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SECURE RURAL SCHOOLS 

REAUTHORIZATION AND 

FOREST MANAGEMENT 

OPTIONS FOR A VIABLE 

COUNTY PAYMENTS PROGRAM 

OVERSIGHT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS 

AND PUBLIC LANDS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

Thursday, July 14 2011 

Serial No. 112-50 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

or 

Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

DOC HASTINGS, WA, Chairman 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, MA, Ranking Democrat Member 

Don Young, AK 

John J. Duncan, Jr., TN 

Louie Gohmert, TX 

Rob Bishop, UT 

Doug Lamborn, CO 

Robert J. Wittman, VA 

Paul C. Broun, GA 

John Fleming, LA 

Mike Coffman, CO 

Tom McClintock, CA 

Glenn Thompson, PA 

Jeff Denham, CA 

Dan Benishek, MI 

David Rivera, FL 

Jeff Duncan, SC 

Scott R. Tipton, CO 

Paul A. Gosar, AZ 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Kristi L. Noem, SD 

Steve Southerland II, FL 

Bill Flores, TX 

Andy Harris, MD 

Jeffrey M. Landry, LA 

Charles J. ‘‘Chuck’’ Fleischmann, TN 

Jon Runyan, NJ 

Bill Johnson, OH 

Dale E. Kildee, MI 

Peter A. DeFazio, OR 

Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, AS 

Frank Pallone, Jr., NJ 

Grace F. Napolitano, CA 

Rush D. Holt, NJ 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, AZ 

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU 

Jim Costa, CA 

Dan Boren, OK 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, CNMI 

Martin Heinrich, NM 

Ben Ray Luja ́n, NM 

John P. Sarbanes, MD 

Betty Sutton, OH 

Niki Tsongas, MA 

Pedro R. Pierluisi, PR 

John Garamendi, CA 

Colleen W. Hanabusa, HI 

Vacancy 

Todd Young, Chief of Staff 

Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel 

Jeffrey Duncan, Democrat Staff Director 

David Watkins, Democrat Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS AND PUBLIC LANDS 

ROB BISHOP, UT, Chairman 

RAU ́ L M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Democrat Member 

Don Young, AK 

John J. Duncan, Jr., TN 

Doug Lamborn, CO 

Paul C. Broun, GA 

Mike Coffman, CO 

Tom McClintock, CA 

David Rivera, FL 

Scott R. Tipton, CO 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Kristi L. Noem, SD 

Bill Johnson, OH 

Doc Hastings, WA, ex officio 

Dale E. Kildee, MI 

Peter A. DeFazio, OR 

Rush D. Holt, NJ 

Martin Heinrich, NM 

John P. Sarbanes, MD 

Betty Sutton, OH 

Niki Tsongas, MA 

John Garamendi, CA 

Edward J. Markey, MA, ex officio 

(III) 

CONTENTS 

Page 

Hearing held on Thursday, July 14, 2011 ............................................................. 1 

Statement of Members: 

Bishop, Hon. Rob, a Representative in Congress from the State of Utah ... 2 

Denham, Hon. Jeff, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, Statement submitted for the record ......................................... 71 

Grijalva, Hon. Rau ́l M., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Arizona ...................................................................................................... 3 

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

Hastings, Hon. Doc, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Washington .................................................................................................... 5 

Walden, Hon. Greg, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Oregon ............................................................................................................ 6 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Crews, David, Superintendent, Norwood School District, Norwood, 

Colorado ......................................................................................................... 56 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 58 

Dauzat, Caroline McRae, Owner, Rex Lumber .............................................. 25 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 27 

Morrison, Anna, Legislative Chair, Oregon Women in Timber .................... 53 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 55 

Pearce, Hon. Paul, Chair, Skamania County Board of Commissioners, 

National Association of Counties Partnership for Rural America ............ 22 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 23 

Tenney, David Porter, Chairman, Board of Supervisors, Navajo County, 

Arizona ........................................................................................................... 50 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 51 

Vaagen, Duane, President, Vaagen Brothers Lumber Company, Colville, 

Washington .................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 16 

Wagner, Mary, Associate Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture ................................................................................................ 9 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 11 

Additional materials supplied: 

‘‘Community Forest Trust, A Pilot Project to Compliment Secure Rural 

Schools and Community Self Determination Act Reauthorization’’ 

submitted for the record ............................................................................... 69 

Moyer, Steve, Vice President for Government Affairs, Trout Unlimited, 

Letter submitted for the record ................................................................... 72 

‘‘Proposing a Community Forest Trust’’: Statement submitted for the 

record by Boundary County, Idaho; Clearwater County, Idaho; Idaho 

County, Idaho; Shoshone County, Idaho; and Valley County, Idaho ........ 73 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON ‘‘SECURE RURAL 

SCHOOLS REAUTHORIZATION AND FOREST 

MANAGEMENT OPTIONS FOR A VIABLE 

COUNTY PAYMENTS PROGRAM.’’ 

Thursday, July 14 2011 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands 

Committee on Natural Resources 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m. in Room 

1334, Longworth House Office Building, The Honorable Rob Bishop 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Bishop, Young, McClintock, Rivera, 

Tipton, Labrador, Noem, Johnson, Hastings [ex-officio], Grijalva, 

DeFazio, Holt, and Garamendi. 

Also Present: Representatives Southerland, McMorris Rodgers 

and Herger. 

Mr. BISHOP. The Subcommittee will come to order. The Chair 

notes the presence of a quorum. The Subcommittee on National 

Parks, Forests, and Public Lands is meeting today to hear testimony on the challenges facing our timber and resource-dependant 

communities with economic viabilities being shut down by current 

Federal policies. With the authorization for Secure Rural School 

Program expiring and the prospect of long-term decline in funds 

available, for discretionary or non-discretionary Federal spending 

we will have the opportunity to be creative and are willing to consider options that have been different from the recent past. 

So this hearing is simply the first step in that process. I am 

pleased that I am not going to have to read that next paragraph, 

alright, yet. Under the rules, opening statements are limited to the 

Chair and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee and Full Committee. However, I am going to ask unanimous consent to include 

any Members’ opening statements in the record if submitted to the 

clerk by the close of business today. Hearing no objection, so ordered. I am going to further ask unanimous consent for two of our 

colleagues to attend this hearing. 

No Member of Congress has been a more thoughtful or creative 

advocate for rural schools than Mr. Walden and it is our good fortune that he will be here to testify today. Likewise, our colleague 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Steve Southerland are not members 

of the Subcommittee but they have agreed to take part in today’s 

hearing, both to introduce one of our witnesses as well as to participate in the hearing. I ask unanimous consent for these Members 

of Congress to take part in today’s hearing, Hearing no objection, 

I also ask unanimous consent for Wally Herger, who I think will 

be able to join us later, to be able to sit on the dais and participate 

in this hearing. And, obviously if Chairman Hastings or Ranking 

2 

Member Markey show up, at what stage they will show up, we will 

allow them to give an opening statement at that point. Hearing no 

objection, so ordered. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROB BISHOP, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF UTAH 

Mr. BISHOP. We thank everyone for being here. In the history of 

education, public lands have always been used for funding education. It goes back when Henry VIII took property from the 

church, and he gave it to the nobles only on the condition that they 

maintain and fund the schools that were started by the church. In 

1777, Georgia was the first state that actually authorized state 

funding for education and half the counties rejected it because it 

was an insult to their ability to pay for themselves. 

Connecticut sold two million—actually three million acres of land 

to create a public trust fund for education. Of course, the land they 

sold was in Ohio, but at least they were selling something. Texas 

maintained their own debt, but they also set aside 17,000 acres as 

a permanent trust fund for education. 

Unfortunately, in the last few decades the ability of education to 

be funded by use of our public lands and private lands has seriously been eroded. Actually, it has been the last 100 years it has 

been seriously eroded, but especially in the late 1980s and the 

1990s it was a time where that became difficult. 

Those of us in the West, west of Denver, clearly understand the 

situation where half of our land, one of every two acres, is owned 

by the Federal Government and controlled by the Federal Government, and if one looks at the situation, those of us in the West pay 

a higher percentage of our income in state, local, and Federal 

taxes, significantly higher than the East. The West has always had 

a more difficult time in funding its education program if you look 

at the 20 years before Mr. Grijalva and I came here to Congress, 

whereas in the East their education funding was increased by 68 

percent. Those of us in the West increased our education funding 

by only 33 percent, less than half even though we pay more taxes 

and we have more kids, and our enrollment is growing—and that 

in the East is not growing. 

Once again, the problem goes back to the lack of use of our lands 

to generate the funds necessary from property tax and severance 

tax, and even income tax from jobs that could be generated from 

that particular land. 

We are now talking about a program to secure rural schools 

which I would have to classify as probably a good situation of hush 

money. Instead of allowing the lands to be productive to fund our 

education, we have an effort to try and bribe counties so they will 

be satisfied by not being allowed to use their lands. That is one of 

the situations I want to look at. 

For the last 11 years, the Secure Rural School Program has been 

providing a safety net of kinds for rural communities in response 

to the Federal Government’s inability to manage land and 

resources and actually pay for education as it was traditionally 

intended to be. I think every state has some example of that. 

As we reach a rapidly approaching debt ceiling and our current 

deficits of this year, one to two trillion dollars, 14 trillion total in 

3 

debt, the United States is running out of funding options for all 

programs. This is one of those programs which now requires us to 

look differently than we have in the recent past at how we use our 

lands, and for what purpose we will use our lands, and how our 

kids can be helped in the future. 

I returned from South Dakota over this last weekend, where I 

saw the results of the mountain pine beetle epidemic in the Black 

Hills. One of the witnesses at the hearing, a local mill owner, 

pointed out that the Black Hills now have four times the standing 

timber as it did 100 years ago, and the number continues to rise 

while the timber harvest continues to decline. As a result, this one 

single bug, which is a native to the Rocky Mountain West, has 

killed millions of acres of trees, an incredible waste of a resource, 

put communities at risk for catastrophic wild fires, and doesn’t 

help our kids. 

Unfortunately, that is just one of the examples of forest health 

problems that plague our national forests across this country. 

Now is the time for us, especially since Secure Rural Schools 

needs to be reauthorized, to look at long-term solutions to address 

the real underlying problem. It is time for us to try and think outside the box instead of what we have traditionally been doing. We 

have significant problems. We have a significant challenge. This is 

our chance to meet that challenge. 

So, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses for creative 

ideas for moving forward, to doing the right thing on this issue. We 

can no longer afford to allow regulatory gridlock, our timber wars 

to stand in our way of providing education for our kids, and basic 

infrastructure for our rural communities located in places where 

the Federal Government has become an absentee landlord. 

I thank you for being here. I look forward to the ideas. I want 

you to know this is, as I said, the first step in a process. We are 

going to be talking about this as a committee and as groups for 

quite some time to come. 

Mr. BISHOP. With that, I recognize the gentleman from Arizona, 

Mr. Grijalva, for his opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. RAU ́ L GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to all the 

witnesses on both panels. 

Across this nation, rural communities and the Federal Government are neighbors. The century goal when our population was less 

than one-third of what it is today, it made perfect sense to help 

support rural communities by sharing with them a portion of the 

returns from timber harvests on public land. This funding created 

an incentive for local governments to increase timber production to 

fund rural schools and rural roads. Thanks to this program, along 

with the others like the Mining Law of 1872, the Homestead Act 

the western United States prospered. 

Unfortunately, poorly managed logging left our forests overcut, 

our water polluted and wildlife habitat degraded. We now recognize 

that tying Federal assistance to local communities to the level of 

timber produced from the area can make effective forest manageVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
4 

ment more difficult and, even in the best of times, lead to funding 

instability and uncertainty for local governments. 

The Secure Rural Schools and Self-Determination Act of 2000 

recognized these challenges and provided temporary intervention to 

help rural communities transition to other more sustainable economic models. In 2006, the Republican Majority allowed this program to lapse, but in 2007, the new Majority provided a one-year 

extension. In 2008, Congress passed a four-year reauthorization of 

the Secure Rural Schools Program. 

The Administration has proposed a five-year reauthorization of 

the program. I look forward to hearing the views of our witnesses 

on this proposal. It is vital that we recognize the needs of rural 

counties, but it is also important to remember the lessons we have 

learned from past approaches and avoid repeating those same mistakes again and again. 

With that, let me yield back and thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:] 

Statement of The Honorable Rau ́l Grijalva, Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands 

Across this Nation, rural communities and the Federal Government are neighbors. 

A century ago, when our population was less than one-third what it is today, it 

made perfect sense to help support rural communities by sharing with them a portion of the returns from timber harvests on public land. 

This funding created an incentive for local governments to increase timber production to fund rural schools and rural roads. Thanks to this program, along with others like the Mining Law of 1872 and the Homestead Act, the Western United States 

prospered. 

Unfortunately, poorly-managed logging left our forests over-cut, our water polluted, and wildlife habitats degraded. We now recognize that tying federal assistance to local communities to the level of timber produced from the area can make 

effective forest management more difficult and even in the best of times, lead to 

funding instability and uncertainty for local governments. 

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 recognized these challenges and provided a temporary intervention to help rural communities transition to other more sustainable economic models. 

In 2006, the Republican Majority allowed the program to lapse but in 2007, the 

new Majority provided a one-year extension and in 2008, Congress passed a fouryear reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools program. 

The Administration has proposed a five year re-authorization of the Secure Rural 

Schools program. I look forward to hearing the views of our witnesses on this proposal. It is vital that we recognize the needs of rural counties but it is also important to remember the lessons we have learned from past approaches and avoid repeating the same mistakes. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Grijalva. 

We will now turn to our witnesses. We appreciate once again you 

all being here with us. Mr. Walden, we are going to start with you. 

Actually, let me introduce you all first. The Honorable Greg Walden from the State of Oregon who has, as I said, been involved in 

this issue before he was born; Mary Wagner who is the Associate 

Chief of the U.S. Forest Service—I appreciate having you here 

again; Duane Vaagen who is the President of Vaagen Brothers 

Lumber, Incorporated, thank you for being here; Paul Pearce, the 

Chairman of the, and I didn’t know how to pronounce this one, 

what is your county? 

Mr. PEARCE. Skamania. 

Mr. BISHOP. That is an easy thing to say. I am not even going 

to go there. Anyway, thank you for being here and for your nice— 

5 

never mind. He is the County Board of Commissioners and also 

from the National Association of Counties, and Partnership for 

Rural America; and finally, Caroline Dauzat. 

Ms. DAUZAT. Dauzat. 

Mr. BISHOP. Dauzat. Can I just call you Smith and get it over 

with? Anyway, Ms. Dauzat, I thank you for being here. You are the 

owner, I understand, of Rex Lumber, and I appreciate you being 

here. 

Before I actually turn it over to you, the Chairman of the Full 

Committee has arrived, and as I said, under our rules is allowed 

to give an opening statement. I would ask if he is desirous of doing 

that. 

Mr. HASTINGS. I would like to 

Mr. BISHOP. Then we yield the time to the Chairman. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DOC HASTINGS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON 

Mr. HASTINGS. I certainly appreciate the consideration that you 

give me and I apologize for coming in a little bit late, but as you 

know it seems like there are always fires to put out someplace, so 

I appreciate that. 

For over a century the U.S. Forest Service has paid one-quarter 

of its gross receipts from timber sales, mineral extraction, leases, 

grazing and other fees for using national forest lands for use on 

schools and roads in over 700 rural counties where 193 million 

acres of national forests are located across the country, mostly in 

the western states. Additionally, the Bureau of Land Management 

has historically paid about half the revenue receipts on some 2.5 

million acres of BLM-owned land in western Oregon known as 

ONC Trust Lands. 

As we discuss the importance of revenues to these counties’ timber sales, timber sales which should be the primary source of those 

revenues has deeply declined from a high in the late 1980s of over 

half a billion dollars to just $186 million last year. That is an 88 

percent drop. The result has been a staggering loss of jobs and economic productivity in rural forest communities. This serious decline 

of revenues is due in large part to Federal environmental and 

regulatory policies in environmental lawsuits over the past 20 

years—exacerbated by this Administration, which has blocked or 

shut down timber sales in active forest management. 

More Federal land acquisition, wilderness designation and other 

restrictive management of existing lands has resulted in a billion 

dollars in Federal maintenance backlogs and increasing risk of catastrophic wild fires that emit tons of carbon into the atmosphere 

and sediment into the streams and rivers, and also results in more 

disease in dying trees. 

Rather than maintain the status quo program that yields less 

revenue for counties, current statutory authorities should be reviewed to allow harvesting of more timber to make forests 

healthier and more economically viable for state and local governments to use for schools and other local needs. 

So I look forward to this hearing. I am particularly interested 

in—I am sure this Committee is interested in hearing from the 

Forest Service on how the Administration can reconcile the finalVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
6 

ization of the revised forest planning rule of the Northern Spotted 

Owl Recovery Plan which, of course, was released recently. 

So, I just want to say that I look forward to working with my 

colleagues on this as we move forward. I know that our good friend 

from Oregon, Mr. Walden, has been very active in this in the past, 

and I certainly look forward to working with him, and Paul Pearce, 

of course, is somebody that has darkened my door many, many 

times on this issue, but I look forward to working on this to try 

to find a right resolution. 

With that, I yield back my time. Thanks for the courtesy. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

With that,] we will now turn to the panel. Congressman Walden, 

you are up. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. GREGORY PAUL WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Chairman 

Hastings, Ranking Member Grijalva. It is an honor to be before 

this wonderful committee on which I used to serve. I appreciate the 

opportunity to share some comments with you today. 

This is both an important and timely hearing, and I am encouraged that your Committee has taken this up and is interested in 

identifying long-term solutions for our Federal forest counties and 

the people who live there. I want to recognize my colleague from 

Oregon who proves that real men can wear pink, Congressman 

Peter DeFazio. We have had productive discussions and agree that 

the status quo serves no one well and that it is time for real 

change. 

In 2000, as you mentioned, Congress authorized county payments in recognition that layers of environmental regulations had 

throttled timber production on Federal lands that deprived the 

local communities of timber receipts that helped fund local schools, 

roads, and emergency services. I would direct your eyes to this 

chart where the gold line shows the drop in Federal timber harvest 

from a high of nearly five billion board feet in the mid-1980s to less 

than one-half a billion in 2009. And since 1990, Federal timber harvests have dropped more than 90 percent while harvest on private 

lands has remained at a stable sustainable level. 

This year the third reauthorization of county payment expires, 

and more than nine million school children in 729 counties nationwide will be impacted. I think we can all agree the status quo 

doesn’t work and will not work going forward. Our communities 

don’t even want the status quo. They don’t want the handout that 

has made them dependent on the Federal Government. They want 

jobs. They want healthy forests. They are tired of the catastrophic 

fires and bug infestations. They are sick of the bludgeoning uncertainty that comes with not knowing if Uncle Sam will pay his fair 

share. They want the ability to pursue the American ideal of selfreliance once more. 

When county payments were created in 2000, it was thought of 

as a bridge payment so rural counties could transition away from 

their resource-based economy. But let us get real. These are Federal forested counties. The government controls more than half of 

the land in most of them and nearly 80 percent in some, and the 

7 

notion that they have the ability to re-create their economies in a 

decade’s time is simply absurd. 

The Federal Government owns most of the land but has all but 

stopped productive forestry on it. It is shutting down public access 

to it, fails largely to produce economic value or renewable energy 

from it, and all too often stands idly by and lets it go up in smoke 

every year. The loss of county payments will be felt most in western states like Oregon where the Federal Government owns 60 percent of the forests but only produces just 12 percent of the timber 

harvest as seen in orange on both of these pie charts. The mortality 

rates are above 19 percent on Federal forest lands. That is not a 

healthy picture. 

Private forests in Oregon produce 73 percent of the harvested 

timber with a mortality rate of just 3.8 percent, maintaining a net 

growth rate of 22 percent. And according to the Forest Service timber harvest on Federal lands nationwide, nationwide has fallen 80 

percent since 1990, while wild fires have burned an average of 7.8 

million acres every year for the last five years, an area larger than 

the State of Maryland. Meanwhile, there is an unemployment crisis 

in many rural counties. In central, southern and eastern Oregon 

unemployment is commonly well into the double digits. 

Here on the monitors we are going to take a 30-second trip 

through time, 30 years of it as mill closures and job losses occurred 

in Oregon. From 1980 to 2010, we went from 405 open mills to just 

106 open mills, a 74 percent decrease in capacity available to do 

work in the woods. We went from 45,778 mill jobs to 15,706 in that 

time, a 66 percent loss of jobs. 

My colleagues, this isn’t an opportunity to act. This is an obligation to act and deliver a real solution, one that puts Americans 

back to work on public lands, makes our forests healthy for habitat 

and taxpayers alike, and spares communities of the uncertainty of 

wondering every four years if the Federal Government will owe up 

to its end of the bargain. 

Now here are some thoughts for the Committee to consider. Paralysis by analysis, and litigation that push Federal forested counties to the brink. There is bipartisan agreement that using HFRAstyle, pre-decisional objection and expedited judicial review processes could help. There is also an understanding that in order to 

get the job done there should be exemptions for certain qualifying 

projects or appeals in litigations. Trusts also work. Nationwide 

land trusts annually return billions to beneficiaries from resources 

on state public lands. 

Chairman Hastings and Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers 

know well, their state is a good example. 2.9 million acres are managed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources in trusts 

for schools. In 2005, they produced gross revenues of nearly $300 

million. Trusts work in Arizona, and in New Mexico, too, and on 

a nationwide basis trusts could help keep the school doors open, 

keep the roads in good repair, keep sheriffs and deputies on patrol 

while families sleep well at night. These are just a few ideas. 

I appreciate the Committee coming together today to look at this 

long-running problem and helping us tackle this difficult issue and 

taking charge to find a solution. 

8 

1Oregon Forest Resources Institute. Federal Forestland in Oregon: Coming to Terms with Active Forest Management of Federal Forestland. 2010. 2 Ibid. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the negative balance of 

my time. I appreciate your indulgence and I look forward to working with the Committee on a solution. And if I could, Mr. Chairman, I actually have to chair the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity 

that is going to meet here soon, so I will probably have to depart. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:] 

Statement of The Honorable Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Oregon 

Chairmen Bishop, Hastings, Ranking Member Grijalva, and fellow witnesses: 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

This is an important and timely hearing. 

I’m encouraged by the Committee’s interest in identifying a long-term solution for 

our federal forest counties and the people who live there. 

I recognize my colleague from Oregon, Congressman Peter DeFazio. We’ve had 

productive discussions and agree that the status quo serves no one well. It’s time 

for real change. 

In 2000, Congress authorized county payments in recognition that layers of environmental regulations had throttled timber production on federal lands, depriving 

local communities of timber receipts that helped fund local schools, roads, and emergency services. 

This year, the third reauthorization of county payments expires and more than 

9 million school children and 729 counties nationwide will be impacted. 

I think we can all agree that the status quo doesn’t work and won’t work going 

forward. 

Our communities don’t even want the status quo. They don’t want the handout 

that’s made them dependant on the federal government. They want jobs. They want 

healthy forests. They’re tired of the catastrophic fire and the bug infestation. 

They’re sick of the budgeting uncertainty that comes with not knowing if Uncle Sam 

will pay his fair share. 

They want the ability to pursue the American ideal of self-reliance once more. 

When county payments was created in 2000, it was thought of as a bridge payment so rural counties could transition away from a resource-based economy. 

But let’s get real. These are federal forest counties, the government controls more 

than half the land. . .nearly 80 percent in some counties. . .and the notion that 

they have the ability to recreate their economies in a decade’s time is absurd. 

The federal government owns most of the land, but has all but stopped productive 

forestry on it, is shutting down public access to it, fails largely to produce economic 

value or renewable energy from it, and all-too-often stands idly by and lets it go 

up in smoke every year. 

The loss of county payments will be felt most in Western states like Oregon, 

where the federal government owns 60 percent of the forests, but only produces just 

12 percent of the timber harvest—as seen in the ORANGE on both of these PIE 

CHARTS. 1

The mortality rates are above 19 percent on federal lands. That’s not a healthy 

picture. 

Private forests in Oregon produce 73 percent of the harvest, with a mortality rate 

of 3.8 percent, maintaining a net growth rate of 22 percent. 2

According to the Forest Service, timber harvest from our federal lands nationwide 

has fallen nearly 80 percent from 1990, while wildfires have burned an average 7.8 

million acres a year for the last five years—an area larger than the state of Maryland. 

Meanwhile, there is an unemployment crisis in many rural counties. In central, 

southern, and eastern Oregon, unemployment is commonly well into the double digits. 

Here on the monitors we’re going to take a trip in 30 seconds through 30 years 

of mill closures and job losses in Oregon. From 1980 to 2010, we went from 405 open 

mills to just 106 open mills—a 74 percent decrease in capacity available to do work 

in the woods. We went from 45,778 mill jobs to 15,706 in that time—a 66 percent 

drop. 

My colleagues, this isn’t an opportunity to act. This is an obligation to act. . .and 

deliver a real solution. . .one that puts Americans back to work on public lands, 

9 

3Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Managing State Trust Lands. 2010 

makes our forests healthy for habitat and taxpayer alike, and spares communities 

the uncertainty of wondering every four years if the federal government will owe 

up to its end of the bargain. 

Here are some thoughts for the committee to consider. 

‘‘Paralysis by analysis’’ and litigation have pushed federal forested counties to the 

brink. There’s bipartisan agreement that using the HFRA-style pre-decisional objection and expedited judicial review processes would help. 

There is also an understanding that in order to get the job done, there should be 

exemptions for certain qualifying projects from appeals and litigation. 

Trusts also work. Nationwide, land trusts annually return billions to beneficiaries 

from resources on states land. Chairman Hastings’ state is a good example. 

2.9 million acres are managed by the Washington Department of Natural Re- sources in trust for schools. In 2005, they produced gross revenues of nearly $300 

million. Trusts work in place in Arizona and New Mexico, too. 3

On a nationwide basis, trusts could help keep the school doors open, keep the 

roads in good repair, and keep the sheriff’s deputies on patrol while families sleep 

at night. 

These are just a few ideas. 

I appreciate the committee coming together today to look at this long-running 

problem and helping us tackle this difficult issue and taking charge on a solution. 

Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Walden, we appreciate you being here with us 

today. You used to be a member of this Committee, this Subcommittee. 

Mr. WALDEN. Yes. 

Mr. BISHOP. We miss you on that. However, if you were still a 

member, you would be the Chairman and I wouldn’t, so maybe I 

don’t miss you all that much. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WALDEN. Given your superior looks and ability, I probably 

would have yielded that gavel to you, sir 

Mr. BISHOP. And I won’t say what Chairman Hastings just said 

here either. But we do appreciate it, and thank you. We realize you 

have a schedule that requires you to be elsewhere. Thank you for 

being with us. We will dismiss you at this time. 

For those of you on the Committee, the rest of the panel, obviously Ms. Wagner has been here before and understands this, we 

are asking you that you keep your oral testimony to five minutes. 

When you speak, the green light will go on. When you see the yellow light come on, you have one minute left. When the red light 

comes on, I am supposed to gavel you into silence, but if you would 

sum it up very quickly that won’t necessarily happen. 

Ms. Wagner, it is good to see you again here as a witness. For 

you, as with everyone else, your written testimony will appear in 

the record, and you are recognized for five minutes for an oral 

version of your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MARY WAGNER, ASSOCIATE CHIEF, 

FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Ms. WAGNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Subcommittee. It is good to be here. Thank you for the opportunity 

to present the view of the United States Department of Agriculture 

regarding Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization and Forest Management Options for a Viable County Payment Program. 

The President’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget proposal reauthorizes 

the Secure Rural Schools Act. We recognize the economic difficulVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
10 

ties rural communities have experienced in recent years. At the 

same time, we understand the need to manage the Federal budget 

thoughtfully and deliberately for deficit reduction. We would like to 

work with Congress to develop a proposal that addresses both. 

I am going to focus my comments on the benefits the Secure 

Rural Schools Act as it relates to natural resources and the agency’s intention to continue to actively restore forests and grass lands 

for the benefit of citizens. 

The Secure Rural Schools Act provides an important mechanism 

to maintain and improve the health of our forests and watersheds 

and to create jobs. The Forest Service really values the relationships fostered with tribal and county officials, and all stakeholders 

in the 118 resource advisory councils under the Secure Rural 

Schools Act. 

The resource advisory committee (RAC) process of reviewing and 

recommending projects has resulted in projects with broad-based 

support that help provide jobs in rural communities, support local 

businesses and help create a more self-sustaining community. In a 

study done at the University of Oregon it was found that every dollar of public investment in forest and watershed restoration 

projects is multiplied in economic activity 1.7 to 2.6 times as it cycles through Oregon’s economy. 

In numerous cases RACs working together have forced relationships in a spirit of collaboration which is contributing to restoration 

efforts beyond the Secure Rural Schools-funded projects but across 

the county and across the landscape. Community capacity has 

grown to support collaborative work which has resulted in more onthe-ground accomplishments, better and more defendable decisions, 

and efficient implementation of projects. 

I would like to highlight a few key agency efforts to increase restoration on national forests. The President’s budget is designed to 

support the Administration’s priorities for maintaining and restoring the resiliency of America’s forests. The President’s budget includes a proposal to create the integrated resource restoration 

budget line item which allows us to effectively integrate interdisciplinary restoration treatments. 

Integrated resource restoration aligns the budget structure with 

a focus on landscape scale restoration and we expect it will increase accomplishments, focus on priority landscapes, and increase 

efficiency and effectiveness on the ground. Within integrated resource restoration, there is increased funding for the collaborative 

forest landscape restoration fund which provides an increased emphasis on protecting and enhancing forest and watershed health. 

This is a real opportunity to showcase the value of collaborative 

landscape scale restoration. 

In 2010, we received 31 proposals, only 10 were funded but an 

additional 26 proposals have been provided in 2011. it just tells us 

there is a lot of capacity and communities and citizens are working 

together to put these proposals together. There are additional opportunities to strengthen our landscape scale restoration, including 

working on projects that weren’t selected under the Collaborative 

Forest Landscape Restoration Fund (CFLR) funding through collaborative work with groups such as the Nature Conservancy, local 

11 

watershed councils and other community-based organizations that 

work on landscape scale. 

Forest and regions are finding means to invest in work in these 

landscapes because of the up front collaboration and agreement to 

action. 

Another tool we use to restore forests and provide jobs and economic activities is stewardship contracting. It involves close collaboration with local communities and a focus on new and emerging markets for forest products removed, and restoration activities. 

Stewardship contracts can achieve multiple outcomes on large 

landscapes over time, and we look forward to working with Congress on authorizing this valuable tool. 

The Forest Service has recently completed a national bark beetle 

strategy which prioritizes treatments to focus on health and safety, 

recovery and resiliency of the landscapes impacted by bark beetle. 

We expect to treat our 230,000 acres this fiscal year, investing a 

little over $99 million in western regions. We have also launched 

a NEPA project to increase our efficiency through select demonstration projects and to also seek categorical exclusions to support restoration across the landscape. 

The Secure Rural Schools Act has provided more than a decade 

of payments to eligible states and counties to help fund schools and 

roads. It has also created a forum for community interest to participate, and so the selection of projects and assist in community fire 

protection planning. We would like to build on the successes over 

the last decade and would like to work with the Subcommittee to 

provide much needed support to rural communities, and to responsibly address the Federal deficit and actively restore our landscapes. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wagner follows:] 

Statement of Mary Wagner, Associate Chief, U.S. Forest Service, 

United States Department of Agriculture 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity 

to present the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, 

(Secure Rural Schools Act), as amended and reauthorized in 2008 (P.L. 110–343), 

and forest management options for a viable Program providing payments to States, 

which distribute the funds to eligible counties. 

The Forest Service and Secretary Vilsack have an ambitious vision for managing 

our forests. We are focused on restoration and conservation efforts that make forests 

healthier and reduce the likelihood and impacts of catastrophic fires like those we 

have seen this year. These restoration efforts also protect watersheds and create 

jobs. The Secure Rural Schools Act is one of the tools we use to maintain and improve the health of our forests and watersheds, and to create jobs. 

Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization 

The President’s fiscal year 2012 budget proposes to reauthorize the Secure Rural 

Schools Act, extending for five more years the enhanced payments to States to ease 

the transition to the reduced amount of the 25-percent payments for public schools 

and roads. We recognize the economic difficulties rural communities have experienced in recent years. At the same time, we understand the need to manage the 

federal budget thoughtfully and deliberately for deficit reduction. We would like to 

work with the Congress to develop a proposal that addresses both concerns. 

Purpose and history of the Secure Rural Schools Act 

Since 1908, the Forest Service has shared 25-percent of gross receipts from national forests with states to benefit public schools and public roads in the counties 

in which the national forests are situated. The receipts on which the 25-percent payVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
12 

ments are based are derived from timber sales, grazing, minerals, recreation, and 

other land use fees, deposits and credits. 

In the late 1980s, the 25-percent payments began to decline significantly and fluctuate widely, due largely to a significant decline in timber sale receipts. Congress 

responded to these declines by providing ‘‘safety net payments’’ to counties in northern California, western Oregon and western Washington for fiscal years 1994 to 

2003. The safety net payments were enhanced payments intended to ease the transition to the reduced amount of the 25-percent payments. 

Before the safety net payments expired, Congress enacted the Secure Rural 

Schools Act, which provided the option of decoupling the payments from receipts 

and authorizing enhanced, stabilized payments to more states for fiscal years 2000 

through 2006. The Secure Rural Schools Act provided eligible counties with two options. A county could elect to receive its share of the State’s 25 percent payment, 

which fluctuated based on receipts, or the county could elect to receive its share of 

the State’s ‘‘full payment amount,’’ which was a stabilized amount. 

Congress later appropriated payments to States for fiscal year 2007 and in October 2008, amended and reauthorized the Secure Rural Schools Act for fiscal years 

2008 through 2011. The purpose of this reauthorization was to stabilize payments 

that help fund public schools and roads, and to ease the transition to the reduced 

amount of the 25-percent payments. 

The primary change in the Secure Rural Schools Act as reauthorized was a new 

formula for the stabilized ‘‘State payment’’. The new formula includes a ramp down 

of funding each year and incorporates a factor for per capita personal income to address differences in economic circumstances among counties. In addition, the 2008 

reauthorization amended the Twenty-Five Percent Fund Act (16 USC 500) to reduce 

fluctuations in the 25-percent payments by basing the payments on a rolling average of the most recent seven fiscal years’ percent payments. The reauthorization further increased the number of States and counties that participate. 

The final Forest Service State payment under the Secure Rural Schools Act will 

be approximately $324 million for fiscal year 2011. In addition, the Department of 

the Interior will provide approximately $40 million in SRS payments to Oregon. If 

Secure Rural Schools is not reauthorized, in fiscal year 2012, all eligible States will 

receive the 25-percent payment to States using the new formula based on a sevenyear rolling average of 25-percent payments. The total of 25 percent payments for 

all States is projected to be approximately $64 million for fiscal 2012 from the Forest Service. In addition, the Department of the Interior would make approximately 

$5 million in payments to Oregon. 

The Secure Rural Schools Act has three principal titles with complementary 

objectives. 

Title I—Secure Payments for States and Counties Containing Federal Land 

The Act directs that the majority of the State payment be used to help fund public 

schools and roads in counties in which national forests are situated. This portion 

of the payment, commonly called title I funds, has averaged about 85 percent of the 

total State payments to date. For fiscal years 2008 through 2011, title I funds are 

projected to total nearly $1.5 billion. 

Title II—Special Projects on Federal Land 

An eligible county may allocate a portion of its share of the State payment to title 

II for projects that enhance forest ecosystems, restore and improve the health of the 

land and water quality and protect, restore and enhance fish and wildlife habitat. 

These projects provide employment in rural communities and opportunities for local 

citizens on resource advisory committees (RACs) to advise the Forest Service on 

projects of mutual interest that benefit the environment and the economy. For fiscal 

years 2008 through 2011, title II funds are projected to total $172 million for 

projects recommended in more than 300 counties. 

Title III—County Funds 

Funds allocated by a county to title III may be used for activities under the 

Firewise Communities program, for reimbursement for emergency services on national forests, and for preparation of a community wildfire protection plan. For fiscal 

years 2008 through 2011, title III funds are projected to total $87 million. 

Secure Rural Schools Act Successes 

The Forest Service values the relationships fostered with tribal and county officials and stakeholders under title II. Members on the 118 RACs represent diverse 

interests such as tribal, county and school officials, conservation groups, recreation 

interests, commodity producers, and members of the public. 

13 

iMax Nielsen-Pincus and Cassandra Moseley, The Employment and Economic Impacts of Forest and Watershed Restoration in Oregon, EWP Briefing Paper number 23, http:// 

ewp.uoregon.edu/publications. 

The RAC process of reviewing and recommending projects leads to projects with 

broad-based support that help provide jobs in rural communities, support local businesses and help create more self-sustaining communities. In a study done at the 

University of Oregon, it was found ‘‘that every dollar of public investment in forest 

and watershed restoration projects is multiplied in economic activity between 1.7 

and 2.6 times as it cycles through Oregon’s economy.’’ i The collaboration improves 

the quality of the projects and resolves differences early in project development. The 

projects actively restore and improve forest watersheds and ecosystems, increasing 

their resiliency in the face of climate change and catastrophic events. 

The resource advisory committees’ role in reviewing title II projects is an important part of the suite of tools the Forest Service needs for actively managing the 

national forests to restore ecosystem health and provide local employment. 

Management Opportunities, Options, and Other Tools 

The President’s budget is designed to support the administration’s priorities for 

maintaining and restoring the resiliency of America’s forests, specifically healthy 

forests and grasslands, clean air and water, wildlife habit, and recreation opportunities. To support this, the President’s budget includes a proposal to create the Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) budget line item which will allow us to effectively 

integrate interdisciplinary restoration treatments that will protect and improve our 

water resources, habitat, and vegetation treatments, including fuels reduction. We 

support sustaining our forests by increasing the collaborative efforts for restoration 

activities that create jobs. Within IRR, there is increased funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Fund (CFLR) which provides an increased emphasis on protecting and enhancing forest and watershed health. There will be additional opportunities to strengthen landscape-scale restoration, including projects not 

selected for CFLR funding, through collaborative work with groups such as The Nature Conservancy, watershed councils, and other community based organizations 

that work on a landscape scale to improve watershed condition, wildlife habitat, native plants, and fuels condition. Statewide Assessments, developed collaboratively, 

can be used to provide an analysis of each State’s forest conditions and trends while 

working to enhance public benefits from trees and forests. At the same time, the 

Statewide Assessments prioritize the conservation of working forest lands. 

We will continue to track not only the traditional targets, but also the overall outcomes of forest restoration and watershed improvement so that we can show our 

progress at the landscape scale. It is clear that well-managed forests enhance communities and their economies. 

Another tool we use to restore forests and provide jobs and economic activity is 

stewardship contracting. Stewardship contracting is not intended to replace timber 

sales, which we will continue to use as an important tool, as well. But where appropriate, stewardship contracts can achieve multiple outcomes on large landscapes 

over time. By rebuilding infrastructure, stewardship contracts create local jobs and 

stimulate the local economy. 

We have found that with stewardship contracting, multi-year contracts work best, 

because they stabilize the flow of work and materials over time, stimulating investments. Our stewardship contracting authority will soon expire. We look forward to 

working with Congress on reauthorizing this valuable tool. 

Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization 

We recognize that funding a reauthorization for the Secure Rural Schools Act will 

be challenging. To make the Forest Service related-payments to States for the last 

three years the Treasury has made-up the shortfall of nearly $1.1 billion between 

available receipts and the payments required by statute. Our proposal balances the 

need to support these communities while managing the federal budget. It continues 

the transition to the reduced amount of the 25-percent payments while building on 

the successes of the current program by doubling funding for Title II. This and 

other budget proposals like IRR will increase active management to reduce fuels 

and improve ecosystem health. These activities could increase revenues but they 

would likely still fall short of the current level of payments. 

Conclusion 

The Secure Rural Schools Act has provided more than a decade of payments to 

eligible States and counties to help fund public schools and roads and has provided 

predictably declining payments as states transition back to the 25-percent payment. 

14 

It has also created a forum for community interests to participate collaboratively in 

the selection of natural resource projects on the National Forests, and assisted in 

community wildfire protection planning. The Forest Service would like to build on 

the successes of the last decade and would like to work with the Subcommitttee to 

provide needed support to rural communities and responsibly addresses the federal 

deficit. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you for your testimony. We welcome Mr. 

Vaagen who his here and to introduce him to the Committee I 

would like to turn to Representative McMorris Rodgers. 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the chance to be here today and to introduce my good 

friend Duane Vaagen from Colville, Washington. 

Since 1980, Duane has served as President of Vaagen Brothers, 

a second generation family owned timber company with over 175 

employees. Duane is well regarded in the community and among 

his peers. He has spent his entire career in the forest products industry and is a pioneer, leading innovator and his expertise is beyond compare. Because of these attributes Duane has been recognized as timber processing man of the year, one of the highest honors in his field. 

Duane and his family have the distinction of having many firsts. 

They were the first to move their business into small log processing, and the first to utilize single grip harvesters for mechanical 

harvesting, all to support better forest management. As an innovator, Vaagen’s is one of the very few businesses in the forest products industry to remain viable in both good times and bad. Duane 

has the foresight and the expertise to know what action is required 

to make our forests a healthy and viable industry again. 

Let me point out one example with the Colville National Forest. 

After decades of litigation and conflict between environmentalists, 

businesses, grazers, recreationalists and other parties Duane successfully brought these diverse interest groups to the table and developed a comprehensive strategy for elevating the forests beyond 

the conflict. Through our collaborative efforts, Duane and I are 

proud to report that the Colville National Forest has been litigation-free for over a decade, and was named one of the top three 

national forests by the Forest Service. 

Recently, a leading and well-respected forester told me that 

because of Duane Vaagen, we have had more successes in the 

Colville National Forest than any other western state. Today, we 

find our forest management system broken and the flaws in the 

system fostering policies that deviate from effective management. 

Because of these policies our forests are overgrown and they have 

become vulnerable to disease and bug infestations. Like so many 

government programs, our forest management policies have created 

a system of dependency that is unsustainable in both the short and 

the long run, and there is no better example than Secure Rural 

Schools. This program is a direct result of government intervention 

on behalf of the spotted owl, and made our counties more dependent on the Federal Government than ever. 

I believe, and Duane will tell you that there are ways we can 

give our local counties more control, improve forest management, 

create middle class jobs, and return money back to the Federal 

Government. I trust that this Committee and Congress will use 

15 

Duane as a resource and strongly consider his recommendations, so 

please join me in welcoming Duane and all of our witnesses, and 

especially those from Washington State. I look forward to hearing 

from them all. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

STATEMENT OF DUANE VAAGEN, PRESIDENT, 

VAAGEN BROTHERS LUMBER, INC. 

Mr. VAAGEN. Thanks for the kind introduction. My presentation 

can be shorter now. That was very kind. 

Mr. Chairman, Committee Members, it is a pleasure to be here. 

We have lived this crisis beyond the 20 years that we say. I have 

been President of Vaagen Brothers for 31 years. It is good when I 

own the company. They can’t fire me. But we have been through 

so many crises. You know, when you have a losing team you get 

rid of the head coach. Well, it takes persistence to survive in this 

industry, and I appreciate the witnesses here today. 

Again, the history is the debate in the woods started long before 

the counties’ schools proposition. It started in the seventies, and 

people had to react, so we re-tooled to go to small diameter because 

the environmental community was pushing that, and that is a good 

thing. So we believe in safe, healthy, and clean forest. But the 

forest has been neglected the last 20 years, so what we have done 

is built up more and more fuel, and consequently as we harvest 

less we burn more. We have less jobs and poor economics in rural 

communities. 

Right now, there are 60 million acres in dire straits of treatment, 

but there is some good news. The collaboration has shown us many 

ways to get there. We have been appeal and litigation free, but our 

forest, we have only harvested 4,000 acres a year in the last 10 

years. That is not enough. Through the collaboration efforts, which 

we helped form, we are agreeing in 80 million feet, around 15,000 

acres a year. I think that is great, but now we have a mountain 

pine beetle epidemic that just came on us last year. This year it 

has doubled in size and next year it will double again. People in 

Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana all know that story very well. 

But through collaboration we can move forward and what we 

want to demonstrate is we can return money to the treasury. Even 

though we deal in very small diameter stands, we pay $750 an acre 

to thin those forests. If you go to other states, it may cost you $500, 

$750 to $1,000 an acre to thin the forest, and we have to move 

quickly on this. 

We have supported this Secure Schools proposition from the getgo. The RACs and the FLACs were a great idea. In our forest it 

didn’t work. You can’t go down from 100 million feet to 20 million 

feet, and now we are stabilized around 30 million feet, and say that 

has worked. It hasn’t worked. Its intention is good, but we have to 

get work done on the forests if we are going to save the forests 

prior to beetles and fire. 

Again, the mountain pine beetle is an epidemic spreading 

through our forest. I toured an Arizona forest six weeks ago before 

the fire. It is a green forest. I said they are fortunate, their forest 

is green. It may not burn. The day after I left it was on fire and 

16 

burned 560,000 acres. New Mexico had their biggest fire in history. 

It is going to return to other western states. 

I will leave you Committee members with a copy of the book 

‘‘The Big Burn,’’ 1910 Fire, Montana, Idaho, Washington, three million acres, two days, 87 people perished. I think we are going to 

see things like that in our area. So please accept that, read that. 

What is going to fix this is we have to streamline NEPA. You 

can’t have a beetle epidemic that you need to harvest within a year 

and spend a year-and-a-half trying to figure out how to do the 

planning process, so NEPA has to be streamlined on emergency efforts, and we have to have legislative mandates for the Forest 

Service so they can guide their way to the net results that we need. 

And as far as money to the treasury, it used to be before 1992- 

1993, when this all started, you sold eight million feet a year, or 

11 billion feet. Nowadays that dropped to two billion, but the price 

of logs and lumber doubled, so actually we could return to six billion feet and double the money that we used to have, so our recommendation is for significant treatment and quick resolution of 

these forest debates. 

Again, appreciate the Committee, my congresswoman, and look 

forward to any help that we may be able to offer. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Vaagen follows:] 

Statement of Duane Vaagen, President, Vaagen Brothers Lumber Company, 

Colville, Washington 

Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. I am Duane 

Vaagen, President of Vaagen Brothers Lumber, a family-owned forest products company located in Colville, Washington. I am here today to discuss the urgent need 

to restore responsible, sustainable management to our federal forests for the sake 

of our forests and rural communities. 

Vaagen Brothers Lumber was founded by my father and uncle in the early 1950s 

and has survived over the years by focusing on technological advancements, ecologically-minded forest management and a commitment to healthy forests and rural 

communities. We currently own and operate two sawmills in northeast Washington, 

employ over 175 people and contribute $75 million to the local economy. We once 

employed 500 people and operated another two sawmills here in northeast Washington. 

Today our mills predominantly rely on small diameter timber, the primary biproduct of forest thinning operations. We also fully utilize the biomass component 

of forest management activities through a biomass co-generation plant. Unfortunately, for the past 15 years we have continually struggled to secure an adequate 

timber supply to ensure our continued operation. The primary reason for this shortage of raw materials is a lack of management and timber coming from the 1.1 million acre Colville National Forest (Colville NF). 

Declining Forest and Community Health 

The health of our nation’s forests continues to decline and federal forests are most 

at risk due to overstocking, disease, drought, insect infestations and catastrophic 

wildfires resulting from a lack of sound management. In fact, the Forest Service 

classifies 60–80 million acres of National Forest land as being overstocked and at 

particular risk. Just last week a Forest Service report indicated that 50 million 

acres of forests in the continental U.S. were killed or seriously damaged by insects 

between 2003 and 2007, which was a three-fold increase over the previous five year 

period. This represents 8-percent of the total forested acres in the lower 48. As you 

know, federal forests throughout the West have been ravaged by the pine beetle. 

Meanwhile, over the past 30 years we have gone from over 700 lumber manufacturing mills in the West to a current level of approximately 120. Many areas of the 

country, including Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado, are largely devoid of 

the forest products industry infrastructure (mills, loggers, etc) needed to restore and 

maintain the health of our forests and provide employment opportunities in rural 

communities. Here in northeast Washington we still have the integrated sawmill, 

logging, biomass and paper mill industries that are needed to effectively maintain 

17 

the health of the forest and generate economic benefits for rural communities. Unfortunately, if something isn’t done to increase the level of management on the 

Colville NF we will continue losing mills, jobs and our ability to treat the threats 

facing this forest. The recent fires in Arizona and New Mexico provide perfect examples of the consequences of inaction as well as benefits of treating the forest. 

As you know, the health of our rural communities also continues to decline. Unemployment in our local tri-county area currently sits at 14-percent. It is not a coincidence that many of the counties with the highest unemployment rates in the country also happen to be those surrounded by federal forests. Many of these rural communities have lost their historical heritage as well as generations of forest stewards. 

I believe it will require decisive action now if we want to restore the health of our 

rural communities and our federal forests. 

Collaboration 

Over the past decade my company has invested significant time, energy and 

money into collaboration. In fact, we helped form the Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition (NEWFC), which is comprised of the forest products industry, conservationists, local businesses and other stakeholders. The NEWFC has been a success—we haven’t had a timber sale or stewardship project litigated on the Colville 

NF in nearly 10 years. We’ve had only one appeal. The Coalition has helped bring 

once warring sides together to find forest management solutions on the Colville NF 

built around a blueprint that identifies areas most appropriate for active forest 

management, restoration treatments and meeting conservation objectives. 

Despite agreement from all interested parties we have not seen meaningful 

progress from the Forest Service to restore the health of the forest or meet the 

needs of local industries and communities by offering an adequate supply of timber. 

We continue to support collaboration as an important component of federal forest 

management, but it alone does not address many of the current barriers to implementing a sustainable and predictable timber management program. 

Secure Rural Schools/County Payments Program 

The Federal Government has actually been making payments to counties to make 

up for lost 25-percent timber receipts since the early 1990’s following the listing of 

the Northern Spotted Owl in Washington, Oregon and California. The current Secure Rural Schools program was first enacted in 2000 and has been extended twice 

since then. As you know, the program has provided billions of dollars to counties 

and schools over its lifetime. Our company has supported the National Forests 

Counties & Schools Coalition, the primary advocate of the Secure Rural Schools program. We’ve supported their efforts because we believed that one of the primary 

goals of the program was to transition back to the sustainable management of our 

federal forests. After nearly twenty years of experience in the Pacific Northwest and 

over a decade nationwide, it is clear that the program as currently designed will 

not address the fundamental threats to our federal forests and rural economies. The 

program has primarily succeeded at treating just one symptom of the illness, a lack 

of funding for local government services and schools due to the paralysis affecting 

federal land management. While we all support efforts to meet these critically important needs, I believe our political leaders can no longer avoid confronting the fundamental problem by treating just one symptom. 

As a resident of a rural community I certainly understand the dependency of 

many local governments on this funding to provide public sector jobs and services. 

Unfortunately, the overall health of many rural, forested communities has further 

declined over the past two decades due to our inability to rebuild private sector employment. In many forested communities the forest products industry is one of the 

few industries capable of providing meaningful employment opportunities and the 

tax base needed to provide long term economic and social stability. 

As Congress considers legislation to address the pending expiration of the Secure 

Rural Schools program I encourage you to seek a comprehensive solution to the illness and not just one symptom of it. We are running out of time to restore the 

health of our forests and maintain the industries important to the economies of 

rural communities. 

Snapshot of the Colville National Forest 

The Colville NF provides a perfect example of how we can balance sustainable forest management, revenue generation and rural economic development with other 

objectives, including conservation. I have provided the Subcommittee pictures that 

show the type of responsible forest management we are advocating. 

As I mentioned the Colville National Forest is comprised of 1.1 million acres. 

There is a strong consensus within our coalition for managing 500,000–600,000 

acres for a mix of active management (timber, etc) and restoration objectives. MeanVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
18 

while, there is an urgent need to accelerate commercial thinning treatments on at 

least 250,000 acres of overstocked and beetle infested forest at risk to catastrophic 

wildfire. In recent years less than 4,000 acres have been mechanically thinned despite the support of the Coalition to treat between 15,000–20,000 acres annually. 

I actually believe we should be restoring the health of the forest even more aggressively in the short term. 

My testimony includes charts that compare estimated outcomes of the Forest 

Service’s current management with the approach supported by the Coalition in 

terms of the pace of forest restoration, timber value generated, jobs created and potential county receipts. These are estimates and can vary year to year based on 

market conditions, the use of stewardship contracting and other factors, but they 

provide a good snapshot of the opportunity that exists. 

The key to success is the existence of an integrated forest products industry, 

which allows treatments to actually generate revenue (approx $750 per acre) to be 

used for county receipts, on-the-ground restoration activities or the Treasury by removing enough merchantable material in the form of sawlogs. This is not the current reality in areas where the industry no longer exists and the taxpayer is picking 

up the tab to thin the forests at a cost of as much as $1,000 per acre. 

Legislative Recommendations 

As your committee considers legislative options for restoring sustainable management to our federal forests as a key component of reauthorizing Secure Rural 

Schools, I would like to provide the following suggestions. These suggestions are 

based on the following assumptions: 1) securing significant increases in Forest Service appropriations to fund their current approach to managing these forests is unlikely under current and future budget realities; 2) the Forest Service and the federal government have a responsibility to the rural communities surrounded by our 

federal forests; and 3) we must significantly increase the pace of treatments if we 

are serious about getting ahead of the forest health crisis. 

• Reduce the time and cost of Forest Service project planning requirements, 

particularly in areas where consensus exists. A NEPA Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement on a single forest management 

project can take years to complete and cost $500,000-$1 million to prepare. 

Real progress is unlikely until the agency’s project planning costs are significantly reduced. 

• Legislation could be passed to give projects that meet a certain criteria for 

responsible management and/or enjoy collaborative support some relief from 

appeals and/or litigation if those are liming the sustainable management of 

some forests. 

• Enact legislation to hold the Forest Service accountable for managing forests 

to maintain forest health, generate economic activity and provide a minimum 

level of receipts for local governments. The Forest Service needs clear direction from Congress. 

• Amend the Stewardship Contracting Authority to give counties the option of 

receiving 25% of the retained receipts and specifically give the agency the authority to use retained receipts for future project planning costs. 

• Consider reforming the Forest Service to separate fire fighting and forest 

management functions. The Forest Service has largely become a fire fighting 

agency, not a land manager. 

• Divert a portion of ever-increasing wildfire suppression costs to actually get 

ahead of the problem though increased forest management. This will create 

additional funding and certainty to help bring new industry infrastructure 

(and jobs) to the forests and rural communities where it has been lost. 

• If the Forest Service is unwilling or unable to deliver these relatively modest 

economic returns to local communities and improvements to forest health 

then states or counties should be given the authority to plan and implement 

forest management projects. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee today. I would be 

happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Attachments: 

(1) Bark Beetle Infestation in the West, USDA FY12 Budget Justification 

(2) National Forest Growth, Removals and Timber Volume Sold Graphs 

(3) Colville National Forest Management Outcomes Graphs 

(4) Pictures of Forest Treatments on the Colville National Forest 

19 


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22 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Vaagen. Now we will turn to Mr. 

Pearce. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL PEARCE, CHAIR, SKAMANIA COUNTY 

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 

COUNTIES, PARTNERSHIP FOR RURAL AMERICA 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Chairman 

Hastings, Ranking Member Grijalva, Congresswoman McMorris 

Rodgers who has always had her door open for these conversations 

and has worked hard on this issue all the way back to when she 

was in the Legislature in Washington. Thank you very much. 

I want to thank the members of the Committee and the Subcommittee, and I thank you for the invitation to appear before you 

today to discuss this issue, Secure Rural Schools and Forest Management Options for Viable County Payments, and if I may add, 

finding a long-term answer to economically healthy, productive forests, counties and schools because we need all three. 

I am here today as Chair of the Federal Payment Subcommittee 

of the NACO’s Public Lands Committee, and as an executive board 

member of the Partnership for Rural America Campaign for Reauthorization. But finally, I am the Chair of the Skamania County 

Board of Commissioners, a county which at one time produced up 

to a quarter of the Federal timber harvested in Washington State. 

Twenty-four percent of the nation’s 3,000 plus counties contain 

national forests, some, like my own, covering up to 90 percent of 

their land. These 154 national forests cover 139 acres. These counties are responsible for maintaining the infrastructure, the roads, 

the schools, search and rescue, and other emergency services that 

allow these forests to be enjoyed. The 1908 Act fulfilled the promise 

of Gifford Pinchot when he said that no community would suffer 

for hosting these lands, and the partnership at that time that we 

created between the Federal Government and the counties with 

revenue sharing, the first in the nation, of 25 percent revenues 

worked well until the late eighties when court decisions and endangered species listings both in the Northwest and the South dramatically reduced Federal timber production. 

In 2000, Congress passed Secure Rural Schools to address the 

loss of revenue, but at that time the conversation was around increased forest production. We had another reauthorization in 2007. 

We were still having that government. The current authorization 

in 2008, again conversations around production. We appreciate that 

the Act was reauthorized in 2008, and it runs out this year, and 

I want to take a moment to sincerely thank you and the other 

members of the Committee who voted for its passage and helped 

to make that happen. 

According to Dr. Eylers’ economic study, which I have attached 

to my written, these payments have an impact of 1.3 billion in 

sales, 188 million realized tax revenues, and most importantly, represent 11,000 jobs in those mostly rural communities. Forest management is imperative. 

NACO’s platform, and I quote here, ‘‘supports the reauthorization and enhancement of Secure Rural Schools Program. Reauthorization should maintain coupling between payments to counties 

and active natural resource management and the connection beVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
23 

tween sustainable natural resource management and the stability 

and well being of forest communities and counties.’’ 

Attached to my written testimony you will find a White Paper 

from the Partnership for Rural America titled ‘‘Maintaining the 

Partnership Today and in the Future’’ which details many suggestions for changes in forest management, including fixing the biomass definition, expedited harvest of beetle killed timber, allowing 

counties and schools to retain 75 percent of receipts, just to name 

a few. 

Contrary to what many believe, the vast majority of county commissioners would much rather have a vibrant economy with hundreds of jobs based on healthy sustainable productive forest management on these lands. I would gladly trade these dollars for the 

over 1,200 jobs I once had on the Gifford Pinchot Forest in my own 

county, not to mention the four mills we had, and the 300 Forest 

Service jobs. Did I mention 300 Forest Service jobs? We had the 

Northwest Nursery, out at the Wind River Nursery, and there were 

over 300 people employed there, both part time and full time. 

Returning directly to 25 percent receipts has two critical problems. The first is the Forest Service actual receipts dropped so low 

last year that there would have been less than $65 million available for all 729 forest counties and 4,400 school districts, in 42 

states. We need to remember that the 2008 Act changed 25 percent 

to a seven-year rolling average, meaning we would have to have 

five years of significant production if we are going to return to the 

25 percent money. 

Finally, stewardship contracting is not the answer for a variety 

of reasons that I can address, not the least of which is the lack of 

revenue sharing with counties or the national treasury. 

In closing, NACO and the Partnership stands ready to assist in 

crafting a solution to both the county payments issue long term, as 

well as sustainable productive forest management. Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pearce follows:] 

Statement of The Honorable Paul Pearce, Commissioner, Skamania County, 

Washington, on behalf of The National Association of Counties (NACo) 

and the Partnership for Rural America Campaign 

Good afternoon Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Grijalva, members of the 

committee and subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you 

today to discuss Secure Rural Schools reauthorization and Forest Management options for a viable County Payments program and if I may add. . .a long term answer 

to economically healthy forest counties and schools. 

I am here today testifying as Chair of the Federal Payments Subcommittee of 

NACO’s Public Lands Committee, as an Executive Board member of the Partnership 

for Rural America Campaign for reauthorization, and finally as the Chair of the 

Skamania County Board of Commissioners, a county which once produced, fully a 

1⁄4 of all the timber harvested in Washington State. 

Twenty-four percent of the nation’s three thousand plus counties contain national 

forests, some like my own totaling up to 90% of their land mass. These 154 National 

Forests cover 193 million acres across the country. These forest counties are responsible for maintaining infrastructure like roads, schools, emergency services 

The 1908 Act fulfilled the promise of Gifford Pinchot who said that no community 

would suffer for hosting these lands. The partnership established between the federal government and rural forested counties called for revenue sharing...the first in 

the nation...where 25% of all revenues generated on these lands is returned to the 

communities. 

The contract worked well for nearly a century. . .until the late 1980’s when court 

decisions, Endangered Species Listings, such as the spotted owl in my area of the 

country and re-cockaded woodpecker in the south dramatically reduced timber proVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
24 

duction and other extraction. In 2000 Congress passed the Secure Rural School and 

Communities Self Determination Act to address the drastic loss of revenue from the 

decline in timber production. This was followed by a one year reauthorization in 

2007 and the current authorization in 2008 which ends this year. I want to take 

a moment to sincerely thank you and the other Members of the Committee who 

voted for its passage and helped make that happen. 

The 2008 reauthorization came at the same time as the economy was beginning 

to fall apart. According to Dr Eylers economic analysis (attached) these payments 

have an impact of $1.3 billion in sales, $188 million in realized tax revenue and 

most importantly represent 11,000 jobs in these most rural communities. These will 

be lost the first year. 

Failure to reauthorize in 2012 will be devastating to those counties and schools 

dependant on this act and the prior forest receipts it is based on. 

Consider for a moment had this loss had occurred at the same time as the full 

force of the recession hit. This is especially disconcerting, in these mostly rural communities where the loss of one family wage job often results in the entire family 

having to leave the community to find work 

Forest Management 

NACo’s platform. . .and I quote here. . .‘‘supports the reauthorization and enhancement of the Secure Rural Schools program (PL 110–343). Reauthorization 

should maintain coupling between payments to counties and active natural resource 

management; and the connection between sustainable natural resource management 

and the stability and well being of forest counties and communities.’’ 

Attached to my written testimony you will find a white paper from the Partnership titled ‘‘Maintaining the Partnership Today and in the Future’’ which details numerous suggestions for changes in Forest Management including Fixing the Biomass Definition, Expedited Harvest of Beetle Kill Timber, Allowing Counties and 

Schools to Retain 75% of Receipts: just to name a few. 

Contrary to what many believe. . .we County Commissioners. . .would much 

rather have a vibrant economy with hundreds of jobs based on healthy sustainable 

productive forest management on these lands. I would gladly trade these dollars for 

the over 1200 jobs I once had on the Gifford Pinchot forest in my County. 

The Forest Service has failed over the past two decades in healthy forest management and in producing revenue through timber sales. Interestingly the nation’s consumption of wood products continues unabated. The Forest Service is not clear on 

their mandate or their mission. In the mid-90’s because of the spotted owl the Clinton administration created the Northwest Forest Plan setting timber harvest targets 

on all forests. None of which has to date been met. This was a clear mandate and 

failed miserably. Congress must find a way to require production at the line level 

through incentives or disincentives that affect these career officers. There is no 

other way to implement any initiatives Congress may create or impose. 

Returning directly to 25% receipts has two critical problems. The first is that Forest Service actual receipts are so low that last year there would have been less than 

$65 million dollars available for all 729 counties and 4400 school districts, in 42 

states...We also need to remember that the 2008 Act changed 25% receipts from a 

year-to-year amount into a seven year rolling average. It would take at least 5 years 

of much higher production before the payments could be replaced. 

Stewardship 

Finally, stewardship contracting is not the answer for a variety of reasons. The 

forest service has adopted stewardship contracting as the panacea for dismal timber 

production. Stewardship contracting requires a collaborative process. These collaborative are intended to have participation by people on all sides of the timber issues. 

On the north half of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the Randle District the 

collaborative took 10 years to produce a single 11 million board foot sale. A forest 

executive told me that based on this collaboration the new timber rotation is 300 

years. This is a forest that produced an average of 350 million board feet per year 

from the 70’s until 1991. Even the NW Forest plan calls for 50 million board feet 

per year. No revenue is produced for the counties, schools or treasury from these 

sales. Instead the forest line officers negotiate for restoration or other work in exchange for the actual dollars. I am aware of at least two contracts where the forest 

ended up owing the successful bidder money at the end of the day. This so called 

collaborative process of decision by committee of those that can commit untold volunteer hours against paid environmental staffers is a poor way of doing business 

and certainly not in the end scientifically based. 

25 

O&C 

There has been discussion around the O&C Counties in Oregon and a bill which 

would allow for these lands to be divided, with half being sold for production and 

the other half in conservation. While I have no disagreement with the O&C proposal 

it cannot be described as a ‘‘model’’ for possible action with National Forest lands 

unless a radical change is made to the enabling legislation. O&C lands were created 

in 1937 specifically for revenue production for the counties. The counties receive 50% 

of receipts, 25% remain on the land and only 25% are sent to the treasury. On the 

contrary National Forests were created in 1908 as multiple use and not dedicated 

to revenue production. In fact the counties receive only 25% of the receipts and the 

remaining 75% are sent to the treasury. 

In closing NACo and the Partnership stand ready to assist in crafting a solution 

to both the County Payments issue long term as well as sustainable productive forest management and we must begin right now. 

[NOTE: Attachments have been retained in the Committee’s official files.] 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. Now Ms. Dauzat. Am I getting close? 

Ms. DAUZAT. You are getting closer 

Mr. BISHOP. I am still butchering your name. I apologize deeply 

for that. So since I can’t do it well I am going to ask Congressman 

Southerland if he would do the honor of simply introducing you as 

our next witness. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a 

nice prepared statement that Kathy had, so thank you for throwing 

me under the bus here. But I will tell you that Caroline Dauzat, 

and that is my attempt, that her family has businesses in our district, and so I am going to speak from the heart for just a moment 

and introducing her family, so this is not a prepared remark. 

I want you to know that her family provides jobs, and they never 

provided jobs because of a jobs bill. They provided jobs because 

they believed in what they did. They believed that they met a need, 

that our country needed it, especially our district, and so her family 

she is now the fourth generation of sawmill owners in her family. 

Four hundred hardworking men and women go to work every 

day because they are allowed to work. They get up at 3:30 in the 

morning, they live in an environment that is—workers comp. would 

rate it as the most dangerous in the country. They risk their lives. 

I know about the risk because my brother used to work for her 

family. Three weeks ago my brother was in the hospital because of 

an injury in the woods. We rushed him, and it was a head injury, 

and these people just want to work, and her family has been a part 

of that in our district, and I thank her for being here. She has 

never been to the Hill to testify, and so, without any further ado, 

I thank you for your courage of coming, and I hope you find a committee here that is ready to embrace what you say. Thank you, 

Caroline. 

STATEMENT OF CAROLINE DAUZAT, 

OWNER, REX LUMBER 

Ms. DAUZAT. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, Mr. Chairman 

and Members of the Committee, and Representative Southerland. 

Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. 

My name is Caroline McRae Dauzat. I am a fourth generation 

sawmill owner with three sawmills in the following locations: 

Brookhaven, Mississippi; Graceville and Bristol, Florida. In addiVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
26 

tion to the sawmills, we also own a pilot plant in Bristol as well 

as a timber procurement company. I have submitted my full statement to the Committee which I ask be made part of the hearing 

record. 

My qualifications include working with my father and brother 

over the last 10 years in all capacities of our forest products businesses. After receiving my Master’s in Business Administration 

degree from Loyola University, I began my sawmill career the summer of 1998 in and around the woods of Bristol, Florida. My current role with our organization includes all aspects of financial risk 

and human resource management. 

My father established Rex Lumber Bristol or North Florida Lumber, as it was known then, in 1980. He chose Bristol as the mill 

location primarily because of the close proximity to the vast resources of Apalachicola National Forest. According to my father, at 

the time of locating the mill the Forest Service verbally promised 

us a sustained yield of timber from the forest in order to support 

our mill and the local community. 

The promise made at that time has long been disregarded. The 

purpose of my testimony is to offer a view of management of the 

forest in our area and offer our plan as an existing end user. 

Rex Lumber is one of many diverse forest products industries 

within the timber shed of the Apalachicola. Products manufactured 

include lumber, plywood, extract board, pulp and paper, wood pellets, and a biomass-fired electrical power plant. Such a diverse infrastructure offers an unusually solid base for management of our 

local national forest. 

Unfortunately, management of the national forest has been hampered by a number of factors and often neglects a healthy timber 

market in pursuit of other purposes, frequently related to environmental concerns. Ironically in an effort to meet those concerns the 

health of the forest is put in serious jeopardy. 

As my first handout of Deep Creek clearly shows, proper timber 

management is essential to environmental integrity. Currently the 

Apalachicola is only cutting 6.8 percent of its annual growth. In the 

1980s, when the forest was productively managed, our mill could 

count on up to 80 percent of its raw material coming from the Apalachicola. Today our Bristol mill receives less than one percent of 

total logs from the forest though it sits at our absolute door step. 

Our southern forests are young, healthy, and productive, but if 

poor management continues our forest will face the same problems 

as the Western forests have been dealing with, beetles and fires. 

In our region it is the southern pine beetle that would be destroying our timber, and 2011’s fire season should be enough evidence 

that management practices need to improve. 

An extreme example of where poor forest management leads is 

the Dixie National Forest in Utah. As shown in the second handout, on approximately 600,000 acres of timberland, mortality has 

exceeded growth. One hundred and five percent of the total annual 

growth was lost to fire, insects and disease. Our forests are too valuable a resource to continue on this path. Although with 30 percent 

mortality on growth, the Apalachicola is on its way. Solutions exist 

for these problems. 

27 

In order for the Forest Service to do what it is required by the 

Multiple Use Sustain Yield Act of 1960, it will have to re-order its 

priorities and shift funds to more productive activities. Streamlining environmental documentation and outsourcing some field 

work would get foresters out of the office and into the field. Including resource advisory committees in every annual planning and 

project selection process will contribute to a more balanced community-oriented forest work program. Of key importance, NEPA, ESA 

needs to be amended to increase appellant and litigant accountability. 

Last, Congress should consider requiring selected national forests 

to test the feasibility of timber program self-financing as is now 

done on DOD land. Please see my written testimony for further detail. 

In summary, I believe the best solution for funding the rural 

schools is the utilization of the assets already available; that is, 

timber with a market ready to go. As we work together so that 

such a program can be adopted and implemented, we appreciate 

your work to reauthorized the safety net of the Secure Rural 

Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman and Committee Members, I want to thank 

you again for allowing me to appear here today. I am here as a prospective partner with the Forest Service in forest management, 

hopefully a part of the solution to the problem facing our national 

forests. I would be most happy to work with any of you and your 

staff to find a solution to the long-term health of our national forests and adequate funding for our rural schools. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dauzat follows:] 

Statement of Caroline McRae Dauzat, Family Business Owner, Rex Lumber 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. 

My name is Caroline McRae Dauzat. I am a fourth generation sawmill owner with 

three sawmills in the following locations: Brookhaven, Mississippi, Bristol and 

Graceville, Florida. In addition to the sawmills we also own a pole and piling plant 

in Bristol, as well as a timber procurement company that supplies timber to our operations. I have submitted my full statement to the committee, which I ask be made 

part of the hearing record. 

My qualifications include working with my father and brother over the last ten 

years in all capacities of our family forest products businesses. After receiving my 

Master’s degree in Business Administration from Loyola University, I began my 

sawmill career the summer of 1998 in and around the woods of Bristol. My current 

role with our organization includes all aspects of financial, risk and human resources management. 

My father established Rex Lumber, Bristol, or North Florida Lumber, as it was 

known then, in 1980. He chose Bristol as the mill location primarily because of the 

close proximity to the vast timber resources of the Apalachicola National Forest. According to my father, at the time of locating the mill, the Forest Service verbally 

promised a sustained yield of timber from the forest in order to support our mill 

and the local community. The promise made at that time has long been disregarded. 

The purpose of my testimony is to offer a view of the management of the National 

Forest in our area and offer our plant as an existing end user. Rex Lumber is one 

of many diverse forest products industries within the timbershed of the Apalachicola. Products manufactured include lumber, plywood, oriented strand board, pulp 

and paper, wood pellets and a biomass-fired electrical power plant located 1 mile 

from the forest boundary. Such a diverse infrastructure offers an unusually solid 

base for management of our local National Forest 

Unfortunately, management of the National Forest has been hampered by a number of factors and often neglects a healthy timber market in pursuit of other purposes, frequently related to environmental concerns. Ironically, in an effort to meet 

28 

those environmental concerns, the health of the forest is put in serious jeopardy. As 

my first handout of Deep Creek clearly shows, proper timber management is essential to environmental integrity. 

Currently, the Apalachicola National Forest is only cutting 6.8% of its annual 

growth. In the 1980’s, when the forest was productively managed, our mill could 

count on up to 80% of its raw material coming from the Apalachicola. Today our 

Bristol mill receives less than 1% of total logs from the forest, though it sits at our 

absolute doorstep. 

Our southern forests are young, healthy and productive, but if poor management 

continues, our forests will face the same problems the western forests have been 

dealing with in the last decade: beetles and fires. In our region it is the southern 

pine beetle that will be destroying our timber and twenty eleven’s fire season should 

be enough evidence that management practices need to improve. 

An extreme example of where poor forest management leads is the Dixie National 

Forest in Utah. As shown in the second handout on approximately 600,000 acres 

of timberland, mortality has exceeded growth—105% of the total annual growth was 

lost to fire, insects and disease. Our forests are too valuable a resource to continue 

on this path, although with 30% mortality on growth, the Apalachicola is on its way. 

Solutions exist for these problems. In order for the Forest Service to do what it 

is required by the Multiple Use, Sustained Yield Act of 1960, it will have to reorder 

its priorities and shift funds to more productive activities. Streamlining environmental documentation and outsourcing fieldwork would get foresters out of the office and into the field. Including Resource Advisory Committees as full participants 

in every annual planning and project selection process, would contribute to a more 

balanced community-oriented forest work program. Of key importance, NEPA/ESA 

needs to be amended to increase appellant and litigant accountability. Lastly, Congress should consider requiring selected National Forests to test the feasibility of 

timber program self-financing, as is now done on DOD land. Please see my written 

testimony for further detail. 

In summary, I believe the best solution for funding the rural schools is the utilization of the assets already available—timber, with a market ready to go—rather than 

letting those assets deteriorate and die. As we work together so that such a program 

can be adopted and implemented, we appreciate your work to reauthorize the safety 

net of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman and committee members, I want to thank you again for 

allowing me to appear here today. I am here as a prospective partner with the Forest Service in forest management: hopefully a part of the solution to the problem 

facing our National Forests. I would be most happy to work with any of you and 

your staff to find a solution to the long-term health of our National Forests and adequate funding for our rural schools. I stand ready for any questions you may have. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much for all of your testimonies. We 

will now turn to questions for the panel. I will actually go to Mr. 

Grijalva first for a time for questions. 


67404.001.eps
29 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to yield to 

my colleague Mr. DeFazio for first round of questions. Thank you. 

Mr. BISHOP. Mr. DeFazio, you have been long working in this 

area. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. Yes, in fact had I prevailed in the early 

nineties we wouldn’t be here today. I opposed the Clinton forest 

plan because I said it wouldn’t give us what either side desired. 

Environmental groups wanted more protection for the residual old 

growth, and the timber industry wanted more predictability of a 

sustainable harvest, and I predicted neither would get what they 

wanted and they haven’t. 

And then second, when we did the first county school support 

payments my version of the bill would have made them permanent, 

then at time of surplus we could have passed that, but it was opposed by certain folks to create a cliff and now we are at the cliff 

again. 

So Associate Chief Wagner, I have to say your testimony was a 

little short on the details. There was one point where you kind of 

reference the Safe and Secure County Rural Schools Act, and that 

is it. You know, the President put it in his budget. As a candidate, 

he said repeatedly he would give us a long-term solution. And so 

I guess I would like to know what does the Forest Service propose 

to deliver either on the promise of a long-term solution or how do 

you intend to propose to implement the President’s budgetary proposal of $328 million for Forest Service and BLM? This is not in 

your testation. I mean, I am trying with all the nice things that 

you said in there, but what are the specifics? 

Ms. WAGNER. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. 

In the written statement, there is a bit more about the history 

and the structure of the existing titles and administrations. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right, I read your entire, but I didn’t find—you 

didn’t either reaffirm or propose how the Forest Service was going 

to find $328 million in its budget this year to deliver on the President’s budgetary proposal. 

Ms. WAGNER. Right. It was proposed in the Forest Service budget 

as part of our discretionary budget, the $328 million, to be followed 

with a specific proposal. I think, given the interest, the ideas that 

are being talked about in terms of Secure Rural Schools authorization, there is an opportunity to work together and craft something 

that works for both the Congress, the public, and the Administration. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I guess working with, and I will be taking out 

some frustrations on you that I have with the Administration generally, but I see big sky plans, like $500 billion for transportation 

infrastructure. It is in his budget, he mentions it very occasionally, 

that is it. Are you telling me now that you don’t have a specific 

plan and you are looking forward to working together, you haven’t 

one yet, the President promised this when he was a candidate 

three years ago, it was in his budget in February, and I guess I 

am wondering—I mean, you have no specifics to give us today? 

Ms. WAGNER. Well, there was a specific formulation in the President’s budget. 

30 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes, the declining payment, the 328 this year out 

of your budget, but what are your plans to find or make room for 

$328 million in your budget? 

Ms. WAGNER. We have already gotten some feedback about provisions that in that structure that was proposed that are non-starters, and so we would like to work with you to put something together that is acceptable to Congress. The President’s budget proposal included the $328 million in the Forest Service’s discretionary budget. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. OK. Let me ask with Mr. Vaagen’s testimony. We have a forest that is ostensibly a model for collaboration. 

They haven’t had litigation and they haven’t had appeals. Yet they 

are only producing a tiny fraction of what was proposed by the collaborative group. What is the reason for that? Why can’t you get 

near the number of the collaborative group when you don’t have 

barriers of litigation and appeals? Either of the two can answer 

that. You can both give me a perspective quickly. 

Mr. VAAGEN. I will go first. The reason we get is we don’t have 

the staffing at the Forest Service or the budgets, but I propose that 

if you had seed money to get past the first hurtle it would perpetuate itself and make the government lots of money. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. 

Mr. VAAGEN. Because it does not make sense not to, so that is 

the bottom line. That is the simple answer. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Associate Chief, what is the hold up? What is the 

barrier? 

Ms. WAGNER. And I know from my experience in the Pacific 

Northwest that the Colville National Forest is a place where we 

had found the ability to provide carryover funding, if we had carryover funding. So prior year carryover into forests in the Colville we 

got an outcome. We got a project, a timber sale completed, so they 

can do. 

We are a little bit challenged by the investment we are making 

and the outcomes that we would like to realize and the two not 

quite matching up. So, part of our strategy is we have to stretch 

the appropriate dollar in every possible way to make the most of 

what it can do out there on the public lands. Collaborations, finding people to work with us who are forging great agreement about 

what we need to go after and how is making it easier. Being litigation free makes it easier, but we are not stretching the dollar as 

far as it needs to go to do the work necessary on the land. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Or you don’t have enough dollars. 

Mr. VAAGEN. I would like to add it is the starter dollars, but this 

will work. The collaboration works. All the people want to do the 

80 million feet. It has a return to the government. I think we do 

need new ideas. We need a lighter touch NEPA. We have to get 

after it quicker. The mountain pine beetle does not wait a season 

or two seasons for us. It eats every day. So we are ready, and it 

is a good question. I think we ought to get there and we ought to 

get there quickly. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Now, Mr. DeFazio, I don’t know how 

much time you have to be here with us or if you have another engagement. We have a whole lot of people over here. Let me go 

31 

through a couple. If you want to come back for another round before we do that. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. That will be all right, because I have something 

going on. 

Mr. BISHOP. Works for me. Let me go to some questions on our 

side. First of all, the first person here was actually Mr. McClintock, 

if you have some questions. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We saw in the graph displayed earlier radical reduction in timber harvest on Federal lands over the past several decades. We 

know that it has devastated local economies. It has contributed to 

the nation’s chronic unemployment. It has reduced revenues to the 

Federal Government it otherwise would have received through timber harvests, at the same time it has reduced revenues to local 

communities, particularly for local schools, which then requires the 

Federal Government to replace those lost funds. This was done in 

the name of health forests, and yet the forests are much less 

healthy as a result of these policies. Forest fires are now much 

more frequent and intense. A ranger explained it this way. He said 

that excess timber is going to come out of the forest one way or another. It is either going to be carried out or it is going to be burned 

out. When we carried it out, it contributed to both healthy forests 

and a healthy and prosperous economy. Now we are content to let 

it burn out. 

This is lunacy and I would like to get a perspective. Who is responsible for this? 

Ms. WAGNER. Well, the Forest Service has the responsibility to 

administer the 193 million acres of national forest. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. An area about the size of the entire State of 

Texas, by the way. 

Ms. WAGNER. Right, so it is a lot of country, and we have a budget and there is—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. How do you answer to this lunacy? Is this your 

fault? 

Ms. WAGNER. We as a group of agency employees are working to 

do what is needed on the lands, make the resources that are appropriated by Congress. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. That is not what I asked. Who is responsible 

for this lunatic policy? 

Ms. WAGNER. I would say we are responsible for implementing 

the laws of Congress and the regulations that are promulgated by 

the Administration. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Perhaps some of the actual dickens of these 

policies might want to weigh in. 

Mr. VAAGEN. Well, I will agree we are all responsible but I want 

to do something about it, and I want to do it quick. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. The point is we are not all responsible. There 

are specific policies enacted by this Congress that are responsible, 

and there are bureaucracies that are responsible for carrying it out, 

and it is about time we held them accountable for the damage they 

have done to our forest and to our economy. Don’t you think so? 

Mr. VAAGEN. I agree with that statement. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. I mean, Ms. Wagner, we are talking about the 

enormous holdings of the National Forest Service. I think it’s probVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
32 

ably one of the most valuable assets held by the people of the 

United States. What is the commercial value of the timber on your 

193 million acres? 

Ms. WAGNER. I don’t have an estimate of the value of the commercial timber, but we can get that information for you maybe by 

way of—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. I would love to get such an estimate. In fact, 

I find it appalling every time I have asked Forest Service representatives, they have no idea of the value of the timber that they 

are responsible to the people of the United States for managing. 

Why don’t you know these things? 

Ms. WAGNER. Well, I could make an estimate based on market 

conditions. They change their volatile. We do have an estimate of 

standing volume, so we do an inventory of the entirety of the nation’s forests so we could tell you the type of wood fiber that is out 

there, the general size, the health and condition of it, so we have 

that kind of information, that kind of inventory. To put a market 

value on that, I would say it would be projection based on market 

conditions as they exist. It goes up and down depending on the 

value. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. I would like to get those figures because I 

would like to know how much these policies are costing our country 

as well as our economy. 

Mr. Vaagen, you talked about the fact you harvest small diameter trees only. That seems rather counterproductive. Young trees, 

I assume, don’t have nearly the commercial value of old trees. 

Sounds like the opposite of our fish and game policies. I really wonder what would be the future of our fish and game populations if 

we required taking only the young undersized individuals out of 

the population. Why are we doing that? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Well, they are not all young little trees. We take 

two and a half inch up to 12 inch, and these are return stands of 

1930, 1920 fires. Our county, 60 percent of it burned in that period. 

So we are thinning this out before it burns again so it survives the 

fire. It does have value of $750 to $1,000 an acre in stumpage 

alone. The government can keep the property. In our case if we 

were losing as much money the government would have to sell our 

assets, but in this case I say utilize them because they are sustainable and perpetual. 

Small logs do have higher value. Also, 15 percent of our product 

goes to Australia because it is stronger than the other product 

which didn’t used to be the case 20 years ago, so we pioneered a 

lot of markets 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. We are going to go through our committee members first in giving these questions. I am going to go 

to Mr. Grijalva next, and then in the order you all arrived, Mr. 

Johnson, Mr. Rivera, Ms. Noem, Mr. Labrador, and then our three 

who we have added to it at that point. Mr. Grijalva. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Yes. Ms. Wagner, the testimony that would be 

presented today or has been presented already seems to indicate 

that the Forest Service is basically not logging any trees anywhere. 

So my very simplistic question is, is it accurate to say that—is that 

accurate or is logging still taking place? 

33 

Ms. WAGNER. Commercial logging is still taking place on national 

forests. We are estimating, in Fiscal Year 2010 we harvested about 

2.5 billion board feet. In the President’s budget proposal for 2012 

we were projecting 2.6 billion board feet. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. I have, and correct me if I am wrong, but I have 

seen estimates that we have logged as much as 90 percent of large 

old growth timber on this Federal land. Given that that those large 

old growth trees are the most profitable to log, how has the loss 

of these trees impacted the Federal timber program? 

Ms. WAGNER. Well, there was a time in our country when harvesting large old trees was what fueled the economy, built houses, 

and with Endangered Species Act societal values that changed, 

concern about endangered species, recovery of those species, we 

have put in place strategies that look at preserving the large old 

growth character that exists in forests say typically in the Pacific 

Northwest. So that affords us an opportunity to look at other forest 

stand conditions, so in the Pacific Northwest much of the activity, 

as Mr. Vaagen said, is taking place in second growth stands, so 

stands that have been harvested or clear cut at one time in their 

past, and have now re-generated, they are second growth and they 

can be managed. In some cases they are being managed to actually 

build in old tree characteristics over time so small diameter trees 

and select harvesting is taking place to get stand conditions that 

are favorable for species that we want to recover. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. And some of the testimony today claims that the 

demand for wood products remains very, very high. First of all, the 

first question, is that accurate? And has the economic downturn, 

particularly in home construction, caused a drop in the demand for 

wood? And have economic factors played a significant role in the 

loss of timber industry in this country? Getting that, is the issue 

more complicated than just deciding that we have to cut more 

trees? 

Ms. WAGNER. Well, I think it is true economic conditions in the 

country have influenced the forest products sector. In the case of 

private landholders, they are hold onto their stumpage, their trees 

in the woods because of the low value of stumpage at this point in 

time. So the forest products industry is looking to public lands to 

help out. 

We certainly have the need to treat forests and we are trying to 

be responsive to that. Typically we have seen what we have offered 

has been sold. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. And last question. Today’s hearing might lead 

some to believe that timber production is the only valuable use of 

our Federal land, our forest land. Is that true, and could you elaborate on that? 

Ms. WAGNER. The restoration work we do on national forests is 

multi-fold in its benefits. We work on watershed restoration, so the 

value of clean water, clean air, healthy plant and animal communities, wildlife habitat, those are all values that people expect from 

national forests. The multiple-use mandate of the Forest Service is 

an interesting challenge because we see forests as places to conserve and we see forests as places that we should use. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you. Yes, is it a very complex balance question that is part of this issue as well. 

34 

With that, let me yield back, Mr. Chairman 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. I represent southeastern Ohio which is the home to 

Wayne National Forest, and while the counties in my district may 

not receive the same level of payments that the counties in some 

of my colleagues out West do, these payments are still an important revenue stream. If the Secure Rural Schools Program is not 

reauthorized, these counties in my district would have to cut services back even further than the current cuts that they have experienced. 

However, our country is at a crossroad when it comes to our debt 

crisis, and we understand that, and it is clear that the new formula 

authorized for the program through the 2008 TARP bill is not sustainable as we in Congress look for ways to rein in the Federal 

debt. 

One way though to ensure that these payments to counties are 

not drastically cut as a new formula is most likely authorized 

would be to increase timber receipts. That is why I am pleased that 

at least the second part of this hearing today is going to—is in regard to options for the U.S. Forest Service to create a viable program. Unfortunately what I am hearing is that the U.S. Forest 

Service is not actively working on a viable program that will increase timber production, and therefore increasing timber receipts, 

not to mention that as we will hear testimony today, and I have 

already heard some, an increase in timber production equals jobs 

and more tax revenue for those counties as well. 

Ms. Wagner, the Forest Service constantly says that it needs to 

increase management, increasing management, I believe part of 

that would be to increase timber production, thereby increasing 

timber receipts. In your testimony you called this an ambitious vision. Yet most of the actions of the agency achieve the opposite result. The case in point on the Colville National Forest as described 

by Mr. Vaagen you had one appeal and no litigation for 10 years 

and a proposal to increase management by four-fold, yet the agency 

still cannot implement it. What is the reason? 

Ms. WAGNER. Before I became Associate Chief, I was Regional 

Forester in the Pacific Northwest Region, and I can tell you out of 

the forest units there in the Pacific Northwest there was no unit 

that didn’t want to do—to treat more acres, and if we got additional national forest timber management money in a budget line 

item, there were high demands for that everything. 

So, my dilemma as a Regional Forester was if I needed to invest 

more in the Colville I had to pick another national forest where I 

had to diminish my investment, so that is part of the challenge is 

where do you invest, where the priority landscapes. We saw the 

Colville as a great investment area because we got results every 

time we invested there. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, you know, I am not a—I don’t own a sawmill, so I am not in that type of business, but I am a little confused 

as to why it requires so much money to simply increase timber receipts. Help me understand that. 

Ms. WAGNER. Before we do any action on a national forest we 

have to disclose the environmental effects of that activity to inform 

35 

a decision around how we do that activity, how we might mitigate 

that activity. That is guided by the National Environmental Policy 

Act. We invest about $365 million across the Nation—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Basically what you are saying is that here is another example of regulatory activity, environmental regulatory activity that is hampering America’s economy. We study these things 

but we don’t produce anything. We do a lot of talking, we do a lot 

of analysis. When are we going to open up these lands and let private companies go in and get that timber out. We have already 

heard testimony that it is either going to burn out or we are going 

to haul it out. Why don’t we want to haul it out and put America 

back to work? Why are we continuing to study these things ad nauseam? 

Ms. WAGNER. I would not characterize the National Environmental Policy Act as simply studying the thing. It takes a look at 

the site-specific impacts of an activity, guides the decisionmaker to 

make a decision about that activity, and then we move forward 

after that decision has been informed. We have requirements under 

provisions of law to take a look at the cultural resources, to know 

what the wildlife impact and inventory and species are. We have 

the Endangered Species Act. It is complex, yes, but—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I apologize for cutting you off because my 

time has expired, but I want to follow up just real quickly. We have 

private sources that are interested in paying some of this funding 

to get this analysis done. If the forest products industry in northeast Washington is willing to pay the Forest Service $600 to $750 

per acre to treat the forest and remove the fuels, it seems to point 

back to the agency’s planning cost, doesn’t this reiterate the need 

to reduce the cost and complexity of completing never-ending costly 

NEPA analysis on projects that have already got broad private sector support? 

Mr. BISHOP. You have 15 seconds to do that answer. 

Ms. WAGNER. Absolutely, we want to make sure that we are 

using appropriate dollars very efficiently and that we are 

leveraging the strong agreement that exists in these collaborate 

landscapes. We need to speed up the NEPA process. 

Mr. JOHNSON. America wants to break down the bureaucratic 

roadblock and put it back to work. Thank you for the extra time, 

Mr. Chairman 

Mr. BISHOP. And you did it in 14 seconds. I am impressed. Mr. 

Rivera. 

Mr. RIVERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With your permission, if 

I could yield my time to my colleague from Florida, Mr. 

Southerland? 

Mr. BISHOP. Certainly. Mr. Southerland. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. Thank you, Mr. Rivera, and thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

I wanted to ask because I do have a constituent here. Mrs. 

Dauzat, I would like to ask you some questions because you are out 

there having to live with this insanity, OK, and most people who 

have walking-around sense really struggle with what we hear here 

in this book and environment that we live in. But since you are 

sweating payroll, since you are paying high workers comp. premiums, since you are dealing with the lunacy coming out of the 

36 

EPA, OK, they want to study something, they want to diagnose 

something. Well, after it is dead, then it becomes a postmortem examination. So what I want to do is ask you a couple of things. 

You are obviously an owner of multiple businesses, and over 400 

jobs that we talked about earlier amongst your communities. As a 

Floridian, it is worth noting that Florida’s forest product industry 

contributes over $16.6 billion to the State’s economy. As an industry expert, do you believe lumber production in the country would 

benefit from increased access to timber in our national forests as 

far as jobs? I know that is simple. 

Ms. DAUZAT. Definitely. Go ahead. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. Go ahead. No, you drove a long way. 

Ms. DAUZAT. I mean, our mill in Bristol, having access to the 

Apalachicola and national forests would be a tremendous increase 

in resources. We are able to make it as we are, but having that access would be wonderful for the community, wonderful for our company. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. And as far as the Apalachicola National Forest, it is my understanding having been there, having grown up 

there, that what the Service has done, conveniently, is take a national forest and have created wilderness land. So, they have basically taken a national forest and made a national park, which obviously has had terrible effects on the ability to harvest. Also, in the 

national forest, it needs to be noted it has a 5.7 mortality rate, and 

we have a 3.5 percent harvest rate. 

So why in the world, and I guess we could shift over to Ms. Wagner, why in the world with those numbers—5.7 mortality rate, 3.5 

cut rate—how do we get our arms around that and say this is 

smart? 

Ms. WAGNER. We are not harvesting all of the in-growth that occurs on national forests across the nation. We are not even touching it, approximating it, coming close to it in part because people 

value forests for a suite of values that they get from them. In other 

cases we are actively working and harvesting commercially, and in 

addition, providing small diameter material that is fostered by our 

restoration work. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. But we are harvesting now 20 to 30 percent 

of what we were harvesting 10 years ago, and yet we have an Administration, if they utilize, you know, the numbers that you 

shared, the $320 million Mr. DeFazio asked you about, and you 

want to work with us, so you throw out a number, and now you 

want to work with us. If that is the rationale that this Administration has for the entire budget, that is pretty scary. 

OK, in small business we figure out how we are going to do 

something and then we determine the possibility of numbers. So 

explain to me how going from where we were 10 years ago, and the 

things that Mr. Walden talked about, we had 405 mills 30 years 

ago and now we are down to 106, and much of that is because of 

the management of the services. How do you justify that this particular direction that you are headed is good from American jobs? 

This is a jobs issue. 

Ms. WAGNER. We favor working and restoring America’s forests. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. I don’t think you do favor working though, 

and see, I have to counter what you—you do favor restoring forests 

37 

just like some favor turning the Gulf of Mexico into an aquarium, 

OK? And I think that you do, I think you do mean what you just 

said as far as restoration and as far as preservation, but these 

numbers say that you don’t value work and jobs in these rural 

counties. 

Ms. WAGNER. Well, I would like to provide the Committee with 

the real number of acres treated, volume created and give you a 

sense of the—for the investment what we are getting off of national 

forests, so I would like to provide that to the Committee. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. That would be good. 

Ms. WAGNER. And just reiterate that the creation of resilient and 

healthy forests is something that has been priority for the Forest 

Service for a number of years. We work in a complicated regulatory 

environment and a patchwork of laws that makes it a little difficult 

to navigate that landscape, but we are committed to do so for the 

health of the land and to provide benefits to citizens in this country. 

Mr. BISHOP. OK, thank you. Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We need to be innovative in the way that we are dealing with 

this issue. We have some county commissioners in Idaho who are 

working toward a new solution that is kind of outside the box, kind 

of what you are working on, Mr. Vaagen, so to speak, and I am still 

hearing from them. I am going to be working with them in the next 

few months trying to see if it is an idea we can bring to Congress, 

but we need more ideas. The one idea by itself is not enough. I welcome the proposals that some of these counties are saying they are 

going to be submitting, Mr. Chairman, a letter to the record within 

the next 10 days, and this is just one option that we have that we 

need to take a hard look at and we need to just find a good solution 

to the problem. 

I am concerned about jobs, and maybe some of the questions that 

I heard, is it Mr. Vaagen or Vaagen? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Vaagen. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Vaagen, all right. Mr. Vaagen, have you seen a 

drop in the demand for wood at this time? 

Mr. VAAGEN. In some products but again 15 percent of our product finds its way to Australia, some to Japan. The foreign markets 

are very good right now. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Foreign markets are good and we also use wood 

for paper. Have you seen—I know you don’t deal with this, but we 

have a paper mill in our—— 

Mr. VAAGEN. Yes, there are several around us. We have five customers. Pulp and paper is extremely good, probably the best it has 

been in the last 20 years for an extended period of time—almost 

a year-and-a-half, which is like a record. Because there is a constriction on the log supply, it is going to remain high. Wood pulp 

is extremely valuable, and a lot of the wood products in the U.S. 

are finding their way to China in the form of logs or lumber. So, 

no, there is still demand. We ran out of logs. We ran one mill 33 

percent of the time, which is unfortunate. The other one was twothirds. We would like to run them both at 100. We could add 100 

jobs immediately. That would be another 100 jobs in the words and 

your district as well. 

38 

Mr. LABRADOR. And that is what I am asking. So there are jobs 

that could be created. We can use some of this wood that is diseased, you know, with beetle. We could use that for paper products, 

right? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Absolutely. That pulp logs, and that is another 

business. Half of our fiber makes it in byproducts, chips, sod, bark 

and shavings, so that is another thing about small logs, but that 

is a third of our revenues, too, so we don’t take that lightly. 

Mr. LABRADOR. OK. Now no one on this panel is arguing that 

timber harvesting is the only valuable use of the lands, right? Is 

there anybody on this panel who is arguing that? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Well, I would argue if you don’t do it you are going 

to get fire, and that is going to destroy the habitat and these other 

uses that people like to use. You don’t destroy 500,000 acres without destroying habitat, animals and recreation, grazing, you name 

it. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Well, you got to my next question. The reason we 

want timber harvesting is we want to prevent some of these large 

forest fires, so in north Idaho we had 100 years ago a huge fire that 

almost destroyed the entire area, and they are concerned in Idaho 

that we may have that again, you know, called the 100-year fire, 

that we are getting to a point where the timber has grown and the 

forestation has grown at such a rate that we could have another 

fire like that. What is the best way to prevent something like that 

from happening? 

Mr. VAAGEN. You have to take the material out. You have to thin 

the forest, and trees are valuable. I like trees, and we don’t cut 

them all, and they grow. It is amazing. We act like they don’t grow 

back. They do. Those fires you are talking about in 1910, three million acres, it all grew back. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Yes. 

Mr. VAAGEN. So we need to take the fuel loadings out and we 

need to do that quickly, and if you want to make money on it go 

to the places where they can make money on it first, break even 

second, and if it cost you money you go there third. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Now you have been working on these communities for over two decades. In your experience in the Colville National Forest what kind of changes have you seen in the structure 

and overall health of the forest? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Well, what we have harvested, and actually I have 

to tell you it is over four and a half decades actually. 

Mr. LABRADOR. OK. My apologies. 

Mr. VAAGEN. No, no, I am trying to stay in good health. It has 

gotten better where we treat it, and it is fire resilient. Where we 

haven’t treated the fuel loadings are high. We have mountain pine 

beetle now. I am afraid for Idaho, Montana, and Washington State 

inland, we are going to have some big fires in the next 10 years, 

amazing fires. 

Mr. LABRADOR. And one last question. What are your thoughts 

about the socioeconomic impacts? What have you seen about the socioeconomic impacts in those decades as well based on our forest 

policy? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Well, we used to cut the bigger trees up to four-foot 

diameter. In Republic and Ione, we lost those two operations. That 

39 

was probably 300 jobs in the mills, 300 in those small communities. 

Those school districts have gotten smaller. I was in Ione last week, 

a small town in northeast Washington. Half the stores look like 

they are boarded up. They always wait for a mine or some other 

project that lasts for 20 years as a boost but long term the forest 

is where we live. That is where we get the value, and we can increase it, and we haven’t done those areas any good the last 20 

years. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you very much 

Mr. BISHOP. OK, thank you. 

Mr. Vaagen, it is obvious that Mr. Labrador doesn’t need your 

book, so can I get his copy? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Is it in the bag, sir 

Mr. BISHOP. OK, good. Mr. Young is a member of our Subcommittee with impeccable timing. Do you have some questions for 

these witnesses? 

Mr. YOUNG. Mostly a comment. This hearing is about Secure 

Rural Schools and Communities. I notice Ms. Wagner said she supports the reauthorization, but gives us no suggestions on funding. 

Funding would be to harvest some trees. That is the answer. I 

know in Alaska, you know, 35 years ago we were—actually 40 

years ago—we were cutting 450 million board feet a year, and now 

if I am not mistaken, Ms. Wagner, we are supposed to have 267 

million board feet this year, and we have 15 million board feet. 

When I drove by that Forest Service compound—you are good at 

building compounds, by the way—if you want to fund these schools, 

eradicate the compounds, sell them, use the money and fund these 

schools. When I was in Ketchikan the other day and, gentlemen, 

I want you to listen to this, I drove by their compound—by the way 

it is gated. There are 27 new Chevrolet trucks in the yard. There 

are 3 big boats with 2 motors each—150 horsepower—brand new 

in the yard, and what kills me, 27 kayaks—kayaks. And I asked 

what they were for. They use them so they don’t disturb the forest, 

and this is the Forest Service that is supposed to be harvesting 

trees so we have secure schools. 

With all due respect, Ms. Wagner, you are not the only—this Administration is not the only one. This has been going on for a long 

time, answering to interest groups that say we have to save our 

trees, and what they are doing is saving the dead ones and not allowing the young ones to grow. 

Now, can you visualize, everybody in this room, while you allowed to grow and live forever, being rotten to the core, and that 

young girl in the back of the room back there wouldn’t have room 

to grow. The forests of this nation is a vital part of what we call 

our fiber base, and we have neglected it and let it burn. Now, I 

agree with my good friend that said there are going to be big forest 

fires, and it is going to happen, but you will say, and EPA will say, 

and the interest groups, ‘‘Oh, that is natural,’’ and I am very upset 

about that for another reason. 

We have the EPA and forests and air quality in Fairbanks, Alaska, but they will let the forests burn because it is natural, but 

when it is 60 below zero you can’t light a fire because you might 

pollute the air to keep warm. Now that is the stupidity of our Federal Government. Now show me the rationale behind that. 

40 

So I am suggesting, Mr. Chairman, and I know I am on my soapbox but I am suggesting that we need to solve this problem, have 

to re-address this idea of what is the forest for. For those who live 

in the—I call the big cities that go around and visit, oh, they are 

really pretty, and leave these people in the rural areas to starve, 

have to move, destroy the fiber of this country. Your counties are 

going through it right now. But the solution is with the Forest 

Service to say we are the managing agency and we are going to 

harvest these trees as we should. 

With all due respect, I don’t see this in the Forest Service anymore. I see park rangers, that is what I see. I don’t see people that 

believe that the trees can grow again. So I think it is very, very 

important, my good Chairman and the Members of this Committee, 

either they do it or we pass laws that says they will. Take it away 

from the Forest Service, give it to the counties. You manage it. You 

live there. You live it. Provide for your people because our government right now is forcing people from these small communities and 

move to the big cities, and we don’t have a timber industry. 

Ms. Wagner, why aren’t we cutting trees? And don’t give me this 

restoration stuff, by the way. We are restoring it for what? If you 

are not going to cut it, you are not restoring it. 

Ms. WAGNER. I think the way I could best address your statement is in citing the 10 projects that are real projects, tangible, onthe-ground, generating outcomes, including forest products harvested. These are the 10 Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act projects. Congress say the need to invest in large landscape scale restoration which is not simply conservation and protection. It is actually utilization and treatment of these projects. All 

of these projects are over 50,000 acres in scale. Many of them over 

a million acres in scale where citizens have come together and they 

are identifying what needs to be done—the treatment of invasive 

species, the restoration of streams or creeks, the wildlife habitat 

that needs to be improved, the hazardous fuels that need reduced, 

and the wood products that need harvested and moved to put that 

forest in a condition where it can be resilient to the impacts and 

changes that we are predicting over time including fire. 

So, I would like to provide you with a list of these projects and 

the outcomes that have happened just in one year’s worth of funding as examples of how active we are and how committed we are 

to the condition and health of these forests. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. I hope, Mr. Young, now I am 

60, I am not one of those old trees that is rotten to the core you 

are talking about. 

Mr. YOUNG. It takes 100 years. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. YOUNG. By that time you better be harvested, I can tell you 

that right now. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BISHOP. Ms. McMorris Rodgers. 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Young 

was asking what are the forests for, and he made the comment 

that for some they are really pretty. You know, I might submit that 

they are not even really pretty. If Americans saw what was really 

going on in these forests, I think they would be outraged because 

41 

the Forest Service, yes, they own, they manage millions of acres, 

that is what they say, but the reality is if you look at these trees, 

so many are dying. They are dead, they are kindling actually for 

that major fire. This year’s New Mexico, you know, next year who 

is it going to be? Or even later on this year who is it going to be? 

That is the reality. I wish more people could actually see, I wish 

Americans could see what is going on in these forests. They would 

be outraged. 

And I come from the Colville National Forest, and it is the model 

supposedly of how we on the local level should be working together, 

coming together in this collaborative approach. We have done it 

now for years and years, and then we still, we still don’t qualify 

for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Fund. Ten 

projects in all of America. It is very disappointing. 

I wanted to ask, Mary, and I appreciate the conversations we 

have had through the years, do you believe that the Forest Service—that the time, the cost required to plan, analyze is too high? 

Ms. WAGNER. We are working on that as we speak because we 

believe that to do our best by the people that put us out there to 

do work on forests we have to stretch the appropriated dollar in 

every way that it can. So this NEPA project that I mentioned to 

look at categorical exclusions, to support restoration work, and to 

look at demonstration projects where we can practice better approaches to NEPA, streamline, move faster, work cheaper is absolutely critical for us. 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. I feel like we have tried everything. 

We have jumped through all the hoops and there is always just one 

more. I would like to ask Mr. Vaagen, why don’t you think that we 

qualified or what is your experience? Let me ask you. What is your 

experience related to the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Fund? 

Mr. VAAGEN. I was a big proponent of it. I was excited about it. 

I thought that we would qualify. I thought that we were number 

one or two in the Nation out of 10. We didn’t make the top 15, 

which tells me the collaboration wasn’t a good payoff for us. We 

haven’t got special funding there and our forest has the bug. A 

third of the national forests is at risk of fire. You know, 60 million 

acres out of 193 million, that is a high percentage. My experience 

is we are not getting it done. Something drastically has to change. 

There has to be a new way of doing business. 

We stand ready to help and pay the government and extra $12 

million a year, and probably provide additional 350 jobs. It is all 

a win/win/win situation. I don’t think people can answer the question why today because they don’t want to answer the question. I 

will answer the question. 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. So now we are in the situation where 

we are actually willing to pay the Forest Service for an opportunity 

to maybe get some of these sales. What has been the response so 

far from the Forest Service? 

Mr. VAAGEN. What do you mean by pay to get—— 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. Well, that we would—that the forest 

products industry will now potentially pay to treat certain parts of 

the forest. 

42 

Mr. VAAGEN. Well, from our vantage point we are going to pay 

for anything we treat, but you have to lower the cost to make it 

affordable for the government. Their costs are too high and don’t 

try to make the sale uneconomical. Our experience is they put in 

special walkway bridges, things like that, bathrooms, whatever, but 

also they make the sales itself very difficult. You need to target 

jobs and profitability if you are going to make it a success and you 

have to work with customers and markets to do that. 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. Thank you. Mr. Pearce, what do you 

believe is the impact of stewardship contracts on counties and 

schools through Secure Rural Schools? 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you very much. 

The Forest Service has adopted stewardship contracting as a 

panacea for dismal timber production. Stewardship contracting requires a collaborative process. These collaborators are intended to 

have participation by people on all sides of the issues. On the north 

half of our forest, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in the district the collaborators took 10 years to produce a single 11 million 

board foot sale. Ten years, 11 million board feet. 

A forest executive told me that based on this collaboration the 

new timber rotation in the Gifford Pinchot is 300 years. This is a 

forest that produced an average of 350 million board feet from the 

seventies until 1991. Even the Northwest Forest Plan calls for 50 

million board feet per year. No revenue is produced for the county 

schools or treasuries from these sales. Instead the forest line officers negotiate for restoration or other work in exchange for actual 

dollars. 

I am aware of at least two contracts where the Forest ended up 

owing the successful bidder some money at the end. The so-called 

collaborative process of decision by committee of those that can 

commit untold volunteer hours against paid environmental staff is 

a poor way of doing business, and it is not very scientific. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. Herger. 

Mr. HERGER. Thank you, Chairman Bishop, for holding this hearing and allowing me to participate. The Northern California district 

that I represent contains all or parts of nine national forests. 

Sadly, many Northern California communities have been devastated by the forced decline of the timber industry. I was a strong 

supporter of the legislation in 2000 that authorized the Secure 

Rural Schools Program. Congressman George Radanovich and I sat 

on the Budget Committee then and worked to help secure the program’s funding. I said on the Floor at the time that ‘‘It provides 

the short-term stability and education funding which these communities desperately need while enabling them to participate with 

their Federal agencies in a program that will help to begin to restore health to our overgrown national forest system.’’ 

This funding has been crucial for schools and roads in the communities I represent, but it was intended to be a bridge and the 

program’s goal should continue to be to foster forest management 

which is the best and really only way to restore long-term stability 

to our county economies and our schools. 

Today’s hearing is an unfortunate reminder that timber harvests 

are still nowhere near where they need to be. Our forests and comVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
43 

munities are becoming more and more vulnerable to catastrophic 

wild fires, and our forest counties face very high unemployment. 

Mr. Pearce, what efforts will your organization make to help ensure that the Secure Rural Schools Programs get back to its original goal of self-sufficiency for communities through increased timber harvesting? 

Mr. PEARCE. As I said earlier, the National Forest counties Coalition and the Partnership for Rural America has put forward a 

White Paper which is included in my testimony, my written testimony, that speaks to forest management. We believe in forest management. We want to trade these safety net dollars for jobs for our 

communities because the jobs and the dollars in our communities 

are important, and the NACO position, National Association of 

Counties’ position is also the same. We are ready to work with 

whoever we need to work with to get production back into the forest. It is not just about restoration. It is about actual timber production. 

Mr. HERGER. Mr. Pearce, I want to thank you and your organization for that. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that 

this Congress be lobbied by the constituency, your constituency, to 

make sure this fact is out there. I hate to say that over the years, 

particularly over the last four or five years, I have seen a decrease 

in our counties and our different coalitions out lobbying our Congress for this point because ultimately we know what the funding 

is here. We know we are only spending 42 cents out of every dollar 

more than we are bringing in. Ultimately it is going to take us, and 

we have heard even during these economic down times of the housing being down, there is still a demand for our product out there, 

and the real answer, both to preventing these fires by going out 

and managing them, thinning out our forests and getting money 

into our school since it is not going to be there in our counties otherwise is by a very active lobbying by your group. 

Ms. Wagner, I recently received—on a different issue—a copy of 

these letters that were sent from the Forest Service Washington 

Office to Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fishery 

Service revoking the alternative consultation agreement between 

our agencies. I have been very concerned with the delays in consultation for projects in my district, and this will only make that 

worse. My question to you is why did the Forest Service get rid of 

this valuable tool and how will the Forest Service increase forest 

management and 25 percent payments while implementing these 

kinds of decisions? 

Ms. WAGNER. Sir, I don’t know the answer to the alternative arrangements with Fish and Wildlife Service, so if you would allow 

me to check into that and get a response back to you, I would be 

happy to do that. Consultation is an important piece of our work, 

and I would like to explore that, so I will get back with you on 

that. 

Mr. HERGER. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. Tipton. 

Mr. TIPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank our 

panel for being here. 

44 

I came from the west slope of Colorado and we have up to 70 percent of the property on the western slope of Colorado is either Federal, state or tribal lands, and Ms. Wagner, I guess I would like 

to ask you a question from the Forest Service perspective. I have 

an area called Chimney Rock, which you all may be familiar with, 

on Forest Service lands. I was visiting with some of the rangers 

and they indicated that the timber was literally overgrown. You 

are only supposed to have so many Ponderosa Pine, Blue Spruce 

over a given area, and that it was overgrown. 

So can you maybe illustrate for me, and I apologize, had to run 

out, you may have already covered this, what is the Forest Service 

plan truly for dealing with some of the overgrowth? Because when 

we are talking about Colorado, we live in fear, one lightening 

strike, one spark away from a major forest fire with the dead 

standing timber from the pine beetle kill, which we have had. We 

have to really manage our forests in a way that not only lends 

itself obviously to their good health but obviously the collateral 

benefits that we can see with our timber industry representatives 

here for providing jobs and for supporting our school. So, can you 

tell me a little bit of what those plans are? 

Ms. WAGNER. So, there would be two approaches to treat a forest 

stand that is overgrown, that has unhealthful forest conditions in 

it. Usually we do a combination. We take our NFTM, our timber 

management budget line item and our hazardous fuels reduction 

budget line item, and we combine those to do the project planning, 

put a silvicultural prescription in place, do the environmental documentation, issue a decision, put a timber sale contractor or stewardship contract on the streets, and actively manage that. 

Mr. TIPTON. Are you seeing some regulatory concerns that are inhibiting you from being able to do that job? 

Ms. WAGNER. Well, I think I mentioned a few things. We have 

to get better at our own environmental documentation through the 

National Environmental Policy Act, so I have talked about that 

being something that is on us to get better at doing. We need to 

continue to work on how we take the appropriated dollar and really 

stretch it to do everything that is necessary. We would be the first 

to say that we are not treating all the acres that are needed treatment on national forests. 

Mr. TIPTON. Great. How about access into the forests because we 

have a lot of plans right now shutting down a lot of roads going 

into our forests, how is that going to impact the timber industry’s 

ability to be able to get in and make those treatments? 

Ms. WAGNER. One thing I wanted to mention earlier about the 

forest products industry. They have, in the West, the AFRC, they 

do a lot of work with us locally on the ground looking at the specific timber sale projects that we are proposing to put up, and they 

help us make sure that we are packaging them in the most economical way. They advise us. We sometimes take road packages 

out of them to make them more viable, particularly in this 

downturned economy, so I do want to credit industry works directly 

with us to put the most favorable packages together. I think that 

is why in part our offerings have had a high rate of sell. 

I forgot the second part of your question. I am sorry. 

45 

Mr. TIPTON. Well, let me move on to another point here. We have 

one mill left in Colorado, and it is in receivership right now, you 

know. And I think when Congressman Walden was talking about 

the number of mills that we used to have available in this country, 

is there a real commitment now for the Forest Service, because a 

lot of it has to be cost-associated ability to get that timber out? 

Right now we have to create that accessibility, and I would encourage you to do everything you possibly can to assist us. 

Ms. WAGNER. Thank you. In these economic times the Forest 

Service has had a pretty aggressive approach to addressing all of 

the avenues that we have in regulation and through the Farm Bill 

to make projects more viable. We have been able to extend contracts, in some cases cancel contracts or reduce prices on contracts 

to make them more viable in these conditions. 

Mr. TIPTON. Ms. Dauzat, fourth generation, I assume you want 

to go into the fifth generation to be able to do this. What can the 

Forest Service do to help you? 

Ms. DAUZAT. Well, we own timberland as well, and from what 

she has described if we had to sell our timber in the manner they 

have to sell our timber it would never work. I mean, you have to 

make it logical. We go out as sawmill owners, we have a forestry 

department, they go out, approach landowners, the deal is made, 

the timber is cut. It doesn’t cost us money. Everybody makes 

money in the equation, so I am confused. 

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

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Let me ask a couple of questions to a 

few of you. 

Mr. Pearce, first of all, you quote the NACO platform that says 

it supports active natural resource management. Does that mean 

that NACO supports streamlining NEPA or other laws as well to 

provide protection from activists who use those laws to delay and 

obstruct the active forest management? 

Mr. PEARCE. Yes, sir. We support both reform of NEPA as well 

as the ESA. 

Mr. BISHOP. What about your county and also the Partnership 

for Rural America? You represent both of them. 

Mr. PEARCE. National Forest Counties and the Partnership both 

do, and especially the use of categorical exclusion. 

Mr. BISHOP. I appreciate that so let me follow up with Ms. Wagner then on that issue. 

The NEPA analysis can cost up to $1 million per project to go 

through that. Does the Forest Service agree that the time and cost 

required to plan and analyze forest management is too high? 

Ms. WAGNER. We want to work to lower those costs so that we 

can do more work on the ground 

Mr. BISHOP. Do you think it is actually possible for the Forest 

Service to begin producing revenues for schools and local government if it does not streamline that process? 

Ms. WAGNER. I think it would be very difficult for us to achieve 

the receipts necessary to fully pay the freight 

Mr. BISHOP. Ms. Wagner, the proposed planning rule has some 

concern. Probably every multiple-use organization in the country 

and several Members of Congress who represent probably most, if 

not 80 percent of the national forest, have expressed concern with 

46 

that. A letter was sent to Secretary Vilsack back on May 31 of this 

year. To date, we have yet to receive any kind of response from either the Service or the Department. 

Do you have a clue like when we are going to be hearing from 

him? 

Ms. WAGNER. Mr. Bishop, let me follow up on that. I know we 

have received the letter and let me make sure that we have actually got a response, and if your office doesn’t have it make sure you 

do. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. Vaagen, you know, assuming we can 

produce meaningful progress with the Forest Service in your area, 

how quickly do you think your coalitions, the management approach for the Colville National Forest can produce the 25 percent 

payments you referred to in your testimony? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Fairly quickly. We just have to have more projects 

put up to get the revenue stream up 

Mr. BISHOP. Is there a time lapse in that or is it simply a matter 

of authorizing the work to go forward? 

Mr. VAAGEN. Authorizing the work to go forward. CEs would 

work like on this mountain pine beetle, they can go up to a thousand acres. I see various projects being implemented immediately. 

I mean, the material is turning orange and yellow, and then gray, 

and then the last color will be orange again. 

Mr. BISHOP. I thought blue was in there somewhere. 

Mr. VAAGEN. Yes, it is if it is real hot. Yes, you are right. 

Mr. BISHOP. All right. Could I also ask you the other question? 

What do you believe would be the effect if Congress was to reauthorize Secure Rural Schools Program without making reforms to 

how the Forest Service manages those lands to bring a sustainable 

management back to the forest? 

Mr. VAAGEN. I don’t see how that would happen. It hasn’t happened in the past. 

Mr. BISHOP. Let me ask one last question for Ms. Wagner if I 

could. The Interior Department recently released a new spotted owl 

recovery plan that in some of our opinions remains largely unchanged from the plan that was released last fall. How can the 

Forest Service increase management, especially in the Northwest, 

if this new recovery plan and the ensuing critical habitat designation places more restrictions on more acres? 

Ms. WAGNER. I mean, I do this from memory, sir, so if I don’t 

have it right I would like to make sure that I can follow up with 

the correct information. But I think the estimates from the Pacific 

North region about the impact of the northern spotted owl recovery 

plan is that it would impact the number of acres treated by somewhere between 15 and 20 percent in the Pacific Northwest, so it 

would lessen our ability in some ways to treat acres. 

It is a fine line trying to recover species and balance the habitat 

requirements for that species in light of other competition, the Bart 

owl, in particular, so that is a complex problem. I know it does 

have some impacts. I know the Forest Service was feeling like the 

impacts and the Fish and Wildlife Service had been responsive to 

the comments that had been offered and the workshops that were 

in place early this winter to resolve those concerns 

47 

Mr. BISHOP. OK, thank you. It is a good answer, complete answer 

to my question. Appreciate that. 

Are there others on the Committee who would like a second 

round of questions? Mr. Southerland, do you have— 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. It shouldn’t take much time 

Mr. BISHOP. You are recognized. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to ask Ms. Dauzat if I could, as a business owner, because right now small business in this country is being crushed by 

what I believe are manmade policies. With small business representing 85 percent of our economy, and the State of Florida is 

having historical unemployment numbers, nationwide we are seeing the unemployment rate continue to go up. Florida has been hit, 

as you know, by incredible amounts of foreclosures. But as a business owner and you knowing what I just stated, you and your family have contributed much to our communities in north and northwest Florida, do you have any suggestions for this committee on 

how to better manage national forests while preserving our wildlife 

habitat for future generations? 

And I notice you, by the way, have your daughter here, so witnessing mom testifying, so when I say future generations it sits 10 

feet from you. 

Ms. DAUZAT. She is present, yes. 

My written comments that I submitted contained a number of 

specific recommendations. I would ask the Committee to consider 

them. Beyond them I ask each of you to remember that you are not 

just dealing with land, timber and other natural resources. You 

have in your hand many communities and families’ legacies that 

deserves to be properly cared by everyone here. You are not dealing 

with dollars for counties, you are dealing with families, especially 

children, and with their homes, their dreams, their future. Please 

treat them gently. 

Mr. SOUTHERLAND. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I want to say this is not a committee assignment. I would like 

to thank you publicly for allowing me to come before you today. 

Thank you 

Mr. BISHOP. We are happy to have you here. Come anytime, and 

starting the next session we will renegotiate, maybe we can get you 

hear full time. 

Mr. McClintock, do you have another couple of questions in conclusion? 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Dauzat, you actually are in the harvesting business as well 

as sawmill business, right? 

Ms. DAUZAT. Well, we do not own logging operations but we have 

a procurement company that goes out and procures timber for our 

sawmill. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Do any of you actually have timber stands 

that you manage? 

Ms. DAUZAT. Yes, we own lumber as well. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Can you tell me on the timber stands that you 

own what is the commercial value of those stands? 

Ms. DAUZAT. Not off the top of my head. 

48 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. What percentage of your stands do you harvest every year? 

Ms. DAUZAT. We own about 9,000 acres as a family and we try 

to keep it at about 150 acres a year rotation. That is what we shoot 

for. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Out of how much? 

Ms. DAUZAT. Nine thousand acres. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. OK. 

Ms. DAUZAT. Small stand. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. So percentage-wise that is what, about one or 

two percent? 

Ms. DAUZAT. Yes. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. OK. Mr. Vaagen, you seem to have—— 

Mr. VAAGEN. Same story. We have about 50,000 acres. It is less 

than five percent of our supply, but we try to continually rotate it, 

stay ahead of the bugs, the forest health issues. The value of it is 

usually $1,000 to $2,000 an acre. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. One thousand to two thousand an acre. That 

is helpful. 

Ms. Wagner, what percentage of our timber does the Federal 

Government harvest? Ms. Wagner? 

Ms. WAGNER. I am sorry, sir. I was just looking to see if I had 

a quick acre figure. I have a volume figure and I have some acre 

figures, but I would like to get back with you on—oh, wait, timber 

sales, 177,000 acres treated using timber sales in 2010. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Now, is that the percentage of our timber resources that we are harvesting each year? 

Ms. WAGNER. No, sir. We would be happy to do that because I 

think it would be worth looking at the different legislation that exists on national forests and take things like wilderness areas out 

of calculation, but about 200,000 acres treated using timber sales 

out of the acres that we—a very modest percentage. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. What I am getting at is this is a renewable resource of immense value. Using the low end figure that Mr. Vaagen 

just offered us, I would assume that means that the total value of 

our national forest timber is some $200 billion, meaning if we harvested one percent a year that would be yielding at least $2 billion 

of revenues to the United States Treasury. 

And the point that Mr. Young made is one that needs to be emphasized. If we were actually properly managing these resources, 

not only would we have healthier forests, we would have a much 

healthier economy because the economic multiplier on forest activity that I have seen from economists is about threefold. So, not only 

would it be $2 billion of direct revenues to the Federal treasury, 

it would be $6 billion of additional economic activity because of the 

ripple effect of that economic productivity. 

Mr. Young says we could fund our Secure Rural Schools budget 

from that. In fact, we wouldn’t need Secure Rural Schools because 

the local communities would be generating enormous property 

taxes again because of an enormous prosperity that I see this policy practiced by your bureaucracy standing in the way of. I mean, 

I look at the economic devastation of my district, which is one of 

the most resource rich areas of the country, northeastern California, huge, huge timber resources mainly managed by the FedVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
49 

eral Government sitting there. They can’t even harvest fire killed 

timber once the overgrowth has caused these fires. We can’t even 

go back in and salvage dead timber because of the restrictions 

placed in the way by the Forest Service and by this panoply of environmental laws that need wholesale redress. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to offer the suggestion that 

maybe in the future we ought to be looking at ways that we can 

link the Forest Service budget to Forest Service revenues actually 

yielded off of Forest Service land. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. Tipton. 

Mr. TIPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I just wanted to 

have one follow-up question. 

Mr. Pearce, I would like to go back to some of the opening comments Congressman Walden brought up just to have your feedback. 

Would you and other leaders in counties that are similar to 

yours, would you like to see additional discretion from your counties on how to manage your lands for production and provide revenue for rural schools? 

Mr. PEARCE. Absolutely. You wouldn’t get a negative, I think, 

from any of the counties that have, as I have said, up to 90 percent 

of their county in Federal ownership. And to really follow up to 

that, we also have state trust land, 20,000 some odd acres, and 

have about 30,000 acres of private timber land. The fact is the 

state trust land brings more revenue comparatively on that 20,000 

acres than the 880,000 acres of national forest I have. 

Mr. TIPTON. Impressive and speaks to a lot. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Pearce 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. I appreciate all four of you for your patience in answering these questions and how I slaughtered your 

names. I apologize for that, too. You are dismissed. We appreciate 

your time and effort in being here. 

We have one other panel, if we could have the following three 

people come to the table and join us: Mr. David Tenney, President 

of the County Supervisors Association of Arizona from the Navajo 

County Board of Supervisors; Ms. Anna Morrison, Women in Timber; Mr. David Crews, Superintendent of the Norwood Colorado 

School District. 

As you are coming up here, I would also ask unanimous consent 

that the SRS language from the Interior Appropriation Report in 

the House appear in our record. Hearing no objection, that is so ordered. 

[NOTE: The Interior Appropriation Report language has 

been retained in the Committee’s official files.] 

Mr. BISHOP. We appreciate the three of you joining us as well. 

The same situation applies as before. Your written testimonies will 

appear in the record. We are asking for your oral testimonies. As 

I think you were watching the clocks there, green means your time 

has started; yellow, you have a minute left; red, your time has actually expired, and we will see how long over that red mark we can 

all go. 

At any rate, we thank you for being here and we would ask Mr. 

Tenney if you would start us off with your oral testimony. 

50 

STATEMENT OF DAVID TENNEY, PRESIDENT, COUNTY SUPERVISORS ASSOCIATION OF ARIZONA, NAVAJO COUNTY BOARD 

OF SUPERVISORS 

Mr. TENNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. I appreciate the invitation to be here today. 

My name is David Tenney. I am Supervisor for Navajo County 

in the State of Arizona. I am located up in the northeastern part 

of Arizona. Also, just coincidentally I have nine years experience on 

a local school board there, so Secure Rural Schools I can come at 

it from a couple of different angles. 

I will begin by stating that I believe the responsible use of industry is the key ingredient for managing our forests. I also believe 

that the reintroduction of industry into our forests is the key ingredient for the continuation and reauthorization of county payment 

programs like PILT and Secure Rural Schools. I cannot overstate 

how important the management of natural resources have become 

to rural communities like ours, and rural counties like ours. The 

468,000-acre Rodeo-Chediski fire of 2002 burned in my county and 

nearly destroyed my home, and the 540,000-acre Wallow fire of this 

year burned in two of my neighboring counties. 

The footprints left by those two fires alone could comfortably hold 

the Cities of Phoenix, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles. 

Mr. Chairman and Members, the rural communities of Arizona 

were founded and exist due to the use of the abundant natural resources that surround them. However, our combined mistakes in 

forest management have changed rural counties like mine and we 

require the help and leadership of this body to correct the systemic 

mismanagement of our forests. 

During my adult life there has been a significant reduction in the 

harvesting of timber from the forests. In the late 1980s, Arizona 

and New Mexico produced approximately 200 to 250 million board 

feet of timber each year. Between 1989 and 1996, those numbers 

steadily dropped until there was no industry left in those forests, 

in 1997 and 1998. 

Dramatic reduction of wood harvesting was a result of intense 

disagreements over how the forests should be managed. During 

that period there was no effort by industry, government or the environmental community to find common ground, and as a result 

nothing productive took place. We lost our industries, we lost the 

revenues and jobs that came from those industries, and now we 

have lost millions of acres in our forests. 

You have heard testimony today that talks about what then happened and how Secure Rural Schools was put in place to replace 

some of those revenues. I won’t go into that much because you 

know that history. But unfortunately we can’t go back and prevent 

the mistakes that have degraded our forests and the funding 

sources that counties and schools need. There is plenty of anger 

and frustration to go around. 

My family was intimately involved in the timber wars of the 

eighties and nineties, and I will admit that I would not have probably sat in the same room as some of these environmental activists 

who opposed our family at that time. However, when I became 

first-hand witness to the massive fires that now burn in our counVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:15 Jul 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 L:\DOCS\67404.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
51 

try I saw their potential to destroy entire communities, and I embraced the challenge to change the situation. 

I am here to testify that each of these events, number one, the 

loss of the timber industry and the jobs that came with it, two, the 

decline of the timber receipts, the subsequent passage of Secure 

Rural Schools, and three, the destruction of homes and prize recreational areas in my county, a result of the degrading condition 

of the forests throughout America. 

Fortunately, there is a solution. The solution requires getting industry back into the forest to thin the trees in ecologically and socially sustainable way. The solution involves stakeholders from the 

scientific, environmental, elected, Forest Service, and industrial 

communities who are all at the table and who all agree that we 

must reach common ground. 

One of the solutions in our areas is what we call the Forest Service Restoration Initiative, or 4FRI. It is a model for the kind of 

management that will end the catastrophic wild fires and produce 

revenues for programs like PILT and Secure Rural Schools. The 

model we have developed calls for the Federal Government to partner with private industry to thin upwards of 50,000 acres of forested land in Arizona per year for little or no cost to the government. This model has been—we have been working actively for the 

last three or four years to get this off the ground. 

We should do everything we can to revitalize our forests and to 

do so we need to support projects like 4FRI, other projects like it 

that come together collaboratively on a landscape scale to get industry back into the picture here, and in doing such thin our forests. 

I will give you one example of the kind of issues that we have. 

Coconino County where Congressmen Gosar, my congressman, 

lives, without Secure Rural Schools funding they would lose all of 

their search and rescue funding. In the small town of Fredonia 

there used to be a thriving forest community. They now have to 

bus their kindergartners and first graders over 30 miles to go to 

school. 

We can remedy that though by putting industry back into the 

forest. It is going to take some time however. We are not going to 

do this overnight. I have heard questions asked today, could you 

immediately go back to funding and pay for itself. It can’t happen 

overnight. 

I am out of time. I want to quickly give a couple of things that 

I think can make a difference, some asks that we have. I think we 

need to support the implementation of active forest management 

policy modeled after the Forest Restoration Initiative and others of 

its kind. We also need to support reforming things like NEPA and 

ESA. In the meantime, until we get that industry back into the forests we have to support the full funding of PILT and Secure Rural 

Schools and other programs such as those. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will stand for any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tenney follows:] 

Statement of David Porter Tenney, Board of Supervisors Chairman, 

Navajo County, Arizona 

Mr. Chairman, and Committee members, thank you for the invitation to address 

you today. For the record, my name is David Porter Tenney, and I am a Supervisor 

52 

in Navajo County, which is located in northeastern Arizona. I have nine years of 

experience as a former Chairman of the Show Low School Board, I am a member 

of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative Steering Committee, and I am currently 

the President of the County Supervisors Association of Arizona, which represents 

the 55 elected county supervisors in Arizona. It is in my capacity as a County Supervisor, and a member of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, that I address you 

today on the importance of industry in forest management, and the need for the continued funding of PILT and the reauthorization of Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. 

I will begin by stating that I believe the responsible use of forest products industry is the key ingredient for managing our forests. I also believe that the reintroduction of forest products industry to our forests is a key ingredient for the continuation 

and reauthorization of county payment programs like PILT and the Secure Rural 

Schools Act. 

I cannot overstate how important the management of our forests has become to 

rural counties. The 468 thousand-acre Rodeo-Chediski Fire of 2002 burned in my 

county, and nearly destroyed my home. The 538 thousand-acre Wallow Fire of this 

year burned in two of my neighboring counties. The footprints left by these two fires 

could comfortably hold the cities of Phoenix, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles and 

the ecological and economic impacts are tremendous. 

Mr. Chairman, and Committee members, the rural communities of Arizona were 

founded on, and exist due to, the use of the abundant natural resources that surrounded them. However, our combined mistakes in forest management have 

changed rural counties like mine, and we require the help and leadership of this 

body to correct the systemic mismanagement of our forests. 

During my adult life, there has been a significant reduction in the harvesting of 

timber from the forests. In the late 1980’s Arizona and New Mexico produced approximately 200 to 250 million board feet of timber each year. Between 1989 and 

1996 those numbers steadily dropped until there was no forest products industry 

left in those forests by 1998. The dramatic reduction in wood harvesting was a result of intense disagreements over how the forests should be managed. During that 

period, there was no effort by industry, government or the environmental community to find common ground, and as a result, nothing productive took place. We lost 

our industries, we lost the revenues and jobs that came from those industries, and 

we have now lost millions of acres in our forests. 

As you are aware, counties and schools have received a 25 percent share of timber 

receipts from the federal government since the administration Teddy Roosevelt. 

Until the 1990’s, counties and schools were able to continue their work because they 

were compensated by the federal government for the abundance of tax-exempt federal land in their jurisdictions. However, as timber receipts declined, the solvency 

of rural counties and schools across the nation was also degraded. To address this 

challenge, Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act in 2000, which provided payments to counties and schools to make up 

for the decline in timber sale revenue. 

Unfortunately, we cannot go back and prevent the mistakes which have degraded 

our forests and the funding sources that counties and schools need. There is plenty 

of anger and frustration to go around on the subject. I was intimately involved in 

the Timber Wars of the 1980’s and 1990’s, and I will admit that I would not have 

sat in the same room with an environmentalist if you paid me. However, when I 

became a firsthand-witness to the massive fires that now burn in our country, and 

I saw their potential to destroy entire communities, I embraced the challenge to 

change the situation. 

Mr. Chairman, and Committee members, I am here today to testify that each of 

these events: 1) the loss of the forest products industry (along with the hundreds 

of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue it created), 2) the decline of timber receipts 

and subsequent passage of the Secure Rural Schools Act, and 3) the destruction of 

homes and prized recreational areas in my county and neighboring counties are the 

result of the degraded condition of the forest products industry in America’s forests. 

Fortunately, there is a solution. The solution requires getting forest products industry back into the forest to thin the trees in an ecologically and socially responsible way. The solution involves stakeholders from the scientific, environmental, 

elected, forest service and industrial communities who are all at the table, and who 

all agree that we must reach common ground. The solution is called the Four Forest 

Restoration Initiative (4FRI) and it is a model for the kind of management that will 

end catastrophic wildfires and produce revenues for programs like PILT and the Secure Rural Schools Act. 

The model that has been developed in 4FRI calls on the Federal Government to 

partner with private industry to thin upwards of 50,000 acres of forested land in 

53 

Arizona per year at little or no cost to the Federal Government. This model, developed over the last three years by the stakeholders I have mentioned, represents 

America’s best chance for revitalizing the forest products industry and restoring the 

forest, and it can be replicated throughout the country. 

Mr. Chairman, and Committee members, we can and should do everything possible to revitalize the forest products industry through active forest management 

policies like 4FRI, but Arizona’s counties cannot wait for that to happen. In addition 

to pursuing an active forest management policy, Congress can and must enact a full 

and long-term reauthorization of PILT and the Secure Rural Schools Act. 

Failure to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act would mean that federal pay- ments to Arizona counties would drop from $73 million in the last four years, to 

barely $1 million in 2012, jeopardizing critical education and public safety programs 

in Arizona’s counties. 

For example, Coconino County—the county that Congressman Gosar resides in— 

would lose nearly 80% of its search and rescue funding—a critical service for a county known as a recreation and hunting destination. Likewise, in that county’s remote 

town of Freedonia, Kindergarten and 1st-grade classes would be eliminated, forcing 

those students to be bused to a school over 30 miles away. 

The re-growth of our forest product industries can make a difference in the revenues necessary to fund these programs, but it is going to take time, and as tempting 

as it may be not to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act I must impress upon 

you that the forest products industry cannot immediately provide the federal government, rural counties and schools with the sales revenue necessary. The fact is, 

those efforts will take years. 

In the meantime, counties like mine that have already been devastated by state 

budget cuts and cost shifts would be further devastated by the loss of a revenue 

source that compensates for the abundance of tax-exempt federal land in rural jurisdictions. 

Mr. Chairman, and Committee members, as a county supervisor who has seen 

and experienced the consequences of a forest that is not permitted to be properly 

managed, I implore you to do two things: 

1. Support the solution of an active forest management policy, modeled after 

the Four Forests Restoration Initiative, and in the meantime, 

2. Support the long-term funding of PILT and the reauthorization of the Secure 

Rural Schools Act. 

Thank you for this opportunity. I would be happy to stand for any questions. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Tenney. Ms. Morrison. 

STATEMENT OF ANNA MORRISON, 

WOMEN IN TIMBER 

Ms. MORRISON. Chairman Bishop and Subcommittee Members, 

thank you for allowing me to speak before you today. My name is 

Anna Morrison. I am representing Oregon Women in Timber as 

well as American Agri-Women. I bring a unique perspective to this 

hearing in that I have a history surrounding the Secure Rural 

Schools legislation. 

Initially, I lobbied for this legislation as a county commissioner 

from Oregon. It was always meant to be a six-year funding stopgap 

until the forests were reopened to harvest levels sustaining rural 

schools and roads. It was never intended to be the entitlement program it has become. I chaired and served on two Forest Service 

RACs and one BLM RAC. The sole purpose was to find ways to 

spend the Title II and III monies that were included in the legislation. That was supposed to be used for on-the-ground projects in 

the forest. 

For years monies have been wasted, in my opinion, mostly on 

projects that had little merit or need. Many were pie in the sky 

projects that benefitted only those who submitted the project. I 

have actual U.S. Forest Service email documents from employees 

hoping they could find ways to spend the money. 

54 

We request, respectfully, that you not reauthorize this bill that 

is in the Administration’s FY 2012 budget. From 1908 until 1991, 

the revenue sharing plans specifying 25 percent return to forested 

counties. By the late 1980s, national policies and court injunctions 

diminished revenues generating activity in our national forests 

drastically. By 1998, revenues for national forest counties declined 

by 70 percent. This decline had a devastating impact on communities nationwide due to an almost total shutdown of timber harvesting in the Federal forest. 

Beginning in 1991, led by Senators Hatfield and Packwood, Congress began to subsidize county payments in western Oregon. Near 

the end of the decade Congress recognized its obligation to Rural 

America. Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, and President Clinton signed 

the bill. It provided six years of entitlements. In 2000 again, Congress extended the Secure Rural Schools for one year. In 2008, 

Congress once again extended and gave us four more years on this 

entitlement program. 

During that period of time, the Forest Service was to ramp up 

the timber harvest program so that the entitlement was no longer 

needed. However, that has not happened. 

Under the original legislation there was also a Forest County 

Payments Committee that was formed to report back to Congress 

on possible solutions. Reports were submitted to Congress in 2003, 

2005, 2006. These are copies of those reports to this body. However, 

nothing has ever been done with the recommendations. 

As we move forward, we strongly request that you support legislative efforts that seek to provide incentives for increased timber 

sales and other activities on the national forest. These, in turn, 

provide jobs and socio-economic benefits in addition to the timber 

receipts that are shared with local communities. In the late 1980s, 

increased timber harvest from the Federal lands generated eight 

times the economic benefit that is currently being provided by Secure Rural Schools. 

New legislation should include the following basic principles: 

One, long-term public forest health and timber production is vitally important to the people and communities adjacent to these 

lands. We urgently need to revive the Healthy Forest Restoration 

Act II. 

Two, as Congress mandated in enacting the legislation public resources on national forests and Bureau of Land Management 

should be managed to provide the people of our nation with consumer products, jobs, and sustainable sources of revenue. 

Three, the Federal Government has an obligation to return to the 

25 percent of all gross receipts. Oh, hard targets, implement the 

maximum harvest of the volume allowed annually for timber sales 

on each forest under the respective forest plan. 

It is the age of no more entitlements. We need jobs, jobs, jobs in 

our rural-dependent communities. You must ensure a long-term 

forest managed program and to return to actual gross timber receipts. We need to get these communities off the dole. No more Secure Rural Schools. 

At a time when about half of the Forest Service budget is spent 

fighting fires due to bug-infested dead and dying, overcrowded 

55 

forest it makes more sense from a fiscal and environmental standpoint to better manage the forest by using the resources instead of 

taking money from the Federal coffers to subsidize. We can sell the 

timber, put back money. We can harvest, provide for the people, 

pay for schools and roads, and still protect the environment. It 

makes perfect sense. 

Thank you very much for allowing me to testify. I would be available for any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Morrison follows:] 

Statement of Anna Morrison, Legislative Chair, Oregon Women In Timber, 

San Antonio, Texas 

Chairman Bishop and Subcommittee Members, 

I am Anna Morrison. I am representing Oregon Women In Timber, as well as 

American Agri-Women. I bring a unique perspective to this hearing in that I have 

a history surrounding the Secure Rural Schools legislation. Initially I lobbied for 

this legislation as a county commissioner from Oregon. It was always meant to be 

a 6 year funding stop gap until the forests were reopened to harvest levels sustaining rural schools and roads. It was never intended to be the entitlement program it has become. I chaired and served on 2 Forest Service RACS and 1 BLM 

RAC. The sole purpose was to find ways to spend the Title II and III entitlement 

monies from Secure Rural Schools Legislation that was to be used for on the ground 

forest projects. For years monies have been wasted, in my opinion, mostly on 

projects that had little merit or need. Many were ‘‘pie in the sky’’ projects that benefitted only those who submitted the project. I have actual USFS email documents 

from employees hoping they could find ways to spend the money. 

We respectfully request that you not reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and 

Communities Self-Determination Act that is in the administration’s Fiscal (FY) 2012 

budget. From 1908 until 1991 the revenue sharing plan specifying 25 percent of all 

revenues from National Forests were to be returned to forested counties. By the late 

1980’s national policies and court injunctions diminished revenue generating activity in our national forests drastically. By 1998, revenues for national forest counties 

had declined by 70 percent. This decline had a devastating impact on communities 

nationwide due to an almost total shutdown of timber harvesting in the federal forest. 

Beginning in 1991, lead by Senators Hatfield and Packwood, Congress began to 

subsidize county payments in Western Oregon. Near the end of the decade Congress 

recognized its obligation to rural America. Congress passed the Secure Rural 

Schools and Communities Self-Determination Act of 2000, and President Clinton 

signed the bill. It provided six years of entitlements. In 2007, Congress extended 

the SRSCA for one year. In 2008, Congress once again provided a four year extension of the SRSCA for 2008–2011. 

During this period of time the Forest Service was to ramp up the timber harvest 

program so that the entitlement was no longer needed. However, that has not happened. Under the original legislation there was also a Forest Counties Payments 

Committee that was formed to report back to Congress on possible solutions. Reports were submitted to Congress in 2003 and 2006. However, nothing has ever 

been done with the recommendations. 

As we move forward, we strongly request that you support legislative efforts that 

seek to provide incentives for increased timber sales and other activities on the national forest. These in turn provide jobs and socio-economic benefits, in addition to 

the timber receipts that are shared with local communities. In the late 1980’s increased timber harvests from the federal lands generated eight times the economic 

benefit that is currently being provided by the Secure Rural School Payments. 

New legislation should include the following basic principles: 

• Long term public forest health and timber production is vitally important to 

the people and communities adjacent to these lands and to the public at large. 

We urgently need to revive the Healthy Forest Restoration Act II. 

• As Congress mandated in enacting the legislation, Public forest resources on 

National Forests and Bureau of Land Management lands should be managed 

to provide the people of our nation with consumer products, jobs and a sustainable source of revenue to support local schools and counties. This is attainable while sustaining a healthy multiple use forest. 

• The federal government has an obligation to return 25% of all gross receipts 

generated on all forest lands to the counties in which these lands lie; and/ 

56 

or 50% of gross receipts from O&C land (Oregon/California Railroad Lands); 

and/or 4% of gross receipts from Public Domain lands. 

• Hard targets –Implement the maximum harvest of the volume allowed annually for timber sales in each forest under the respective forest plan. 

It’s the age of No more Entitlements! We need Jobs, Jobs, Jobs in our rural, 

timber dependent communities. You must ensure a long-term forest management 

program and a return to actual gross timber receipts. We need to get these communities ‘‘off the Dole’’. No more Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self-Determination Act. At a time when about half of the Forest Service budget is spent 

fighting fires, due to bug infested, dead and dying 

Over-crowded forests, it makes far more sense, from a fiscal and environmental 

standpoint, to better manage the forests by using the resource. We can harvest, provide for the people and still protect the environment. It makes perfect sense. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. Crews. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID CREWS, SUPERINTENDENT, 

NORWOOD COLORADO SCHOOL DISTRICT 

Mr. CREWS. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. 

My name is Dave Crews. I am the Superintendent of Schools in 

Norwood, Colorado, which is a small ranching community on the 

Western Slope. Today I am representing superintendents and 

school districts from Colorado who want to share the grave concern 

we have about the potential loss of the Secure Rural Schools and 

Communities Self-Determination Act. We are grateful for the Act. 

The concerns I express are very real as nearly 68 percent of Colorado’s forests are in Federal ownership. 

As a resident of Colorado, I appreciate the year-around outdoor 

activities this provides, but as a member of a rural community, an 

educator and a parent I must live with the consequences of that 

Federal ownership as well. I am a resident of San Miguel County. 

This county, like others across the state, is limited in the amount 

of taxes collected based upon the amount of national and state 

owned lands, and then unlike the urban and suburban areas along 

the front range of Colorado it is almost impossible for us to tap into 

additional resources for our students. 

The reality for my home county as well as other rural counties 

in the state is that revenues from our forested land are not available to support the educational programs in either the form of bond 

elections or mil levy overrides. It is untaxable land. 

To offset those tax losses the rural school districts in the State 

of Colorado use the SRSCA dollars to maintain and support educational opportunities for students. This year my school district 

used the funding to implement a new K-12 writing program in 

order to improve our children’s writing skills. Over the years the 

dollars have been used to develop and implement instructional 

strategies, improve our children’s writing and math scores, and to 

prepare every student for post-secondary endeavors. 

For other districts in my regional area the funding is used to pay 

for additional teachers, to keep class sizes smaller, and to deliver 

a higher quality of instruction and to devote more time to each student to improve their learning. Studies indicate that students 

achieve more with well trained teachers employing effective instructional techniques in small class-size settings. The result is 

57 

seen in higher test scores, better preparedness for life after high 

school, and increased post-secondary success. 

School districts across the State of Colorado are using the additional money from Secure Rural Schools to fund technology programs. One of the challenges faced by many of the rural school districts is limited Internet access. Most rely on a broadband delivered 

through phone or cable services. Many schools are using these 

funds to establish WiFi networks, allowing students to access the 

Internet not only at school, but the community, and also in their 

homes. 

For some school districts the money is not just to create new programs, but actually augments the operating revenue resources that 

keep school districts running and capable of providing services and 

education in that regional setting. 

Statewide there are nearly 480,000 school age children living in 

Colorado counties that receive SRSCA funding. With the potential 

loss of these funds a critical link between rural families and access 

to education could be permanently severed forcing the affected families to drive dozens of miles, often over hazardous snowbound 

roads in order for their child to attend school. This challenge is the 

fundamental premise of fairness and equal access to education between rural and urban school children, placing some of our poorest 

and most at risk students at a distinct disadvantage. 

K-12 public schools in Colorado are primarily funded through a 

combination of local property taxes and state revenues. Historically 

property taxes have made up the majority of funding. However, 

property taxes have declined significantly, and because of the Gallagher Amendment in the state constitution which limits the valuation of residential property the state is required to fill in for losses 

that residential property once covered. 

School districts can raise additional revenues through local bond 

and mil levy elections up to a specified level, but the economic vitality of many rural communities cannot support money raised 

through local bonds and mils. 

Schools are not only the beneficiary of this funding. Counties and 

county services benefit as well. School district representatives such 

as myself meet annually with the county commissioners to determine how to allocate the Secure Rural Schools fund for that year. 

School administrators have built communication, relationships with 

county commissioners, and have developed increased communication and understanding about the needs of the county and our students. We appreciate that Congress has supported the century-long 

commitment to schools and counties. 

In closing, I would like to emphasize the need to reauthorize the 

Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self-Determination Act. 

With the elimination of this resource, rural districts will suffer additional hardships and the education of our children will be affected. What I am hearing today is that we need to make production changes in the national forests but that will take some time. 

I feel the need to have this SRSCA reauthorized while these 

changes occur. Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crews follows:] 

58 

Statement of David Crews, Superintendent, 

Norwood School District, Norwood, Colorado 

To: Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva, 

My name is David Crews; I live and work in the town of Norwood on the Western 

Slope of Colorado. Today, I am here representing superintendents and school districts from Colorado who want to share the very grave concern we have about the 

potential loss of the Secure Rural School and Community Self-Determination Act. 

We are grateful for the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination 

Act which was originally established in 2000. The Act preserves the commitment 

made by President Roosevelt in 1910 when these forests were set aside for the benefit of the entire nation. As you are aware, SRSCA Funds are used to support educational and county services within forested communities. 

The concerns I express are very real as nearly 68 percent of Colorado’s forests are 

in federal ownership. As a resident of Colorado, I appreciate the year-round outdoor 

activities this provides; but as a member of a rural community, an educator and a 

parent, I must live with the consequences of that federal ownership as well. I am 

a resident of San Miguel County. This County, like others across the State is limited 

in the amount of taxes collected based upon the amount of national and state owned 

lands. And, unlike the urban and suburban areas along the Front Range it is almost 

impossible for us to tap into additional resources for our students. The reality for 

my home county, as well as other rural counties in the State, is that revenues from 

our forested land are not available to support our educational programs in either 

the form of bond elections or mill levy overrides. It is untaxable land! 

To offset those tax losses, the rural school districts in the State of Colorado use 

SRSCA dollars to maintain and support educational opportunities for students. This 

year, my school district used the funding to implement a new K–12 writing program 

in order to improve our children’s writing skills. Over the years the dollars have 

been used to develop and implement instructional strategies, improve our children’s 

writing and math scores, and to prepare every student for post-secondary endeavors. 

For other school districts in my regional area the funding is used to pay for additional teachers to keep the class sizes small to deliver a higher quality of instruction 

and to devote more time to each student to improve their learning. Studies indicate 

that students achieve more with well-trained teachers, employing effective instructional techniques in small class size settings. This results in higher test scores, better preparedness for life after high school and increased post-secondary success. 

School districts across the State of Colorado are also using the additional money 

from the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act to fund technology programs. One of the challenges faced by many rural school districts is limited internet access. Most rely on broadband delivered through phone or cable services. The speed and ease for delivery of information places these children at a distinct advantage. Many schools are using these funds to establish WIFI networks allowing students to access the internet not only at school but in the community and 

in their homes. For some school districts this money doesn’t just go for additional 

instructional programs but augments the operating revenue resources to keep a 

school district running and capable of providing services and education in a regional 

setting. 

Statewide there are nearly 480,000 school-age children living in Colorado counties 

that receive SRSCA funding. With the potential loss of these funds, a critical link 

between rural families and access to education could be permanently severed, forcing the affected families to drive dozens of miles, often over hazardous snowbound 

roads, in order for their child to attend school. This challenges the fundamental 

premise of fairness and equal access to education between rural and urban school 

children, placing some of our poorest and most at risk students at a distinct disadvantage. 

K–12 public schools in Colorado are primarily funded through a combination local 

property taxes and state revenues. Historically, property taxes have made up the 

majority of funding. However, property taxes have declined precipitously, and because of the Gallagher Amendment to the State Constitution, which limits the valuation of residential property, the State is required to fill in for losses that residential 

property once covered. School districts can raise additional revenues through local 

bond and mill levy elections up to a specified level, but the economic vitality of 

many rural communities cannot support money raised through local bonds and 

mills. Another challenge we face: the State funds local school districts at a lower 

levels than the majority of the other States resulting in an increased reliance by 

rural school districts in Colorado on SRSCA. We appreciate that Congress has supported the century long commitment to schools and counties. 

59 

Schools are not the only beneficiaries of SRSCA funding: counties and county 

services benefit as well. School Districts Representatives meet annually with their 

County Commissioners to determine how to allocate the secure rural schools funds 

for that year. School administrators have built relationships with county commissioners and have developed increased communication and understanding about the 

needs of the county and our students. 

In closing, I would like to emphasize the need to reauthorize the Secure Rural 

Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. With the elimination of this resource, rural districts will suffer additional hardships—and the education of our 

children will suffer. I appreciate the time you have given to hear my concerns and 

hope you have a better understanding of the importance of SRSCA to the rural 

school children of Colorado. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. I appreciate the testimony from our witnesses. We will have some questions first from Mr. Grijalva. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Supervisor Tenney, let me ask you a question, and welcome. Hypothetically let us say we are able to return to those historic levels 

of timber production and that counties receive 25 percent of the 

revenue, and you mentioned about a transition period but let me 

ask you. Would that funding stream, would that be stable? Would 

there be economic, political, weather, climate changes that would 

affect that revenue stream, that 25 percent? 

Mr. TENNEY. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Grijalva, certainly 

there are things that affect funding streams from every angle. But 

is it sustainable? I believe it is. It is a natural resource that we 

are dealing with. The communities that are taking money now 

from Secure Rural Schools are communities that were founded because of the abundance of natural resources that are there. 

I don’t necessarily believe that we have to return to the 250 million board feet of timber that was being harvested in Arizona and 

New Mexico in the eighties and nineties, but we certainly need to 

do more than the zero that was harvested in 1998, 1999 and 2000. 

It has got to be somewhere in between. We have to return industry 

to the equation. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you for that, Supervisor. One of the proposition is that we go from this entitlement, get to those historic levels, from some of the testimony overnight, and therefore that guaranteed stream level would be there. What do you think of that scenario? 

Mr. TENNEY. Well, Mr. Grijalva, first of all, I don’t see anything 

happening overnight. It is going to take—in our area at least the 

mills are all gone. There is a good graphic showing the decline from 

400 mills to 100 in the State of Oregon. Arizona has certainly lost 

a greater percentage than that. Those mills are not there. That is 

going to take time. 

But I also didn’t hear anyone asking that we return to historic 

levels. What I hear people ask is a return to some level and it 

would not take the historic level to give the amount of funding that 

is coming to schools and counties right now through Secure Rural 

Schools funding. Those numbers weren’t based on what the maximum levels once were reached. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. So SRS funding, in your opinion, Supervisor, 

needs to be reauthorized and then the balance issue, the in between issue, the point that you made is something that happens 

down the road? 

60 

Mr. TENNEY. I think all of it needs to happen. It needs to be reauthorized in the sense that until industry is reintroduced that is 

the solution, but industry is the answer. The long-term solution is 

industry back in our forests. 

Ms. Morrison spoke of the entitlement. None of us want entitlement. What we feel we are entitled to is using the forest for the 

benefit that it has. The renewable resource and the blessing it can 

be to our families and our communities in the way of jobs, employment and revenues coming into those communities will far outweigh anything that we are getting from Congress and Secure 

Rural Schools. So ultimately we would just as soon see it go away, 

but only when industry is back in place. Until then it needs to stay 

put. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you. Mr. Crews, outside of the SRS funds, 

and you mentioned your school system, what do you think led to 

the strength of your particular school system—and congratulations 

on that—besides the SRS funding? 

Mr. CREWS. As far as our communities are concerned, I think it 

is the support of the communities, support of the parents and the 

importance of education. Again, we are doing a lot of things with 

limited amount of money. We are being asked to do that not only 

at our community level but also at the state level, but educating 

kids is what we need to do and that is important, so whatever we 

can receive will help. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you. That is it. Yield back 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. McClintock. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Just a couple of points. I would first Mr. 

Tenney offered the observation that economic revival once these 

policies are changed might happen a lot faster than you think as 

one economist put it to me. It doesn’t take businesses long to follow 

you back into an area if you are dropping $100 bills along the way. 

In other words, if they are able to make a profit it is amazing how 

dynamic they are and how quickly they will return. So, I think you 

are selling short the impact of policy changes on the economy of 

these local communities. 

I know in my area we have had three mills close last year. They 

are still there. They are just closed. We had 300 families put out 

of work in each one of those communities and those are small communities. The impact is huge. But the sole reason or the principal 

reason anyway was lack of timber supply for the mills to use. Bring 

back that timber supply, those mills will reopen. The families will 

get their jobs back and the economy will prosper and it will happen 

a lot faster than you think. 

Any thoughts? 

Mr. TENNEY. Yes. I want you to know I agree with you. I didn’t 

mean to sound like I don’t think it will come back. It will absolutely come back. The reason I say it is going to take time is until 

you change some of the Federal policies, like NEPA, ESA and others that slow that process down, you cannot shut off SRS tomorrow 

and offer timber sales the next day—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Agreed, agreed. 

Mr. TENNEY.—and expect that they are going to coincide because 

NEPA is going to take two years to get done. 

61 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And unfortunately we can’t change policy overnight here. 

Mr. TENNEY. Right. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. We can from the House side but we still have 

a recalcitrant Senate and White House to deal with, and that is 

something the American people are going to have to address in the 

next year. 

Mr. TENNEY. Can I add one thing? 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Sure. 

Mr. TENNEY. I agree with you. The people of our communities are 

aching to get back to work in the forest. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. I know. 

Mr. TENNEY. Now they are watching to see what happens to the 

salvage of the Wallow fire. We burned 2.5 billion board feet in that 

Wallow fire. Over 73—an ultimate irony here—over 73, or 73 is the 

number of spotted owl nest areas that burned. If my recollection 

is right, it is over half of the, or between half and a third of the 

total area is protected in our state just burned. That is not what 

the environmental community wanted. That is not what any of us 

want. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. No, I disagree with you on that point. If you 

talk to them, you will find out it is precisely what they want. For 

some reason they don’t understand that the most environmentally 

devastating thing to a forest is a forest fire and that their policies 

have directly led to the high frequency, high intensity forest fires 

that we are seeing today because of the excess overgrowth that 

they have forbidden us from removing from the forests. And if you 

talk to a lot of them, they just say, well, that is nature’s way. Well, 

I suppose you can say that, but the impact is devastating on the 

environment. 

Mr. TENNEY. Nature’s way is a smaller, lower intensity fire. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Exactly. 

Mr. TENNEY. Not these catastrophic half a million acre fires. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. No, I don’t worship at the Church of Global 

Warming, I do believe the planet is warming. I believe it has been 

warming since the last Ice Age and whatever we do here I can 

guarantee you it will continue to warm and cool as it has for billions of years. But in that church they practice the faith of carbon 

sequestration, the idea that timber, particularly young growth timber, absorbs enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. That part is 

quite true. New growth timber absorbs carbon dioxide at a much, 

much higher rate, and higher volume than old growth timber. 

Why is it then that the only timber we are allowed to harvest 

at all is the young growth timber? I don’t understand that. Perhaps 

somebody can offer some guidance to me on that point. 

Mr. TENNEY. Is that question is aimed at me, I can’t answer that 

either. I appreciated the question earlier about the Animal Kingdom. We certainly don’t manage the Animal Kingdom that way, 

and I love to hunt and certainly would not be as near interested 

if all I could shoot was a spike elk instead of going for a large six 

point. I don’t understand it. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. You would not have a very healthy spike elk 

population. 

62 

Mr. TENNEY. Pretty soon you would not have anything because 

you have killed all the spikes. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And that is exactly how we are managing our 

forests today. It is insane. 

Mr. TENNEY. You are asking a question of someone who is not 

qualified to answer but I agree exactly with you on this point. I 

don’t understand the management practice. We need to return to 

harvesting all classes, and it needs to be based on science and it 

needs to have industry as a part of it. Until we get back to that 

point we are going to have these problems in our forests 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To Ms. Morrison. You are advocating that counties should get off 

the dole. As a former Oregon county commissioner, you know how 

critical particularly the ONC payments are to us were unique in 

that we have both ONC and Forest Service payments. Even if, and 

as you just heard the gentleman from California say we do have 

it, and I liked the description, recalcitrant Senate, I am usually not 

that polite about it, but anyway, a dysfunctional Senate and the 

White House. But let us just say the Senate went away and the 

White House, the President, as he does often, just decides to 

change his mind and support whatever comes out of the House, 

and we went back to something that the Forest Service could gear 

up for next year because obviously it is too late for this harvest 

season, some very robust level of harvest and the ONC lands, and 

somehow we got them in an appropriation so they could hire back 

all their timber sale officers who they have all laid off, and they 

could lay out the sales and there were no appeals or anything allowed. I mean, it would just go forward next year with a very robust harvest at some huge level. 

That would mean there would be substantial revenues. Unfortunately, the existing law says that it is an average of seven years. 

So even if we went back to 12 billion board feet next year, actually 

it would be, you know, averaged over the last seven years, the 

counties and schools would still get very little money. In fact, it 

would be about a 90 percent reduction for my counties. 

I don’t have any currently elected county commissioners in Oregon nor am I aware in the Partnership for Rural America of currently elected county commissioners, 729 counties, who are advocating an immediate end to this program. 

How would you solve that problem? 

Ms. MORRISON. I guess, Congressman, I am not naive. I understand what you are saying, and it is not going to happen overnight. 

However, these 729 counties have known since 2000 what the future held. I question why have we allowed the agencies, BLM and 

the Forest Service, to continue in the same vein and not see any 

actual production on the lands. 

Again, back in 2003, 2005, 2006, the National Forest Counties 

Payments Committee did submit to this body, and I believe, Peter, 

you have a copy of this, recommendations for making payments to 

state and counties. However, nothing has ever been acted on in regards to those. At some point we are going to have to stop the program. As long as the schools and the counties think that they can 

63 

come back and they are going to get a dribble here and a dribble 

there, you are bleeding them to death. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I understand. 

Ms. MORRISON. That is what you are doing. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. Just reclaiming my time. My vision is 

that we get a temporary continuing authorization which is either 

a phase-out or it has a date certain on which it ends which gives 

us time to transition. I would also like to have an ongoing base 

payment at a lower level because we are never going to get back 

to the levels of harvest we had in the seventies and eighties. 

Ms. MORRISON. Right. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I mean the value of the timber is just not there. 

So, my vision is we both do active management, and I have for the 

first time the BLM actually working on pilot projects on the land, 

working with scientists to show there is a way we can go into these 

areas and do forestry and get a predictable level of harvest, although there is going to be a fight over that. But we would need 

a transition and I believe we need an ongoing base. That is my position. I mean, we are going to have to disagree over that, but I 

mean an immediate cutoff of all funds, no continuing authorization 

next year would mean virtually all the jails in southwest Oregon 

would close. We already are down to 20 hours a day for sheriff’s 

patrols. In Lane County we would go down to probably zero hours 

per day—— 

Ms. MORRISON. Right. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. For Josephine, I know it would go to zero. Curry 

would go to zero. I mean, I just can’t support that. It would just 

be catastrophic for the region. 

Ms. MORRISON. And I agree about the catastrophic effect of this 

but at some point people have to come to the table and understand 

that we need to start doing this. I mean, back in 1987 was the first 

time I testified here in D.C. at one of these panels. We needed to 

have management on the Federal lands then. We are now several 

years past. We are still dealing with the same questions. We are 

still not getting management on the lands. What do we do to get 

people to move? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, we put in place a plan. It is just like balancing the budget here. We can’t balance a budget in one year, but 

if we had a plan to balance it in 10 years so it was credible then 

people would say, OK, we get it, 10 years, that is reasonable, good. 

The same thing here, we need a transitional plan to move back 

to more active management. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. Tipton. 

Mr. TIPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Crews, I would 

like to welcome you. I am just down the road in Cortez. Certainly 

a pleasure to be able to see you here and appreciate your testimony. 

Could you give us a little example during your tenure while you 

have been in the Norwood School District how your funding levels 

have changed just over your time period there? 

Mr. CREWS. Our funding levels for the whole general budget? 

Mr. TIPTON. Just specifically what is coming off the Forest 

Service. 

64 

Mr. CREWS. Oh, off the Forest Service. It has reduced—the way 

it was set up in 2000, our county actually was taking probably 95 

percent of the money, and then around 2008, I came in around 

2007. Around 2008 one of the commissioners saw this and said that 

we need to give more money to our two school districts in our county, and so we received—at that year we were reversed and we received about 95 percent of the money between the two school districts. 

Mr. TIPTON. Right. 

Mr. CREWS. About that same time state law changed and created 

this 25 percent for the county, 25 percent for the schools, and then 

the 50 percent would be negotiated, the rest of it, and that was 

worked well. I have been involved in that for the last two years, 

and it has been a nice relationship that we have built with the 

county understanding kind of their needs and them understanding 

the needs that we have in our districts and for our kids, so it is 

working well. 

Mr. TIPTON. But you are strained as a school district to be able 

to provide for your students? 

Mr. CREWS. Well, overall, you know. 

Mr. TIPTON. Could you maybe explain? You and I may be the 

only two people in the room that will be able to distinguish the difference. Is there a per capita difference in terms of Telluride versus 

Norwood? 

Mr. CREWS. There is actually, as far as student PPOR, the money 

the people, the revenue money, we can—we actually receive a little 

bit more than Telluride just because of our need, so we have some 

state equalization levels there. As far as generating money, Telluride probably could generate more money with their assessed valuations than we can in Norwood. 

Mr. TIPTON. That is my understanding, obviously 

Mr. CREWS. There is that separation there between the two. 

Mr. TIPTON. Right. I would like to go back over to Ms. Morrison. 

You were talking about trying to seek, and I gather Mr. Pearce just 

left, that you are looking for a long-term solution. 

Ms. MORRISON. I didn’t hear the first part that you said before 

Mr. Pearce. 

Mr. TIPTON. I said Mr. Pearce just left from our previous panel, 

that it seemed to me that as county commissioner you are really 

looking for some kind of a long-term solution. You were talking 

about the report prior to my being here certainly. It was making 

some recommendations and there has been no response from Congress. Is this sort of like a tree falling in the forest if there is nobody there to hear it? 

Ms. MORRISON. It could be like that but looking at this panel the 

makeup, there are only five on here that were here in 2000 and 

1999 when we first started working on this, and so again, you 

know, that education level, you are not being aware that these 

were submitted to Congress is understandable. Why they were 

never acted on I really don’t know. 

And the other one is back in 1998 this was presented to Congress 

at the same time. This was options for the Forest Service Second 

Century, and this was a compilation of possible solutions on how 

Federal lands could be managed, and the trust concept is in here 

65 

as to transferring the ownership, taking it away from the Forest 

Service or the Bureau of Land Management and putting it into a 

trust of some sort, and again, the group that put this together was 

very diverse. I mean, you had the National Wildlife Federation, you 

had Andy Stall on here. I am not sure you are familiar with Andy 

or not. You had Mark Ray, Doug Crandall. I mean, a real diverse 

group of people that actually agreed on these concepts on managing 

our Federal lands in the second century. Again, to my knowledge, 

there has not been a lot of discussion—I think it is starting—as to 

how we can utilize some of these recommendations 

Mr. TIPTON. Well, believe me, I have real empathy as a Westerner, and obviously natural resources, many of our members come 

from the West, and I think our eastern counterparts sometimes 

have difficulty getting their arms around some of the challenges 

that we face when up to 98 percent of one county that I represent 

is either Federal or state lands. There are real challenges, and 

when we have school districts liked Norwood that are supposed to 

be able to educate our children, so we have people that are able to 

provide services when people come out to their public lands as well, 

national public lands as well. We want to be able to provide those 

services. We want to have an educated public, and we need to be 

able to find out a revenue stream that is going to be addressing 

those local concerns, and to be able to empower our local communities to be able to make some of those decisions, and the stumbling block, my sense is, is right here in Washington that we need 

to be working on. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. MORRISON. More aggressively 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Mr. Garamendi. Oops, I mispronounced 

that too, didn’t I? I have been mispronouncing every name today. 

Please don’t take it personally. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Like most of us in this business, we are called 

many, many different names. 

These issues have gone on forever. For me it is 36, almost 37 

years now dealing with these kinds of issues. There is a transition 

that is occurring in the timber industry in the West, at least in the 

Sierra Nevada mountains in the California region and I think also 

in Oregon, the transition from what was originally a selective harvest program to a clear cutting program and tending now back to 

either a selective harvest or a significantly reduced clear cutting 

program. I think that is kind of the transition we are in. 

That transition in its current stage moves toward a sustainability model so that there will be a sustained yield over a period 

of time, and also sustained employment that would be affected by 

the economy, the housing industry principally. So, I think that is 

where we are headed or maybe we are already there in some 

places. Just correct—yes or no? 

Ms. MORRISON. I would agree. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Now that being the case we are then in a transition period here in which these communities will stabilize at 

some level due to the—those that are dependent upon timber harvesting will stabilize at some level. In the region that I come from 

and represented for a long, long time, it is at a very minimal level, 

66 

and the area has moved onto other kinds of activities principally, 

although there still is a timber industry. 

I think the question we are faced with—with the end of the SRS 

program or the need to renew it—is a transition period in which 

the communities are allowed to transition to a more stable level. 

Those communities that are in these areas also have new economies or potential growth economies, recreation principally, and 

maybe some other industries that have moved into the area. 

So back to that transition period. How would you want to structure say an SRS or a similar program for the next five years, and 

just run down the—I will let you start and go from there. I have 

two minutes and 30 seconds. 

Ms. MORRISON. Again, when it was first passed in 2000, the 

thought was that during that period of time to 2006 that there 

would be this ramp down and ramp up, which did not happen. So 

what period of time do you want me to suggest when that didn’t 

work? I am not sure—— 

Mr. GARAMENDI. That begs the question. In your view why didn’t 

it work? 

Ms. MORRISON. Because I think that there was an unwillingness 

by the agencies. I mean, the agencies are strapped, to be perfectly 

honest. They are damned if they do and they are damned if they 

don’t, and they drag their feet in regards to trying to get something 

out there. It is like they are trying to appease everybody. The analysis with paralysis, that is the agency side. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. OK. 

Ms. MORRISON. Looking at it from the county side, I didn’t see 

the counties, because I was very involved, I was on the board at 

that time, aggressively trying to find solutions to do this, and all 

of a sudden 2006 is here, oh, my god, we are at the cliff again. This 

willingness to work together and make direction, I think, needs to 

be—— 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Given the problem you have described, and 

thank you, let me posit a couple of solutions. The Federal agencies, 

Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service, you are quite correct about the management. They are underfunded, understaffed, 

and you are correct about the box that they are in. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Maybe we can do something about the box that 

they are in but clearly we are going to have to do something about 

the staffing level if we are going to be successful at getting timber 

harvest plans done. 

Ms. MORRISON. They need road engineers, they need somebody 

that knows how to even plan a timber sale. They have fish biologists, wildlife biologists, hydrologists, geologists, but do they have 

engineers anymore that really know how to put up a timber sale? 

Not in my region they don’t. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, that is an important point for us to know, 

and we could potentially deal with that. So the timber harvest 

plans need to go forward. That is a piece of it. That provides some 

level of funding. It won’t be at the maximum level that it used to 

be in the past, but it is presumably a sustained level over time. 

Then the payment side of it, that is, the Federal payments coming in. I don’t have to time you and I don’t have time to tell you 

anyway, but budgets are a little tight around here. 

67 

Mr. GARAMENDI. And likely to be for awhile so we have to figure 

out how to deal with that piece of it, too—and then the final piece, 

and thank you for the additional time, Mr. Chairman—is the other 

kinds of economic activity that might be available in any given 

area, and it varies wherever it happens to be. So, we need a comprehensive look at this, and I think those would be the three areas. 

So as we go forward with a re-write of the SRS, adequate Federal 

money, hopefully, the agencies, BLM, Forest Service, instructed to 

put together management plans, forest harvest plans, and then 

some sort of economic development program going on within the 

communities. Is that a reasonable model? 

Ms. MORRISON. I am not sure about the economic development 

component. Being from a very small coastal rural community in 

Oregon, we are surrounded on three sides by Federal forests and 

the ocean on the west. We are very limited in any kind of economic 

development because of transportation issues, labor issues and 

those that bring people in. So we are a natural resource-based community. There are just no ands, ifs, buts or maybes about it. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Understood. I will give an example that will 

occur perhaps I think in Mr. McClintock’s new district. The communities there have joined together to develop a tourism plan. It 

used to be logging and agriculture, but now it is morphing into 

something different, so there may be tourism opportunities. Kind 

of like to go to your place and forget about this place for a couple 

of days, so you have that kind of potential. 

Anyway, maybe the legislation could be drafted in such a way as 

to deal with those three elements. 

Mr. Chairman, I have taken more than my time and I appreciate 

it. Thank you so very much 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. I appreciate it. Let me ask a couple of 

questions here, Mr. Tenney, if I could. 

Has the planning process for the Forest Restoration Initiatives 

indicated how much timber revenue it could produced that could be 

shared with the counties? 

Mr. TENNEY. Mr. Chairman, yes, the plan process is well underway and we are trying to do this in big chunks. The first planning 

process we are undergoing right now is a 700,000-acre area. They 

have never done NEPA at this scale before. We are out. The first 

RFP from the Forest Service for the first contract is 4FRI is out 

right now. Those bids are due back in roughly a month, and that 

is going to tell us a great deal about what are the industries that 

are out there that are saying they are willing to return to the area. 

There have been—people have stepped up and said they are willing 

to put in OSP plants and things of that nature. That RFP process 

is going to tell us what those companies will pay. 

Bear in mind that the 4FRI is largely the small diameter timber. 

It is not really getting into the big commercial timber. That needs 

to come as part of another project, but it is a little too early, Mr. 

Chairman, to tell what they are saying those revenues will be. I 

don’t anticipate a lot of revenues off of at least the first initial contract in 4FRI, but to me it is a lot like the Field of Dreams, build 

it and they will come. 

68 

We start offering up these timber sales and start offering up 

these acreage for treatment and the industry will return and the 

receipts will return 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. You know, many, in fact almost everyone has argued today that in order to increase the forest management on a broad scale we have to address NEPA reform or other 

environmental laws that seems to help delay or obstruct active 

forest management. Is that something Navajo County would support as part of a legislation that might extend Secure Rural 

Schools? 

Mr. TENNEY. Absolutely. Everyone that I deal with understands 

that NEPA is a problem in these processes, and that some type of 

reform is needed. You know, one thing that comes to my mind, my 

kids are, and I have been involved extensively in athletics and especially in wrestling, and the legendary wrestler Dan Gable is famous for saying, ‘‘If nothing changes, nothing changes.’’ And you 

know, we can do all we want to say we are going to try to end Secure Rural Schools and have a plan, but if we don’t change NEPA 

and some of the policies that the Forest Service and others are 

bound by it will never change, and you will never get to the transition period that Ms. Morrison is talking about to get away from 

being on the dole and getting back to using industry. We have to 

change it. Unfortunately, counties can’t force that change as much 

as you folks can 

Mr. BISHOP. I wish that were true. 

All right, Mr. Crews, let me ask just a couple of questions. Does 

the Colorado system have an equalization statewide for revenue for 

schools? 

Mr. CREWS. Yes. Did you want me to explain the formula? 

Mr. BISHOP. No, not necessary, but you do have a state equalization program for both—— 

Mr. CREWS. We do state equalization, right 

Mr. BISHOP. For both MNO as well as construction? 

Mr. CREWS. I am not sure for construction 

Mr. BISHOP. OK. Would you support increasing management, 

forest management, timber revenues as a funding source? 

Mr. CREWS. I would support it. From what I am learning as I am 

going through this, Colorado has some issues as far as like we were 

hearing today. There is only one mill that is on its way to being 

closed or is closed, and so there is going to be a lot of—there needs 

to be a lot of changes in Colorado in order for us to create that production in the forest. 

Mr. BISHOP. I have no idea when you started the equalization 

formula in Colorado but with a 25 percent payment that Colorado 

has been receiving, provided education money before Secure Rural 

Schools went into effect, was that part of the equalization process 

or should it be? And if you don’t know if it was just by timing, 

should it be part of the equalization process? Should the money 

and the revenue that comes into Secure Rural Schools or from increased sales be part of the equalization? 

Mr. CREWS. I don’t now if it was. If it generates any revenue, 

then yes. 

Mr. BISHOP. Then it should be part of it. 

Mr. CREWS. Yes. 

69 

Mr. BISHOP. OK. I have no further questions except I appreciate 

all three of our witnesses. 

Mr. McClintock, do you have anything further? 

Let me thank all three for spending time with us, for coming out 

here, for waiting through all of this time period. I appreciate it 

very much. We thank you for your testimony, both oral testimony 

and written ones which will appear in the record. If there is no further business, then we are adjourned. Thank you, sir. 

[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Additional material submitted for the record follows:] 

[‘‘Community Forest Trust, A Pilot Project to Compliment Secure 

Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act Reauthorization’’ submitted for the record follows:] 

Community Forest Trust 

A Pilot Project to Compliment 

Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act Reauthorization 

July 26, 2011 

Proposed by: 

Boundary County, Idaho 

Clearwater County, Idaho 

Idaho County, Idaho 

Shoshone County, Idaho 

Valley County, Idaho 

Summary 

Idaho counties with significant federal lands inside their borders are proposing a 

Community Forest Trust pilot project in Idaho. The pilot project will provide a pathway for counties to successfully transition away from federal transfer payments 

under the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) Act. The proposal is for Community Forests 

to be designated from federal forest lands within Idaho and managed in trust by 

the state for the benefit of county governments and local communities. Professional 

forest management would be provided by the Idaho Department of Lands under the 

environmental laws that apply to all Idaho state forest trust lands. Proceeds from 

management of the Community Forest Trust lands would be distributed to counties 

receiving Secure Rural Schools funding in lieu of transfer payments from the federal 

treasury, after having first reimbursed the Idaho Department of Lands for land 

management costs. Management of the Community Forest Trust lands would be 

overseen by an Idaho Community Forest Trust Board consisting of five elected county commissioners from the counties with the most significant proportion of federal 

forest land within the state. 

Background 

The U.S. Congress has perpetually recognized special obligations to local governments and communities where the federal government has extensive land ownership. When federal forests were first established, the premise and promise was that 

local communities would welcome federal ownership as they would benefit both from 

the economic activity on federal forest lands and would receive a portion of the revenues generated from the sale of timber and other resources on those federal lands. 

Federal law required that 25% of the receipts from national forest resource sales 

be returned to the counties where those lands were located. 

Beginning in 2000, the U.S. Congress recognized that revenues from national forest activities had declined significantly and moved to meet the obligation to local 

governments and communities by enacting the Secure Rural School and County Self 

Determination Act (SRS). This law established transfer payment schedules for federal monies to be paid from the U.S. Treasury directly to the counties, proportionate 

to funds lost from timber harvest revenues, in order to meet the obligations of federal ownership. Since 2000, this law has been reauthorized twice and is now up for 

reauthorization again. 

The SRS funding was always intended to be an interim measure that would be 

in place only until new programs on federal forest lands were established that 

would provide reliable and sustainable revenue to local counties. That transition has 

not come to pass. Instead, federal forest management has declined, and with it, so 

70 

too has the revenue to the U.S. treasury and local counties. New Forest Service programs targeted at landscape level forest restoration and fuels reduction have faltered or not come to fruition. 

This paper outlines a new way to restore much needed forest management on federal land as well as a way to generate a more reliable source of revenue for counties 

in Idaho that have historically depended on receipts from federal forest management 

activities. Authorizing a Community Forest Trust in Idaho will advance a reliable, 

sustainable and environmentally responsible forest management process that will 

also provide revenue to county governments to help pay for schools, road maintenance and other essential services. 

Community Forest Trust 

The Community Forest Trust concept is offered as a long term solution to meeting 

the federal government’s obligations to counties and communities with federal lands 

inside their borders. The goal ultimately is for the U.S. Congress to designate specific federal forest lands within Idaho as a Community Forest Trust that would be 

managed in trust for local counties and communities. Professional management of 

the Community Forest would be provided by the state’s professional land management agency, the Idaho Department of Lands, for the legislatively defined purposes 

of supporting county governments and providing sustainable forest stewardship. The 

Community Forest Trust lands would remain the property of the United States government but would be managed in trust for county governments under environmental laws as they apply to state lands. Elected representatives from the federal 

land counties would be appointed by the Governor to a Community Forest Board 

that would ultimately be responsible for land management decisions. Management 

costs would be deducted from the revenue earned from land management activities 

and paid back to the Idaho Department of Lands. 

Net revenue generated from management of the Community Forests would be 

pooled and distributed under a mutually agreeable distribution formula to all counties within the state that are currently receiving SRS funding. These payments 

would offset any SRS payments from the federal government. Further, any net revenue generated from the Community Forests would not impact other county payments under the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program. 

Requirements 

Sustainability: Community Forests will be required to have a resource sustainability plan and must be managed to protect the long term productivity of soil and 

water. 

Public access: Public access will be provided to all Community Forest lands in a 

manner that best facilitates access and use and that protects environmental values. 

Environmental Laws: Environmental laws will apply to the management of the 

Community Forest lands as they are applied to the management of forest lands 

managed by the State of Idaho. 

Wildfire: The federal government will retain firefighting responsibility for the 

Community Forest Trust lands. 

Environmental Standards 

Each of the counties proposing the Community Forest Trust concept is currently 

engaged in ongoing multi-stakeholder collaborative efforts on federal land projects 

that include Native American tribes and environmental organizations. 

The Community Forest Trust Board and individual participating counties will 

seek advice from established collaboratives and/or functioning Resource Advisory 

Committees (RACs) on how Community Forest Trust land management programs 

can best accomplish support for counties, communities and multi-stakeholder interests that are consistent with the purposes of the Community Forest Trust concept. 

Community Forest Trust—Pilot Project 

The immediate proposal is for the U.S. Congress to approve a 200,000-acre Community Forest Trust pilot project in Idaho to demonstrate how the project would 

function and to evaluate and fine-tune the concept. The pilot would continue for at 

least five years or for the duration of the next SRS reauthorization, whichever is 

longer. 

Monitoring: Effective environmental and performance monitoring is key to the 

success of the Community Forest Trust pilot. Idaho State Best Management Practices (BMPs) and water quality monitoring programs will be required on all Community Forest Trust pilot lands in the same manner that they occur on existing state 

forest lands. Further, the Community Forest Trust Board will consider and implement additional monitoring programs that they determine necessary to properly 

evaluate the pilot program. Implementation of these monitoring activities will also 

71 

be funded by revenue generated through Community Forest Trust management activities. 

Other monitoring programs from federal government and/or other third party interests are encouraged and permitted provided that the program designs are approved by the Idaho Department of Lands and the Community Forest Trust Board 

and that independent funding is provided. 

Designation of Community Forest Trust Lands 

The designation of lands included in the Idaho Community Forest Trust pilot 

project will occur by federal law as part of the SRS Act reauthorization. The Idaho 

Department of Lands will use Forest Service data and recommendations to identify lands that best meet the purpose of the Community Forest Trust pilot. 

The following criteria will apply: 

1. Roadless lands identified in the Idaho Roadless Rule cannot be included in 

the pilot project unless they are classified as General Forest by the Rule. 

2. Selected lands will be in contiguous ‘‘blocks,’’ efficiently sized for management purposes and among the Idaho counties with established Idaho Department of Lands management offices. To the extent practicable, lands will be 

selected that include different forest types and landscape conditions to evaluate differing opportunities within the state. 

3. To the extent consistent with the purposes of the Community Forest Trust 

concept, preference will be given to lands that meet the following criteria: 

a. Are within the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) or otherwise identified 

by the counties as critical for community protection. 

b. Are classified as forest health condition Class 2 or 3 by the Forest Service. 

c. Are consistent with management goals for endangered species. 

[A statement submitted for the record by The Honorable Jeff 

Denham, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, follows:] 

Statement submitted for the record by The Honorable Jeff Denham, 

a Representative in Congress from the State of California 

The Secure Rural Schools Program was implemented as a bridge program to provide time for rural counties to transition away from timber harvesting economies. 

The program was implemented because of the layers of environmental regulation 

that halted timber production on federal lands, which deprived local communities 

of timber receipts which helped fund local schools, roads, and emergency services. 

The 3rd reauthorization of this program will expire this year, and we cannot continue to proceed with the status quo; because doing so would further devastate our 

local and rural communities. 

Our local communities do not want to continue the Secure Rural Schools Program. 

They want jobs and healthy forests, and they are tired of the budget uncertainty, 

bug infestations, and the constant threat of wildfires. With the federal government 

controlling too much of the land in these counties, it is extremely difficult for the 

communities to redevelop, build and grow their economies. The status quo is continuing to hurt our local schools and communities as the payments are being 

pinched during these tough economic times. 

The federal government must begin to manage its forests in a safe, economical 

manner, including the harvesting of timber. With the appropriate management of 

our forests, our rural counties will be able to fund their schools, maintain their 

roads, and provide the necessary emergency services to keep the communities safe. 

This economically sound solution will also relieve the need for the Secure Rural 

Schools Program and provide jobs to these communities that are struggling. In my 

district the unemployment rate is well above the national average, and hovers 

around 17 percent. Relieving the high unemployment and providing the necessary 

funding for rural communities is imperative in today’s economic climate. 

Another priority that is lost in the federal government’s current forest management practices is that of preventing wild fires. As the Chair of the Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee, I am constantly trying to make sure that our forests are safe and the risk of wild fires is 

as minimal as possible. The mismanagement of our forests on federal land is directly increasing the risk of wild fires. According to the Forest Service, wild fires 

have burned an average of 7.8 million acres every year over the past five years. As 

a Representative from California, I am far too familiar with the devastation of wild 

72 

fires. In California, where environmental regulations are far more over-burdensome 

than in other states, we are annually threatened by severe wild fires that cause millions of dollars in damages and claim many lives. We need to prevent these fires 

by managing our forests for the public interests of safety and job creation, which 

are far too often overlooked by the Administration and extreme environmental regulation. 

Not only has there been a failure to manage the forests on federal land, but there 

is a practice of prohibiting public access to federal lands. This prohibition coincides 

with the desire to stop timber harvesting and fails to produce economic value or renewable energy of the land. These federal lands are publicly owned and should be 

managed in the best interest of the public, not to their detriment. The use of the 

forests on federal land will create a viable economy and many job creation opportunities in the West. The economy and jobs surrounding the timber industry are not 

just those that are harvesting in the forest. The chain of jobs extends to biomass 

generation for a renewable energy source, to the building and housing market, and 

furniture production for use within those buildings and homes. 

The Secure Rural Schools Program is not the best option for our local counties. 

The best option is to develop and implement a forest management plan that will 

utilize our natural resources to put Americans back to work, create much needed 

energy supplies, and fund the rural schools and emergency services of our local communities. We can no longer continue along with the status quo, and we must begin 

to restart our timber industry to help our struggling communities relieve high unemployment and constant budget uncertainty. 

[A letter submitted for the record by Steve Moyer, Vice President 

for Government Affairs, Trout Unlimited, follows:] 

The Honorable Rob Bishop 

Chairman 

Subcommittee on National Parks. Forests and Public Lands 

123 Cannon 

Washington, DC 20515 

The Honorable Rau ́l Grijalva 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on National Parks. Forests and Public Lands 

1511 Longworth 

Washington, DC 20515 

RE: Oversight Hearing on Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization and Forest 

Management Options for a Viable County Payments Program 

Dear Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva, 

I am writing on behalf of Trout Unlimited and its 140,000 members nationwide 

in support of reauthorizing the Secure and Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRSCA). Since its enactment in 2001, SRSCA has made an important contribution to community infrastructure and public land stewardship in rural 

counties. The SRSCA has been a key funding source for rural counties’ essential 

services, including roads and schools, and also has provided critical funding for public land restoration projects. Healthy public lands not only provide high quality 

habitat for fish and wildlife and thus exceptional fishing and hunting opportunities, 

but also important services on which downstream communities rely, such as clean 

water. 

Under SRSCA, allocated funds are organized under three titles (Title I, Title II 

and Title III), and are used by rural counties for a variety of purposes. Title II supports cooperative resource conservation projects with strong stakeholder and community buy-in. Under Title II, the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior are authorized to establish Resource Advisory Committees (RACs), which are charged with 

proposing Title II projects. Each RAC must consist of fifteen stakeholders, broadly 

representing conservation, community and commodity interests. The applicable Secretary has the discretion to approve of RAC projects. Such projects must further the 

purposes of the SRSCA, including fostering investment in roads and other infrastructure, soil productivity, ecosystem health, watershed restoration and maintenance, control of noxious weeds, and reestablishment of native species. 

The RACs created under SRSCA are a natural fit with TU’s work because of our 

partnership approach, and our focus on restoring watersheds. The funding that 

comes through the RACs has contributed to these cooperative restoration efforts. 

73 

Lincoln County, Montana is representative of economically stressed rural counties 

with large public land holdings that have benefited from SRSCA funding. Throughout the most recent re-authorization of the Act (FY 2008–2011), payments to Lincoln 

County have totaled $7,182,763; $804,158 of which were Title II funds. Through 

these Title II funds alone, over 256 projects have been approved and 62 projects 

have been completed. Title II projects create jobs because the work is done by local 

contractors. For example, $25,000 in SRSCA funds were used in Lincoln County to 

replace an under-sized road culvert with a larger, bottomless arch culvert, restoring 

fish passage in Zulu Creek for native Westslope cutthroat trout and preventing future road failures, thereby creating significant cost savings for Lincoln County. Simply put, many projects like the Zulu Creek culvert replacement would not happen 

without SRSCA funding. 

Because of its demonstrable success, we strongly support reauthorization of the 

SRSCA. This legislation has promoted healthier public lands in tandem with 

healthy rural communities. To date, the SRSCA has provided funding for hundreds 

of stewardship projects in rural counties and created new economic opportunities 

across a number of sectors. The reauthorization of the SRSCA is an important step 

toward securing the future health of our rural communities and public lands and 

waters. 

Sincerely, 

Steve Moyer 

Vice President for Government Affairs 

Trout Unlimited 

[‘‘Proposing a Community Forest Trust’’ submitted for the record 

by Boundary County, Idaho; Clearwater County, Idaho; Idaho 

County, Idaho; Shoshone County, Idaho; and Valley County, Idaho, 

follows:] 

PROPOSING A COMMUNITY FOREST TRUST 

STATEMENT OF 

SKIP BRANDT, COMMISSIONER, IDAHO COUNTY, IDAHO 

JON CANTAMESSA, COMMISSIONER, SHOSHONE COUNTY, IDAHO 

GORDON CRUICKSHANK, COMMISSIONER, VALLEY COUNTY, IDAHO 

DAN DINNING, COMMISSIONER, BOUNDARY COUNTY, IDAHO 

STAN LEACH, COMMISSIONER, CLEARWATER COUNTY, IDAHO 

Introduction 

This statement is submitted by five duly elected County Commissioners from five 

different counties throughout the forested region of Idaho. This statement presents 

a Community Forest Trust proposal that will allow a transition path from the federal transfer payments of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act (SRS) program, to a sustainable and reliable program for revenues which 

do not depend on distributions from the U.S. Treasury. Our proposal is for specific 

lands within the Idaho national forests to be designated as a Community Forest 

Trust and that the resources on those lands be managed in an sustainable and environmentally sound manner for the purpose of generating resources for Idaho counties in lieu of transfer payments under the Secure Rural Schools program. 

We support reauthorization of the SRS program in 2011 as it is immediately essential to the funding of county government school and road programs throughout 

the country. However, as part of that reauthorization we are specifically proposing 

the Congress include legislation to establish a Community Forest Trust pilot project 

in Idaho. The pilot project will demonstrate the opportunity for the Community Forest Trust to provide a far superior alternative to the SRS federal transfer payments. 

Additionally, revenues generated from the Community Forest Trust pilot project 

would quickly begin to offset some of the federal government transfer payments 

under the SRS program, and thereby help immediately to partially reduce the impact to the federal treasury for SRS payments. 

We have developed the Community Forest Trust concept from our combined experience with local government and natural resource management, and with considered and ongoing input from natural resource management professionals. Each of 

our counties has voted formally in public meetings to embrace the Community Forest Trust concept for Idaho and to seek authorizing legislation from the U.S. Congress. 

74 

We do appreciate the federal government’s long standing obligation of support for 

counties with significant quantities of federal land. Congress has recognized, and we 

completely concur, that there must be a federal mechanism for contributing funds 

to local government where federal lands are not available for the local government 

tax base. The federal transfer payments of the SRS program have been essential 

for the last several years to maintaining threshold county government services for 

schools, roads, and public safety. However, the continuous uncertainty over whether 

the SRS program will continue and if so at what level, does not provide for stability, 

and makes it impossible for our counties to develop long term plans. We also believe 

the federal deficit is a significant problem for our entire country and a primary 

threat to our national security. The Community Forest Trust will help address these 

paramount issues. Additionally, the Community Forest Trust has the opportunity to 

stimulate increased economic development and employment in our rural communities, and facilitate efficient prioritized treatments of unhealthy forests with high 

risk of fire and disease. These are priorities we also share with the U.S. Congress. 

Community Forest Trust 

Our proposal for a Community Forest Trust is described in detail in the attached 

concept paper. Basically the idea is for a Community Forest Trust to be designated 

by Congress from federal forest lands within Idaho and further for Congress to provide those lands be managed in trust by the state for the benefit of county governments and local communities. Professional forest management would be provided by 

the Idaho Department of Lands under the environmental laws as they apply to all 

Idaho state forest trust lands. Proceeds from management of the Community Forest 

Trust would be distributed to counties receiving Secure Rural Schools funding in 

lieu of transfer payments from the federal treasury, after having first reimbursed 

the Idaho Department of Lands for land management costs. Management of the 

Community Forest Trust would be overseen by an Idaho Community Forest Trust 

Board consisting of five elected county commissioners from the counties with the 

most significant proportion of federal forest land within the state. 

The Community Forest Trust would be required to be managed sustainably and 

with multi-stakeholder input and environmental monitoring. Each of our counties 

is actively engaged in multi-interest collaborative discussions on federal lands management projects. We would build on these relationships to solicit input to help 

shape management plans and projects for the Community Forest. 

We are not proposing any transfer of ownership of the Community Forest Trust 

lands. They would remain in federal ownership and open to public access and use 

for all Americans. We are proposing transfer of management authority for the resources on the designated Community Forest Trust land for the defined purpose of 

supporting rural counties under the processes described herein. 

Pilot Project 

To demonstrate the benefits of the Community Forest Trust, we are proposing a 

200,000-acre Idaho pilot project be initially and immediately approved by Congress, 

located in management blocks throughout the forested region of the state. This is 

a small pilot including less than 1% of the 20 million acres of national forest land 

in Idaho. While it is unreasonable to expect a pilot of this small size to fully offset 

established levels of SRS transfer payments, it is sufficiently sized to prove and 

fine-tune the Community Forest Trust model and, once functioning, we believe has 

the potential to generate up to $15 million annually to offset federal SRS transfer 

payments to Idaho counties. 

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Conclusion 

We are committed to advancing this concept and very much appreciate the opportunity to present this statement for the Committee record. We look forward to further discussions with the Committee to move this Community Forest Pilot Project 

forward. 

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