshops with the 

8

Intertribal Timber Council to help tribes understand how they can 

become involved, and they are preparing supplemental guidance to 

address a series of issues that have arisen, particularly how to use 

forage, cheatgrass, things of this nature in stewardship contracts, 

how to improve on community collaboration, how to coordinate best 

with the Service First offices in the Forest Service and how to establish interagency agreements with local governments and tribes. 

A couple of the examples of BLM stewardship contracts, particularly in Idaho, which are of note is the Whiskey South project, 

which unfortunately has currently been protested and appealed, 

but it is approximately a 1,000 acre project in Idaho and would 

allow for harvest of up to 8 million board-feet as a part of the service contract. I believe the stewardship contract would accomplish 

roughly $1 million in ecological restoration at the same time. This 

project actually would return some additional money to the program in Idaho for new projects. 

A couple of projects that are underway for the rest of the summer that have been approved is one in the shrublands, which is 

something that is a little more peculiar to the Bureau of Land 

Management than the Forest Service, but it is over 1,000 acres of 

mechanical treatment of juniper in the shrublands and will improve critical deer habitat among other things. 

In the Lemhi-Aspen Restoration Project, which is roughly 1,000 

acres over a couple of years for removing Douglas fir and juniper, 

and there, we have a really good partnership with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which is contributing some funds for that. 

In closing, the BLM, I just want to assure the Subcommittee, is 

deeply committed to an aggressive implementation of this act. We 

plan to work very closely with communities to develop community 

wildfire protection plans, and we think that’s another key to the 

success of this. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Calvert. We appreciate both you and Mr. Rey and the efforts of your agencies for 

the implementation of this legislation. 

Before we begin questions, we have been joined by Senator Baucus and Senator Lincoln, and I would afford each of you an opportunity for an opening statement if you would like to make one at 

this time. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BLANCHE LINCOLN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM ARKANSAS 

Senator LINCOLN. Thank you so much. Is this working? I have 

it on. Here, let me get a little bit closer. These are big chairs. 

A special thanks to Chairman Crapo, who has done just an incredible job. I am proud to be here working with him to discuss the 

implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which we 

both worked very, very hard on, and I can safely say not only was 

it something that I felt good about doing on behalf of Arkansans, 

but it was a delight to work with Senator Crapo. We came into the 

House together; we came into the Senate together, and he has been 

great to work with, and so, I thank you, Mr. Chairman for all of 

your hard work. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, I return those same thoughts. We actually 

not only came into the House together; we ended up sitting beside 

9

each other in our first Committee assignment, so we have had 

quite a history of working together. 

Senator LINCOLN. We have. It is a great friendship, and I am 

proud to be part of it. 

This was such an important piece of legislation that we have all 

worked closely on during the Congressional consideration, and I am 

also very proud to be here today to exercise our oversight responsibility and get an update on the progress of implementation. Followthrough for us is very, very important up here. Oftentimes within 

the Beltway, we get things done, and then unfortunately, we tend 

to lag in terms of review, and that is most important, and we are 

pleased that you are here to work with us from this panel and the 

other panels. 

Before I begin my very brief remarks, I also want to thank the 

panelists for your participation not only in today’s hearing but in 

both the bringing about of the new Act and also its implementation. I am particularly pleased that we have with us before the 

Subcommittee today Mr. Jim Crouch of Russellville, Arkansas. Mr. 

Crouch is a tremendous help to me and my staff on the forestry 

issues with many, many years of experience in the field and great 

people in Arkansas that he can call on for expertise as well. I consider him a good friend, and I look forward to his testimony and 

appreciate his work. 

I also want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Under Secretary Mark Rey. He has, on more than one occasion, taken the 

time to sit down with me and my constituents to answer some of 

our questions, listen to our views, visit with us, help us walk 

through many, many issues, and I very much appreciate his generosity of time and his knowledge. 

I look forward to his testimony and getting to read it. I am sorry 

I missed it, but working with him, too, to ensure that implementing this new law is done in a timely and effective manner. We 

appreciate that working relationship, Mark. 

Mr. REY. Thank you. 

Senator LINCOLN. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act takes the 

necessary steps, we believe, to ensure that we can address the 

many problems affecting all of our nation’s forests, both on public 

and private forest land. In southern and western forests and 

throughout both hardwood and pine ecosystems, this legislation 

was intended to correct the direction of forest legislation in our 

country. 

I was very proud to be joined in a bipartisan effort to ensure that 

the bill was passed and signed into law and look forward to in that 

same bipartisan effort being able to make sure it gets implemented 

with all of the good intents that we had. 

I believe that the important legislation focuses much-needed attention on a number of extremely critical goals for our National 

Forest policy. One lesson that we learned over the years is that if 

we value our forests, and if we want to conserve our woodland resources, if we want to preserve their natural beauty, and if we 

want to ensure that the natural bounty of our forest land is available to future generations, then, it is important that we manage 

those lands and resources with a careful eye toward their long-term 

health. 

10

Now, the rest of these gentlemen, after we finished voting at 11 

last night, probably went home and went to bed. I, however, went 

home and packed two trunks for two little boys who are going off 

to camp in the woods. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator LINCOLN. As you may well know, many of us look at 

these projects and look at this legislation as something that is vital 

not only to our nation but to some of the ways of life that many 

of us grew up with and something we want to continue for future 

generations. Having spent much of my time growing up in the forests of Arkansas with my father and with my family, it is critically 

important that we recognize that in order to maintain and to have 

that sustainability for future generations, we must manage our forests correctly. 

For my State of Arkansas, I am very proud the legislation incorporated language to provide the Forest Service with the tools necessary to immediately address the epidemic of oak decline and mortality in the Ozark Highlands of Arkansas and Missouri. Just as 

our Western forests are under constant threat from fire, our Eastern forests are under constant threat from insect and disease. 

We cannot let any more time pass without ensuring that the Forest Service can quickly mitigate the effects of insect and disease 

damage throughout our forests before it reaches disaster proportion. The time has now come to implement these tools so that our 

forests, our rural economies and our environment can reap the benefit that we intended when we passed this legislation through Congress and that future generations can continue to enjoy the wonderful heritage that we have in this great land. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for all of your hard work. I have a 

few questions for the panelists, and so, I appreciate very much your 

leadership on this issue. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, thank you very much, Senator Lincoln, and 

I, too, want to commend you for your hard work on this legislation. 

It was our joint bill that became part of the ultimate vehicle that 

got to the President’s desk, and I appreciated the opportunity to 

work with you, and it was that bipartisan effort that pushed this 

across the goal line. 

Senator Baucus. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MAX BAUCUS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

MONTANA 

Senator BAUCUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate especially your calling this hearing, because I believe that follow-up and accountability and oversight is so very important. I know you and others have worked very hard to make 

this happen. 

Mr. Chairman, I believe strongly in what the Healthy Forest bill 

was supposed to do. It was supposed to give the Forest Service better tools to address the build-up of hazardous fuels in our forests. 

It was supposed to help the Forest Service protect homes and communities from catastrophic wildfires. I am still confident that this 

is what we accomplished, but I am concerned that we are a very 

long way from accomplishing our goal. 

11

Where are we today in implementing the Healthy Forest bill? I 

am very interested in hearing how the witnesses address this, because I have had great difficulty in tracking down specific information on how the Act is being implemented. How many acres have 

been treated under the authority of the Healthy Forest Act and 

where? How much money has been spent to implement the Healthy 

Forest Act? Is implementation going smoothly, or is it not? 

I was quite surprised when I learned that the Forest Service is 

not tracking or does not have available data on whether fuels reduction projects are being done under the authority of the Healthy 

Forest Act or under other authorities like a categorical exclusion or 

stewardship contract. 

It is a bit difficult for me to sit here and have a conversation 

with our witnesses when the Forest Service does not even know 

where, when and how its people are using the agency’s new authority. I hope the witnesses prove me wrong, though, and can provide 

me with the specific data I am looking for. 

Last year, this bill was an imperative for the Forest Service, because we faced dangerous conditions in some areas of our National 

Forests due to population growth, drought, high fuel loads and 

other factors. The Forest Service told us they needed expedited authority to go in and thin areas suffering from insect infestation and 

disease, where fuel loadings were particularly higher near homes 

and watersheds. 

I and my colleagues agreed. We worked very hard working together on a bipartisan basis. We wanted to help the Forest Service 

protect our communities, protect our watersheds, reduce wildfire 

fighting costs and improve the overall health condition of our forests. We worked hard. We forged a compromise under the leadership of Senator Crapo and others to help make this happen. 

Yet while there has been a slight increase in the number of acres 

treated for fuels reduction in fiscal 2004 as compared with fiscal 

2003; that is in my State of Montana, the number of acres treated 

is still very low. The total number of acres treated so far this year 

in Montana is about 44,000. Of that 44,000, more than 30,000 were 

treated with prescribed fire, only about 12,000 treated mechanically through thinning or other treatments. That is for all nine National Forests in the State of Montana. 

In the Flathead, the scene of severe forest fires over the past few 

years, exactly zero acres were treated mechanically during this fiscal year, and only 250 acres were treated with prescribed burns. 

The Forest Service has the authority under the Healthy Forest bill 

to treat up to 20 million acres of high priority, at risk National Forest lands. $750 million new dollars were authorized to help pay for 

this. 

I am concerned about the progress and how the money is spent. 

I do understand there will be growing pains. Maybe I am missing 

something here, but this strikes me as part of a larger pattern of 

behavior at the Forest Service that has me very concerned. Given 

the urgency with which the Forest Service promoted Healthy Forest legislation last year, going so far as to tell us that even a 60–

day delay for appeals and public comment between approval of a 

project and implementation could spell disaster for threatened communities, I am quite surprised that the agency has not hit the 

12

ground at full speed and has thrown all of its considerable expertise at aggressively using the Act to protect such threatened communities. 

Let me quote from a letter I received on June 15 of this year 

from a small mill timber task force member in the State of Montana. Quote, it has been over 1 year since our small mill task force 

met with you—that is, me—in Billings to discuss our needs for a 

sustainable Forest Service timber sale program in order for our 

businesses to survive. Now, one year later, we feel is an appropriate time to provide an update as to the status of our task force 

efforts to secure this necessary timber volume. 

As the volume report shows, the results to date have been extremely disappointing. Not only has industry worked with the Forest Service to help secure additional funding and political support 

for their timber sale program, but the agency was also provided 

with a whole new toolbox full of new tools with which to work in 

December 2003 with the passage of the Healthy Forest Restoration 

Act. 

It is not a good indication of progress that we are two-thirds of 

the way through fiscal 2004, and the Forest Service has sold only 

17 percent of their target sales volume; the availability of Forest 

Service saw log volume to support the eight remaining independent 

sawmills in Montana is less today than 1 year ago. 

Mr. Chairman, I have a long statement here. There are many 

more pages, and I am not going to give it all, but I will summarize 

by saying that I am disappointed based upon what I know thusfar. 

I do not think the Forest Service has done a very good job. There 

is something wrong up there. I do not know what it is, whether it 

is management, whether it is dollars or whether it is lack of mission, guidance. 

I do not know what it is, but they are not getting the job done 

that we all thought was going to get done, and I would just like 

to, as I said, find out why and what we can do about it, because 

after all, these are taxpayers’ dollars we are talking about here. 

These are people in our States who are really very concerned about 

fires and the need for Healthy Forest legislation to pass, and it is 

up to all of us to make sure that what did pass is what people expected to pass and the results are what people expected. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you, Senator Baucus. 

Senator Talent. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES TALENT, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

MISSOURI 

Senator TALENT. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate the hearing being held. Just very briefly, we have 

14 million acres of forest land in Missouri, most in the Mark 

Twain. The red oak borer is a major problem. Ms. Lincoln probably 

referred to it in her statement, and I was very pleased that Title 

IV of the legislation allows accelerated plans in dealing with these 

kinds of pests, and I am interested in knowing what we are doing 

to use that as expeditiously as possible. 

13

I have another hearing in Armed Services, and Senator Danforth’s nomination is coming up on the floor, so I am not going to 

be able to stay. 

Senator CRAPO. As a matter of fact, I suspect that the panelists 

would—let me just say, I am going to guess that there will be questions that you will get from us following the hearing as well, and 

we would like to ask all of the panelists to be prepared to respond 

to any questions that we may send you other than those that we 

discuss with you here during the hearing. 

We will proceed to the questions now at this point, and as I am 

sure is the case with all of the Senators here, I have a number of 

questions myself. We will go through a number of 5 minute rounds 

until we get them all taken care of. 

Mr. Rey, I first have a question that actually does not deal directly with the Healthy Forest Act, but there are some issues that 

are particularly pressing right now as we approach fire season or 

are actually in fire season in many areas, and that is that I understand that with respect to forest fires, the Forest Service’s initial 

attack success this year has even exceeded last year’s. 

Given the current situation with the heavy tankers, that surprises me. Can you explain the situation? 

Mr. REY. As we stood down the heavy tanker fleet for safety reasons following the report of the National Transportation Safety 

Board, we immediately moved to reconfigure our aviation fleet to 

replace the lost capacity from the heavy tankers, and we have completed that reconfiguration with the addition of 139 different aircraft: heavy helicopters, medium and light lift helicopters as well 

as a larger component of single-engine tankers. 

The objective of the reconfiguration of the fleet was to continue 

to match the success we have had at initial attack at extinguishing 

fires at initial attack. So far, in Forest Service Region III, which 

is Arizona and New Mexico, where the fire season is at its peak 

right now, so far this year, our initial attack success exceeds our 

initial attack success year-to-date last year in Arizona and New 

Mexico. 

We feel very good about what we have been able to achieve 

through replacement aircraft. At the same time, as the contractors 

of the heavy tankers have indicated that they felt that the National 

Transportation Safety Board study unfairly impugned the safety of 

their aircraft, we have offered them the opportunity, working with 

the Federal Aviation Administration, to see if we can certify their 

aircraft as airworthy. That effort is underway with the FAA, and 

we will move to complete that hopefully early next month, and if 

some of the heavy tankers can be certified as airworthy, we will 

put them back into service, because they are a more cost-effective 

asset, and then, we will stand down some of the replacement aircraft that we have contracted for to use otherwise. 

Either way, we feel confident that we will maintain a 98 plus 

percent rate of success on extinguishing fires on initial attack. 

Senator CRAPO. All right; thank you very much. I appreciate 

that. Now, I want to move to the Healthy Forest Act. Actually, this 

question can be answered by either or both of you, but in both of 

your testimony, you talked about your success to this point in 

meeting your targets and exceeding your targets. Could you corVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:13 Dec 01, 2004 Jkt 094732 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94732.TXT TOSHD PsN: TOSH
14

relate those numbers, the targets that you have set and your accomplishments to date and relate them to the authority in the act? 

What I am getting at is in the act, we authorized treatment of 

20 million acres. We did not specifically set a time limit on that. 

Theoretically, you could do 20 million acres in 1 year if you were 

successful, if I understand the way we drafted the act. How are we 

in terms of getting toward that 20 million acres? I ask that in the 

context of the fact that we have 190 million acres at risk. 

This act was really a first step. I almost consider it to be a pilot 

project to show how, if we can get these authorities in place and 

get successes on this 20 million acres, then, maybe we could expand these authorities to the other acreages. 

Could you relate to where we are on the 20 million acres in the 

context of your targets? 

Mr. REY. Sure. We will at year end distinguish between projects 

that were conducted under the authority of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and projects that were conducted under other administrative authorities or part of the Healthy Forest Initiative, and we 

will have to make that data split, because we have to account for 

what our progress is against that 20 million acres. 

Right now, I would say that the majority of acres treated to date 

have been acres treated under the authority of the Healthy Forest 

Initiative with relatively fewer projects under the Healthy Forest 

Restoration Act authorities. There will be HFRA projects complete 

by the end of this year. 

Our rate of progress has to be evaluated in a broader perspective. 

I have read popular media coverage around the passage of the 

Healthy Forest Restoration Act where people were saying good, 

Congress passed a law. There are not going to be any more forest 

fires. 

Well, we know that is not true. I have read other coverage that 

said good, Congress passed a law. Now, within a fairly short period 

of time, we will deal with the fuels treatment problem. Unfortunately, that is not true, either. We have 190 million acres at risk. 

This is a problem that has been developing for decades. We did not 

get into it overnight; we are not going to get out of it overnight. 

Of that 190 million acres, we believe that roughly 80 or 90 million represent priority treatments. They are areas that have to be 

treated to protect communities or to protect ecological values. Last 

year, in fiscal year 2003, we treated 2.6 million acres. That was the 

highest level ever to that time. That is more than double the 

amount of acres that were treated in 2000. 

In 3 years, we doubled the size of this program. This year, as I 

indicated earlier, at the end of the year, we will hit about 4 million 

acres total, almost doubling it again, and we will hit that level, 

slightly higher, in 2005, doubling it twice within a 4–year span. 

Unfortunately, we are probably going to have to double the size 

of the program again to get to an average program of 8 million 

acres a year, and when we get to that point, then, we will be at 

a level where within a decade, we will have this problem solved, 

but that is what it is going to take. 

It is not a problem that is going to be solved in one or 2 years; 

it is going to be a problem that is going to take 10 or 11 years to 

15

resolve, because if you are at 8 million acres a year, by 11 years 

out, you have 90 million acres worth of treatments completed. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you. 

My time has expired, but Mr. Calvert, if you want to respond. 

Mr. CALVERT. I would just elaborate briefly on that to help understand the time line. As you know, our project lists that we put 

together for fuels reduction are developed with the State foresters 

and communities and done pursuant the Strategic Implementation 

Plan of the National Fire Plan. The 2004 project list was developed 

and approved in the spring of 2003. 

NEPA work was either underway or completed by December 

2003 for those projects, so the majority of the 2004 project list was 

already underway for its environmental planning when the 

Healthy Forest Restoration Act was passed. We are looking forward 

to using the Healthy Forest Restoration Act NEPA tools in our 

2005 project list, and that is at least for the Bureau of Land Management, we plan to use that for about 170 of the projects for the 

next fiscal year. 

We will just leave it at that. 

Senator CRAPO. All right; thank you very much. 

I did not see which of the two of you came in first. Senator Lincoln, you are next. 

Senator LINCOLN. Thank you. Everybody knows, chivalry is not 

dead in the U.S. Senate. 

Gentlemen, we have worked desperately on this bill and in theory feel that we have produced something that is a good tool. We 

know that a tool is not good unless it is something that can be used 

in the field that actually gets the results that we aim for. Obviously, that is why we are here today. 

Mr. Rey, you know from the work that we have done on the 

Healthy Forest Act as well as your recent trips to Arkansas where 

my concerns have always centered, and that is around the insect 

damage that is devastating the forests in Arkansas. I guess my 

question is what are the tools here that we have given you that you 

feel like have made a measurable difference in helping you or helping the forest managers begin the process of dealing with this infestation? What are the best tools, what are the ones that exist 

that are not as productive as we had hoped, and why? Why are 

they not? Is it resources? What is our problem there? 

Mr. REY. Well, I do not think that any of the tools that you have 

provided are unproductive. There is nothing in our experience in 

the first 6 months of implementation so far that we are prepared 

to come back to you and ask you to change. 

With regard to the work that we need to do on the Ozark-St. 

Francis and on the Ouachita National Forests and on national forests throughout the south to deal with insect and disease infestations, the two most useful tools that we found and utilized are the 

Title IV Accelerated Research Projects, two of which we announced 

2 weeks ago in Little Rock and also the Stewardship Contracting 

Authority, which we also announced in Little Rock, a stewardship 

contract that we are doing with the Nature Conservancy on the Arkansas National Forests. 

For insects and disease specifically, those two tools are going to 

prove the most useful. I imagine as we get further along, we are 

16

going to find that we will do some work related to insects and diseases using the Title I authority. Outside of the Healthy Forest 

Restoration Act but as part of the Healthy Forest Initiative, we 

have done a lot of insect disease and sanitation work using the categorical exclusions that we developed a year ago this past May. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, definitely, we felt like the categorical exclusions and exemptions would be helpful in accelerating some of 

the things that we wanted to see happen. 

I guess my question, and again, my attitude in what we do here 

is that legislation is not a work of art; it is a work in progress, and 

that is why it is so important for us to have these types of hearings 

to understand better what we have given you in terms of tools and 

what works and what does not. 

Some of the concerns that we have had is the ASQ that we have 

as well in our forests and why we are not meeting those ASQs. 

Mr. REY. The ASQ stands for allowable sales quantity, which is 

a measure of how much commercial timber that a forest can 

produce while still meeting other land management objectives. I 

would say that there are a number of reasons why some forests are 

falling short of their allowable sale quantity. Probably the most significant is just the time and effort it takes to produce a commercial 

timber sale. Senator Baucus noted that so far, the National Forests 

in Montana have met only 17 percent of their timber sale target 

this year. 

That is a little bit deceiving, because typically, the majority of 

our commercial timber sale offerings are produced in the last quarter of the fiscal year, so I do not know that they will get to 100 

percent, but I know they are going to be a lot higher than 17 percent——

Senator LINCOLN. Why is that? 

Mr. REY [continuing]. At year’s end. 

Simply because it takes that much time to get the paperwork 

done to produce the sale and to put it through the public comment 

period and the appeals process, and usually, we end up bunched up 

at the end of the year. We are trying to level that a bit, because 

a lot of our timber purchasers would like to have a more even flow 

of timber during the course of the year, and that is one of the objectives. 

That is, however, I would clarify a somewhat different program 

than the Healthy Forest program. There is some measure of commercial timber coming off the land as a result of these fuels treatment projects, but the allowable sale quantity and the commercial 

timber sale program are supposed to be and are measured separately. I would say we are doing better on our fuels treatment work 

right now proportionately than we are on the commercial timber 

sales program. 

Senator LINCOLN. I guess my question is is does one take away 

from the other? Certainly, we can do both of these activities at the 

same time through the Forest Service and that’s what we have 

seen with the allowable sale quantity in Arkansas is that in previous years, we have met some of those ASQs, and for this year 

and I guess last year, we have not been able to meet those. 

Our objective is to be able to do all of the tasks that we have 

in different agencies, and we want to make sure and we want to 

17

know that if one is distracting from the other, that is an important 

thing for us to know and to figure out how we remedy. 

Mr. REY. It is not supposed to. 

Senator LINCOLN. Right. 

Mr. REY. One is not supposed to substitute for or distract from 

the other. One of our challenges at year-end will be to look back 

across this year, the first year with the Healthy Forest Restoration 

Act and the first full year with the Healthy Forest Initiative tools 

and evaluate whether in fact there was a diversion of effort from 

one program to the other, and if there is, then, we will have to take 

steps to avoid that. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, the hope is that they would complement 

one another, and if we can implement them in that way, we hope 

that that will happen. 

Mr. Chairman, I have other questions, but I will submit them. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator CRAPO. We will also have additional rounds. We will try 

to stick to 5 minutes each round, but we will do as many rounds 

as we can do. 

Senator BAUCUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I am speaking more out of a sense of constructive 

comments, because we all want the Forest Service to do a good job. 

We have a special sympathy and almost reverence for the Forest 

Service in my State because, after all, we have so much National 

Forest Service land in Montana, and Region I is headquartered in 

Missoula, Montana. I have known many Forest Service personnel, 

some retired, who are just wonderful people. They care about their 

jobs and care about the land and have done just an absolutely terrific job. 

I have to be honest in saying over the years, I just do not sense 

the same kind of caliber and focus on mission. A few years ago, I 

walked around the Forest Service, just went to the Region I headquarters just to find out what I could. I found a very low morale, 

a very low morale because there is no—they did not know what 

their mission was. It was just changing all the time. They just did 

not know what they were supposed to be doing. 

Now, that may have changed a bit now; I do not know. That admittedly was several years ago. Hopefully, that has changed. Over 

the years, I have just had a devil of a time with the Forest Service 

trying to get them to do something. It is like a huge bureaucracy, 

like punching a mattress; thud, nothing happens. I have been doing 

this for years and years and years. 

I said I was not going to complete my statement; I am not going 

to ask any questions, so I am going to complete my statement in 

the time I have allotted just to give you a sense of some of the 

problems that we have encountered with a view toward trying to 

solve them. These are not helpful, that is, these problems. I hope 

people are going to be helpful, but it is certainly not helping a lot 

of people. 

For example, I recently learned that the Forest Service is spending a considerable amount of time and money to reorganize. This 

reorganization, I have learned, will result in the loss of more than 

30 jobs at the Forest Service office in Libby, Montana alone, and 

those are good, high-paid jobs, but they will be gone. The Forest 

18

Service is spending a lot of time and energy reorganizing, which 

leads one to conclude, well, why are they not spending time and energy doing their job, their mission, whether it is categorical exclusions or whether it is Healthy Forest Act or whatever it might be. 

These jobs eventually would move to yet to be determined call 

centers or service centers in some centralized location. This has not 

been noted in the public. This is something that we just found out, 

and the county commissioners let us know. It is something the Forest Service has not broadcast very much at all. Seemingly, it is a 

little embarrassed about it. 

I personally cannot see how gutting field offices, that is, people 

on the ground working with folks in the timber industry and the 

conservation community, that is, people on the front lines of managing our forest is going to improve customer service. I do not see 

the point of a call center. Who knows where? Bangladesh? I do not 

know where the call center is going to be. It does not seem to make 

a lot of sense. 

I just don’t see any cost-benefit analysis on this or any evaluation of how such reorganization is going to really enhance the agency’s mission to help people on the ground. 

Then, we have, as has been referred to, the Forest Service’s recent decision to ground an entire heavy air tanker fleet, including 

Neptune in Missoula, Montana, in response to the NTSB’s recommendation issued at the end of April of this year. I must say 

that even though NTSB’s safety recommendation was directed at 

the entire firefighting fleet, entire fleet, all planes in the Forest 

Service to ensure safety, the Forest Service determined that it 

should just ground air tankers, one segment, not all, just one segment, air tankers, including responsible operators with no safety 

blemishes on their record, like Neptune, in Missoula, Montana. 

Moreover, this decision was made after the fire season had already started and after operators like Neptune had already invested millions to prepare and after Neptune, for example, had 

purchased two new planes last fall at the request of the Forest 

Service. 

I understand the NTSB’s report was issued at the end of April. 

The NTSB informs me that they were in constant contact with the 

Forest Service during preparation of their report and the recommendation, constant contact over the last 2 years with the Forest Service. The Forest Service knew what was coming, and that 

the Forest Service was very aware of what kind of recommendation 

the NTSB was going to make. 

I agree 100 percent that the safety of pilots, crews and people on 

the ground should be our No. 1 concern. That is clear. I am also 

concerned about the abrupt nature of this decision and the unprofessional and shabby way that good, responsible operators like Neptune that have served Montana and the Nation over the years have 

been treated. 

Neither Neptune nor the type of plane that Neptune operates 

were the subject of the NTSB investigation that led to the NTSB 

safety recommendation on April 23. I ask, would it have been so 

difficult to evaluate the safety and airworthiness of air tankers like 

Neptune prior to the canceling of their contracts rather than more 

than a month later, as these companies ran out of operating capital 

19

and were faced with laying off their employees and closing their 

doors? 

Neptune provides nearly 100 good-paying jobs in Missoula. To 

date, I have not received an adequate response or explanation from 

the Forest Service outlining their decision. I have spent a lot of 

time on this, as you well know. I have talked to you one or two 

times. I have talked to the chief. I have talked to lots of people 

about this, trying to straighten this out. So far, I have received virtually no response of any value. 

I am going to hand-deliver a letter to Chief Bosworth in about 

15 minutes this morning with my unanswered questions clearly 

listed, and I hope that this time, we finally can get some answers. 

The Forest Service also will spend upwards of $40 million this 

year in an attempt to replace the capacity and function of the 

heavy air tanker fleet. Now, you have mentioned—you were referring to tankers; you did not mention how much more costly that 

is going to be. It is my understanding, is it about $40 million that 

it is going to cost. That is the transfer. 

I am asking where is the money going to come from? I have been 

told that because the air tanker fleet is grounded, in addition, helicopter logging operations are stranded for lack of helicopters. There 

are several folks in Montana who have decked out their timber, but 

they cannot get helicopters now, and their concern is because of 

this. 

In addition, I might point out that I have recently come across 

a June 2, 2004, General Accounting Office report that outlines the 

damage being done to the Forest Service programs by the repeated 

practice of borrowing from other accounts to pay for fire suppression costs and then failing to adequately reimburse those programs, 

even though money is returned to the agency by the Congress. 

Every time we in Congress attempt to assist the agency with a 

long-term solution, our efforts are shot down by officials at OMB 

or others in the Forest Service, and this practice of borrowing from 

other accounts to pay for fire suppression has had a direct impact 

on my State, resulting in delayed and canceled contracts, deferred 

post-fire rehabilitation and generally undermining core Forest 

Service programs. 

For example, the June 2 GAO report specifically referred to an 

example in the Bitterroot National Forest in my State, where $1.2 

million needed to stabilize a road was transferred to pay for fire 

costs. OK; there was a fire. Two years later, the project received 

only $430,000, less than half of what it had originally been allocated, even though Congress had reimbursed the Forest Service for 

at least 80 percent of its additional expenditures to fight fires. 

The road is still collapsing. Sediment continues to run into a 

nearby stream, degrading fish habitat. 

Finally, I have been pushing the Forest Service for years to reinstate a categorical exclusion for small timber sales that have a negligible environmental impact. The Service finally issued several 

new categorical exclusions for various purposes, including small 

timber sales of different types last year. I have recently been informed that the Forest Service has completed precisely one project 

in Region I in this fiscal year using this categorical exclusion, only 

20

one. That is totally unacceptable. This useful Forest Service tool is 

rusting in the agency’s tool kit along with many others. 

I hope you are seeing the same pattern here that I am; that is, 

the cumulative impacts of many actions and decisions by the Forest 

Service that are having a direct negative effect on the economy and 

health of my State, and I would guess it is probably occurring in 

other States, and frankly, I have about had it. 

I want to believe in the Forest Service. My default view is they 

are a good agency. They are a good resource agency. I have to tell 

you, Mr. Secretary, that I have also got to look at the facts, look 

at the evidence, and over time, I see bureaucratic lethargy. I see 

a sclerosis in the Forest Service. I don’t see them performing their 

job. I see a lot of obfuscation. I see a lot of double talk. 

I don’t get direct straight talk and answers. I have had it, frankly, I have had it. I am not one to let things go by the wayside. We 

are going to do something about this, and the far better way to do 

something about this is for the agency to shape up and do what it 

is supposed to be doing. 

I am sure that you have some answers to some of the points I 

have made, but I am also sure that those are only partial answers. 

They are not answers that are going to get to the core of the problem. For example, you mentioned just recently how well you are 

doing on the attack response—I forgot what the phrase is—but the 

fact is that that is not a very fair statement. It is a misleading 

statement. Why? Because most of the fires last year in the area of 

the country that you talked about were man-made. There are virtually no man-made fires so far this year. Anyway, I have that 

straight. 

The number of man-made fires is way down this year, which 

means that the severity of fires is lower, and so, you are comparing 

apples with oranges when you are trying to compare your initial 

attack success this year with prior years. It is just not a fair comparison. 

I am not here to create an argument. I know you have your 

points, and I deeply regret; this is very unfair that I have to go talk 

to the chief now, so I cannot stay here and answer all of your questions, but I hope you get the import and the tone of what I am trying to say, which is constructive. 

I am not trying to badger you for the sake of badgering. I am trying to ask tough questions for the sake of getting good results for 

the people of our State and our country. 

Mr. REY. I will spit out as many answers as I can before you 

have to leave. 

Senator BAUCUS. Well, we can always have another meeting. I 

invite you to come to my office. 

Mr. REY. OK; let us do that. 

Senator BAUCUS. After the recess and with straight answers, not 

a bunch of stuff. 

Mr. REY. Let us do that. 

Let me just start with morale, because what I would invite you 

to do is to walk through the Region I office in Missoula today, because you are going to find a lot more motivated and a lot more 

excited people——

21

Senator BAUCUS. I will do that. I will be in Missoula this next 

week, and I will do that. 

Mr. REY [continuing]. Led by a brand new regional forester who 

is one of our most talented people. 

In late January, all of our forest supervisors met to talk about 

the implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and the 

charge I left with them was the success in implementing this act 

is what is going to measure their success during their professional 

tenure. They are going to be judged on the basis of how well they 

do in implementing this act. 

After I left, all 153 or so of the forest supervisors signed a pledge 

to meet or exceed their fuels reduction targets, which is the path 

that they are on this year. We are at roughly 90 percent achievement so far this fiscal year with a quarter left. With regard to reorganization, the principal reorganization effort we have underway is 

to reorganize our financial systems to bring them up to 21st Century financial systems so that we can continue to achieve clean audits. 

We have had two clean audits, the first two in the Forest Service’s history each of the last two fiscal years. Consolidating that financial accounting function will save the agency about $50 million 

a year, money that can then be used for on the ground work. 

Senator BAUCUS. This is not a good way to run a railroad, Mr. 

Secretary. I do apologize. I do not think you want me to keep your 

boss waiting. 

Mr. REY. OK. 

Senator BAUCUS. I was supposed to meet with him 20 minutes 

ago, and he has to leave at 11. You want me to go meet with your 

boss. That is my guess. If that is incorrect, I would like for you to 

tell me. 

Mr. REY. Well, the only thing that is inaccurate is that I am actually his boss but——

[Laughter.] 

Mr. REY [continuing]. I would prefer——

Senator BAUCUS. Well, that is all right. You are right. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. REY. I would prefer that you meet with the Chief, and he can 

continue to respond. 

Senator BAUCUS. Do you want me to meet with the Chief? 

Mr. REY. Yes. 

Senator BAUCUS. Thank you. I apologize. 

Mr. REY. We will talk again. 

Senator BAUCUS. I do apologize. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much. 

We have been joined now by our Chairman, Chairman Cochran. 

Senator would you like to make an opening statement? 

STATEMENT OF HON. THAD COCHRAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

MISSISSIPPI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

Senator CHAFEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I appreciate your 

conducting the hearing. The Subcommittee is very interested to 

find out how we are succeeding and moving toward implementation 

of the Healthy Forest Initiative. We appreciate the leadership SecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:13 Dec 01, 2004 Jkt 094732 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94732.TXT TOSHD PsN: TOSH
22

retary Rey has shown and others in the administration, Secretary 

Veneman as well. We thank you for your hard work and your efforts to help make sure this legislation turns out to be successful 

in practice, as it is in theory. 

We look forward to working with you and trying also to help 

make sure that we get the funds appropriated so that you can 

carry out the responsibilities under this act to the fullest extent 

possible. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The Chairman points out a very important point, and there is a 

lot of concern about the shifting around of funds in the budget and 

so forth, but that a big part of the responsibility there lays right 

here in Congress with the way that we have been forcing the agency to deal with these funding shortfalls in fighting fires as well as 

with OMB and some of the other more global budgeting issues that 

we have here in Washington, and we need to pay attention to that 

as well. 

Senator Cochran, would you like to ask questions at this point? 

Senator CHAFEE. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement that I would 

like to have printed in the record, and it touches on some of the 

issues that we need to address, but I know you have other panels 

of witnesses, and I do not want to unnecessarily delay them, since 

one of them is from my State. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, I have a few more questions of this panel. 

Let me just go back to a couple of my questions, and I will keep 

them brief. 

I actually have a bunch of questions, and I will just ask a few 

of them and then submit the others and see if you can respond to 

those in writing after the hearing. 

One of the questions that I had followed up on my first series 

of questions. My first series, if you will recall, talked about the targets and the 20 million acres and where we are in that whole process. Then, Senator Lincoln, in her questioning, started getting into 

the area of commercial timber activity as well, and we realize that 

the Healthy Forest Act was focused on fuels treatment and on not 

on the commercial side of things but on the fuels treatment side 

of things, if I got the terminology correct there. 

The question I have there is whether—well, I am referring to a 

portion of your testimony, Mr. Rey, toward the end where you talk 

about the fact that although we recognize that the Healthy Forest 

Initiative and the Healthy Forest Restoration authorities are helping to restore the forests and the ecosystems, we also need to recognize that much of the woody material removed is below merchantable size and is expensive to treat, and we need to get the public’s 

understanding that it is OK to do mechanical treatment that removes merchantable trees. 

It is my understanding that we can remove fuels commercially—

in commercial activity, we can engage in management activities 

that in and of themselves are going to be helpful in terms of maintaining healthy forests and dealing with the companion objectives 

of fuels treatment and the like. Could you address that? 

Mr. REY. Sure. The way we have tried to express this initiative 

and its relationship to the production of commercial materials is 

23

the objective of the Healthy Forest Initiative and Healthy Forest 

Restoration products go to the kinds of forests we want to leave behind, so that we leave behind a healthy, resilient, fire-resistant forest where fire can play a natural role. 

That is the primary objective. Now, in achieving that objective, 

some of the material that we are going to remove is going to be 

noncommercial; in fact, much of it, perhaps most of it is going to 

be noncommercial. Some of it is going to have commercial value. 

There are going to be big enough trees so that they could be put 

to some commercial use. It is our view as well that those uses 

ought to be achieved. 

The wood ought to be used for commercial purposes, because the 

alternative is to waste it, which is the antithesis of conservation. 

The Healthy Forest Initiative will produce some amount of commercial material. It is not the primary objective of the initiative, 

but it is a result of the initiative, and that material will hopefully 

be put to good use in the form of sawn lumber or other wood products. 

Senator CRAPO. I want to get into that in a minute, but the reverse is also true, is it not, that when we have purely commercial 

sales, those sales can be done in a way that will achieve the objectives of forest management and fuels reduction and protection 

against forest fire. 

Mr. REY. Sure, and the design of commercial sales is such that 

we try to make sure that we do not increase fire risk or diminish 

the sustainability or the health of the forest. 

Senator CRAPO. All right; like I say, I have a bunch of issues that 

I want to go through with you, but I am just going to talk about 

two more, and then, we will move on. The first one is that the way 

that the Act was written really focuses on public involvement. I 

just want to ask each of you first of all to recommit—to commit 

your understanding of that fact and the importance of engaging in 

the collaborative process that we contemplated in the Act and then 

maybe to indicate how you intend to make sure that we accomplish 

that objective of the Act. 

Mr. CALVERT. Well at least for the Bureau of Land Management, 

the Forest Service had some experience with stewardship contracting. The BLM has recognized that there is a lack of uniform 

guidance among the field offices of how they should reach out to 

communities and involve communities in not only community protection plans but in a whole array of fuels reduction activities occurring on Federal lands outside of their WUIs. 

The BLM is preparing some additional guidance that should be 

ready for review this summer, and we are engaged in a process of 

talking with field offices, trying to figure out what best practices 

are, looking for some models of successful collaboration. The agency 

is also reaching out to the tribes pretty aggressively and trying to 

work out a way to engage in interagency agreements with them to 

carry out fuels reduction projects. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you, Mr. Calvert. 

Mr. REY. The thrust of what the Healthy Forest Restoration Act 

does is to set forth procedures that involve the public earlier in our 

decision-making processes in a way that encourages open dialog 

24

and collaboration as opposed to what had become more commonly 

a later more adversarial process. 

Consequently, as we are designing these projects, our field officers are working with people a lot earlier and working with them 

through the development of the process. The changed appeals regulations that apply to Healthy Forest Restoration Act projects frontload the public involvement that is associated with the projects as 

well, and then, last, there are provisions in the bill for collaborative 

monitoring or third-party monitoring by individuals who want to 

oversee how the effects of some of these projects play out on the 

ground, and we have started to develop some of those monitoring 

programs as well. 

As Mr. Calvert indicated, the stewardship contracting process by 

its nature brings other people into the decisionmaking process because the contractors with whom we are contracting are in many 

cases not for profit organizations like the Nature Conservancy and 

other groups who have come forward to work with us in developing 

these stewardship contracts. 

Senator CRAPO. All right; thank you. 

Actually, I do have two more questions, not just one more. The 

first one is more of just a quick one. It can be a real quick response, and that is I have been advised from the Forest Service supervisors and regional foresters that my office has been in contact 

with that they are very pleased with the Healthy Forest Act authority, and one of the real bright spots is the potential to get past 

the litigation, which you will recall was one of the big debate points 

as we debated the Act. 

Have we seen that playing out? Are we able to see already results there of the streamlining that we were seeking to achieve? 

Mr. REY. Yes, but I do not think we have enough data to quantify that for you. 

There are examples throughout the system where we have 

worked with local environmental groups to design projects using 

the procedures under this Act where the projects might otherwise 

have been appealed and litigated and were not appealed and litigated. I have numerous examples anecdotally from our forest supervisors and regional foresters. 

As we get a little further into this and we compile statistics on 

appeals and litigation and compare these projects to other agency 

projects, we will have a better sense of what the quantitative difference is, but qualitatively there has been a difference in the dialog and somewhat less litigation and appeals on these projects. 

I would also note that our Department of Justice and Office of 

General Counsel are on a winning streak right now, and they have 

won a fair number of lawsuits, and maybe that is having some effect as well. 

Senator CRAPO. Good. 

Then, last question here is you have provided—I cannot remember which one of you provided this. 

Mr. REY. That would be from us. 

Senator CRAPO. The Forest Service. These are some of the products that are coming off of the thinning that we are doing for our 

fuels management, and they are very creative products. I will share 

those with our Chairman to look at as well. I could have brought 

25

some from my office–if I had known you were bringing some–that 

some folks in Idaho have shown me that they are making. 

This is a very important part of what we are talking about here, 

because as we try to make the commercial aspect of the thinning 

viable, as we try to develop these different approaches to what we 

do with the biomass once we go in and thin the forests, it is very 

critical to make sure that these kinds of products or whatever else 

can come out of it are utilized and that industries can develop 

around them. 

Frankly, the experience that we have seen so far with the Idaho 

companies that have been trying to do this has been frustrating, 

primarily because it is difficult, often—in a lot of these cases, the 

products are designed for reuse in the forest or for use in some 

other aspect of Federal contracting, and we do not seem—I know 

there is an Executive Order on this, but we do not seem to be able 

to get the Federal contracting authorities focused on changing their 

rules or procedures or whatever it is to start utilizing these types 

of products, and I would just like to ask both of you to talk about 

whether you understand this issue and what we can do to get past 

this point. 

We have companies that are willing to do some really creative 

things with these products, with this material, this biomass material, but once they do it, they just cannot seem to get broken 

through into the Federal contracting system for that part of the 

issue. 

Mr. REY. That is a problem that the Congress addressed in the 

2002 Farm bill legislation with a responsibility that was assigned 

to the Department of Agriculture to develop a Government-wide set 

of bio-based procurement regulations. Those regulations are either 

out for public comment now or soon to be out for public comment, 

and that will be a fairly long and complicated rulemaking, because 

every agency will have its own views, every Department will have 

its own views about what we are suggesting by way of procedures 

for bio-based procurement. 

I am not personally involved in that effort, but if you want, I can 

ask Keith Collins, the Department’s chief economist, who is actually leading the Department’s rule writing team, to contact your office and give you a more detailed briefing on where they are with 

the regulations. It is a problem, one that the Congress identified, 

one that we are responding to. 

Senator CRAPO. I would appreciate that, if you would have him 

contact my office, because first, there was an Executive Order on 

this, and then, you are right: you reminded me that we put it into 

law in the Farm bill, and I still do not see it happening. I hope that 

those that are working on those regs will put somewhere in those 

regs in bold that we really mean it and that we intend to see this 

approach work. 

Anyway, I appreciate that, and I would appreciate your passing 

that message along to them. 

Last comment, and then, we will excuse this panel: Mr. Rey, I 

know that as a result of the timing and Senator Baucus having to 

leave, you were unable to respond, as I am sure you would have 

liked to have had the opportunity to do so. I know that you will 

have an opportunity to meet with Senator Baucus personally, but 

26

if you would like to prepare a response to any of the issues that 

he raised and have that be made a part of the record, I would be 

glad to allow that to be put into the record. 

Mr. REY. That would be fine, or I will just meet with the Senator 

separately. 

The only thing I wanted to clarify on initial attack suppression 

numbers, I was using all fires, and I do not think there is a distinction between man-caused or naturally caused fires, but in the two 

States that are in the peak of the fire season right now, the fact 

is we are having more ignitions this year, and we are having more 

success on initial attack than we did last year. 

Senator CRAPO. All right; thank you very much, and I would like 

to thank both of you for your time and attention to these issues 

and frankly for your work in helping this Act be effective. 

Mr. REY. Thank you. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much. 

Senator CRAPO. We will excuse our first panel, and we will move 

now to our second panel. While our second panel is coming forward, 

I will introduce them. Our second panel is made up of Mr. James 

L. Sledge, our state forester from the Mississippi Forestry Commission, representing the National Association of State Foresters; also, 

the Hon. Robert Cope, Commissioner for Lemhi County in Idaho, 

representing the National Association of Counties; and Carol Daly, 

President of the Communities Committee of the Seventh American 

Forest Congress. She is from Montana, representing the Society of 

American Foresters and the Communities Committee. 

I would like to remind our witnesses to try to pay attention to 

that little clock right there, because we tend to get way out of time 

if we do not do that, and we will start out in the order that I introduced you. Mr. Sledge, you may begin. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES L. SLEDGE, JR., STATE FORESTER,

MISSISSIPPI FORESTRY COMMISSION, JACKSON,

MISSISSIPPI, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 

OF STATE FORESTERS 

Mr. SLEDGE. Thank you very much. I will try to stay within the 

time. My only problem is I do not speak very fast, so it may seem 

like I have talked longer than I have. 

We appreciate the opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee, and I have to make one small side comment: among the 

people listed to testify today, there are three of us from Mississippi 

State University. 

Senator CRAPO. Duly noted. 

Mr. SLEDGE. State foresters manage and protect State and private forests which make up two thirds of the nation’s forests. The 

six titles of this Act will help improve forest health on all forest 

land ownership, and we appreciate your work to enact such important legislation. While the most obvious work to date has been devoted to implementing Title I, NASF has worked with our Forest 

Service partners to draft implementing guidelines for Watershed 

Forestry Assistance Act Title III. 

We urge Congress to fund this and other Healthy Forest Assistance Act in the 2005 appropriations bill. In my written statement, 

I briefly summarize the relationship the Healthy Forest Act to the 

27

10–year strategy for the National Forest Service Plan. We must ensure that the Act continues and retains the focus on improving forest health nationwide on all land ownerships. 

For Title I, NASF has recently worked with several partners, including a witness on our next panel, to develop guidance for preparing the Community Wildfire Protection Plans. The Western and 

Southern Governors Associations have also endorsed this effort. I 

would like to submit a copy of the guide that was developed for this 

for the record. 

Mr. SLEDGE. We designed the guide to help communities prepare 

plans authorized by the Act. Our goal is that it can be used by all 

communities facing wildfire risks regardless of their proximity to 

Federal lands. 

We are working with the communities in our State to identify 

and prioritize actions needed to reduce hazardous fuels and improve community safety. In my written testimony highlights some 

of the activities in Idaho and Minnesota as two examples of the 

work that is underway. As we implement fuel reduction activities 

under Title I, we will make important progress toward reducing 

fire risks for communities and the surrounding forest lands. 

With millions of acres at moderate to high risk of catastrophic 

fires, it will take many years to carry out the needed treatments, 

and because we are dealing with living ecosystems, that change 

with time will require follow-up treatments and ongoing forest 

management activities we will continue to be needing. 

In Mississippi this year, using the National Fire Plan, the Stevens Amendment, to treat 85,000 acres together with the State 

funds we already have applying to this, we should come close to 

our goal in Mississippi to prescribed-burn almost a half a million 

acres this year. 

Wildfire prevention is also essential. Without a strong focus on 

prevention, funds invested in suppression and preparedness will be 

less effective. Much of our prevention activity is devoted to the 

Firewise program, helping homeowners learn to make their properties more fire safe. We have one full-time and two part-time employees dedicated to Firewise in Mississippi, and we are able to 

focus on high hazard wildland urban interface areas. We are making a good progress in this effort. 

We also have an effort underway to prevent the spread of the 

southern pine beetle in Mississippi. Tree mortality is a major factor 

in increased fire risk. Much of the work is being accomplished with 

State funds. These funds are becoming harder and harder to maintain. Our situation is not unique. States across the Nation are not 

able to implement Federal programs without Federal funding. 

Title II through VI of the Healthy Forest will also help reduce 

hazardous fuel by providing needed tools for forest management. 

Over time, these programs will lead to improved forest health on 

all lands. 

The Watershed Forestry Assistance Program, Title III, focuses on 

improving forested woodland watersheds, and it will be of great 

value to us in the South. NASF has been working with the Forest 

Service to develop implementation guidelines for this program. 

I would like to remind you that two of the best tools to achieve 

the goals of the Healthy Forest Act were authorized in the 2002 

28

Farm bill. These include the Community and Private Lands Fire 

Assistance Program and Forest Land Donor Enhancement Program. These programs need to be funded, and the future is uncertain, but we certainly encourage your help in continuing the programs. 

We appreciate your support in the past, and we look forward to 

working with you to continue to ensure healthy forests in the nation. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sledge can be found in the appendix on page 60.] 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Mr. Sledge. 

Mr. Cope. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT COPE, COMMISSIONER, LEMHI

COUNTY, SALMON, IDAHO, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL 

ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES 

Mr. COPE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 

opportunity to come back here. It is always a privilege to visit our 

national capital and sauna. 

I officially represent the National Association of Counties here, 

but my area of expertise is central Idaho, so I will concentrate on 

that area. We in Lemhi County feel that we are head of the game 

and behind at the same time. We are ahead in that as you well 

know, the counties of Idaho began the process over a year ago of 

developing their own wildland fire mitigation plan. This that I have 

brought with me is Lemhi County’s. This was done collaboratively 

and entirely locally with no Federal or State dollars. We did this 

on our own because we felt that outside entities coming in would 

not have the integral knowledge that our own citizens did. 

There is a list almost a page long of cooperating agencies in local 

government, fire departments, fire marshals, the county commissioners, the two cities in the county, the BLM, the Forest Service. 

Everybody got together, and over a period of months, we sat down 

on a nightly basis once a month and talked things over, and this 

is what we came up with, and we feel that it is a good plan. We 

feel that we can make things work. 

Unfortunately, my county is 92 percent Federal land, and what 

we can recommend, even collaboratively working with the Federal 

agencies is not necessarily what will happen, as you well know. 

Senator Baucus alluded to the problems in Western Montana. We 

are very much a part of that same boat. We live too close to Missoula, and there are a couple of organizations there, one of which 

has publicly stated that their objective is to appeal any Forest 

Service project that involves timber harvest under any guise. 

Another group there has overtly said repeatedly that their mission is to put the Forest Service out of the timber business. We are 

too close to them. We are an obvious target. This comes up time 

after time. We have a community in northern Lemhi County that 

has been evacuated twice in the last 4 years. The Forest Service 

has proposed a fuel reduction project around that community. It 

has been appealed—I cannot remember if this is the second or 

third time. 

29

It is pretty patently obvious to those of us in Central Idaho that 

fuel reduction in that area is a good idea, but there are forces from 

outside the area who do not seem to buy into that. Somehow, as 

Mark Rey said, we have to educate the citizens who may not live 

close enough to the forest to understand the peril that we face that 

these are necessary things to do and that the simple fact of the 

matter is that there is not enough money in the Federal budget 

anywhere to do all the work that needs done on the 190 acres of 

Forest Service land. It will take private sector investment; it will 

take timber sales, and it will take timber harvest. 

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act and the Healthy Forest Initiative are excellent steps down the road toward recovery, but I 

spent enough years as a country veterinarian that I know that 

when you put enough critters in a pen and do not give them any 

water, they are going to get sick, and that is happening to our forests. We have too many trees. We have not enough water. The forests are dying. They are susceptible to disease. They are a biological organism, and they are susceptible to the same rules of health 

that animals are. 

We see pine beetles in Idaho reaching epizootic proportions because the trees are stressed. They are not disease-resistant, and 

yet, we are unable to go in and remove the trees that are sick or 

dead. We are unable to thin the trees to allow the resistance to 

that disease, most of which is done through appeals and through 

litigation. 

I believe there is also, as Senator Baucus said, probably a low 

morale within the Forest Service. That is probably true due to frustration on the parts of people who are resource oriented within the 

Forest Service who really want to do their job. There may also be 

frustration from other employees of the Forest Service who believe 

that their job is to act in a preservationist manner. 

I personally have seen a division within Forest Service employees 

between people who really feel that the people who are appealing 

these sales are correct, and it should be a part, and those who 

think that it should be a managed, well-functioning organization. 

The fact is, however, that it is our belief as county officials that the 

forest should be managed by foresters and not by a judicial system 

and preservationist groups as we feel is happening now. 

Every timber sale that has been proposed on the Salmon National Forest for 12 years has come under litigation and appeal. 

The result of which is we harvest almost nothing. Talking to Senator Crapo yesterday, I did discover that at the time that our sawmill was functioning, it would have required 15 to 20 million board 

feet a year to make its quota and to function as a good organization. 

That saw mill today is closed. It has, however, been replaced by 

a small-diameter mill, two post and pole plants, a house log construction firm and a couple of independent sawyers. None of them 

have the material they need. They would probably require, best estimate, probably 10 to 15 million board feet annually. 

By the 1987 National Forest plan for the Salmon Chalice, the allowable cut on that forest is 28 million board feet. We are lucky 

to make 100,000 a year. We are lucky right now in that we have 

the infrastructure to handle the product that needs to be removed 

30

from our National Forest, but all of the entities that I named are 

currently in financial difficulty because they are having to import 

their raw material from Canada and from Montana, from the State 

forests. 

Until the day comes that we can utilize the product that we have 

that we desperately need to remove, we are not going to get the 

job done. The Healthy Forest Restoration and Healthy Forest Initiative, as I say, are wonderful first steps, and they are definitely 

worthy of funding. They are not a panacea. They will take cooperation from all members of the community and from the local and 

State and Federal Governments. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cope can be found in the appendix on page 65.] 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Mr. Cope. 

Ms. Daly. 

STATEMENT OF CAROL DALY, PRESIDENT, COMMUNITIES 

COMMITTEE AND MEMBER, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN

FORESTERS, COLUMBIA FALLS, MONTANA 

Ms. DALY. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Chairman, I am here representing the Communities Committee and the Society of American 

Foresters, and thank you very much for the kind words that you 

said about the handbook on preparing community wildfire protection plans that we and our partners put together. 

The creation of the protection plan should bring together all concerned stakeholders to collaboratively identify areas at risk of wildfire and develop an action plan for reducing those risks. Some clear 

benefits of that are that existing scientific information as well as 

local indigenous knowledge can be brought to the table. All participants learn more about the forests around them, while urban residents, WUI residents, find out what they need to do with their 

homes and their properties to lessen the risk of loss to wildfire. 

The fuels treatment priorities for both Federal and non-Federal 

lands are set only after an open and inclusive community discussion of the options. The action strategy covers all land ownerships, 

public and private. Finally, a multi-party monitoring process 

should ensure that the effects of the plan’s implementation are 

carefully evaluated and needed improvements identified. 

Collaborative planning is the heart of the community wildfire 

protection planning process. Yet in this, as in other recent forestrelated legislation, mandates for collaboration are not backed up 

with appropriate financial and technical support. Many local governments, fire departments and State forestry agencies, the decisionmakers in the process, generally have little or no experience in 

collaborative processes. 

It therefore falls to community-based forestry groups and other 

non-governmental bodies to organize and facilitate the collaboration. Lacking Healthy Forest or other Federal support for that, we 

have to turn to private foundations and other sources for funding, 

and frankly, these days, they are not willing to give it. They see 

that as a Government responsibility, not as a private sector responsibility to implement a Government program. 

31

As critical as collaboration is to the success of Healthy Forests, 

it can no longer be left as an unfunded mandate. Without Federal 

seed money to help communities get started, community wildfire 

protection plans will not happen in many places. Dr. Cope’s was an 

exception. 

Without having community wildfire protection plans, many of the 

central features of healthy forests will not be used. We are really 

pleased to hear that the House has set aside $5 million in the 2005 

Interior approps bill to cost-share wildfire planning with communities and we urge the Senate to do likewise. 

We need to target particular attention to poorer or lower-capacity 

communities, those that lack adequate technical or financial resources. Otherwise, they face a double-barreled threat. They are 

more vulnerable to wildfire losses without a plan and a strategy 

that they are implementing, and should they have a severe wildfire, they have less capability to recover from it. 

Overreliance on the stewardship contracting mechanism to fund 

Healthy Forest projects should be avoided. While some hazardous 

fuels treatment activities will yield saleable products whose value 

can be captured to cover all or a part the reduction of hazardous 

materials, many will not. 

Until more or larger markets are created for what are now low 

or no-value products, adequate direct funding for HEFR projects is 

essential. The increase in hazardous fuels reduction contracting opportunities arising from Healthy Forests and the National Fire 

Plan has led new contractors to enter the field and many existing 

contractors to refocus their operations and invest in new equipment 

suited to this market niche. 

On public lands projects, the transition has not always gone 

smoothly. Cruising, bonding and contracting processes that may 

have worked well on conventional timber sales must be revisited in 

terms of Healthy Forests. Healthy Forests directs the Forest Service and BLM to establish a collaborative, multiparty monitoring 

process where significant interest is expressed. Monitoring can be 

an important factor in proving the value of Healthy Forests and allaying reservations about its intent and impact. 

The joint Forest Service-BLM interim field guide provides that 

multiparty monitoring will be subject to available funding and the 

ability of stakeholders to contribute funds or in-kind services. The 

Wild Land Fire Leadership Council’s proposed monitoring protocol 

goes even further and requires that stakeholders wishing to participate have, quote, appropriate skills and knowledge for monitoring 

and, quote, be willing to share costs. Such requirements could be 

used to limit or discourage multiparty participation, defeating the 

purpose of this important provision of Healthy Forests. 

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act is still very much a work in 

progress, as Senator Lincoln said earlier, and it will take leadership and commitment to make it a success. We urge that adequate 

time and support be given to allow for a full, fair exploration of its 

potential. 

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act is creating a comprehensive 

approach to addressing our forests across ownerships, within watersheds and ecosystems, and that is something that we will probably need to look at in addition, not just in fire-prone forests. 

32

Both the Communities Committee and the Society of American 

Foresters would be very happy to work with Congress, the Forest 

Service, BLM and any others to help the issues we have raised 

today. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Daly can be found in the appendix on page 82.] 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Ms. Daly. I want to give 

my thanks to the entire panel for really outstanding testimony. 

If Senator Cochran, if you would like to go first, I would be glad 

to defer to you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

I am pleased to join you in welcoming this distinguished panel 

of witnesses before our Committee. They represent those who are 

qualified and well-educated and experienced to deal with the problems that are confronting our forests throughout the country, 

whether they are on Federal lands or private lands. 

Mr. Sledge pointed out how much of our State is filled with forests that are privately owned. A large percentage of our State is 

in woodlands. The success that we have in protecting the health of 

our forests and helping to ensure a sustainable, productive forest 

resource is a very important economic benefit to our State. It is a 

great aesthetic benefit to our State; it is a great environmental 

benefit to our State. 

We have a lot riding on making the right decisions and providing 

the funds that are available in the right way to help achieve these 

goals. We were also lucky in that Mr. Sledge is the immediate past 

president of the National Association of State Foresters, so he has 

a wide range of contacts throughout the country, and he is representing them all today, and I am really grateful that you took the 

time to come up and join Dr. Cope in this sauna of Washington; 

I thought that is what you said; it does feel like a sauna out there 

on some of these June and July days. 

We appreciate the information that you are providing us on how 

we can be more effective in channeling resources to programs that 

you know will work and will benefit our States and our National 

Forests as well, and we will try to follow your advice and try to 

be persuasive as we talk with other Senators and members of the 

other body for making available the resources that we need for 

these important projects. 

There is one question I did have for Mr. Sledge. In your testimony, you mentioned the efforts dealing with the southern pine 

bark beetle and how devastating that can be to some of our resources. What are the keys to preventing outbreaks of this and 

other insect threats in our forests in the Southeast? 

Mr. SLEDGE. Well, particularly with the southern pine beetle, 

maintaining the bigger of the stand is essential. This means being 

able to keep the stands thin and also, as appropriate, using prescribed fire to keep the trees healthy and vigorous. 

So far, in the last year in Mississippi, we have been fortunate. 

We have not had a severe outbreak. These things run in cycles, and 

it will just be a question of time. One of the things that is very 

common also to the southern pine beetle, maintenance of healthy 

forests is the same as you have found in many of the Western 

33

States: we have to find additional markets for small material when 

we do our thinnings. 

It is very difficult to get a thinning done by a private landowner 

if he has to pay to thin. He wants to be able to market it for some 

amount at least to recover his costs, and that is a vital part of this 

bill that would be of greater importance. We look at it right now 

that our biggest task is to prevent the attacks rather than have to 

react to them. 

The CHAIRMAN. We heard the Chairman talk about these products that are being developed, and Dr. Cope mentioned that as 

well. Are we seeing any projects of this kind in the Southeast related to biomass wood utilization? Is any progress being made on 

that in our part of the country? 

Mr. SLEDGE. We have, in Mississippi right now, one that I find 

very exciting and have been involved with, a process called TimTec, 

which came out of the private sector, but they came to the Land, 

Water and Timber Board, which was set up by the State Legislature, asking for funding for Mississippi State for some research to 

take small stands—in a very unscientific explanation, crush them 

and make a composite wood product out of them which at this 

point shows very strong characteristics to make it for construction 

lumber. 

At this time, due to some money, grant money that we were able 

to provide them, an outfit called Sugarlock Lumber Company is in 

the process of building, trying to get financing to build a plant 

which would consume, if I remember right, about 500,000 tons of 

material annually, which would be a tremendous asset to the State. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Senator Cochran. 

Just following up on the last line of questioning, I appreciated 

each of the panelists in one context or another has discussed the 

importance of making sure we utilize the biomass products as they 

come out of our forests and finding a pathway for that to be successful. Ms. Daly, if I understood you correctly, you indicated that 

you thought that while we are making that market transition, we 

may need to have some kind of support to make sure that these 

transitions occur; is that correct? 

Ms. DALY. Yes, one of the things that we are seeing now in Montana when you are dealing with projects with large amounts of 

very small, low or no value material is that they very quickly flood 

the available markets, and so, it becomes very difficult for contractors to be able to take them out. They have no way to sell them. 

Really, they are going to have to be paid to remove them, because there is not a market there. There are some small types of 

new businesses starting to use some of these materials, and then, 

there are some businesses like pulp mills that are already set up 

to use some of them. You get into transportation problems and a 

number of other things that raise the cost of moving those materials and makes it difficult. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, thank you. 

This is obviously an issue that we are struggling with here at the 

Federal level, but our policy on the issue is clear. We just need to 

make sure we get all the agencies to understand the policy and to 

34

understand how serious we are about implementing it, and then, 

we will find some ways to move forward on that. 

Mr. Cope, I wanted to use my time with you and talk with you 

about some of the issues that you raised. One of the other issues 

that I would like to get into, which you have discussed in your testimony, is the relationship of commercial activity to healthy forests. 

Very clearly, when we debated the Healthy Forest legislation, our 

ability to build a strong, bipartisan bill was dependent in large part 

on the fact that we focused on protecting communities, and we focused on reducing the fuel load and addressing that part of the forest management that was not specifically connected to commercial 

activity. 

However, as I have said earlier in the hearing today, I believe 

that commercial activity can be beneficial to those very same purposes and objectives, namely, reducing the fuel load and accomplishing proper forest management techniques. The reason I asked 

you to get those numbers yesterday and bring them to the hearing 

with you today is because of an experience I had in the Salmon National Forest in your hometown where, Mr. Chairman, I visited—

Salmon, as Mr. Cope has indicated, is a county in Idaho which is 

92 percent Federal land. There is one community and then lots of 

folks living around the forest in the available private land, but 

their economic activity is dependent on our National Forest and on 

the resource-based economy that has grown out of it. 

I went there when I was a Congressman. This has been about 

8 or 10 years ago, and we had one mill that employed, I remember, 

40 people. This mill—I toured the mill. They were having trouble 

getting—they were in the middle of a giant forest, and they were 

having trouble getting timber to run their mill. 

I asked them how many board feet they needed, and I had forgotten the answer, and Mr. Cope gave me the answer here today. It 

was around 15 to 20 million board-feet. They were worried about 

having to close that mill down. Ultimately, they did have to close 

it down and lost 40 jobs in that small community. 

That same day, I went to the Forest Service and asked them, as 

we were touring and finding information from the Forest Service, 

I asked them in their sustainable forest approach so that they were 

meeting all environmental standards and not overcutting the forest 

or anything, how many board feet could they generate out of this 

forest? I had forgotten that number as well. Mr. Cope brought it 

to me. It was approximately, at least in 1987, it was about 28 million board feet, which was well more than the amount that this little mill needed. 

Well, we could not get it. Did you say that today, they are getting 

about 100,000 board feet? 

Mr. COPE. If we are lucky. 

Senator CRAPO. If we are lucky, off of the forest, which, if I understand you correctly, means that the fuel load in that forest is 

growing much, much faster than we are removing it. 

Mr. COPE. Estimated at over 100 million board-feet per year on 

that forest. 

Senator CRAPO. In terms of increase in fuel load every year. 

Mr. COPE. Correct. 

35

Senator CRAPO. We have a tinder box growing there just like we 

have in some other parts of Idaho and other parts of the country. 

I just wanted to make that connection between—as we address 

not only the impact and the management under the Healthy Forest 

Act, I just wanted to make that connection with the fact that we 

can use other tools, like the Healthy Forest Initiative that the 

President has and our commercial activities for little communities 

like this in these forests to not only help economic activity and help 

these communities thrive with their resource-based economies but 

to help proper forest management. 

Mr. Cope, if you would like to just comment on that in any way, 

I would appreciate it. 

Mr. COPE. Absolutely. 

I was also able to pick up from our forest supervisor the plans 

and projections for the next 5 years on fuel reductions projects 

through prescribed burn and mechanical thinning. Through 2009 or 

2010, whatever the next 5 years are, the total acreage for mechanical thinning and prescribed burn is a little over 77,000, which 

amounts to 1 percent of our National Forest, which is 5 million 

acres, 1.5 percent. 

The simple fact is that on an area that vast and that overgrown, 

we simply do not have the resources or the finances to complete all 

that work. That is why I say it will take commercial activity; it will 

take private sector investment. There is simply too much fuel out 

there for the Government to go out and pay to have it done. It 

needs to be a community effort, partnership between industry, local 

and State governments and the Federal Government and the land 

management agencies. 

I believe that can happen, but we have to be able to do that on 

the community level, and right now, we have a lot of help that we 

really do not need from other areas. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, Mr. Cope, the community that I am talking 

about is Salmon, Idaho. Did you indicate that the community had 

been evacuated twice? 

Mr. COPE. That was Gibbonsville. 

Senator CRAPO. Oh, Gibbonsville, OK. 

Mr. COPE. We have not had to evacuate Salmon yet. 

Senator CRAPO. I know we have not had to evacuate Salmon; 

that is right, but I have been out there during some of the last forest fires, where the community was literally in jeopardy and have 

flown in one of the forest fire helicopters over the community, and 

the forest was burning so hot just right outside of town that each 

night, they would try to build a fire break against it on a ridge, 

and the fire would just leap the ridge and go on to the next one, 

and they kept fighting and fighting and fighting it for weeks in 

that particular fire. 

This is as a result of the fact that we are just not able to manage 

the forest well enough. I know that some are probably a little uneasy about me bringing up the commercial connection here, because we built a lot of our common approach to get the Healthy 

Forest Act passed by staying away from the commercial arguments. 

I am not trying to start a fight here that will jeopardize our implementation of the Healthy Forest Act because it does not focus on 

the commercial side of our forest activity. 

36

I do want to raise issue and hopefully help educate the people 

in the country who are concerned about these issues as to the fact 

that we can accomplish these proper objectives for forest management through proper commercial activities, and at some point, we 

are going to have to address that, and I hope that we continue to 

recognize that need. 

Do you have any further questions, Mr. Chairman? 

The CHAIRMAN. I was curious. Is Salmon on the Salmon River? 

Mr. COPE. Yes, it is. 

The CHAIRMAN. Because I recall going out there one time on a 

reconnaissance float trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon 

River and being absolutely impressed, Mr. Chairman, with the 

beauty of the region and the majesty of that river. We spent four 

or five nights out on the river as we made our way down on that 

trip. 

I also remember, Mr. Chairman, that at one point, we passed an 

area that had been devastated by a forest fire, and I asked when 

did the fire occur? They said something like 20 years ago. It looked 

like it had occurred last week. In our part of the country, these forests grow back pretty quickly. They get rejuvenated, and it is 

amazing how quickly they can be restored. 

Out in your part of the country, if a forest fire gets loose out 

there, it does not come back in our lifetime, does it? 

Mr. COPE. No, our average precipitation is 11 inches per year. It 

takes a long time to recover if ever, because you get permanent 

land damage. We have had catastrophic fires so hot that it sterilized the soil. What comes in on top of that afterwards when things 

do grow tend to be noxious weeds. Truthfully, I am not sure that—

well, I am sure that we will not see that country as it was, and 

I am interested to hear that you have been there, because that 

gives you an understanding of why it is that we care and love that 

country so much and why we want to see it preserved and managed well. 

The CHAIRMAN. We wish you all the best, and we hope that the 

initiatives contained in the recent legislation that the Chairman 

and I and others worked on will be helpful in the long run. We are 

determined to make it work through increased funding and targeted funding and programs that will really make a difference in 

the future. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much. 

We will excuse this panel and again, thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. COPE. Thank you. 

Senator CRAPO. While our third panel is coming forward, I will 

introduce them. Our third panel consists of Mr. James R. Crouch, 

from Jim Crouch Associates, representing—I am not going to pronounce this——

Mr. CROUCH. Ouachita. 

Senator CRAPO. Ouachita—I will let you say it—Timber Purchase 

Group and several others: the Ozark/St. Francis Renewable Resource Council and the Lake States Federal Timber Purchasers 

Group; also, Mr. Tom Partin, president of the American Forest ReVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:13 Dec 01, 2004 Jkt 094732 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94732.TXT TOSHD PsN: TOSH
37

source Council of Portland, Oregon; and Dr. James Earl 

Kennamer——

Mr. KENNAMER. Kennamer, that’s right, sir. 

Senator CRAPO. I got it right, from the conservation programs of 

National Wild Turkey Federation. We appreciate all three of you 

being here with us, and we will have you testify in the order I have 

introduced you. 

Mr. Crouch. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES R. CROUCH, JIM CROUCH ASSOCIATES, 

RUSSELLVILLE, ARKANSAS, REPRESENTING OUACHITA

TIMBER PURCHASERS GROUP, OZARK/ST. FRANCIS

RENEWABLE RESOURCE COUNCIL, AND THE LAKE STATES 

FEDERAL TIMBER PURCHASERS GROUP 

Mr. CROUCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good to see 

both of you. I am one of these Mississippians, Senator Cochran, so 

you have us en masse today. 

The CHAIRMAN. We welcome you. Thank you for being here. 

Mr. CROUCH. I am, as the Chairman said, the owner of Jim 

Crouch and Associates, a small forestry consulting business in Russellville, Arkansas. Prior to 1987, I was forest supervisor of the 

Ozark/St. Francis National Forest, and my testimony today is on 

behalf of the Ouachita Timber Purchasers Group, the Ozark/St. 

Francis Renewable Resource Council and the Lake States Federal 

Timber Purchasers Committee. The members of these organizations buy National Forest stumpage. 

I am here today because our National Forests are unhealthy. Our 

forest health crisis is not simply about catastrophic wildfires, as 

many would have you believe, but rather, it’s about failed management that allows insect and disease outbreaks that devastate our 

forests and makes possible the catastrophic wildfires that we see 

on the evening news. 

Many would argue that our National Forests are no longer sustainable. However, there is ample evidence that well-designed and 

applied forest management strategies can help. It is also more economical to properly manage the forest than it is to suppress catastrophic events when they occur and restore the area. I strongly 

support active management based on sound science and implemented through local decision-making. 

HFRA represents a bold acknowledgement that our Federal forests are in a crisis, and urgent, active management is necessary. 

I believe for HFRA to work that the Congress must provide additional funding. I believe the Forest Service must promptly embrace 

these new tools, and I believe that the administration and Congress together must support the existing forest industry infrastructure and not lose what you have in many of these small communities. 

I work closely with many National Forests in the South and the 

Lake States, and I find dedicated, hard-working, highly skilled 

agency managers and specialists. These people know how to keep 

these forests healthy and productive, but they are terribly frustrated. Gridlock, high unit costs and limited budgets prevent them 

from putting their forest plans on the ground. 

38

I’d like to talk briefly about Title I and Title IV. I believe that 

in Title I, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan has potential to 

improve the forest health if it is embraced by the forest agencies 

and cooperators. That is a really good piece of the legislation. 

The Forest Service must use a mixture of prescribed burning and 

mechanical thinning to reduce hazardous fuels and treat stands 

that are candidates for bug and disease attacks. If such stands are 

not actively managed, they face almost certain death as they mature, become overcrowded, and their vigor declines. Many of these 

acres are candidates for commercial thinning at costs that are comparable to prescribed burning. If we look at the National Fire Plan, 

it specifically includes mechanical thinning as an approved method. 

In Title IV, provides for expediting large-scale silvacultural assessments on Federal lands that are either experiencing or are 

prime candidates for insects or disease outbreaks. As the Under 

Secretary stated this morning, we have a couple of those underway 

already in Arkansas, and we believe that is going to be a good part 

of the tool: southern pine beetle and red oak borer. 

As the health of the forest declines, forest-dependent communities suffer. As an example, in the Lake States, 77 mills have 

closed or scaled down their operations since 1989. In Minnesota, 

where 16 mills were affected, the Forest Service proposes to cut the 

volume of stumpage that the Chippewa and Superior National Forests can sell by 25 percent. Companies in close proximity to these 

two forests now import logs from Saskatchewan and other Canadian provinces at greatly increased costs in an attempt to keep 

their mills running. Both the Chippewa and the Superior are currently experiencing major health problems in stands that need active management. It does not make a lot of sense to me. 

Since 1905, we as a nation have invested billions of taxpayer dollars to buy cut-over and abused forests and agricultural lands, the 

lands that nobody wanted, if you would, to reforest them and to 

nurture the young trees in today’s pristine National Forests of the 

South and the Lake States, and I guess my question is are we now 

as a nation going to allow bugs and disease to harvest these forests, or are we going to actively manage them for the good of all 

citizens? 

In closing, I would urge you and the administration to properly 

fund and immediately embrace the new tools in HFRA. I would 

urge the Forest Service to use these tools to reduce unit costs and 

to make active management include thinning and regeneration a 

priority. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crouch can be found in the appendix on page 86.] 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Mr. Crouch. 

Mr. Partin. 

STATEMENT OF TOM PARTIN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FOREST 

RESOURCE COUNCIL, PORTLAND, OREGON 

Mr. PARTIN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Senator Cochran. 

My name is Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource 

Council, and first of all, I would like to say what an honor it is to 

39

be in front of this Committee, knowing that you worked so hard to 

pass the HFRA bill last year. 

The American Forest Resource Council represents nearly 90 forest products manufacturers and timberland owners located in 12 

Western States. Our mission is to promote balanced and sustained 

management of our Federal forests, including a consistent and predictable flow of raw materials from these forests. 

Most of our members are located in small, rural communities 

throughout the West, and these rural communities are only as 

healthy as the forest products industries located there. Consequently, forest health means community health. During the past 

decade, many of our Western forests have been the victims of 

drought conditions and overcrowding due to lack of management, 

which have left them ripe for wildfires. 

Once a wildfire gets started under these conditions, they are very 

hard to extinguish and often burn hundreds of thousands of acres 

before being controlled. Further, we have seen that any attempt to 

rehabilitate the burned landscape is usually met with appeals from 

the environmental community, resulting in these projects being 

tied up in the court systems until the burnt timber has no value 

and the needed restoration is postponed for several critical years 

while we are waiting for a verdict from the courts. 

We know that there has to be a better way of managing and 

tending our Federal forests, and that is why AFRC worked very 

hard with the Members of Congress to help pass the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003. The Bitterroot fires of Montana, the 

Rodeo-Chediski fire in Arizona, the Biscuit fire in Oregon and the 

San Bernadino fires in California point out that this is a national 

crisis, and we can no longer fail in treating unhealthy forests or rehabilitating them after they burn. 

The 2004 fire season is just getting underway, and Forest Service 

Chief Dale Bosworth has assessed this year’s fire season as being 

as bad as the 2000 fire season, which, as we recall, burned 7 million acres of timberland. With this grim fire forecast, we believe the 

Forest Service and BLM should use all of the HFRA authorities to 

attempt to double the number of acres treated in fuel reduction 

projects this year. 

To accomplish this task, the agencies must do a number of 

things, including supporting community-based wildfire protection 

plans to quickly treat the wildland-urban interface; use expedited 

environmental analysis processes which require only analyzing two 

alternatives which would quickly get projects to the ground; to use 

new judicial review procedures including the balance of harms provisions to be successful in our court system; and to aggressively use 

new stewardship and categorical exclusion authorities to treat additional acres. 

Using these new tools, we do believe the Forest Service and 

BLM, as Mark Rey said, can double the acres treated for fuels reduction from 2 million this year to 4 million. It has been 6 months 

since the signing of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and the 

success of any new program is driven, to a large degree, by the attitude of those people doing the implementation. It has been our observation that a new and welcome can-do attitude is taking place 

within the agencies when it comes to implementation of the HFRA. 

40

We are already seeing new projects being planned in watersheds 

at risk, in areas where we have fire condition class two and three, 

in the wildland-urban interface areas most at risk for fires and in 

areas where insects and disease are causing forest health problems. 

Other efforts underway involve using Title III funds to assist in 

developing community-based fire plans and using new authorities 

to more quickly rehabilitate areas in burned wildfires. This last authority has been used very effectively in Region VI by Regional 

Forester Linda Goodman. Emergency action was requested and 

granted to remove salvage wood before it lost its economic value 

and to more quickly implement rehabilitation projects needed on 

three 2002 wildfires. 

The EISes, of course, were challenged, as they all are, in the 

court system, but the Forest Service prevailed because they had 

done excellent work in their EISes, and the projects are moving forward, delivering much-needed wood to our mills and getting rehabilitation done on these burned areas. We strongly support the Forest Service for making this emergency request, and we ask that it 

be used more broadly. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act 

of 2003 has given the Forest Service and BLM needed tools and authorities to treat our forests at risk to wildfire. This authority is 

not a panacea, or it is not a cure-all for our unhealthy forests, nor 

is it intended to take the place of the regular green timber sale program that we need for consistent volume. It is an aggressive and 

much-needed first step. 

To date, we are pleased with the new attitude of the agencies 

and how they are using their new authorities, and for this effort, 

the members of AFRC give the forest management agencies a B 

plus. It is important that the agencies deliver on their promise to 

treat 20 million acres of unhealthy forest for the sake of our forests, for the sake of our communities and for the sake of our forest 

industries. 

Again, I want to thank you, Senator Crapo, and the other members of this Committee for inviting me here. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Partin can be found in the appendix on page 92.] 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Kennamer. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES EARL KENNAMER, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT OF CONSERVATION PROGRAMS, NATIONAL 

WILD TURKEY FEDERATION, EDGEFIELD, SOUTH CAROLINA 

Mr. KENNAMER. Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to address what we believe may be the most important legislation affecting our National Forests in many years, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. 

The National Wild Turkey Federation has worked closely with 

the U.S. Forest Service to carry out millions of dollars of cost-share 

projects to benefit wildlife habitat on our National Forests. This 

year, we completed two stewardship contracts on the Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests to reduce the threat of wild land 

fire and improve wildlife habitat. 

41

Since 1980, we have worked successfully with the U.S. Forest 

Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Mexican Government to restore the Gould subspecies of the wild turkey to the 

Coronado National Forest in Arizona. A catastrophic fire could 

undo all of this work and set us back for decades. 

It is estimated that over 190 million acres of Federal forests and 

rangelands in the lower 48 States are currently at risk of largescale insect and disease epidemics and catastrophic fires. This 

places rural communities at risk and seriously threatens watersheds and fish and wildlife habitats. The poor conditions of our forests are a direct result of the lack of active forest management over 

recent decades combined with the exclusion of fire for over 100 

years. 

The Act provides new and better tools to put prescribed fire back 

into the landscape, thus restoring fire-dependent ecosystem and 

fire-adapted habitats. Prescribed fires also safeguard rural communities from the ravages catastrophic wildfire and improve the overall health of the forest. 

The Act also provides tools to identify pests and stop infestations 

before they spread. Insects such as the southern pine beetle and 

the red oak borer would not have spread so fast nor be so widespread had the Forest Service been allowed to maintain the health 

of the forest over the last several decades. One habitat that is lacking in many of our National Forests is early successional habitat, 

which is characterized by young trees. 

Early successional habitat can be created through timber harvests and thinnings. These thinnings and harvests also create a 

break in the continuous fuel found on the forests so that in the 

event of a wildfire, firefighters have a chance to stop the fire when 

it hits these man-made breaks in the canopy. 

Many fire-adapted landscapes require periodic fire to maintain a 

healthy forest and the best wildlife habitat. Prescribed fire opens 

up the underbrush, allows sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor, 

and creates the early successional habitats that are so rare on 

many of our forests today. Even the catastrophic fires we saw in 

Yellowstone in 1988 improve wildlife habitat for grazers such as 

elk, but this was dangerous and an expensive way to create wildlife 

habitat. 

Under the current conditions of our forests, we have only two 

choices: we can harvest the trees and follow the harvest with prescribed fire to actually improve forest health and habitat quality, 

or we can sit back and watch unnatural infestations of insect pests 

kill the trees and degrade the habitat. In many habitats, these infestations will be followed by catastrophic wildfires like the ones we 

have all watched destroy forests, homes, communities and human 

lives in recent years and destroying wildlife habitat. 

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act offers a beginning of the solution. The act can only succeed with the proper implementation 

and adequate funding. I urge the Committee to work for full funding for the Act so we can reclaim our forests and, over time, which 

will take decades to do, restore the forest system that has supported this great nation for 100 years. Thank you. 

42

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kennamer can be found in the 

appendix on page 97.] 

Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Dr. Kennamer. 

I will start out my questioning with you, Mr. Crouch. In your testimony, you indicated that the agencies have focused on prescribed 

burns to meet fuels reduction objectives. I know in the West, there 

are situations where fuel loads preclude prescribed burns until we 

get in and do some mechanical thinning. I assume the same thing 

is true in the South in some areas; is that correct? 

Mr. CROUCH. Yes, you could look at the intermountain West and 

look at places in the South, and you would certainly find that similarity. You’ve got vast areas of either already dead and dying trees, 

or you have trees that within our lifetimes will certainly die from 

overcrowding and so forth. 

We believe, as professional people, that there is a great opportunity to manage the stocking control, hopefully commercially so it 

is not with taxpayer dollars, and prevent the bugs and disease attacking those and then them feeding the big fires that you are seeing burning in parts of the West. We would like to see you work 

on the other end of the horse, the prevention end. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, I can certainly agree with that. The pine 

beetle and the red oak borer—is that the one that you have? We 

each have our own fair share of these problems, and we can certainly solve a lot of it if we would get in and deal with them. I certainly agree with that. 

Mr. Partin, during the consideration of the HFRA, many people 

viewed Title IV as the Southern title. Yet we in the Northwest 

have severe problems with insects and disease as well. Do you envision the type of landscape level projects that are being proposed 

by the Forest Service in the Ozark/St. Francis as something that 

we should be considering in the Northwest? 

Mr. PARTIN. We should consider these projects in the Northwest, 

because as you know, we have severe infestations of mountain pine 

beetle, spruce budworm that is causing damage to thousands of 

acres, and we can take the template that they are using in the 

South, convert it over to our Western forests and be very effective. 

I mentioned primarily wildfire in my testimony, because that has 

been first and foremost on the issues that we have had to deal 

with, but that only comes after we have infestations from the bugs. 

The first step is to treat these forests riddled by the bugs and get 

those in a healthy situation, and then, we will avoid the fires. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, thank you. I also appreciated your testimony about the new attitude that you recognize in the agencies 

since the passage of the Healthy Forest Act. That has been my experience, too, and I am glad to hear back a little bit of input. Mr. 

Crouch, you are shaking your head yes. Are you experiencing that? 

Mr. CROUCH. I am saying that the folks out there are very, very 

capable ones. I deal with a very willing and very anxious to do it 

if they could remove a few of these obstacles. 

Senator CRAPO. If we just provide them the authorities and the 

ability to move forward, and I see Dr. Kennamer shaking his head 

in agreement as well. 

Mr. CROUCH. The money. 

43

Senator CRAPO. The funding, and that brings it right back here, 

which Senator Lincoln and I were talking about previously. 

Mr. Partin, you indicated that with this emergency EIS or this 

emergency authority that was exercised that you were describing 

to us and the EIS challenges being successfully met, can you tell 

me, were those challenges brought after the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and were they handled under the new authorities 

under the HFRA, or do you know? 

Mr. PARTIN. The emergency action or emergency determination 

was asked for this spring after HFRA, and I believe that is part 

of the tools in that bill. Without that, we would not have been able 

to get an expedited approach to these sales. What it did was take 

the sales more quickly, complete the EIS, get them in front of the 

courts, because as you know, all of these projects are appealed. 

The courts made a quick determination on them. They found that 

the EISes prepared were good documents. They ruled in favor of 

the Forest Service. Within a week after selling these sales, they 

were being operated on the ground. 

Senator CRAPO. These are some examples—I do not know if you 

followed the debate here when we debated the Act, but that result 

was exactly what we were hoping to accomplish, and what you are 

telling us is that we are seeing some of that on the ground now. 

Mr. PARTIN. We are seeing it on the ground, and that is one of 

the reasons we bought in so heavily to HFRA, because we needed 

something different. We could not allow these large project 

wildfires to sit for two, three and 4 years while the timber totally 

lost its value. 

At least these are sales that are now going on in their second 

summer. We are getting some commercial value out of them. More 

importantly, we are getting this landscape rehabilitated, because 

we would see fires, as you have seen in Idaho and Montana that 

have sat for 5 years without rehabilitation. We have seen the soil 

suffer, we have seen the water, we have seen the air, we have seen 

the wildlife. We cannot have that. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, thank you. 

Dr. Kennamer, I am glad to have you bring the focus of wildlife 

into this whole issue as well. One of the other roles that I play here 

in the Senate on another Committee is the chairman of the Fisheries, Wildlife and Water Subcommittee of the Environment Committee. In that role, we pay a lot of attention to these kind of 

issues. I do not have time; my time is expiring here, but I just want 

to tell you I really appreciate the perspective you brought to us 

today as you discussed some of the critical issues relating to the 

impacts of our decisions in forest management on wildlife and what 

that can mean to us. 

Senator Lincoln. 

Senator LINCOLN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for 

your patience with me today. I am in multiple places at one time. 

Senator CRAPO. I understand. 

Senator LINCOLN. A very special thanks to our panel and certainly to Mr. Crouch from Arkansas; we are glad to have you here, 

Jim. 

Mr. CROUCH. My pleasure. 

44

Senator LINCOLN. I guess really to hear from you, and I do hear 

from you on a regular basis, but to be able to share with the rest 

of the Committee and others, what parts of the Healthy Forest Act 

have really been the most helpful to you? Where have you found 

the best results in terms of the tools that we have given you? 

Mr. CROUCH. I believe that in the East, where we are dealing 

more often with the maturing stands that are overstocked, that are 

threatened by bugs and insects and so forth, that will contribute 

to fires very shortly that we can go back under the National Fire 

Plan and emphasize the thinning aspect of it. 

We saw the Ouachita National Forest this year, as a result of extreme shortages in their green timber sale program moneywise 

begin to figure out ways to do things like that, and they, in fact, 

took a considerable number of dollars that were National Fire Plan 

dollars to actually do the environmental assessments, actually put 

the paint on the trees and in effect sell a considerable amount of 

this volume that was being threatened. 

We are having to stretch a little harder in the East to make 

some of these things work. It has taken a little bit longer for us 

to get them working. We think the assessments over under Title 

IV will help us, because there, you can actually deal with significant blocks of timber, and you can bring your research community, 

Forest Service research, universities together, again, to learn a lot 

about that, maybe how to prevent it, how to deal with it after it 

happens and so forth. 

Quite frankly, we would like to see the Healthy Forest Restoration Act be a little more about health and a little less about fire. 

Senator LINCOLN. Of the tools that are there and the objectives 

we tried to reach with the Healthy Forest Initiative, do you see 

anything that we did that maybe one something in there that is 

not being as fully utilized as it should and could be that could be 

really a much more instrumental? Is there something that the administration or the Forest Service is not really using? 

Mr. CROUCH. I am a little bit, after talking to many, many Forest 

Service people and being old Forest Service myself, it is a little 

harder for me to be as enthusiastic about it as you may find other 

people. It is certainly a set of tools that helps. Some of the reluctance, if you will, of the Forest Service to really embrace it and get 

on with it is caused by——you do the 10 or 15 page each, for example, that Jim Connoton and his group put out as a suggested one, 

but somewhere, you have still got to have all of these exhibits and 

appendages and so forth, and when you get through with it, it may 

not be a lot different from what you have done. 

I see some of those kinds of things. One area that I would like 

to see tweaked a little bit, I like the counterpart regulations, where 

the Forest Service basically has now got full authority to do BEs 

under certain situations. I would like to see something like that extended for the cultural resources. There, you have to deal with the 

individual state SHPOs, and you get widely varying situations from 

State to State; that is a major problem right now, frankly, in Arkansas is the tenderness, if you will, that you have to deal with the 

SHPOs. 

Senator LINCOLN. Something we could probably improve on. 

45

Mr. CROUCH. That could be a counterpart regulation, probably, 

where you have qualified archaeologists and so forth on staff. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, thank you again for your hard work. 

Dr. Kennamer, thank you so much. I have to say that my very 

first experience in the National Forest was with my father turkey 

hunting. He used to like to go to the St. Francis National Forest, 

and he would take me up in the afternoons, and I would walk the 

ridges with him, and he would bed down a turkey, and then, he 

would go back and get it in the morning when it came off the roost, 

let me sleep. 

As the co-chairman of the Congressional Sportsman’s Caucus 

here, I have to say that I was a little bit selfish in working so hard 

on this Act, because this spring was the first time I got to take my 

twin boys turkey hunting, and it was wonderful to watch them 

enjoy the outdoors, enjoy the forest, be amazed at what they heard 

and saw when those beautiful creatures came out, and it is a wonderful thing. 

I am very pleased that your interest here in preserving our forest 

for future generations and for something that we know is a part 

of our heritage in the sportsman’s world. I am very grateful to you. 

I know that you mentioned a little bit about the red oak borer 

insect or the insect concerns that are there. We suffer with the red 

oak borer in Arkansas, and of course, it has been a huge issue for 

us, but the may be something there you might want to expand on. 

I don’t know. 

Mr. KENNAMER. Well, Senator, one of the things that we have to 

deal with is we are going to be losing hundreds of thousands of 

acres of oak that are in the older stages. We have to regenerate 

that oak so that it will have economic benefit in the future. Importantly, the early succession that it will create, which is good for 

turkeys, because if we do not have the early grassland stages, we 

do not have quail, and that is one of the reasons for the decline 

of the bobwhite quail. We do not produce wild turkeys. 

Not only are we going to need that from the wildlife benefits but 

just a safety issue: people in the woods trying to go out and enjoy 

the woods like you did with dead timber, climbing a tree to deer 

hunt or whatever; so we have to get back into the active management and deal with the red oak borer so that your kids and their 

kids will have the chance to come back and hunt, because we need 

those early successions, and this Act provides that opportunity. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, it is so interesting to see, even from 

those who are nonparticipants in the forest, people that just drive 

by, particularly around the Ozark and the Ouachita, because we 

have a lot of really scenic highways that go through there, those 

that notice the devastation. We clearly had a tremendous loss of 

trees due to those red oak borer, and it was amazing just to again, 

those who were just passing by to see that kind of devastation, it 

brought about a real reality of the need to manage the forest. 

When I was first elected to Congress in 1992, the Forest Service 

was going to give me a tour of the St. Francis, and I guess they 

did not know I grew up in it, but I asked them if I could bring my 

dad along, and it was interesting, because we went up in the forest, 

and they took us on a tour, and afterwards, I was driving home, 

and I asked my father, and I said did they show me everything? 

46

He said, well, they showed you pretty much everything. There are 

a few places that they did not show you that they probably should 

have. 

He said but what most people do not realize is that this beautiful 

forest, which is probably one of the best hardwood timber forests 

in North America; although it is small, it is very, very good timber, 

he said it was pastureland 100 years ago. He said when pioneers 

came through here, they cleared it and you can see that certainly, 

timber, like anything else, has to be managed if it is going to be 

able to sustain itself, and that is a critical part of what we have 

to do in these forests. 

We appreciate all of you all, and I very much appreciate my 

Chairman here, who has been great to work with and thank you 

very much. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, thank you very much, Senator Lincoln. I 

have to also indicate what a pleasure it is to work with you. When 

we got put together on this Committee and got to work together, 

it was just a treat for me, and it has been a benefit for the country 

as we have been able to work in a bipartisan way and get things 

done, which does not happen around here a whole lot. 

I just have one last question, and you are certainly welcome to 

ask a last one if you want, but Mr. Partin, or actually, Mr. 

Kennamer, the last question is for you, and that is in your testimony, you mentioned stewardship contracting on the Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests, and could you please elaborate 

on your experiences with these contracts briefly and tell us how 

they benefited both habitat and wildlife? 

Mr. KENNAMER. I would be glad to, Senator. Both of these examples happened this spring. They happened in about three and a 

half to 4 weeks, which in Forest Service time scales would be almost miraculous. We had a willing forester who was willing to go 

out and help us get some stewardship contracting underway. We 

were able to burn 1,200 acres on the Sumter National Forest, 

which was beyond what the Forest Service would have had the 

ability to do. We did it for under $20 an acre with a subcontractor 

who was a former Forest Service employee. We also employed local 

people in the community to help with the fire lines, and so, we 

saved money for the Government. We created more habitat that 

would not have happened otherwise. 

On the Francis Marion, after Hugo, which was an event that 

happened in the eighties, we looked at almost a billion board-feet 

of timber on the ground. A lot of that has come back in pine timber 

that is very small; it is crowded because, as mentioned earlier 

today, we have real fast succession in our part of the world, and 

we tried to reclaim on 62 acres that hardwoods needed to be on 

that site, so we went in and removed with the subcontractor that 

was able to go do it again at a very competitive cost, remove the 

timber from 10 inches to two inches, which heretofore, that would 

have either been left on the ground or thrown away or would have 

died. 

We took that out and took in the timber down to two inches that 

was chipped and sent to the mill was enough timber to produce 

about a million copies of your local newspaper. The bark from the 

trees are going to be used to power the power plant. They are going 

47

to bring the bark back in, so we have good wildlife benefit; we can 

maintain it with fire; the local economy benefited, and overall, the 

people in this country will get more for their bang than they have 

ever had before. 

Senator CRAPO. Well, that is certainly the kind of success story 

that we need to hear, that and the experience on streamlining the 

process and the focus on prevention all are the aspects of this issue 

that we need to make sure the American public understands as a 

part of the solution. 

Unless you have anything further——

Senator LINCOLN. We need to get Dr. Kennamer up here to help 

us squeeze a little more bump out of our dollars. 

Senator CRAPO. You got that right. 

Mr. KENNAMER. We will be glad to try to help. 

Senator CRAPO. Help the Federal budget. Could you come up 

with about $470 billion? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. KENNAMER. That is a little beyond our means, Senator. 

Senator CRAPO. OK; well, first of all, as we conclude, I want to 

thank this panel for your outstanding testimony as well. Each of 

our panels today have provided outstanding testimony, not only 

their presentations today but their written testimony, and we want 

to thank you for the time and effort that you have put into this. 

It has been very helpful to us. 

I hope that—actually, I wish everybody in America was watching 

today so that they could understand the kinds of issues that we are 

dealing with and understand the fact that we have identified some 

solutions that can move forward. If they did understand it, we 

would be able to go forward and expand the Act and reach more 

acres and do even more. Ultimately, we will be able to do so. 

With that, I want to just again thank all of the witnesses and 

again, give a special thanks to Senator Lincoln. She stepped up 

right there at the beginning and worked hard on making this all 

happen. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned.] 

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