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95–222 PDF 2004

WILDFIRES IN THE WEST: IS THE BUSH

ADMINISTRATION’S RESPONSE ADEQUATE?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL

RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 5, 2004

Serial No. 108–178

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. HARRIS, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL RESOURCES AND REGULATORY

AFFAIRS

DOUG OSE, California, Chairman

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

TOM LANTOS, California

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

BARBARA F. KAHLOW, Staff Director

MELANIE TORY, Professional Staff Member

LAUREN JACOBS, Clerk

KRISTA BOYD, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 5, 2004 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Campbell, William, chairman, Blue Ribbon Fire Commission; Bruce

Turbeville, chairman of the Fire Safe Council; William J. McCammon,

president, California Fire Chiefs Association; and Amy Mall, senior

forest policy analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council ........................ 73

Scarlett, P. Lynn, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget, Department of Interior; and Mark E. Rey, Under Secretary for

Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture ........... 27

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Campbell, William, chairman, Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 76

Mall, Amy, senior forest policy analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council, prepared statement of ............................................................................ 145

McCammon, William J., president, California Fire Chiefs Association,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 131

Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State of California:

Cover of a report entitled, ‘‘Science Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity,’’ ................................ 64

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

Rey, Mark E., Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment,

Department of Agriculture, prepared statement of .................................... 43

Scarlett, P. Lynn, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget, Department of Interior, prepared statement of .................................... 30

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 51

Turbeville, Bruce, chairman of the Fire Safe Council, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 118

(1)

WILDFIRES IN THE WEST: IS THE BUSH

ADMINISTRATION’S RESPONSE ADEQUATE?

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL

RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Ose (chairman of

the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Ose, Shays, Tierney, Cannon, Schrock,

and Tom Davis of Virginia [ex officio].

Staff present: Barbara F. Kahlow, staff director; Melanie Tory,

professional staff member; Lauren Jacobs, clerk; Megan Taormino,

press secretary; Krista Boyd, minority counsel; and Cecelia Morton,

minority office manager.

Mr. OSE. Good afternoon. Welcome to today’s hearing of the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs. Today’s subject is: ‘‘Wildfires in the West: Is the Bush Administration’s Response Adequate?’’

Given that we just got called for a vote, here’s the order of battle

today. We’re going to go ahead and commence the hearing, establish the quorum. I’m going to give my opening statement, and then

we are going to recess and go to votes and then we’ll be back at

the conclusion of those votes, at which time we will swear in the

witnesses and commence with receiving their testimony.

We’ll establish first that there is a quorum present with Chairman Davis in attendance, and I will go ahead and make my opening statement.

Today 15,000 fire fighters are on the front lines of wildfires in

California. Although we are only 2 days into the southern California fire season, we’ve already had over 18,000 acres burned. It’s

timely that we’re here today to discuss wildfire policy in the West.

Failure to properly address this issue will result in the needless destruction of communities, forests, rangelands, and habitats.

After 100 years of well-intentioned, and frankly misguided land

management policy, Federal lands that were once healthy and productive are now unnaturally dense and diseased. Due to these

unhealthy conditions, our national lands have become increasingly

vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires. In 2000 and 2002, our country

suffered its worst two wildland fire seasons in 50 years. Combined,

the fires of 2000 and 2002 burned over 15 million acres of land and

cost the Federal Government nearly $3 billion to suppress. The

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2002 fire season was particularly severe in the West, with Arizona,

Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon reporting their worst fires in

modern history. Similarly, in 2003 California experienced its worst

fire season when 13 wildfires claimed 24 lives, destroyed 3,600

homes, burned 739,000 acres, and cost $250 million to contain.

Faced with these escalating economic and ecological losses, in

August 2002, President Bush announced his Health Forests Initiative. This plan sought to reduce the statutory, regulatory, and administrative obstacles to effective fire prevention and rehabilitation

on Federal lands. As part of this plan, in December 2002, the Bush

administration proposed a series of administrative actions that facilitated timely reviews of forest projects, amended the project appeals process, improved the consultation process required under

the Endangered Species Act, and created a more effective environmental assessment process under the National Environmental Policy Act.

As shown in the chart on display, in 2003 and 2004, the Departments of Agriculture and Interior promulgated three final rules,

one interim final rule, and one notice to implement these changes.

In addition to regulatory reform, the Bush administration has

sought new statutory authority from Congress to adequately protect Federal lands from wildfires. The resulting legislation, known

as the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, was signed into law in December 2003. It’s known as Public Law 108–148. Despite the new

tools available to Federal land managers, it is likely that the West

will once again experience a severe fire season this year. This problem was not created overnight and it will not be solved overnight.

Nonetheless, it is still important that we expeditiously begin the

process of removing hazardous fuels and returning our national

lands to their former glory. To that end, we are here today to assess whether the reforms realized under the Health Forests Initiative and Healthy Forests Restoration Act are sufficient to eliminate

the barriers to effective land management policy in the long term.

Additionally, we are here today to discuss ways to enhance cooperation and coordination among Federal, State, local, and private

entities. Fires are equal opportunists. They harm everybody.

They’ll consume privately owned land in the same way they consume adjacent Federal land, State land, or local land. The best way

to prevent catastrophic wildfires is to forge alliances among the

various stakeholders.

Last, we are here today to remind the public of the very real fire

danger that exists and of the need to vigilantly address the issue.

All too often support for wildfire prevention and suppression is forgotten as soon as the flames are extinguished. In March, four ballot

measures to improve fire prediction failed in San Diego County.

Think about that. The voters who were most affected by the 2003

wildfires opted not to support actions to increase the ability of the

community to prepare and respond to wildfires. For land managers

and fire professionals to reduce the wildfire threat, they must have

public support.

Wildfires remain a significant threat to many communities and

habitats throughout the West. As we examine this issue, key questions will include: One, is the Federal Government doing enough to

mitigate wildfire risks; two, how can stakeholder relationships be

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improved; and three, are additional measures needed to address

wildfires in the short or long-term?

I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. They include

the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget at the

Department of Interior, Ms. Lynn Scarlett; the Under Secretary for

Natural Resources and the Environment at the U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Mr. Mark Rey; the chairman of the California Governor’s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, Senator William Campbell;

the chairman of the Fire Safe Council, Mr. Bruce Turbeville; the

president of the California Fire Chiefs Association, Mr. William

McCammon; and the senior forest policy analyst for Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Ms. Amy Mall. Unfortunately, we were

advised this morning that Governor Martz, who was to testify on

behalf of the Western Governors’ Association was called back to

Montana because of a family emergency. Her written testimony

will be submitted for the record. The record will remain open for

the next 10 days to allow Members to submit any written questions

they may have for Governor Martz.

Now, given what I described earlier, the three of us are going to

quickly go to the floor. Before we do, I am pleased to recognize the

chairman of the full committee for the purpose of opening statement.

[The prepared statements of Hon. Doug Ose and Governor Martz

follow:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. We have a vote on. I thank the witnesses

for being here today. It is an important fact-finding hearing for us,

and I want to commend you Mr. Chairman, for holding it.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman for holding this important

hearing. Obviously, we can learn a lot that needs to be learned.

Thank you.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

All right. We’re going to recess for the purpose of getting over to

vote, and we’ll be back as quickly as possible. I’d ask the witnesses

to stay in close proximity.

[Recess.]

Mr. OSE. We’ll come to order again. I want to apologize for the

break. I want to welcome our two remaining panelists on panel

one. Again, the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and

Budget at the Department of Interior, Ms. Lynn Scarlett, welcome;

and the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment at the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Mark Rey. Both are

welcome. We have received both of your testimonies and I’ve actually read both of them, so don’t be shocked by that.

Now, in this committee as a matter of practice we swear in all

of our witnesses, so we’re going to have you all rise and be sworn

in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. OSE. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Our first witness on panel one is the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget at the U.S. Department of Interior,

Ms. Lynn Scarlett.

Ma’am, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Please keep in mind

we’ve received your testimony, we’ve reviewed it, we’re making it

a part of the record. If there’s something you care to summarize or

add to it, this is the time to take advantage.

STATEMENTS OF P. LYNN SCARLETT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

FOR POLICY, MANAGEMENT, AND BUDGET, DEPARTMENT OF

INTERIOR; AND MARK E. REY, UNDER SECRETARY FOR NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE

Ms. SCARLETT. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman

and members of the committee, for this opportunity to discuss

wildland fire. We thank you for your support in helping us to reduce the risk wildland fire poses to people, communities, and our

natural resources—risks so evident as fires burn in California this

very day.

President Bush announced his Healthy Forests Initiative in August 2002, as we are aware. The chief purpose of that initiative

was to help us expedite fuels treatment projects so that we could

begin to quickly and efficiently tackle the buildup of fuels on our

ranges and forests.

To achieve this goal, the Council of Environmental Quality

issued streamlined environmental assessment guidelines for fuels

treatment projects. The environmental assessments are now two to

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five times shorter than those only a year ago. We have completed

nine projects, piloting the guidance. None of the streamlined environmental assessments has been appealed or challenged in courts.

The second tool that we put forth under the Healthy Forests Initiative was through the Departments of Agriculture and Interior

jointly adopting a new categorical exclusion for certain types of

fuels treatment activities and post-fire restoration. Although the

tool just became available after the 2004 fuels program was finalized, the bureaus have recognized its value and are beginning to

utilize it. We have done one project under a categorical exclusion,

for example, at Big Cypress National Preserve on 1,000 acres to reduce dense brush along a highway.

Third, we have improved procedures for meeting the goals of the

Endangered Species Act. In January of this year, the Departments

of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce finalized regulations making the consultation process under Section 7 of the act more effective for fuels treatment projects. Alternative conservation agreements under that new approach are now in place with the Forest

Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

Fourth, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Assistant Administrator of NOAA issued guidance in December 2002

directing staff to look at the long-term benefit of fuels treatments

to plants and animals rather than just short-term impacts of a

given fuels treatment project.

In addition to these tools, Congress has made it easier for us to

get fuels off the land. The President sought, and in 2003 the Congress provided, long-term stewardship contracting authority for the

Bureau of Land Management and expanded the limited authority

previously granted to the Forest Service. Stewardship contracts or

agreements allow communities, tribes, private companies, and others to retain forest and rangeland products in exchange for performing services for the BLM such as fuel reduction projects. The

BLM has begun using this tool. They issued field guidance in January of this year and are already on track to award over 30 contracts in 11 States, with another 80 projects in various stages of

planning for 2005.

One such project is the Walker/Mono Basin project near Bishop,

CA, that will remove fuels from 2,000 acres within the wildland

urban interface using a stewardship contract.

To further assist agencies in reducing risks of catastrophic

wildland fire, Congress passed the Healthy Forests Restoration

Act, which President Bush signed in December 2003. We have responded swiftly to implement the legislation. In February of this

year, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service

issued field guidance to implement the act. Above all, working

closely with communities is central to the Health Forests Initiative

and Healthy Forests Restoration Act.

The principal entity overseeing implementation of the National

Fire Plan is the Wildland Fire Leadership Council, on which sit

States, local governments, tribal governments, in addition to Federal agencies. I have chaired this council over the last year. How

we work with our partners varies across States and across localities. In California, the collaborative effort falls to the California

Fire Alliance, a cooperative group consisting of Federal land manVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:50 Aug 26, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95222.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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agement agencies, the California Department of Forestry and Fire

Protection, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, and the

California Fire Safe Council and others. In Florida, local collaboration occurs through prescribed fire councils, local cooperative associations, and local divisions of the Florida Division of Forestry.

Numerous other examples of Federal collaboration with our

State, tribal, and local partners are a driving force behind all our

efforts.

The 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy gives States the lead in

prioritizing communities at risk from wildland fire. Last June, the

National Association of State Foresters proposed a methodology for

all States to use in expanding collaboration and cooperation to better prioritize fuels treatment projects. Reducing risks in the

wildland-urban interface is our highest priority. We dedicate over

60 percent of hazardous fuels reduction dollars to projects in or

near the wildland-urban interface. From the beginning of fiscal

year 2001 to the end of fiscal year 2004, the Department of the Interior will have removed hazardous fuels from over 4 million acres

nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the wildland-urban interface.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Scarlett, if I might, one thing I’ve learned here is

that the red light comes on to remind the witness that they need

to wrap up.

Ms. SCARLETT. Sorry. Didn’t see that red light.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Ms. SCARLETT. I will wrap up.

Just to conclude, the investments that we have made are allowing us to, in California, alone, expend some $21 million, which is

an increase of over 50 percent compared to 2001, to tackle these

problems.

Mr. Chairman, we understand the problems facing the Nation

and California. As we sit here today, a number of fires burn in

southern California. It is our intent through the wildland fire efforts that we have underway in our fuels reduction projects to

begin to change the trendline and turn the corner around these

challenges that we face.

Thank you very much. I look forward to answering any of your

questions.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Scarlett follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Our next witness is a friend of mine in my time here

in Congress. He’s the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and

the Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Rey. You are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. REY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My statement for the record

includes a summary of the Department of Agriculture’s accomplishments under the National Fire Plan and Health Forests Initiative,

comparable to that which Assistant Secretary Scarlett recounted

for the Department of Interior, but I’ll submit that for the record

and instead talk a little bit about the fire season that we expect

this year and then talk a little bit about funding for Healthy Forests Restoration Act programs.

While the fire season nationally is expected to be about average

in terms of expected number of fires and acres, much of the interior

West and southwest Alaska is expected to have the potential for an

above-normal fire season. The combination of drought and an increased of drought-stressed and insect-damaged trees and brush

has resulted in a greater potential for large wildfires in the West.

A very warm March has led to a significant reduction of western

snow packs, and southwest Alaska snowpacks are below normal, as

well.

Late March and early April storms in the Southwestern States

have delayed the onset of the fire season because it starts first in

the Southwest and then moves North. However, the Southwest is

expecting a rapid escalation to critical fire potential in Arizona and

western New Mexico later this month and in June. June will also

be an important month in determining the fire season’s severity in

the Northwest and the northern Rockies. A hot, dry June combined

with current low snowpack would likely result in a severe fire season in both of these areas.

I’ll refer you to the map over on the side, which you have before

you. It gives you a detection variance where we predict above-normal fire seasons and below-normal. The green are below normal,

the orange are above normal. That gives you a geographical sense

of how the fire season should play out based upon the predictive

models and the information available at the current time.

As Assistant Secretary Scarlett indicated, we are at work aggressively implementing the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, utilizing

funds provided by Congress for fiscal year 2004.

I have to take respectful issue though, I think, with statements

that I’ve heard in the press for later witnesses that analogize funding from Federal Government for programs to assist States as analogous to virga, or rain that falls from the sky but evaporates before

it hits the ground. I think the specific reference here was to southern California. We went back and looked at program payout in

southern California, and so far this year we have allocated four

projects that are under way on the ground on Federal and non-Federal lands, $67 million to date. Now, I have been in Washington

a long time, but I would have to tell you that if $67 million rained

down out of the sky on me, I think I could feel the moisture. So

there is a great deal of program implementation underway; however, we have looked at program payout in a number of the Forest

Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service programs.

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One of the limiting factors appears to be the non-Federal matching

share either in dollars or in-kind. I’ve directed both the Forest

Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service to look at

these programs in southern California, and, where possible, either

reduce or defer, or in an emergency situation waive the non-Federal share if that will help accelerate program delivery on the

ground, so that is underway.

Mr. OSE. That’s a change.

Mr. REY. That is.

Mr. OSE. You’re basically—I’m sorry to interrupt, first of all.

Mr. REY. Yes.

Mr. OSE. But, if I understand what you just said correctly, you

are lowering thresholds, waiving some requirements on matching,

and trying to make it easier for localities to respond with Federal

assistance?

Mr. REY. Where we have that authority under existing law, we’re

looking at that, and I believe can do it, and it will help.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

Mr. REY. So with that, I would be happy to respond to any of

your questions, but I’d like to leave you with one thought, and I

think it is relevant to the dissatisfaction of how fast program accomplishment is occurring, because I think there are some people

who believed that with the passage of congressional legislation last

year we would end all forest fires, and obviously that is not going

to happen. This is a problem whose magnitude and scope is such

that it’s not a problem. It cannot be solved overnight through a

concerted effort and a rapid and steady increase of our effort on the

ground. This is a problem that will be with us, but can be resolved

in 10 to 12 years time, but it is going to take that amount of time

to deal with the problem that has been over 100 years in the making.

So with that we would both be happy to respond to any questions

that you’ve got.

Mr. OSE. I thank the witness.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey follows:]

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Mr. OSE. I want to recognize my friend from Massachusetts for

the purpose of an opening statement.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank both the witnesses for their testimony and in advance for their response to

questions that might be asked.

You know, the issues of wildfires certainly is a serious one and

timely, and I’m pleased that besides Under Secretary Rey and Assistant Secretary Scarlett, we will be hearing from other experts

that work at the State and local levels. I also want to welcome Amy

Mall, who is the senior forest policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who will give testimony on the next panel.

As we sit here today, as Ms. Scarlett indicated, there are fires

raging in southern California, so we should take a moment to salute the fire fighters there and to say how much we appreciate the

fact that they are risking their lives to protect others, commend

them for their heroism, and certainly hope that Congress continues

to provide the strategic and financial resources necessary for them

to do their jobs.

I’m glad to see that the chairman today asked the witnesses to

address the issue of collaboration between Federal, State, and local

entities. The only way to be successful in protecting against

wildfires is to make sure that it is a cooperative effort. While the

Forest Service and the Department of Interior are responsible for

the management of Federal lands, the devastation of fires certainly

is felt in the communities living outside of those Federal lands.

A consensus effort is the only way to ensure that we are providing the highest levels of protection for our communities, as well as

caring for our forests. Unfortunately, there is some question about

the recent Federal response, both regulatory and statutory, whether or not that is focused on cutting out public access to information

and community participation in the name of speeding up forest

thinning projects, and I’d like to hear some more from our witnesses on that issue.

Certainly, if that’s the case it wouldn’t be acceptable. As with

any government action, the American people have the right to

know how their tax dollars are being spent on forest initiatives and

how their communities will be affected, and so on their behalf I am

going to be asking and listening for answers to three questions,

which I’ll not take the time of repeating them now, but I will ask

them when it is my turn, and then ask that this statement be put

on the record without objection, Mr. Chairman, and yield back.

Mr. OSE. Hearing no objection, we’ll do that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Good.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]

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Mr. OSE. All right. We’re going to go to questions here, 10-minute

rounds.

Ms. Scarlett and Mr. Rey, given the things that we’ve done here,

either the President’s Healthy Forests Initiative or the legislation

that was passed and signed into law, the Restoration Act, do you

believe additional statutory measures are necessary in order to at

least make an impact on the fire situation?

Ms. SCARLETT. I will tackle that first, and then certainly welcome

Mr. Rey’s comments.

At this point, I think we have the tools in place that we need to

be able to get these fuels reduction projects on the ground. The

combination of the Healthy Forests Initiative administrative actions we were able to take has enabled us to expedite the delivery

of these fuels treatment projects. There are things, however, that

we still need to refine and can do better. For example, as Mr. Rey

suggested, getting those grant dollars on the ground quicker and

more efficiently and with less paperwork for the recipients is something that we do need to work on. But, I do believe, in terms of

the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act and stewardship contracting, we have the tools that we now

need to do the job.

Mr. REY. I would concur with that, Mr. Chairman. I think what

we need is a year, maybe 2 years now to get some familiarity with

the changes that have been made, both statutorily and administratively, and then be in the position to evaluate whether, and if so

what additional changes would be helpful. But, I think what we

need now is a couple, several good months of implementation experience to have some data to draw on for that, to respond to that

question more accurately.

Mr. OSE. This question is to both of you, to the extent that you

know. If you take into account all of the suppression costs, that

being the actual firefighting, the economic losses to homeowners,

the community, the destruction of habitat, the loss of species and

the like, how do these costs compare to the cost of prevention? I

mean, the thing that keeps running through my mind is, ‘‘An ounce

of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’’ I’m trying to figure out

whether that has been quantified. Is it 16-to-1 to the ounce-topound scenario, or is it something different?

Mr. REY. One simple basis of comparison is we spent somewhat

over $1 billion in firefighting last year, but the damage to southern

California alone for the fires of last fall was $3 billion, and that

didn’t count any other fires any place else in the country. Southern

California fires were the most expensive uninsured loss from fires

in our Nation’s history.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Scarlett, do you have anything to add to that?

Ms. SCARLETT. I think Mark Rey hit the nail on the head. I will

say right now that, in terms of fire suppression, we are upon initial

attack actually successfully putting out wildland fires at about a

97.5 or 98 percent rate, so in addition to being prepared and being

able to achieve that initial attack success, the real key going forward is going to be our fuels reduction efforts, getting these forests

and rangelands into health so we don’t have the kinds of catastrophic fires when fires that are often natural do strike.

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Mr. OSE. How do you quantify the cost of a fire that never occurred? In other words, how do you compare the ounce of prevention, so to speak, with the pound of cure?

Ms. SCARLETT. That, of course, is very difficult because we never

know what fires are going to strike and where they’re going to

strike and therefore what they will have prevented. I think the

best response we can give to that is along the lines that Mr. Rey

gave. When these catastrophic fires ignite and when they spread

to the degree they are doing and have the destruction that they are

putting forth, the tally is in the billions of dollars, far larger than

the amount we’re actually spending to do fuels treatment, preparedness, and suppression.

Mr. OSE. Is the conclusion, is it based on common sense then or

is it speculative? I mean, $1 billion is a lot of money. Are you saying that there aren’t any scenarios under which you would come to

the conclusion that the prevention costs would even approach that?

Is that effectively what you’re saying? I’m trying to find the scientific basis on which we’re making these determinations of an

ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Ms. SCARLETT. Mr. Chairman, I think that we are going about

setting our goals in a somewhat different way rather than the dollars and cents way. Rather, our goals are we know that we have

190 million acres of land out there that are in poor condition,

rangelands and forest lands. We have a LANDFIRE process that

is a science process to get better vegetation information and better

information about where fires burn with frequency from historical

data, and with that try to tailor our fuels treatment to those locations and those acres that will most reduce the risk to communities

that lie in the pathway of potential fires. So our goal is to reduce

the risk to communities by bringing these lands into better health

so that when natural fires strike they don’t cause the devastation

that we have been seeing. And, we are using science to help us

learn where best to apply those fuels treatments.

Mr. OSE. OK. I don’t remember which of your testimony it was,

but one of your testimonies talked about the wildland-urban interface and spending at least 50 percent of your resources treating

that. Are you telling us that the science that you have been able

to gather allows you to prioritize the circumstances under which

fire can be most devastating?

Mr. REY. Yes, essentially.

Ms. SCARLETT. Yes.

Mr. REY. Based upon the condition of tracts of land, areas of the

forest or rangeland, and the amount of fuel, the amount of woody

material on there, and the proximity to communities or structures,

we can establish clear priorities for where our initial treatments

ought to be focused in treating the wildland-urban interface.

Then, in addition, based upon data that are available about other

resource values—the location of threatened or endangered species

habitat, for instance—we can set additional priorities for areas that

we would like to have fuels reduced to avoid the destructive effects

of a fire that burns in an area that we know is so densely packed

with vegetation that the fire intensity is going to be destructive to

either ecological values or to human life or property.

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Ms. SCARLETT. I will add just one thing to that. We have both

the science question—what’s the condition of the land and what’s

the likelihood of catastrophic fire burning in a particular location?

The other is the communities and which communities are at risk.

That element we are working very closely with States and the National Association of State Foresters who have developed a checklist, if you will, to help communities identify areas of highest priority risk. We match that up with the vegetation information that

our science provides, and that’s where we target our fuels treatment projects.

Mr. OSE. Regarding the areas that burned in California last year,

do you have any information that would indicate these were or

would have been high priority areas or any scientific basis for sharing with us a quantification of the danger that existed there? Do

you have any base data like that?

Ms. SCARLETT. From the standpoint of Department of Interior, I

have just received information on the location of the fires. We

would need to go back and look at where they are, whether we

have done fuels treatment, and whether those locations are ones

with high community presence.

Mr. OSE. You’re talking about the fires that burn today?

Ms. SCARLETT. Yes.

Mr. OSE. I’m talking about the fires that burned last year.

Ms. SCARLETT. I’m sorry.

Mr. OSE. Have you done any sort of retrospective look at that as

it relates to the underbrush or the intensity of a fire that might

burn?

Mr. REY. Yes. We have data that show that much of the area

that burned in California last fall would have been relatively high

priority treatment areas. Now, a substantial portion of it isn’t Federal land, but some of it was Federal land. And, indeed, there are

areas that we did treat. In fact, one of the reasons that we were

able to save the community of Lake Arrowhead is that we were

able to use one of our treatments as a fire break to back fire from

to control the fire that was headed toward the community. So while

we suffered a devastating loss last fall, upwards of 3,000 dwellings,

had we not been able to successfully back fire using the fuel break

that was created through treatments that were already done, it is

quite possible we would have lost upwards of 30,000 homes because

we might well have lost the community of Lake Arrowhead.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Massachusetts for 10 minutes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Rey, I understand that the Los Angeles Times ran an analysis last month. They found that vegetation was the single biggest

factor in whether a house burned. According to their analysis, 9 out

of 10 houses destroyed outside of San Diego during the San Diego

County cedar fire had a flammable vegetation within 30 feet. So

are we comfortable that we are prioritizing the activities of removing the vegetation near homes as opposed to focusing our funding

and other activities in logging somewhere else, which I think is referred to as ‘‘back country’’ logging? Can you tell me what the ratio

is between our efforts and our financing of making homes fire-wise

versus what we are doing with regard to back country logging? And

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then, if you would, tell me what empirical evidence you have that

back country logging actually works? Do we have any studies or reports that actually indicate that’s effective, because I understand

there’s one Forest Service report that raises questions about whether it doesn’t exacerbate the problem sometimes in either spreading

or intensifying the fire.

Mr. REY. Let me start with your last question and submit for the

record a report that the Forest Service released last month. The

title of the report is, ‘‘The Science Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity.’’ This is an extensive literature search that summarizes all of the science that we

know today about the effect of thinning and reducing fire severity

and destructiveness.

Mr. TIERNEY. Isn’t that the report that indicates that in some instances the back country logging can actually intensify a fire, or is

that another report?

Mr. REY. No. There is no Forest Service report that suggests

that. There are assertions that is the case sometimes, and there

are some cases where, if the logging is done on private property

and branches and slash material are left behind to leave fuels behind, that you can have a deleterious effect, but that’s only if it is

improperly done.

Mr. TIERNEY. While I’ll get a chance to read that apparently,

after you file it later today, can you tell me now whether there are

specific research bases in that study to indicate that back country

logging is effective? Actually, let’s put it this way—not just effective, but more effective than would be the result of focusing on

making homes firewise.

Mr. REY. No. The report doesn’t give a comparative assessment

between those two, because those two are not either/or propositions. There is considerable value to making homes firewise and

there is considerable value in some locations to thinning forests

that are not necessarily within the wildland-urban interface.

Mr. TIERNEY. But, we do have to prioritize them in some sense

if we are going to try to put our resources in it.

Mr. REY. Sure, and we have been pretty clear that the highest

priority is to do work within the wildland-urban interface, and over

60 percent of the work we are doing is within the wildland-urban

interface. But, there are two other competing priorities. One is the

recognition that sometimes just working in the wildland-urban

interface, alone, won’t save or make safe a community, because

some of these fires can throw embers and sparks as far as 3 miles

in front of the firefront, and if those embers or sparks land on a

cedar shake roof, the house is going to burn even if the fire didn’t

get any closer than 3 miles to the community. So sometimes just

treating in the wildland-urban interface isn’t enough to make communities safe.

Additionally, there are other values outside of the wildlandurban interface that we want to protect from catastrophic fires.

Municipal watersheds, for instance, are a clear example. Municipal

watersheds, by definition, can’t be in the wildland-urban interface.

They have to be undeveloped watersheds to assure that water quality is maintained. But, if you have a catastrophic fire in a municipal watershed, as the city of Denver is now experienced in showing,

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that’s going to materially disadvantage water quality. So that’s an

area where you’d want to do work to reduce fire intensity, even

though you are not in the wildland-urban interface.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Ms. Scarlett, my understanding is that the administration’s

budget request for this upcoming fiscal year, 2005, would actually

reduce the National Fire Plan’s allocation by about $325 million.

Am I accurate on that?

Ms. SCARLETT. Overall for the National Fire Plan?

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, the National Fire Plan.

Ms. SCARLETT. No. Actually, we have in our 2005 budget overall

increases. For the fuels reduction projects we have about a $25 million increase. We have a very slight increase for preparedness, and

also a slight increase for fire suppression activities. So, for the Department of Interior, we have an increase, particularly in the fuels

reduction areas that we have just been talking about.

Mr. TIERNEY. So the whole National Fire Plan you say it’s an increased amount over the 2004 fiscal year as opposed to any decrease?

Ms. SCARLETT. That’s correct, and I would let Mr. Rey speak to

the specifics of their budget.

Mr. REY. It’s the same for the Department of Agriculture. If you

look at all National Fire Plan accounts, the net effect is an increase

in 2005 requests over 2004, and 2004 was an increase over 2003.

Mr. TIERNEY. When you use a net effect, you’re doing some fancy

math here, so——

Mr. REY. Some accounts that are increasing within the National

Fire Plan and some that are decreasing. In 2000 and 2001, for instance, we put a lot of money into capital expenses, acquiring new

fire engines and providing grants to States and localities to do likewise. Some of those capital assets don’t get replaced every year, so

those accounts rise and fall on the basis of capital maintenance or

capital acquisition needs. But, the overall funding for the National

Fire Plan has been increasing.

Mr. TIERNEY. Are the State and local governments getting the

kind of targeted funding that you both feel they need in order to

be effective partners?

Mr. REY. Our answer to that would be yes. I’m sure many State

and local governments would take issue with that, and that’s a creative tension in the cooperative arrangement that we have with

State and local governments. This is a problem that’s going to have

to be addressed through close collaboration with our State and local

government partners, and indeed our firefighting effort has historically been a collaborative effort under a unified command structure

with Federal, State, and local assets all deployed.

Mr. TIERNEY. Let me just ask one specific question, Mr. Rey. The

interim final rule that was issued by the Forest Service in January

implementing the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, or parts of it,

anyway, seems to lay out a process by which the public can seek

administrative review and file objections to any proposed forest

thinning projects. But, when you read it, it looks as if there is a

provision in there that prevents the public from objecting to any

project that’s proposed by the Secretary or by you.

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Mr. REY. No. The point of the interim rule was to set up an appeals process——

Mr. TIERNEY. Right. Which is why when I——

Mr. REY [continuing]. To then challenges.

Mr. TIERNEY. So you would not interpret that in any way as an

indication reserving to you or the Secretary the specific right to implement something without any right to object?

Mr. REY. That’s correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK.

Mr. REY. Now, there is a responsibility that if somebody is going

to bring an administrative appeal against one of these projects,

that they have exercised their obligation during the preceding public comment period to offer us their comments so we could have a

chance to modify the project in accordance with their comments. If

they passed on that opportunity, then the language of the statute

would prevent them from bringing an appeal.

Mr. TIERNEY. I have some issues with that aspect as you’re talking about it, because I think it does limit a little too much, but I

also had read it to indicate or at least it could be interpreted that

either you or the Secretary could decide on a project and then nobody would have a right to object. I’m glad to hear that you’re not

interpreting it that way. But also there is, in that interim final rule

issued, a process for public comments, but they seemed to be required before the environmental assessments are even available.

I’m not sure how that is supposed to allow somebody to really

make an effective comment if the timing is such that they don’t

have all of the environmental assessments at their disposal before

they can do that.

Mr. REY. It’s not before they are available; before they are final.

One of the effects of what we are trying to do is to engage the public earlier in the decisionmaking process, so one of the elements of

that interim rule is to direct our field people to send material to

the public at an early stage of the deliberations to solicit their comments earlier in the process rather than later, so they will get the

opportunity to participate before the decision is final, and then

when the decision is final, presuming they have given us their comments, they’ll have a right of appeal.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, that’s laudable as long as the assessments

don’t change between the time you send them out early and the

time the final is filed. Is that a likelihood?

Mr. REY. Well, if the assessments change, it will change in part

because of the comments they give us, which I think is what most

people hope when they give us comments, that we’ll be receptive

to what they have to say.

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. We will go around here, but in fact that

is partially true and partially wrong. If the assessment changes

from what they saw or commented to and the final one, then they

won’t have had an opportunity to look at the final one unless it reflects their specific objection or comment as opposed to somebody

else’s, so they’ll never at any point in time get the total final product to comment on in time to make it good.

Mr. REY. If they believe—if they have participated in good faith

in the project before it has become final and then believe after it

became final they were subject to sort of a bait and switch kind of

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an exercise, then they still have the right to bring that up in their

subsequent appeal.

Mr. TIERNEY. But, that’s an avenue they’d have to take as opposed to being able to just comment on it before it can be made

final. It just seems to me that there’s a little bit of a chasing your

tail aspect to it that probably could be modified.

Thank you for your comments.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman.

I’m pleased to recognize the dean of the Utah delegation, Mr.

Chris Cannon.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you.

Ms. Scarlett, it looked like you wanted to say something additional. Would you like to do that?

Ms. SCARLETT. Yes. Thank you very much. I was going to add to

the comments Mr. Rey gave on that. One of the things we are trying to do with the environmental assessment process is really to

engage the public. Collaboration and cooperation with local communities is key. That up-front, early on engagement has resulted in

kind of collaborative and consensus selection of projects, so that we

hope to get beyond the litigative and kind of appeal approach to

begin with. I have been out in the field and seen that working very

successfully, and that is our aspiration here.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you for those comments. I want to thank our

panel for being here, our esteemed panel. It is unfortunate that

Governor Martz couldn’t be with us. She is a firecracker, very interesting person. I think she would have added something to this

debate.

I’m going to start by making just sort of a regional petition. Normally we beat you guys up a little bit, but this is asking. We hope

that, Ms. Scarlett, since in your position in Interior you have the

ability to affect policy to some degree, we hope that you will be considering over there the importance of funding our western counties

with payment in lieu of taxes [PILT], at a higher level in the future. I think we are going to have a Donnybrook here over that.

It would be a lot easier if you guys would just say, ‘‘These counties

need the money. We’re not paying for their schools. We’re not letting them tax these lands.’’ Are you familiar with the APPLE

project, which is an acronym that stands for public lands and education? I forget the first part. But it is a series of statistical analyses that show that people in the West in the public lands States,

including California, tax ourselves much higher and have a much

lower per-child payment for education because of Federal dominance of our public lands. We need to turn that around, to a large

degree, and the first place to do that is PILT. These counties need

that money, and a full funding of the authorized amount is not that

much more, but it would be remarkably helpful to areas that are

not able to tax because they have public lands which we decided

in the Federal Government not to sell. Now, I personally think we

ought to do that, but if we are not going to sell them or turn them

over to the States or turn them over to the counties, we need to

be paying for the use or for the benefit of those lands. And, if our

friends in the Northeast want to claim national ownership, then we

ought to have a national responsibility to pay.

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I could go on like this for a long time. Let me just say I hope

you’ll consider that in the next budget cycle, Ms. Scarlett.

Ms. SCARLETT. I am pleased to say that in our 2005 budget we actually did have an amount of $227 million for PILT, which is just

a little tad over what Congress appropriated in 2004, so I think we

are making progress.

Mr. CANNON. My recollection is it was $1 million over what we

did last year. We expect that to be much higher, 40 or 50 or 60

percent higher next time.

Ms. SCARLETT. Well, we look forward to working with you, and

certainly we do understand the challenges that counties face.

I will add that we are also very interested in working in collaborative agreements with counties in other ways and have, for example, in Moab, UT, a collaborative partnership with a county that actually manages our BLM lands along with State lands for some

recreation purposes, so there are a lot of ways we can work together with counties.

Mr. CANNON. We appreciate that collaboration. Grand County,

where Moab is, is a wonderful place. I used to represent them. I

used to represent two-thirds of the State of Utah. Now I’m down

to about a quarter. But, we do care about that, and the Western

Caucus, of which Mr. Ose is a member, is anxiously engaged on

that issue. But we divert. We’re talking about forests here, and we

really care about how you are doing what we need done in our national forests.

We had a late rainy season in Utah. I don’t think we are going

to have fires for a while, but I am astonished at the amount of fire

on our public lands that we already have. I think that the American people are awakening to the fact that we need to control this

or we will devastate large areas. And, that doesn’t mean houses,

which, of course, have been a very significant problem in some

places, especially California, but certainly the forest, itself. It’s the

watershed. It’s the habitat of all species, including, in many cases,

endangered species, so we care about that.

Mr. Rey, we’ve had reports by GAO and the National Academy

of Public Administration that stress the importance of improving

cooperation and coordination among all levels of government and

the private sector in decreasing wildfire risks. How are these partnerships working, do you think?

Mr. REY. I think they are working very well and improving as

we go, and I think we have done a pretty good job at meeting virtually all of NAPA’s recommendations.

Mr. CANNON. Good. What do you project will happen with those

over time? Are we going to have a significant influence on our management and elimination or limitation of fires in the future?

Mr. REY. Well, there are two areas where cooperative interaction

among levels of governments is bearing fruit. One is in the organization of the firefighting effort, itself, and a lot of work is being

done and continues to be done there to implement some of NAPA’s

recommendations. And, the second is in working with communities

to more quickly identify the areas of highest priority treatment,

and that’s progressing very well, as well.

Ms. SCARLETT. Congressman, might I add to that? We have created, 2 years ago, a Wildland Fire Leadership Council. It is the

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first time that we have a leadership group of all the Federal agencies, also the National Association of Counties, the Western Governors’ Association, and tribes and other public representations

working together on fire policy, and the National Association of

State Foresters. Part of that group actually created the guidelines

for developing fuels treatment project priorities, so we are very

much working with them and looking to them for their leadership

as we move forward.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. One of the things that, in my other

committee—I chair the Administrative and Commercial Law Subcommittee, and I think we are going to introduce a bill that would

re-establish the Administrative Conference of the United States.

That’s the group that at one point in time helped create the model

for negotiated rulemaking. And if you can negotiate a rulemaking,

you should be able to negotiate a permitting, and so if you would

consider with the groups you have just talked about the significance of potential negotiated permitting so we can eliminate litigation, I would very much appreciate that. This is an area of great

importance, and we ought to be able to do this in a more thoughtful

manner so that we don’t just stop forestry projects which end up

over-burdening our forests with fuel, which end up in these massive and destructive forest fires. So thank you for that. That’s very

interesting. That’s the sort of thing that I care about enormously.

Ms. Scarlett, the administration decreased the wildfire preparedness and hazardous fuel reductions budgets and rural fire assistance. How does the administration justify that?

Ms. SCARLETT. Well, overall, of course, we did increase by $25

million in the Department of Interior fuels reduction projects which

will go on the ground in and around communities. We also did increase very slightly in Interior our preparedness budget, and also

by about $28 million our suppression budget. We did reduce, as you

note, the rural fire assistance from $10 million to $5 million between 2004 and 2005. In part, this is a priority setting matter. We

had, as Mark Rey noted, put some moneys out into the communities over the last several years for them to build their preparedness infrastructure, firefighting equipment and so forth, but with

the very significant fuels challenges we face, we felt it was the

highest priority to get dollars on the ground for those treatments

at this point. We certainly look forward to working with Congress

on what that right balance over time is between fuels treatment

and rural fire assistance.

Mr. CANNON. I think as we spoke earlier the overall money invested in the National Fire Plan has been increasing each year.

The mix of how that money is spent and in what areas it is invested has changed each year, and it is fair to say that in the 2005

request we focused on increasing as much as we could the fuels

treatment account, and the rural fire assistance accounts were decreased, in part because they were so high earlier in the decade

when we were helping local fire departments and communities purchase their capital assets that don’t need to be purchased every

year.

Now, I’m sure you are going to hear from some local rural fire

departments, ‘‘Look, we didn’t get that done in 2000,’’ or, ‘‘We

didn’t get enough to meet our capital needs when that was the first

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priority.’’ That’s sort of, I guess, the kind of thing that we talk

through during the appropriations process to figure out what the

right balance is. But as compared to earlier in the decade when

those accounts were higher and fuels reduction was lower, we felt

that the best combination for fiscal year 2005 was to reverse that

slightly and make fuels treatment higher.

I apologize for not having been able to be here earlier, and if this

is redundant let me know, but maybe briefly answer. How many

acres of land have been treated under the new regulations for

Healthy Forests, and what percentage of that acreage is in the

wild/urban interface?

Mr. REY. About 60 percent of the lands that we are treating are

in the wildland-urban interface. Last year, fiscal year 2003, we

treated a total of 2.6 million acres, which is an all-time record, indeed. There is a bar chart over there that shows the acres that

were treated in each of the last several years. In 2004, we’re going

to push close to 4 million acres, which would be a new record, and

in 2005 we’re hoping to push beyond four million acres, which

would be yet another new record. And, we hope to continue that

progress into the future.

Ms. SCARLETT. To put that into a little bit of context, those increases represent a 45 percent increase in 2004 over what we accomplished just 3 years ago, so we have had a major uptake both

in the efficiency with which we are getting this done and in the

total numbers of acres and dollars expended. For Interior, the numbers are similar in terms of approximately 60 percent of our fuels

treatment projects being wildland-urban interface, with the remainder being things like municipal watersheds, utility rights of

way where one, of course, wants to protect that infrastructure, and

then key fuel breaks to ensure that we have defensible space. One

remembers the fire like Sholo a few years ago, which raged 20

miles in just a matter of hours. You need to have those defensible

spaces, as well.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I see I have gone over

my time, but I would just like to thank our panelists, who have my

greatest confidence in the job they are doing. I hope that we can

continue to solve these problems that have accumulated over a very

long period of time and which need to be turned around so that we

can retain our watershed, retain our forests, retain our wildlife,

and make America a wonderful and beautiful place that it deserves

to be.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman.

I don’t know which of you might know this answer, but in terms

of the total aggregate demand for lumber in the country, do either

of you know what the total is?

Mr. REY. Not offhand, but we could easily obtain that information for you.

Mr. OSE. I would like to get that information, in particular.

[NOTE.—The information can be found in USDA’s responses to

the chairman’s written questions at the end of the hearing.]

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Mr. OSE. Before I proceed, I want to make that report you referenced in conversing with the gentleman from Massachusetts part

of the record, without objection.

[NOTE.—The rest of this document can be found in subcommittee

files and at http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrslgtr120.pdf].

[The information referred to follows:]

64

65

Mr. OSE. Mr. Rey, does the Forest Service have any estimate of

the annual growth in board feet in the National Forests?

Mr. REY. We can get that information. We can give you growth,

annual growth, annual mortality, annual harvest if you’d like, and

then we can easily give you total annual demand for lumber.

Mr. OSE. Well, the purpose I’m trying to get as is to quantify the

amount of material being added to the pile, so to speak, that can

be burned.

Mr. REY. We can get you that, as well.

Mr. OSE. So annual growth, annual harvest, annual natural

death by disease or otherwise gives you a net growth across the

country, and that will tell us from 1 year to the next how much

the forests are growing?

Mr. REY. Or accumulating material. That’s correct.

Mr. OSE. All right.

Mr. REY. I can tell you easily the accumulation is net. We’re adding material faster than we are taking it out, and it is dying faster

than it is growing.

Mr. OSE. I have been given information that indicates that the

annual growth is about 21 billion board feet, that the annual harvest on national forests is about 2 billion board feet, and the annual death on National Forests is about 3 billion board feet. So

under that scenario we’re getting an annual growth of 16 billion

board feet. Now, I don’t know whether that’s accurate or not. That’s

why I’m asking the question.

Mr. REY. That sounds about right. I mis-spoke a second ago. The

mortality is higher than the harvest.

Mr. OSE. Right.

Mr. REY. It’s not higher than the growth. So we are accumulating more material every year out there. Those numbers sound in

the ball park, but I can get you exact numbers.

Mr. OSE. So, going back to my original question about the aggregate demand for lumber in the country, you compare that annual

growth of roughly 16 billion board feet under this scenario against

a total market—I mean, if the market is 20 billion board feet, we

have net growth per year equal to 80 percent of our total market.

So the question that gets begged is, you know, do we have to have

growth to that level, or is there an opportunity, if you will, or a

need to harvest greater amounts of dead or dying trees? In other

words, we can harvest significantly more without a net reduction

in the size of our forests?

Mr. REY. That’s correct, although when we talk about the reduction in the size of our forests, we tend to talk about acreage that

is in forests versus acreage that’s developed for some other purpose.

Mr. OSE. Now, following that same line of thought, given the

fires that we’re having in California, I would appreciate the same

kind of information based on the National Forests in California. I

have been given information that indicates that for the El Dorado,

Sierra, and Stanislaus National Forest, we have estimated annual

growth of 360 million board feet, 200 million board feet, and 300

million board feet, and we have estimated 2004 removals in El Dorado, Sierra, and Stanislaus of 13 million board feet, 8 million

board feet, and 10 million board feet. Just in those three National

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Forests in California, estimated annual growth of about 860 million

board feet and estimate 2004 removals of about 31 million board

feet. So you can see how the problem accumulates over time.

I would appreciate a clarification from the Department on those

numbers.

Mr. REY. Yes. Those numbers, as well, sound within the ball

park in terms of what I recollect, but we can validate what the

exact numbers are for you for both the California National Forests

as well as the system, as a whole.

Mr. OSE. Now I want to followup on Mr. Cannon’s points. One

of the difficulties we have in any harvest, whether it is a post-fire

harvest or a preventive action of the nature that Health Forests

Initiative or Restoration Act would otherwise allow, is the appeals

process that the Forest Service has to go through. If I understood

Mr. Cannon’s comments correctly, the initiative, itself, and the act,

itself, change the appeals process—and I think Mr. Tierney touched

on this also—to basically force people who want to participate in

the deliberative process to participate at some point before the decision becomes final. In other words, they have standing to appeal.

They have to be in the process. They can’t just come out of nowhere

at the last minute or even after the last moment and drop an appeal. Is that correct?

Mr. REY. That’s correct. And, the reason for that change—and

that’s in Section 105 of the statute—the reason for that change is

that we were finding that some people were using the flexibility—

I’ll use the word ‘‘flexibility’’—of the previous appeals process to leverage the outcome by sort of laying in the weeds until the decision

was final and then springing their appeal full blown at a time

when they had maximum leverage, and that struck us as unfair to

all of the people who in good faith participated during the public

comment period and also to the agency people who are trying to

produce a project that people could generally agree with, because

if you don’t know what somebody’s objections are until the project

is final, it’s pretty hard to adjust the project and to respond to

those objections.

Now, that change was unpopular in some quarters. If I was an

advocate for a particular point of view and I saw an administrative

process that gave me a singular advantage by waiting until the end

when my leverage was maximum, I’d be duty bound, ethically

bound, to represent my clients most effectively by using the system

in a way it could be used, and I don’t expect anybody in that position to necessarily be happy that the process was changed, because

the process, as it was designed, was beneficial to the way they were

using it.

Mr. OSE. Do you have any examples of the manner in which this

process might have been used to the detriment of the forests? I’m

particularly referring to what I call the ‘‘Morgan cut.’’ I just want

to run through this. This is in North Carolina. In 1992, public

scoping began for what was called the ‘‘Hickory Knob timber sale.’’

In 1994, the environmental assessment was released. The project

was found it contains cerulean warblers, which are listed in the

forest plan as a sensitive species. The timber sale was subsequently

dropped.

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In April 1998, part of the old timber sale morphed into the Morgan cut reinvention project, which is a stewardship pilot project,

and it was proposed as a regeneration harvest on 12 acres and a

thinning on 8 acres, and the area did not contain any cerulean warblers. In February 1999, the consultation was started, and in that

same month the district announced a decision on a categorical exclusion. That decision was appealed, subsequently withdrawn. The

court subsequently eliminated the use of categorical exclusions for

similar small projects—that would be the 20 acre type.

In June 1999, the Forest Service district re-initiates scoping, an

environmental assessment was released in November, but a decision was delayed pending analysis related to the endangered Indiana bat which was discovered in an adjacent county.

In September 2000, a forest plan amendment and biological opinion were released, both containing new requirements to protect

habitat for the Indiana bat that lived in the adjacent county.

In September 2001, the forest completed a forest-wide management species report in compliance with the recent court decision affecting several national forests in the South.

In February 2002, additional surveys were completed for sensitive species and the project’s biological evaluation; environmental

assessment were reformatted to meet new regional standards. So

then the decision notice is released.

In March 2000, that decision was then appealed, and the project

is currently delayed pending outcome of the appeal.

The purpose of going through this litany is to show that it takes

10 years to process an application on 20 acres in which there was

no cerulean warblers, which were the basis of the original appeal.

Now, how frequent is this kind of thing occurring?

Mr. REY. I think we can fairly describe that project as snakebit

because it went through several different trials and still hasn’t

overcome them all. I don’t think that level of futility is the norm,

but in general terms one of the driving factors behind the Health

Forests Initiative is that we looked at the amount of time and

money that is being consumed by administrative process to get this

work done, and what we found in the Forest Service—and the

number varies for the other agencies, but we found in the Forest

Service it’s 40 cents on every dollar; 40 cents on every dollar that

you gave us to do this kind of work on the ground was being consumed by those kinds of administrative processes. And, so what

we’ve tried to do through the Health Forests Initiative is to preserve the opportunity for the public to participate in the development of these projects, but get the projects done in a way that

doesn’t take nearly that many years or nearly that much money,

because if we continue to spend 40 cents on every dollar going

through the kind of matriculation that you’ve just described, it is

obvious that the money you give us isn’t going to go very far, and

if that continues to be the case, it is obvious that we’re not going

to stop seeing the kind of fires that we have been seeing each of

the last couple of years.

Mr. OSE. Well, let’s keep in mind what our objective here today

is. It is to talk about the regulatory environment that could be used

to reduce fire exposure in some of our communities. I want to cite

another example along this line, keeping in mind that our objective

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is to reduce the fire hazard in some of our communities, our forests.

This one is from the Coconino National Forest in Arizona, which

is the home to the northern goshawk. In 1996, the forest proposed

thinning trees near a goshawk nest, partly to protect the bird from

fire hazards. The project was stopped due to protests. Ironically,

that year a fire destroyed the forest, including the area around the

goshawk nest. I don’t think that’s our objective.

It seems to me that the process got twisted to an inadvertent

ending that served nobody’s purpose, and I’m trying to find out

how widespread that is.

I apologize to my friend for going over my time. I’ll be happy to

give him an equal amount if not more.

Ms. SCARLETT. I’ll add another figure that might put that in a

little bit of context. As we went through and began to develop the

administrative tools, the environmental assessment, speed up the

change in appeals process, we worked with the Forest Service to

look at how frequent that sort of circumstance was, and approximately close to 60 percent of Forest Service appealable projects

were, in fact, appealed. The vast majority of those, upon appeal, actually were not successful, meaning ultimately the projects moved

forward. What that meant is, of course, 60 percent of the time—

a lot of investment of time and effort and money was suspended

just to end up where you were in the first place. That is precisely

why the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and the Healthy Forests

Initiative have been so very important to us to be able to move forward.

Mr. OSE. To be more exact, the GAO numbers are 58 percent of

appealable Forest Service land management decisions in fiscal year

2001 and 2002 were, in fact, appealed, and of those 58 percent, 73

percent of the appeals resulted in no changes whatsoever.

Mr. REY. The decisions were affirmed. That’s right.

Mr. OSE. Correct. I apologize for the length of my questions. I

recognize the gentleman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Actually, I just have one small thing that I want

to clear up, just for information. We were talking earlier about the

budget and whether there had been cuts or not, and maybe I

wasn’t fine enough in identifying, because you started talking

about net cuts and everything, and I want to make sure we don’t

go. With respect to State fire assistance, the Congressional Research Service tells me at least that in 2004 we had $51.1 million,

and the request for 2005 is $34.2. Correct me if I am wrong on

that, but if I am correct would you tell me why the disparity and

what the theory is behind it?

Mr. REY. I think those are the correct numbers, and the difference there is that we increased State fire assistance and comparable grant programs significantly in fiscal year 2000 and 2001,

and that money went to the purchase of a considerable amount of

capital equipment, assisting communities in buying new fire engines. And, it is our judgment that not all of those capital expenditures need to be made every year. You don’t buy a new fire engine

every year.

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Mr. TIERNEY. I just want to go along with this step by step. I don’t mean to be rude at all, but in 2001 you had $118.5 million,

so that’s where all that capital equipment was?

Mr. REY. Right.

Mr. TIERNEY. And then you dropped to $87.1 in 2002, went back up in 2003 to $89.3, then down significantly in 2004 to $69.1 overall, and then down to $47. I think those numbers are reflected in

the State fire assistance end of it. So you have had 4 years where

you were up at over $50 million and then dropped down to $34, so

it can’t all be in capital equipment or whatever, I wouldn’t assume.

Mr. REY. Much of it is. That’s the most common use of that account. Now, as I said earlier——

Mr. TIERNEY. So, you’re just basically saying—and I accept it if

you are saying that there are basically things that you’ve taken

care of, all of the capital equipment needs, and that none of that

equipment has gotten to the point that it’s so old it needs to be replaced or any big expense on that?

Mr. REY. Generally, yes, but I’ll acknowledge that I will not be

surprised if you hear from some locales who say, ‘‘We didn’t get it

done. We still need money to make some additional capital purchases.’’ That’s kind of the way the appropriations process works.

We make a proposal and the Congress adjusts it and modifies it

on the basis of the testimony that they receive during the course

of the year, and at the end of the day the accounts may not look

exactly like we proposed them but we’ll finally work something out.

I think the more important thing, the big picture is that there

is a combined commitment on part of the Congress, part of the administration, bipartisan fashion that the National Fire Plan accounts are going to continue to increase, and that work on the

ground, which is really the most important thing, because that’s

the preventative work, is going to increase, as well.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess, you know, if we are going to do that I

think it is important that the local communities obviously

participate——

Mr. REY. Correct.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. And, have some of their needs met, so

what I’d like to know is: did you propose more and OMB cut back

on your proposal? Were there communities that you had originally

thought that they might this year get some assistance, and OMB

or somebody else in the administration told you this wasn’t the

year?

Mr. REY. No. The proposal that we sent forward was, by and

large, adopted, so we have no qualms with it.

Mr. TIERNEY. When you made the proposal, were there communities that you knew needed things that you just didn’t think that

you could allow for in this year’s budget?

Mr. REY. No. I think what I’m saying is we don’t know at the

outset, at the beginning of each budget year, necessarily what each

community’s needs are going to be.

Mr. TIERNEY. You don’t ask them?

Mr. REY. We do ask them, and we try to average it out nationwide, but the Congress is going to hear from communities during

the course of the debate over the appropriations bill this year and

the accounts will be adjusted. That’s the way the process works.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Well, it works in part. I mean, I would assume that

you hear from the communities and you try to allocate things

where they are needed, so maybe we’re doing it a second time here

when we do it in Congress, but I’m assuming that there was a

point in time where you asked for community input as to what

their needs were, and I guess I want to know did you agree or disagree with them, and did you meet their needs or not?

Mr. REY. We looked at several requests from different programs

and tried to strike the best balance we could.

Mr. TIERNEY. Balance between who? Who were you balancing?

Ms. SCARLETT. I guess I would——

Mr. TIERNEY. Excuse me a second.

Mr. REY. Between different accounts.

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. But not between the communities’ needs

and something else?

Mr. REY. No.

Mr. TIERNEY. You would determine that community might have

had a valid request and you just couldn’t accommodate it because

you had to balance between another account.

Mr. REY. Between all of their requests.

Mr. TIERNEY. Because you had an amount that you had to stay

within?

Mr. REY. Within an increasing budget for this program area, yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. But an amount that’s——

Mr. REY. It’s not unlimited, but it is increasing.

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. But I guess, you know, I’m really not trying to trick you or anything here, so I don’t know why we’re having

this struggle, but the bottom line of it is that you had an amount

that you thought that you could spend in your department, and

within that amount there were some needs that you thought you

could meet and others that you didn’t think you could meet?

Mr. REY. Yes, I wouldn’t dispute that. I think that’s the way

every budget has worked since time immemorial.

Mr. TIERNEY. That wasn’t painful at all, was it?

Mr. REY. Yes. And, in this particular cycle, given the importance

of doing this hazardous fuel reduction work, we put a higher premium on that, and that’s something that we’re going to continue

to debate over the course of the year.

Mr. TIERNEY. But, now we have something to tell the communities when they come to us and say they went to you and they had

a need and you didn’t accommodate it. We now know what your

thought process was, which is what I was trying to get at.

Mr. REY. Right.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you for your answer.

Mr. REY. And, the other complexity of it is that in the program

affected here, which is our program of assistance to States and

communities, there are other non-fire program accounts that they

told us that were very important and asked us to fund at significantly increased levels, as well. And, some of those had to play in

the same priority setting.

What we think we did in our State and Private Forestry budget

is respond as favorably to what the States and communities told

us were their top priorities. Now, that’s sort of a national whole,

listening to their national organizations. I would concede—and I

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think we both recognize—that in some cases and in some regions

those national priorities aren’t going to be reflective of what a particular State would say is their top priority, and that will work

itself out as the appropriations process proceeds.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank you. It was important for us to understand

what your reason and your rationale was and how we ended up

with that differentiation in those numbers.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the witnesses for their testimony, and I

apologize to the next panel but I have to go to the floor to manage

a bill, and so I’m going to have to leave at this point in time. I’ll

try to get back if I can, but I thank you for having this hearing

and I thank the witnesses for their testimony.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman.

I just want to followup on this question or this issue that you

raised earlier, Mr. Rey, having to do with what administrative adjustments might be possible in terms of the Federal/State matching. You mentioned that there might be—and this is important to

California, because I know a lot of people are watching the news

tonight. They’re not watching us, they’re watching those fires. I’m

curious as to what adjustments you have in mind along this line.

Mr. REY. Let me be a little more specific and tell you what I’ve

asked our folks to take a look at. There are two agencies involved

in spending out the money that was provided in the fiscal year

2004 omnibus appropriations bill. One is the Forest Service and

one is the Natural Resources Conservation Service. In the Natural

Resources Conservation Service, there is roughly $17 million that

has already been spent for post-fire recovery work, and about $120

million that was provided for hazard tree removal, both under the

Emergency Watershed Protection Program.

The Emergency Watershed Protection Program requires a 25 percent match, and, in the three counties involved, San Bernadino

County and Riverside County have both come up with an in-kind

match, and San Diego County is still struggling to meet that standard.

We do have the authority to waive that 25 or reduce the 25 percent match in an emergency situation, and what I directed the

NRCS to do is to look into whether we can reduce it or defer it—

the match money is spent later in the year or in out years—or to

waive it if there is absolutely no way the county is going to provide

its in-kind, so we’ll work on that.

The Forest Service has a number of programs for which we——

Mr. OSE. Before we leave that one issue, will all the counties be

treated the same in terms of the waiver issue?

Mr. REY. No. In this case we would have to declare a specific

emergency if we were going to give San Diego County a waiver.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Mr. REY. And, we’ve done that a couple of times before, so there

is some precedent for it.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

Mr. REY. What I’d like to see is, if that’s the impediment to getting the money out there more quickly before we decide that we

want to go that way, because it means that there will be less

money overall doing the work on the ground.

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The Forest Service programs require or generally involve a 50/

50 match, again either with cash or in-kind, and I’ve directed the

Forest Service to look into whether any of the payout is being delayed as a consequence of difficulty in hitting the 50/50 match. We

don’t have the authority, I don’t think, to waive it completely, but

I think we can reduce the share if need be or again defer the payout so that it comes in in the out years for project support. So I’ve

directed both agencies to look into that in the interest of getting

more work done on the ground more quickly, particularly because

all of those program accounts are going to removal of beetle-killed

trees in those three counties in southern California.

Mr. OSE. I just want to make sure we’ve got a clear understanding of what that is. The Federal Government has this pot of money,

but the only way to access it is by virtue of a match that comes

from the local or State coffers. Absent a financial contribution from

the local or State coffers, the money stays in this Federal account

unless there’s a waiver of some sort or another, and that’s the

thing you’re looking at now?

Mr. REY. Correct. The only thing I would amend to what you just

said is that the State and local contribution can be cash or in-kind.

Mr. OSE. OK. Any idea when that deliberative process will be

completed?

Mr. REY. We can get you a work out on that in about 2 weeks.

Mr. OSE. I want to thank you for thinking about that, because

I think that is very important in California, and I suspect it is

going to be important in other communities across the West as the

year progresses.

Mr. REY. Well, in addition to talking with you over the last 2

days, I have been talking with Senator Feinstein and Senator

Boxer, so we have been working on this as you have asked us to

for about 48 hours now.

Mr. OSE. All right. Thank you. I have no further questions for

these panelists at the moment. We are going to leave the record

open for Members to submit questions in writing for 10 days. To

the extent you can respond in a timely fashion, it would certainly

be appreciated. I do want to thank you for taking the time to come

visit with us for 1 hour and 45 minutes. It’s always a pleasure to

see you.

Ms. SCARLETT. Thank you very much.

Mr. OSE. We’re going to take a 5-minute recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. OSE. I want to thank the panel for gathering so timely. As

you saw in the first panel, we routinely swear everybody in, so if

you would all please rise. Raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. OSE. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Our second panel is composed of the following individuals: we

have the chairman of the State of California Governor’s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, Senator William Campbell; we’re also joined

by the chairman of the Fire Safe Council, Mr. Bruce Turbeville; we

have joining us representing the California Fire Chiefs Association

the president of that organization, Mr. William McCammon; and

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our fourth witness on this panel is a senior forest policy analyst for

the Natural Resources Defense Council, Ms. Amy Mall.

Again, you saw how the first panel worked. For those of you who

haven’t been here before, what we do is we recognize each of you

for 5 minutes. We have received your testimony, your written testimony, and we have reviewed it. To the extent that you can summarize or add anything new within that 5 minutes, that would be

great. We would appreciate that.

Senator Campbell, it is good to see you again. You are recognized

for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM CAMPBELL, CHAIRMAN, BLUE RIBBON FIRE COMMISSION; BRUCE TURBEVILLE, CHAIRMAN OF

THE FIRE SAFE COUNCIL; WILLIAM J. MCCAMMON, PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA FIRE CHIEFS ASSOCIATION; AND AMY

MALL, SENIOR FOREST POLICY ANALYST, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be

here.

Before I begin, I would like to add to what you started with and

give you the latest update on the California fires. They have now

consumed over 24,000 acres. We’ve lost 16 homes, 14 injuries, and

the greatest threat is in Riverside County right now with the Eagle

and Cerritos fires, which threaten over 1,000 homes.

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, I am honored to be

invited to testify before your subcommittee. My name is Bill Campbell, and I am a retired State Senator from California who was

asked by former Governor Gray Davis and then Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger to be the chairman of the Governor’s Blue

Ribbon Fire Commission. The Commission was formed on November 2nd of last year in the wake of the California’s unprecedented

series of wildland-urban interface fires that ravaged southern California in October of last year. Southern California experienced the

most devastating wildland fire disaster in the State’s history. Over

739,000 acres burned; 3,631 homes were destroyed, including the

home of your colleague, Chairman Duncan Hunter; 36 commercial

properties and 11,069 outbuildings were destroyed; 246 injuries; 24

fatalities, including one fire fighter. At the height of the siege,

15,631 personnel were assigned to these fires.

Presidential declarations of disaster were declared in San Diego,

Los Angeles, San Bernadino, Ventura, and Riverside Counties.

And, in the aftermath of the fires, in San Bernadino County a barren mountain canyon landscape impacted by a rain storm produced

a flash flood and mudslide causing even more tragedy and destruction. Sixteen more lives were lost on this follow-on disaster on

Christmas Day of 2003, and 2 weeks ago they found the remains

of the last victim, an 11-year-old boy 15 miles from the site where

he was originally located.

Thirty-four Blue Ribbon Fire Commission members comprised of

Federal, State, and local officials assembled to examine the

wildland fire disaster’s response and the critical public policy issues

that impede or strengthen our firefighting efforts. We were honored

to have Senator Diane Feinstein and Representatives Jerry Lewis

and Susan Davis on our Commission. I am truly grateful for their

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leadership, dedication, and support. In addition, we had representatives from the Department of Defense, the Department of Interior,

the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Homeland

Security.

As you said, you have a copy of this, and so I am going to skip

some of this.

We were given 120 days to examine and deliberate on these

issues and report back to the Governor with recommendations, and

the Commission just published a report of our findings and deliberations, and I’ve submitted two copies of that report for inclusion

in the official record. The executive summary of this report is part

of my submitted written statement, and I would like to share just

a few of the key Federal recommendations from the report at this

time.

The Commission recommends that the Federal agencies, to include Departments of Interior and Forest Service, work in conjunction with California State and local fire agencies and the military

to jointly develop and adopt agreements, regulations, and operating

policies for the deployment of aerial assets during wildland-urban

interface firefighting efforts.

The Commission recommends that Congress increase efforts to

provide training for local fire departments through Federal grant

programs and expand the rural fire assistance grant program.

And, the Commission recommends that sufficient standardized

frequencies be issued by the Federal communications system to

meet the interoperability communication needs of fire and emergency personnel.

Our 48 recommendations have been categorized as primarily

public policy solutions or fiscal issues. The Commission was sensitive to the financial plight of government at all levels and recognized that few of the fiscal recommendations would have meaningful value in the absence of critical public policy changes that first

must proceed them.

In summary of our Commission’s examination, let me state that

the magnitude of the tragedy, not only in terms of the loss of

human life and property, but in the loss of valuable watershed,

wildlife, and critical environmental habitats, was truly catastrophic. After a series of extensive and deliberative public hearings, the Commission determined that, while the bravery and dedication of California’s fire service continues to be exemplary, many

lessons from similar past tragedies had gone unlearned by those responsible for development of fire safety and prevention policies.

Foremost among those lessons is the lack of political will to

prioritize among competing but very important public policy goals.

Vegetation and fuel management, habitat preservation, and environmental protection have often conflicted with sound fire safe

planning in the development of wildland areas. When adverse

weather and fuel conditions combine, our fire fighters have been

given the impossible task of protecting life and property in the face

of these policy conflicts.

Additionally, the Commission recognized the difficulty the Fire

Service faces in meeting the fire protective challenges of explosive

development along the wildland-urban interface, and among the

findings and recommendations the Commission urges the same

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commitment to professional training afforded the valiant men and

women of law enforcement to our California Fire Service.

In closing, Chairman Ose and members of the subcommittee, I

believe it is essential to understand that unless and until public

policymakers at all levels of government muster the political will

to put the protection of life and property ahead of competing political agendas, these tragedies are certain to continue.

This concludes my oral testimony, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Our next witness is Bruce Turbeville, who is the chairman of the Fire Safe Council.

Sir, we appreciate your attendance today. We have received your

statement in writing. It has been submitted in the record. You are

recognized for 5 minutes to summarize.

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to

be here. I appreciate the opportunity. I am Bruce Turbeville, chairman of the Fire Safe Council. I’ll give you just a quick background.

The Fire Safe Council actually was formed in 1993 when we recognized that State government alone could not enforce all of the fire

prevention needs and did not have enough money for public education. So, we looked at the fact that public-private partnerships

might help, so we formed the Fire Safe Council looking at the insurance industry, the real estate industry, and other entities that

had a vested interest in reducing fire damage.

As time progressed, the Council grew, and it became clearly evident that the Council concept could be put to use at the local level,

so local Fire Safe Councils began to form, and what that did is give

us community effort, with people understanding that they have a

position and a place to deal with their concerns as related to

wildfires.

As these grew and became more entrenched at the local level, we

noticed that just the volunteerism side of it didn’t work and they

needed funding. Almost simultaneously, the National Fire Plan

funding became available, and grants were made available to continue the public education.

In 2001, during the first year we had close to 100 grants fulfilled

up and down the State, and at the time we only had 50 or 60 Fire

Safe Councils. The success has been to the point now we have 120

local Fire Safe Councils, and they are all taking it upon themselves

to do fuel treatments around and within the communities. They are

the perfect channel for the Federal grant funds to come down from

Interior and Agriculture to the county level, the community level.

The success has been phenomenal; however, now we are fearful

of the loss of funds. The community assistance grant total available

for 2005 appears to be little, if any, compared to what we’ve had

in the past. We have a growing need and a diminishing supply of

funding, it appears. Just this last year we had 393 grant requests

totaling $49 million. We had available $5 million, so 10 percent of

the folks that want to do the job. I point out again the value of the

community. These are the people that live there and recognize that

there’s a problem and they want to do something about it. It is an

ideal situation, and we need to keep it going if at all possible.

The Health Forests Initiative and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act are both programs that the Fire Safe Councils are the perfect conduit from the top down to the bottom. As they become in

place, we’re taking advantage of those and helping them become effective.

I think the most important thing to recognize here is you’ve got

the grassroots willing to do the work if we just give them a little

seed money. It seems to be working better than I ever imagined it

would be, and we just can’t let it wither away.

You did ask a question, Mr. Chairman, a while back about the

ounce of prevention and a pound of cure. I think I may have

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prompted that by my statement where I said for every $1 you put

in prevention you save $10 in suppression and damage. And no, I

can’t prove it because I made it up, but nobody else has disproved

it. I just wanted that to be on the record.

The sort of things we have been dealing with over the last few

years as far as funding, when the finance officer for the State of

California asked me in a hearing similar to this, ‘‘Show me a fire

that you prevented,’’ I can’t show you a fire prevented, but I point

to all of the ones that haven’t started.

I leave you with one question, and that is: why is there always

enough money to put out the fires and there’s never enough to prevent them?

I thank you for the opportunity.

Mr. OSE. That’s an excellent question. I thank the gentleman for

his testimony.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Turbeville follows:]

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Mr. OSE. We’re going to go to our next witness. That would be

the president of the California Fire Chiefs Association, Mr. William

McCammon.

Chief, welcome to the witness table here in front of our committee. You’re recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chairman Ose and committee members. My name is Bill McCammon.

I’m the fire chief of the Alameda County Fire Department in California. I’m also the president of the California Fire Chiefs Association and board member of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association.

It is an honor to provide testimony regarding the challenges fireservice professionals and communities face in mitigating, managing, and responding to wildland fires.

If there is one lesson we’ve learned about the devastating effect

of the most recent fires, it is in the end we all lose. In the recent

fires in southern California, there were critically sensitive habitat

areas where fuels management programs were not completed prior

to the fires. That habitat is now destroyed. There were property

owners that didn’t manage the vegetation adjacent to their homes.

Those homes are no longer standing. There were lives lost and critical watershed destroyed after the fires as heavy rains caused

mudslides in the recently burnt-out areas.

In 1966, the County Supervisors’ Association in conjunction with

the forest protection agencies recommended the need for comprehensive and coordinated land use planning, including declaration of hazardous fire areas, clearance of flammable vegetation

around developments, and standardized building codes and zoning

ordinances. In 1970, California was burning. In 13 days there were

773 fires burning over 570,000 acres, consuming 772 homes with

16 lives lost. The 1970 task force recommended, among other

things, fuel and hazard reduction programs, land use and building

code changes, and expanded fire prevention programs.

Again, in 1972, 1978, 1980, 1985, 1991, and 1993 California experienced devastating fires with large numbers of homes, lives, and

critical habitat lost. Task forces were formed and reports were written with recommendations very similar to those included in the recent Blue Ribbon Fire Commission report. In almost all of these

cases, the identified weaknesses with suppression efforts have been

corrected. It has been recommended time and time again and proven that in areas where there have been fuels management programs combined with effective land use planning, the effects of fire

have been minimized.

In 2002, Congress and the Federal land management agencies

asked the National Academy of Public Administrators to examine

six fires that occurred and make recommendations on wildfire

issues. The series of reports concluded that the Nation’s readiness

and capacity for hazard reduction was the least developed of all the

critical issues related to wildfire suppression. The reports also concluded that it will increasingly depend on intergovernmental and

public and private partnerships capable of reducing large-scale

risks affecting multiple owners. Some progress has been made to

bring together the stakeholder groups to develop common goals and

practices in California. The California Fire Alliance was formed,

bringing together Federal, State, and local government agencies to

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play a role in fire policy to coordinate efforts toward the implementation of the National Fire Plan at the local level.

The Fire Alliance has formed a grants clearinghouse that provides a streamlined, online grant application process for National

Fire Plan grants. This program has been very successful in moving

what limited funding has been available from State and Federal

agencies to local Fire Safe Councils. The ongoing critical challenge

is to have State and Federal agencies allocate more funding to

these local programs.

California Fire Chiefs Association, in conjunction with ‘‘Fire Engineering Magazine’’ held two wildfire summits. Ten States were

represented, along with local, regional, and national leaders. The

results included recommendations, most of which dealt with hazard

reduction. We realized as a result of the summits that greater involvement from the environmental community is essential. Plans

are already underway to host a summit bringing the environmental

community together with local and county planners to develop

more consensus around fuels management strategies.

Even with these positive efforts moving forward, having a coordinated political effort between local, State, and federally elected officials to standardize regulations for fuels management and building

and zoning standards is essential.

The grants that have been offered through the National Fire

Plan have been well received, but the total amount available for

these efforts has been diminishing. Funding for these types of programs is, as has famously been told, analogous to virga rain that

falls from the sky and evaporates before it hits the ground. The

grants come from two different departments and five different

agencies, each with their own set of priorities, each with different

matching requirements ranging from no match to 100 percent

match, and, most importantly, each with a different system of communicating the opportunities to the local communities.

In California this disconnected, uncoordinated process caused the

formation of the Fire Alliance. Even with the attempts to coordinate the grant process, the system does not promote participation

and clearly does not receive sufficient funding to come close to addressing the need.

Today in California there are over 1,100 communities that have

been identified as at risk and over 850 are adjacent to Federal

lands. This year there were 393 grants submitted totaling over $49

million, and there was less than $7 million available for those programs.

The recent passage of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act at

face value appears to begin to address funding for critical fuels

management programs along with community and stakeholder involvement in the development of fuels treatment projects. The success of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act will be dependent upon

a full commitment from all stakeholders and sustained funding.

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As I have stated in my testimony, unless we are able to address

the issues of political will, fuels management, stakeholder consensus, and adequate funding, we will continue to experience major

wildland fires that will destroy communities, critical habitat, watershed, and become an ever-increasing economic drain on our society.

Thank you for the opportunity. I will be available for questions.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Chief.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McCammon follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Our fourth witness for today’s hearing comes to us from

the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she serves as a senior forest policy analyst, Ms. Amy Mall.

Ms. Mall, welcome. You are recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. MALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for your invitation to testify today. My name

is Amy Mall. I am the senior forest policy analyst at NRDC, the

Natural Resources Defense Council, a national, nonprofit organization with over 550,000 members dedicated to the protection of public health and the environment.

Forest Service research has found that the most effective way to

protect homes or other structures is to focus on the building, itself,

and its immediate surroundings. This is known as making homes

firewise. Last year’s fires in California were strong evidence that

these methods work. Throughout southern California, homes remained standing if they had proper home materials, design, and

landscaping, but many homes across the West are not yet firewise,

and homeowners need immediate help with information and financial assistance. Collaboration is essential because most of these

homes and communities are not on Federal land.

Instead of focusing on firewise activities and State and local assistance, however, the Bush administration is spending millions of

dollars a year on logging trees miles away from the nearest home

in what is called the ‘‘back country.’’ Despite what Under Secretary

Rey asserted earlier, there are virtually no peer reviewed empirical

studies that show that such logging leads to a systematic reduction

of forest fire intensity. In fact, I have a list with me of Forest Service research—and it is cited in my written testimony—that shows

that these activities can actually increase fire intensity or spread.

The administration has also adopted regulatory changes that are

unnecessary, increase the burden of public participation, and will

lead to more controversy and bureaucratic complication. The environmental review process before the Bush administration took office worked well, with no factual evidence that any aspect of the

process seriously hampered the protection of homes and communities. To the contrary, GAO found that more than 95 percent of

hazardous fuels reduction projects were ready for implementation

within the standard 90-day review period. Only a tiny percentage

of the projects and acreage were delayed by litigation. And agencies

already had procedures to expedite approval, including categorical

exclusions, NEPA’s emergency authority, and the Forest Service

authority to exempt appeals from the mandatory stay.

Nevertheless, in 2003 the Bush administration issued new categorical exclusions from NEPA, allowing agencies to avoid public

environmental review on projects up to 1,000 acres of land, regardless of the intensity of logging or the trees cut, including old growth

trees. And, after exempting many logging projects from environmental review, the Bush administration adopted new regulations to

exempt these projects from appeal. For projects that are still eligible for the appeal process, new regulations set up numerous obstacles to members of the public wanting information and input. The

2003 appeal regulation and the 2004 protest rule under the

Healthy Forest Act share many of the same problems, making it

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more difficult to oppose projects, even if those projects might increase fire risk.

Contrary to what Under Secretary Rey said earlier, Section

218.6(A) of the 2004 interim final rule does say that environmental

assessments are not circulated for public comment in draft form.

The 2004 protest rule also exempts from protest any project the

Forest Service claims was proposed by Under Secretary Rey, ignoring a court decision that recently rejected a similar exemption.

Again, contrary to what he said earlier, the regulation in Section

218.12(B) does say that it exempts authorized hazardous fuels reduction projects that are proposed by the Secretary or the Under

Secretary of Agriculture.

The Bush administration has also used these regulations to advance its efforts to restrict judicial review for logging projects.

The President’s fiscal year 2005 budget request also fails to

prioritize community protection. The percentage of acres the Bush

administration plans to treat in the areas closest to communities

is only 51 percent. That’s in the administration’s budget request.

That means that 49 percent of the acres to be treated in fiscal year

2005, which is 1.4 million acres, would be in the back country, far

from the nearest home or community. Some of these projects are

over 40 miles from the nearest home or community.

As discussed above, these activities can actually worsen fire risk,

according to firecologists. In addition, the administration has proposed cutting funding for State and local assistance by 32 percent.

This will weaken collaboration and it will reduce assistance to the

jurisdictions that have the primary responsibility for protecting

western homes and communities.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify today.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Ms. Mall. I appreciate your brevity. It’s

very unusual around here that somebody stays within their 5 minutes, so thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mall follows:]

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Mr. OSE. I want to recognize the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being

here. I have been in Defense markups all day, so that’s why I

wasn’t here for the first part. This is an incredibly important topic.

My closest friend was a former fire chief in Los Angeles County,

Dave Parsons. I don’t know if anybody knows him. So, I heard a

lot from him when I was out there. My sister’s home was in the

Piedmont section when they had the big open fire in the Coldecut

Tunnel, and my wife’s aunt and uncle had a home in Emerald Bay

that was impacted when they had fires down there, and she and

I lived a couple miles from Anaheim when they had the Anaheim

fires. Our family just hasn’t had a lot of good luck. I know it is an

incredibly important topic.

Senator Campbell, you are dead right. If there is the political will

to do it, it can be done. The fact that California has experienced

more of these I think than any other State—unless I just read it

wrong—something clearly has to be done to help that State or it

is going to burn down. The sooner we can address that, the better.

Mr. Turbeville, I agree—prevention is certainly a lot better,

whether it is fire, health care, or whatever. The sooner that sort

of philosophy can be ingrained in the system, the better, but I don’t

know if we ever will.

Chief McCammon, you said the system was not coordinated to

handle fires. Help me through that. Or did I misunderstand you?

It seems like there has been enough experience in California so

that things would have been very well coordinated, unless I misunderstood what you were saying.

Mr. MCCAMMON. I wasn’t commenting about the suppression efforts. I think we have one of the best mutual aid systems in the

world.

Mr. SCHROCK. OK.

Mr. MCCAMMON. I was talking about the grant process, getting

money from the Federal Government through the different agencies

actually down to the local Fire Safety Councils.

Mr. SCHROCK. I see.

Mr. MCCAMMON. And, the complexity of that.

Mr. SCHROCK. You heard what Ms. Mall said. I’d be curious what

your comments are on that. I heard a lot of things about the Bush

administration, but my sister was in a fire during another administration. My wife’s family was in another administration. We were

in the Anaheim fire in another administration. So I would be curious to know what your thoughts are on what she said about current regulations as proposed and created by this administration.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Well, I don’t want to comment about the forest

issues specifically because I don’t have experience there, but her

comments were dead on in terms of the idea of creating defensible

space around homes. There is some issue in the field now whether

30 feet, 100 feet, or 300 feet is the number, but we had some wonderful examples in Ventura and Los Angeles County last September where communities were saved because they were built with

defensible space in mind, and when communities really get together and create those kind of buffer zones, it gives us an opportunity to kind of slow the fire down a little bit and really suppress

the fires in those neighborhoods.

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Mr. SCHROCK. Help me understand defensible space. Is that just

a fire break between the green stuff and the houses, or——

Mr. MCCAMMON. That’s correct.

Mr. SCHROCK. OK.

Mr. MCCAMMON. It is an area anywhere from 30 feet to in some

areas they are recommending 300 feet where they have fire-resistive vegetation or no vegetation at all, so that when the fire—those

wind-drive fires, as they approach those types of housing tracts,

really need some space because you’re getting extreme flame

lengths.

Mr. SCHROCK. But in a fireball type situation, 30 feet—that’s

probably half the width of this room. That doesn’t seem like a lot

of space when winds are kicking up.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Exactly.

Mr. SCHROCK. As I recall, when it came from Oakland through

the Coldecut Tunnel, the fireball, and then it went on to the Piedmont area, and that was miles away.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Yes, it did, sir. I was there from the very beginning and lived in Oakland and experienced that.

Mr. SCHROCK. Yes. I yield back.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman.

I want to clarify a point here. In terms of defensible space, the

fire break issue, if you will, there have been a number of studies

and recommendations done to help flesh out that, both in terms of

national standards, where people are in the wildland-urban interface, or with building codes across the country. Study after study

after study have shown that those are successful, that the use of

non-combustible roof material or siding that is combustive-resistant

or these 100-foot to 300-foot areas where you have clear space

around your house, those are all successfully identified by research

and implemented in the field. Curiously enough, in the context of

the same studies that identified building code standards and clear

spaces, there was also studies—and I have a compilation of these

studies right there that I’m going to enter into the record, and this

is just a sampling—there have been studies that also talk about reducing the fuel buildup in the areas outside that 100-foot footprint

or that 300-foot footprint.

Now if, in fact, building codes in California—and many of these

communities have evolved to where construction is now taking

place with fire-resistant roof material or siding, and if landscape

design features are such that the footprint becomes 100-foot radius

for protective purposes, why is it we’re still having these significantly catastrophic fires? And, it begs the question, it seems to me,

that the causes—one of the non-implemented features that has

been highlighted in study after study after study, which is the continuation of the buildup of fuel within the forests.

Now, Senator Campbell, you sit on the Governor’s Fire Task

Force. What has your research or study come to the conclusion of?

Mr. CAMPBELL. We still have the conflict there in the public policy issue. It seems that common sense has become a stepchild to

the issue of fire protection of fire and property in this whole debate.

We had one witness in Ventura testify that he received an order

from the fire department to clean 100 feet around his house in

Malibu, and he received another order from the Coastal CommisVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:50 Aug 26, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00176 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95222.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sion denying him the right to do that. These are the kinds of conflicts I think that we run into.

There was a news report in the Los Angeles Times about the

need to protect the kangaroo rat in certain areas prevented the

clearance and the clearing out of specific areas, and also the gnat

catcher. As a result we lost houses and property and, as you know,

there were 22 lives lost in the fires in southern California last year.

So, somewhere along the line, you know, 40 miles is not a long

distance. Our front line, our fire line was more than 40 miles long

at one point in southern California of fire. So for a fire to travel

40 miles inland, and most people have never experienced the Santa

Ana wind conditions, and when you experience them you understand that once those winds hit the dry chaparral and shrubbery

and vegetation, there’s nothing that the firefighters can do. I mean,

we’re getting 55 mile an hour winds with gusts up to 70. One

pilot—we had to ground the planes at this time, but one pilot saw

a piece of 6 x 8 plywood flying by his windshield at 500 feet when

he was dropping. When you drop the retardant or the water you

have to be down low so it doesn’t evaporate before it hits the

ground.

So, unless we start doing the clearing and the vegetation, then

the irony of all this, as you so eloquently stated earlier, was that

the habitat and the vegetation that we’re trying to protect is also

destroyed. The kangaroo rat was destroyed along with the houses

and the property and the vegetation in the cedar fire, which is the

one to which they specifically referred. So that’s where the public

policy people have to come together and say, ‘‘We just can’t allow

this to continue to happen.’’

We had a fire in northern California last year called the Cone

Fire, and it burned over an area where they were doing a demonstration project of how to control vegetation. Three of the four

areas that you looked at after the fire were devastated. The fourth

area you could hardly tell a fire was there because they had

cleaned the vegetation, they had removed some of the unnecessary

trees, they got rid of some of the chaparral, and the result and effect was that they were able to control the fire in that one area because they had good forest management practices.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Turbeville, on the Fire Safe Council, near as I can

tell from the testimony, you focus on building materials and setbacks and things like that. Now, if I’m incorrect, No. 1, I need to

be corrected. But, second, as I look, I’m wondering whether or not

you share my conclusion to this point that we’ve had some of these

measures implemented but some we have not, and those that we

did not implement, either for policy reasons or otherwise, are they

contributing to the issues we’re dealing with today with these fires?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Well, one of the comments I made in my presentation to you was the new regulations, going back to what was

presented here shortly ago—in Simi Valley, for example, in that

new construction area there was no problem at all because of the

defensible space, correct building materials, fire safe building materials. Where those are in place, there’s a much greater chance because it is a combination effort—the defensible space and a mosaic

landscape away from the defensible space as you get in, to reduce

the fuels. It is correct building materials and building processes.

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The vent holes around the attic line or the footline open without

any covering allows sparks to get inside. Another thing that people

don’t seem to realize, you’ve got 30 feet of clearance, you’ve got 10

foot brush, and then wind. As Senator Campbell said, you’ve got

100-foot flame lengths, so 30 feet doesn’t do a lot of good. So, it’s

all a combination and it all has to be put together. There has to

be fuel breaks within communities, surrounding the whole community, to stop it. If you are unfortunate enough to get a couple of

houses going, it will go house to house just because of the extreme

heat generated by the fire. If there are fuel breaks, wide streets,

etc., hopefully you are going to be able to get in there, like Bill

said, and get the engine companies in there to stop it from doing

that. In an unprotected area, it is going to go until it wants to stop,

and that’s it.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Mall, from NRDC’s investigations, one of the things

I’m trying to figure out is whether we can approach this issue from

a problem-solving standpoint by doing one, two, three, or all of the

things that have been identified in these studies. I take from your

testimony that you support the building material issue, the setback, but I detect some reluctance on your part about the fuel issue

that might be built up in the forest. Am I correct in that understanding?

Ms. MALL. Well, if you’re talking about fuel that is far away from

homes, yes, you are correct, because while there may be some scientific studies that you’ve seen that shows some areas that have

been logged far away from homes ended up burning less intensively

in a fire, there are also studies that show that areas have been

logged have burned more intensively in a fire. Therefore, the

science is not conclusive.

Actually, attached to my testimony is a letter from the Nation’s

top firecologist——

Mr. OSE. I read it.

Ms. MALL [continuing]. To the President saying that very thing.

And, basically in my testimony what we were trying to say is that

we do know conclusively that we can protect homes by doing the

work immediately around homes. The work far away from homes

we do not know. The Forest Service has a research budget, and

they can use the research funds to look into getting to a better

place in the science. But, right now, if the goal of the government

is to really protect homes and communities, that’s where the resources should be focused.

Mr. OSE. I actually did read your attachment from the various

individuals across the country, and I do believe what they were

saying was that the science was inconclusive as it relates to some

of the proposals under Healthy Forests Initiative or Restoration

Act.

Ms. MALL. Yes.

Mr. OSE. I have to break things down simply in my mind because

I have to remember too many different things. So it is your testimony around houses that the removal of fuel by virtue of 100-foot

or 300-foot or whatever the setback is is effective in preventing catastrophic fires, but that the removal of fuel in remote locations—

I think your phrase, though lacking in technical bureaucratese,

‘‘back country’’——

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Ms. MALL. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Removal of fuel in back country situations, you’re saying the science is inconclusive in terms of its impact on fires?

Ms. MALL. Its effectiveness on fire intensity.

Mr. OSE. So it is conclusive in close proximity to houses, but it

is inconclusive in back country?

Ms. MALL. I do want to add, in proximity to houses, removing

fuel is not, as some of the other witnesses have said, is not the only

thing that will make a home firewise.

Mr. OSE. I understand.

Ms. MALL. There’s also the building materials.

Mr. OSE. Right. I got that.

Ms. MALL. And landscaping. But yes, it is a different situation

closer to houses. If we are trying to protect homes and communities, we know how to do that. What we can’t know for sure is how

a fire will burn, where it will burn, where it will start when it’s

out in the back country, and therefore there is not clear science on

how to move forward with those projects.

Mr. OSE. OK. I just want to make sure I understand. In that

wildland-urban interface then, as part of a larger package, the removal of fuel from close proximity to residential structures is an effective tool in an arsenal of tools to fight fires.

Ms. MALL. But, we’re not——

Mr. OSE. But, in the back country, if I understand your testimony, there’s no conclusive evidence to support that same conclusion?

Ms. MALL. My testimony is not that the work around the homes

will prevent a fire or will stop a fire; my testimony is that will protect the home.

Mr. OSE. What’s the difference?

Ms. MALL. Well, the difference is that we can’t control where a

fire will start and when it will start and what the wind will be that

day and where it will travel, but we do know that we can protect

the home site if the fire goes in that direction.

Mr. OSE. Does the removal of the undergrowth around a house

reduce the intensity of the fire? Is that your testimony?

Ms. MALL. Well, I’m not exactly sure how to answer that question, but——

Mr. OSE. Well, yes or no would be sufficient.

Ms. MALL. Well, it will protect the home.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Ms. MALL. The fire will not——

Mr. OSE. So, removal of fuel in back country——

Ms. MALL. Yes.

Mr. OSE [continuing]. Won’t help protect the forest? You see, I’m

trying to get an explanation of how removal of fuel in one area——

Ms. MALL. Sure. The home site is already an open area. There

is some open space, and——

Mr. OSE. Once cleared, that’s correct.

Ms. MALL. Many home sites have driveways, they are near

streets, there’s a sidewalk, there’s a yard, there’s already areas

that are cleared. That’s very different than a wild area where there

has been no clearing.

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Mr. OSE. Actually, before I came to Congress I was in that business, and the typical minimum setback from a street is 20 feet and

the typical single family elevation setback from a side yard is 5

feet, and the typical rear yard in my community is a minimum of

20 feet, so I have more than a passing knowledge on design standards.

Ms. MALL. Yes.

Mr. OSE. I think your point is that the open space in that

wildland-urban interface of 100 feet or 200 feet serves this purpose.

Ms. MALL. It is a very different landscape than a wild forest

that’s a natural area that has not been logged before.

Mr. OSE. OK. But removing fuel from that area around those

houses is part of the fire attenuation process or not part?

Ms. MALL. If it is brush and it is small trees, it is extremely

flammable, and that is the stuff that generally you’re removing

when you’re making a home firewise.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Ms. MALL. If you go into a forest and you’re just taking out the

brush and you’re just taking out undergrowth and very small trees,

that’s very different than a logging project where you’re taking out

medium or large trees. That changes the——

Mr. OSE. It changes the canopy cover and everything else, so——

I’m sorry, I’m probably not going to make this vote, but I wanted

to ask you, in terms of the component parts that are identified in

study after study after study of what is appropriate fire attenuation programs, in a highly urban area like Sacramento, where I

live, and you’ve got lot and block subdivisions, you’re seeking noncombustible materials on the roof and fire-resistant materials in

the construction underneath the roof?

Mr. MCCAMMON. That’s correct.

Mr. OSE. OK. As a means—for instance, there are even some

communities that require sprinklers in single family houses and

apartments now.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Yes.

Mr. OSE. In an area where we have the wildland-urban interface,

the same applications would apply to beneficial use, if I understand

your testimony.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Yes.

Mr. OSE. And then on top of that, given the geographic location,

your testimony is that having some sort of 100-foot setback or fuel

removal program is positive in terms of preventing a catastrophic

fire?

Mr. MCCAMMON. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK. Mr. Turbeville, I want to talk to you about the

grants process a little bit. On the grants process, I’m told that

there was a provision in the budget that was passed by the House

that sets aside $500 million protected from a point of order, the

purpose of which would be to go either to a grants process in part

or to prevent the raiding of the grants process funding as other

emergency situations arise. Are you aware of that?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. I’m vaguely aware of it. I just heard of it a couple of days ago and have not had an adequate explanation.

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Mr. OSE. OK. And, you followed Mr. Rey’s announcement earlier

today about the flexibility in terms of the matches and what have

you. That’s not part of the grants process you’re talking about?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. I don’t believe so.

Mr. OSE. OK. In terms of the fire plans that you talk about as

the body of the grassroots effort that are getting developed, can you

tell us what measures should be—I just want to come back. I’m

beating the horse to death here if I can. What measures should be

included in the establishment of these fire plans in particular for

the purpose of mitigating fire risk?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Well, there’s multiple things that go into a fire

plan. Also, are you talking about just a community fire plan, or are

you talking about the California State fire plan, or——

Mr. OSE. I’m talking more specifically about the community fire

plan. I want to know how it works on the ground for some of these

fires that might otherwise be prevented in California or any of the

western States this year.

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Basically, it’s a matter, at the community level,

of working collaboratively with the fire agencies and the other interested entities in setting priorities, determining a chain of events

that have to occur based on the priorities. What are the biggest atrisk hazards, which ones need what kind of work? How soon can

that work be done, and descending down from there. It is a simple

planning process. It’s setting the priorities, determining who is

going to do it, how it is going to be done, and who is going to pay

for it.

Mr. OSE. So, the fire plan that might exist, say, at Lake Arrowhead might be significantly different than the fire plan that exists

in Santa Monica as compared to the fire plan that might exist in

Sacramento, CA, depending on the circumstances?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Theoretically, every fire plan should be different, should take into consideration exactly what they’re dealing

with at the local level.

Mr. OSE. Now, the fire plan is a plan for a snapshot in time, a

circumstantial situation, or is it something that is a long-term effort by a community?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. It should be a long-term effort, because not only

do we need to do the clearance of fuel around a community, we

have to remember that fuel starts growing back immediately, so it

must be maintained to be effective forever.

Mr. OSE. So, within a community’s fire plan you might have

budget standards?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Setback requirements?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Right.

Mr. OSE. Spaces between structures, width of roads for firefighting equipment and the like, fuel reduction plans?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Yes.

Mr. OSE. What about the use of some of the chemicals that I’m

aware of that retard the growth or the regrowth of fuel?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Fuel modification through chemical modification?

Mr. OSE. Yes.

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Mr. TURBEVILLE. If it is allowed—very difficult with some of the

environmental compliance issues. In some areas it does work and

is allowed.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Mr. TURBEVILLE. But, it needs to be considered. If it is a potential remedy, use it.

Mr. OSE. All right. How far afield does a community go when it

is considering a fire plan? For instance, does it address the circumstances of fire in its watershed? For instance, if a community

draws water—like San Francisco draws water from Hetch Hetchy.

I mean, that’s the No. 1 water source for San Francisco. Does San

Francisco’s fire plan address conditions in and around Hetch

Hetchy?

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Common sense would tell me that if my water

supply is coming from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, I’d better be thinking about it, even if I am in San Francisco on the receiving end of

that water, because the responsibility—it is someone’s responsibility to consider it. You can’t automatically assume that it’s always

going to be there.

Mr. OSE. You may have just opened up Pandora’s Box.

So, Senator Campbell, in the State of California Statewide—I

mean, you know Sacramento. We get our water from Folsom and

it comes out of the Sierra Nevadas. San Francisco gets it from

Hetch Hetchy. Shasta supplies it. How do we, across jurisdictions,

deal with this issue?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make one comment

on the community plans, because one of the biggest successes was

the community plan in the Lake Arrowhead/Big Bear area. That’s

the evacuation portion of the plan. In Lake Arrowhead in that area

they evacuated up to 70,000 people out of those mountains on twolane highways without even a fender bender. It was one of the

most amazing success stories in the fire siege down there in southern California.

Now, the water supply—San Francisco has an advantage. They

also, since the earthquake, pump water out of the San Francisco

Bay specifically for firefighting efforts. If they have to use the salt

water, they will do it. But the State water, we are in the midst of

a massive, massive drought in California all over the State, and as

we look at the fires right now in southern California particularly,

one thing we haven’t mentioned is there are over a million dead

trees from the bark beetle in the San Bernadino Mountains, and

they are kindling, and they are ready just to explode the minute

heat hits them of a high proportion. So, what we found out is we

missed out in spring this year for California. We went from winter,

you know, the April showers that are supposed to bring May flowers, we didn’t get the April showers and now we are having May

fires—a bad pun, I might add. But, nonetheless, here we are in the

early part of the season fighting massive fires already in southern

California. And, if they ever get into the mountain areas with the

dead bark beetle trees and the Santa Ana winds hit again this fall,

we could lose up to 30,000 homes in that area.

Now, the water isn’t coming in as rapidly for southern California

from the State water project or from Hoover Dam or Boulder Dam.

That water supply is dwindling. The water supply from down river

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out in the Imperial area is dwindling. The water supply, Folsom

Lake, if you have been out—I’m sure you’ve been there—recently

there’s not as much water as there is supposed to be. That’s in all

our reservoirs up and down the State.

As you know, most of the water in the State of California is used

in agriculture. Overwhelmingly, about 80 percent or more is used

in agriculture, and industrial production takes about 10 and residential used to be 5 or 7 or somewhere in that neighborhood. So,

we have a drought, a critical issue hitting California, and we could

see the same kind of fire siege this year as we saw last year, and

not just southern California but all over the State of California.

So, what do we do? We plan. The Commission, by bringing together the State, the local, and the Federal officials, we worked out

some real problems; however, we’ve got to start moving on those

problems, like the interoperability of communications is a major

problem in any siege, because you have the communications between the Federal fire service with Interior, with Forest Service,

with the military, and with the State, and then with the local fire

departments and fire districts, and then you throw on top of that

the public utilities and CalTrans and emergency medical, and for

an incident commander to be able to control that situation becomes

very difficult, and cell phones—individual captains on the engines

were using cell phones to communicate with each other, and in the

mountainous terrain that was difficult to do.

I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Chairman, about what are we

going to do. We’re just going to hope for the very best and rely

heavily upon the expertise and the good will of the fire fighters in

California.

Mr. OSE. I want to ask each of you the following question. Mr.

Rey testified that, while the Restoration Act set a minimum of 50

percent of these funds being spent on reduction activities in the

wildland-urban interface, they’re actually spending 60 percent. Do

you have a recommendation as to what—before you answer that,

that’s a 5-minute vote. Mr. Turbeville, I know you’ve got a plane

to catch, so unless you go now you’re not going to catch it, so I’m

going to go ahead and excuse you.

Mr. TURBEVILLE. Yes, I do.

Mr. OSE. If you don’t leave now, you’re not going to catch it, so

I’m going to go ahead and excuse you. I have to go make this second vote. I will be back in about 12 minutes and we’ll finish this

panel. I appreciate your patience. Mr. Turbeville, I know your situation, so I apologize I couldn’t get this done, but we appreciate your

coming.

Mr. TURBEVILLE. I understand.

Mr. OSE. We’re recessed for about 12 minutes.

[Recess.]

Mr. OSE. I appreciate your patience.

I was on the verge of asking about the distribution of funds in

treating fuel reduction. The testimony of one of the earlier witnesses was that 60 percent of USDA and DOI’s, Agriculture and Interior’s, combined fuel reduction funds are being spent on the

wildland-urban interface. My question is whether or not that’s too

much, too little, the right amount, what have you.

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Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I hate to say this. I’m not qualified to answer that question. I would defer to——

Mr. OSE. An honest answer.

Mr. CAMPBELL [continuing]. Chief McCammon. But, a quick observation is we have to do something about cleaning the areas, not

just around homes but doing some significant mainstream management of our forests.

Mr. OSE. OK. Chief.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Well, as Senator Campbell, I don’t know that

I can speak to whether 50 percent is enough or 70 percent is

enough, but I can tell you from California’s perspective we believe

more funding needs to be dedicated toward those fuels management issues in the wildland-urban interface.

Mr. OSE. OK. So let’s say 50 percent was spent last year. We

need to be higher than that. And, I don’t know the numbers, frankly.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Well, the difficulty I think is trying to understand where those acres are that have been managed, and, you

know, for us in California we have some significant issues that

haven’t been managed, and so I can’t speak to the other States that

are involved, but in California we’d like to see more funding dedicated to dealing with those issues.

Mr. OSE. With that wildland-urban interface?

Mr. MCCAMMON. Urban interface, yes.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Mall.

Ms. MALL. We do believe that a great deal more should be focused in the wildland-urban interface close to homes and communities until all homes are made firewise, especially for people who

don’t have the financial wherewithal to do it themselves. That

should be the priority. It is especially important, I want to note,

in areas like southern California where a lot of the areas at risk

are not forested. Most of the fires in southern California were not

trees that were burning. I believe, according to the National Fire

Center’s report that I read this morning, most of those fires today

burning are brush fires. And, in particular, when you’re logging in

areas, that’s not going to help the communities that are not forested.

Mr. OSE. The pictures I’ve seen of the before versus after is that

it is almost chaparral-like, low manzanita type brush with the

highly combustible, almost fuel-like plant fluid that just explodes

on you when it catches fire.

Chief, is that your experience, too?

Mr. MCCAMMON. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK. Senator, do you agree with that?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.

Mr. OSE. At least in terms of the areas that we have had such

catastrophes in, that tends to be the characteristics we’re dealing

with. We haven’t really had what someone might call a traditional

Yellowstone type fire.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Well, I think some of the areas in San

Bernadino County get close to that. We only saw 3 percent of the

trees that were dead from the bark beetle infestation actually burn

in those fires—the whole Grand Prix fire. But, clearly you could

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have a Yellowstone type situation had those winds continued to

blow East and take the mountain out, itself.

Mr. CAMPBELL. And, they reach a point, Mr. Chairman, where

they jump from crown to crown with those kinds of winds, and you

know, they get the underbrush later. It comes down. But with the

wind blowing at the speed at which it blows when the Santa Ana

conditions are evident, there’s just nothing you can do.

Can I go far afield for a second?

Mr. OSE. Certainly. We’re an investigative committee, so you can

do anything you want.

Mr. CAMPBELL. We played around, Mr. Chairman, in the discussions with the predator, and the reason for that is the predator

technology can take pictures and relay information at night time

and through smoke and through fog or whatever, through areas,

and what we would like to see happen is for the Federal Government to dedicate a couple of predators without the military potential of the rockets, but just from the technical aspects of their ability to look down on a fire at nighttime and tell us what that fire

is doing, because right now it is hard to know where that fire is

going to come out in the morning if we can’t look down and see

what’s happening, and so I know it is top-secret technology that

you’re utilizing, but if the Federal Government could provide a couple of those available for major fires like we had in southern California, it would give us a little indication as morning comes where

we could set up our lines and maybe have a little better opportunity to at least slow the fire down or to stop it.

Mr. OSE. All right. Chief.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Could I maybe elaborate on your question about

the 50 percent or 70 percent? One of the things as I’ve reviewed

the way this process works is that—and I spoke to it early about

the discoordinated nature of the whole process in that you have

several different agencies that are funding fuels management programs in different areas. Sometimes I don’t think they even know

which ones they are doing or not doing as it relates to one another,

and I think that there really needs to be a concerted effort to focus

on development of the community fire plans so that we take those

at-risk communities and we start building from the community fire

plan forward and then begin to understand the types of fuels management programs that they need and how they need to implement

those and get all of the Federal agencies working together.

I think you see the California Fire Alliance has put an effort forward to try and do that. I think any time you can maximize the

use of funds by working together, you are going to get a better

product.

Mr. OSE. All right. I just have just a few remaining questions.

Senator Campbell, in the report from the Commission published

in April of this year, on page 13 there was a comment that the

most destructive, costly, and dangerous wildfires occurred in older,

dense vegetation burning under extreme conditions. What do you

mean by ‘‘extreme conditions?’’

Mr. CAMPBELL. The buildup of the area, the forest area, or the

chaparral area where all the underbrush is there and it dies out

and then you have new underbrush that grows the next year and

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it dies out. It piles one up on top of the other. You have no thinning

of trees or even shrubbery or the small trees around there.

By the way, the bark beetle is indigenous to southern California.

I mean, it’s not something that just happened. But because of the

drought it dried up the sap of the trees which was used to kill the

bark beetle, and thus we have over a million bark beetle trees dead

there.

But when these extreme conditions come together with the

drought, with the dryness—and, by the way, southern California

has been racked with over 100 degree temperatures for the last 2

weeks—and the winds, and the cool breeze that blows in off the

ocean, when that stops and you have them coming in off the desert

and you have the Santa Ana wind conditions, when those hit—let

me state this again—there’s nothing we can do to stop that fire. I

mean, we have to have—what we do beforehand is more important

than what we do at that point.

Mr. OSE. Are you suggesting that, so to speak, we are not out

of the woods yet?

Mr. CAMPBELL. We’re in big trouble right now.

Mr. OSE. This is going to keep coming and coming and coming?

Mr. CAMPBELL. No. But unless we get the good forest management, unless we manage the forest properly to clean out the dead

vegetation, to make sure that we protect the watershed, to make

sure that we do everything that we can to get rid of the combustible material that’s on the ground and in the area, you have

growth in our forests in southern California where you have the big

trees, but all of the small trees that are growing up around it, and

feeding off the same water system as does the large tree, and thus

the drought affects all of the large trees and the small trees die off,

and they just lay there and act as fuel for the next fire coming in.

When those things, all those combination of factors come together, that’s when we get the kind of conflagration we got last fall.

And, we’re ripe for it again this year, I hate to say.

Mr. OSE. Chief, your colleagues in the firefighting business,

frankly, have to deal with the reality of this. In terms of where we

have gone with urban development in California and the buildup

of fuel, the lack of advance planning in some of these communities,

do you see any decline in the challenge we face in the coming days?

Mr. MCCAMMON. For the firefighting community?

Mr. OSE. For the firefighting issues.

Mr. MCCAMMON. No. We saw this last fall. Flame lengths and

rates of spread that we haven’t seen before, and fire fighters were

asked to do things in this last fire siege that they haven’t had to

do in the past. It was a phenomenal experience down there. And,

you’re seeing areas throughout the State of California where those

conditions exist, and so we are having to train our personnel in different ways than we’ve done in the past. We used to take our apparatus and station at particular structures to do structure protection. Well, we have to make decisions about whether we want to

protect those structures any more because of the types of occurrences that we’ve seen.

I think that all of our comments about managing the interface

areas are appropriate, but those are long-term issues that we’re

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night. And, as Senator Campbell said, once you get the urban

interface area taken care of, it is growing back all the time.

As an example, in the city of Oakland we experienced the Oakland Hills fire; 3,000 homes, the same number of homes were lost

in southern California in 2 weeks. We did it in 18 hours. The city

of Oakland recently had the voters re-approve vegetation management districts so they can begin to still manage that vegetation

that’s growing back.

Mr. OSE. I had the unfortunate experience of becoming a member

of an insurance board a year after that fire, and we waived limits

on all the coverages. It must have cost us $2 billion. We wrote a

lot of checks. So that gives you some sense. And, that was 12 years

ago. That gives you some sense of the scope of the problem.

I don’t have any further questions. We’re going to leave the

record open. I know there are people here from California who have

submitted testimony or letters both to me and to other Members

of Congress. I have read those letters. To those of you who might

be in the audience, I have read those letters. We are going to leave

the record open for questions of our witnesses, and in the context

of those questions we’re likely to ask things related to your material that you submitted.

I do want to thank our witnesses for coming and visiting with

us today and providing the input. It is clear that California remains pretty much at the center of a dilemma from a policy standpoint, and that is: how do humans and the patterns of growth that

exist in high-growth States like California or other western States,

how do we reconcile the demand for housing and community development with bumping up against some areas that traditionally

have not been subjected to urban development? That’s that

wildland-urban interface.

We have related issues compared to as population grows in California we’re going to need water, and the water that supplies many

of these new growth areas comes from a long way away, and so

how do we protect or what do we put in place policy-wise to protect

the watersheds in those areas from having catastrophic fires and

then having a complete collapse of the ecosystem in those watersheds that plug the natural streams or fill up the reservoirs with

silt and what have you from erosion? These are all inter-related.

Senator Campbell, I appreciate your service in the Governor’s

Commission.

Chief McCammon, obviously your day-to-day experiences are

greatly appreciated and probably not sufficiently recognized by you

and your team. We appreciate that.

Ms. Mall, we appreciate your coming and sharing with us the

viewpoint from the organization you represent.

We will share these findings and this testimony with the rest of

Congress as is normal practice.

Again, I thank you all for coming today.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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