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94–047 2015

S. HRG. 114–29 

THE FISCAL YEAR 2016 BUDGET REQUEST FOR 

THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON 

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

ON 

THE FISCAL YEAR 2016 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE 

U.S. FOREST SERVICE 

FEBRUARY 26, 2015 

( 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 


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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

KAREN K. BILLUPS, Staff Director 

PATRICK J. MCCORMICK III, Chief Counsel 

LUCY MURFITT, Senior Counsel and Natural Resources Policy Director 

ANGELA BECKER-DIPPMANN, Democratic Staff Director 

SAM E. FOWLER, Democratic Chief Counsel 

BRYAN PETIT, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member 


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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

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

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

WITNESSES 

Tidwell, Thomas, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture .. 6 

ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED 

Cantwell, Hon. Maria 

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

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa 

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

Tidwell, Thomas 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 6 

Written testimony ............................................................................................. 9 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 53 


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THE FISCAL YEAR 2016 BUDGET REQUEST 

FOR THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:50 a.m. in room 

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

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, U.S. 

SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

The Chairman. Good morning, we will call the Energy Committee meeting to order. Perhaps it’s because we’re starting a little 

bit earlier or perhaps it’s because it’s a snow day, but it can’t possibly be because there’s lack of interest in what goes within the 

Forest Service. 

Chief Tidwell and Mr. Dixon, I welcome you to the Committee. 

We are here for our third and our final budget hearing in the Energy Committee to review the President’s request for the Forest 

Service for FY ’16. 

Again, Chief, I appreciate you being here this morning to explain 

the proposal. 

It seems like we have the same conversation year after year 

about how the Forest Service is going to get the timber cut up, provide more economic opportunities for our rural and forested communities. Over the last decade the timber harvest from the 

Tongass has averaged just 35 million board feet a year. This is a 

forest the size of West Virginia, but we see severe restrictions including the roadless designation that really put most of it off limits. 

The Secretary apparently has a plan to transition the timber 

harvest on the Tongass away from old growth to young growth. 

Chief, you and I have talked about this. These small operators are 

hanging on by their fingernails, and I keep repeating (and I will 

repeat again today) that I worry there’s not going to be anything 

to transition to given what we have seen coming out of the Forest 

Service operations. 

Some would suggest that is really the whole point of where we 

are going is to be in a situation where we are eliminating forestry 

from the Tongass’ economic base. That is not something that is 

right, and it is not something I can tolerate. 

When you look at what we are seeing, and I know you know because I know you have been briefed on this, but there are no logs 


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in the yard in the only sizeable mill. There is no federal assistance 

that has been given to retool a single mill to handle young growth 

in Southeast Alaska. I think that the Forest Service has broken the 

federal government’s promise to actively manage our National Forests. Now the failure to reauthorize Secure Rural Schools is revealing this stark reality to forested communities across the West. 

We have reached a point where if we’re not cutting trees on federal lands and we hardly are, then counties and parishes and boroughs are going to be cutting their budgets. We are certainly seeing 

that in Alaska, and I would imagine in other Western states as 

well. 

The timber industry can be sustainable but the funding required 

for Secure Rural Schools in the absence of timber harvesting simply is not sustainable. The Forest Service can’t hide or make excuses any longer. Just 50 million dollars will be shared nationwide 

with our communities under the proposal or the process going forward of SRS. 

In Alaska what that means to us is $537,000 spread out over the entire state. $537,000 in Alaska. We are going to work on forest 

management reform legislation to help resolve this situation, but 

the Forest Service has to be working with us. 

Often we hear that recreation and tourism are the economic engines of the future, and I see this budget would increase funding 

for recreation programs. I agree with you that these programs are 

important. Certainly in Alaska we are very, very proud of our 

recreation industry, but recreation and tourism are not substitutes 

for responsible resource development on federal lands. They are 

complements to it. 

We have, for the past 50 years, shown that resource development, recreation and tourism can easily co-exist. We are very proud 

of that fact, and we are very proud people want to come to Alaska. 

It is on their bucket list. It’s the ‘‘before I die I want to see Alaska.’’ 

Yet they know we are a resource production state, and our return 

tourists are what allow for that strong industry. So it’s not like 

you’ve got a situation where we are not able to balance that within 

our state. I think we do it. We have done it successfully and 

sustainably. 

Recreation and tourism also require public access, and these 

days, just as we are seeing with resource development, even these 

activities are being shut down by restrictive federal policies. When 

you were up in the state we had a good opportunity to understand 

what was going on in the Ketchikan area and Misty Fjords. We 

have commercial flightseeing operators who take people around to 

this pretty amazing place. The Forest Service on one hand is saying you need to move towards more recreation management, and 

on the other hand they are saying, sorry, we’ve got to limit the 

number of landings of float planes because they could impede the 

area’s wilderness character. 

You are knocking out float planes that would allow so many people to see the Misty Fjords. It is not possible to see it any other 

way. It’s not like you can hike in. This is the way you can see it. 

This is the way that you can access it, yet we have got the Forest 

Service saying, no, it needs to manage this for wilderness character. 


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And it goes beyond just that. I am going to bring up in my questions the concern that I am hearing from so many. This is not just 

in Alaska, but so many others about the limitations on even being 

able to view pictures or films because of the limitations or the restrictions for individuals who would film on our public lands or 

Forest Service lands. 

Chief, I told Secretary Jewell earlier this week and I think it 

bears repeating, this Administration is actively impeding many of 

our best economic opportunities in the West. It is depriving thousands who live in our states of the ability to find a good job, earn 

a good wage and live a good life. 

Before I conclude my comments I think I would be remiss if I did 

not mention the elephant in the budget which is wildfire suppression funding. This budget, again, proposes a wildfire suppression 

cap adjustment, and I share the primary goal of that proposal. We 

absolutely have to stop the cycle of fire borrowing, but I also know 

that there are concerns about the mechanics, particularly in this 

constrained budget environment. There are several legislative proposals to consider here, and I do hope we can work on them with 

you, Chief, as well as the Budget Committee. 

I look forward to your responses this morning. I’ll turn to my 

Ranking Member, and then we will get started. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

WASHINGTON 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank 

Chief Tidwell and Budget Director Dixon for being here. I am sure 

any member that comes to participate in this morning’s hearing is 

going to have very detailed questions for you given the nature of 

the areas that we represent, so thank you for your budget proposal. 

It is a pleasure to have you and the leadership of your team. The 

health and vibrance of America’s national forests are of particular 

interest to the American people and, as I said, to the individual 

States we represent. I believe the President’s budget is a strong 

proposal that will enable the Forest Service to fulfill its motto of, 

‘‘caring for the land and serving the people.’’ 

The budget not only improves the health of our land but also continues your predecessor’s legacy of managing the forest to provide 

the greatest good to the greatest number of people in the long run. 

This proposal also demonstrates a strong commitment to the full 

range of national forest ecosystem services including water quality 

improvement, recreational opportunity for the public, energy for 

the nation, wildlife habitat, and timber and non-timber forest products. 

But as you know, Chief, as we have discussed, there are particular issues that Washingtonians are worried about. I will look 

forward to bringing up some of those in the Q and A part of this 

hearing today. 

Last year the Pacific Northwest saw the number of acres destroyed by wildfire increase by 200 percent above the yearly average. In Washington we experienced the worst wildfire in our history. In 24 hours the Carlton Complex burned 156,000 acres and, 

at its peak, moved at five acres per second, destroyed over 300 


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homes and accounted for seven percent of the total acres destroyed 

by wildfires in the United States last year. 

Most of my Western colleagues have, in recent hearings, shared 

similar stories, and this is a problem we must confront immediately. In this respect I want to commend you on your budget’s 

three-pronged approach to address our nation’s wildfire problem. 

Stable funding. This budget would ensure that the Forest Service 

would not have to transfer funding from its land management accounts to pay for fire suppression. I support fixing the Forest Service fire transfer problem which has placed enormous strain on its 

budget for more than a decade. That is why I joined Senators 

Wyden and Crapo as original co-sponsors of the Wildfire Disaster 

Funding Act legislation that is endorsed by this budget. 

Secondly, in management. I also support provisions in this budget that would increase the land management activities that reduce 

fire risk, improve water quantity and quality and enhance carbon 

sequestration. 

Third, collaboration with private landowners. I appreciate your 

collaboration just this morning on reviewing some of the activities 

that happened in the Carlton Complex Fire with one of our larger 

employers, Gemplers Farm, who were part of the response to that 

fire. 

I am also excited about your engaging private landowners to take 

steps to reduce the risks posed by fires, and I would like to share 

a few important facts that demonstrate why this collaboration is so 

important. 

Today there are 46 million homes, that is 40 percent of all the 

houses in the U.S., located in the Wildland-Urban Interface. In the 

1990s, only about four percent of homes were located in this interface. Fire experts cite housing development in the Wildland Urban 

Interface as the number one reason firefighting costs have increased over the last 15 years. Only 16 percent of the WildlandUrban Interface has been developed. When 50 percent is developed, 

suppression costs could rise to a dramatic $4 to $5 billion annually. 

Given these facts I am particularly interested in discussing with 

the Forest Service efforts to make prescribed fire a tool that is 

more accessible to private landowners. I learned reading your 

budget that wildfires helped the forest conditions on 70 percent of 

the acres they burned last year, and these were conditions the Forest Service planned to spend money to create. The ARPS Canopy 

Model you developed in 2014, when deployed more broadly, will be 

a great example of using technology to help get that reintroduced 

onto private land in a safe and effective manner. 

Although there is a great deal to be pleased about in this budget 

there are a few items that are confusing and need further explanation. 

I am pleased to see that you still plan to reduce hazardous fuels 

on 1.73 million acres in that Wildland-Urban Interface; however, I 

am concerned about your intention to treat fewer acres that are 

supported by Community Wildfire Protection Plans. 70,000 communities are at risk for wildfire, but only 15,000 have a Community 

Wildfire Protection Plan. 

It appears you intend to prioritize projects in places where local 

officials have not reached an agreement on which treatments to 


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use. This seems inconsistent with the Administration’s emphasis 

on collaboration. I definitely want to talk to you about that. 

Similarly, I do not understand why the budget proposes a six- percent cut in Preparedness funding. $63 million. Your own Fire 

Budget Analysis tool concluded that every dollar cut from Preparedness funding results in an increase of 1.7 dollars in the cost 

of suppression. I look forward to discussing those issues further. 

I want to just bring up in my statement the importance of recreation. The Chairman just brought that up as well. I’m pleased that 

this year’s budget builds on our recent track record of success with 

a proposed modest increase of $2 million for recreation. Recreation on our national forests contributes $13 billion to the 

economy and 194,000 jobs. They are created from the National Forest system, and that’s about 40 percent of the National Forest contribution to our GDP. The economic impact of recreation on our national forests is more than four times as large as our harvesting 

timber which provides for 2,000 jobs and creates $2.7 billion annually, so actually timber harvesting is among the lowest contributors 

on the national forests today. It ranks right around livestock grazing in national forests in terms of job impact. Truthfully, today 

only about three percent of the domestically produced timber comes 

from the National Forests. 

Revitalizing and expanding recreation on our National Forests is 

an initiative that Senators on both sides of the aisle can get behind, and today youth spend 50 percent less time in our natural 

areas than they did 20 years ago. We certainly want to look at 

every way that we can increase that. I will have some questions 

on that specifically. Investment in recreation is an investment in 

which we can get a high return. 

The average age of a Forest Service facility is 39 years old, and 

one-third of the facilities are more than 50 years old. While it 

makes sense that you removed over 2300 of these facilities in 2014, 

I am pleased the budget calls for the significant investment of $33 

million to address their deferred maintenance. 

I am pleased to know, if I am reading your budget right, that 

about $1 million of that would be an investment specifically at 

Mount St. Helens National Monument. 

I would also like to commend the President for a strong commitment to fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund in 

this budget. Six thousand acres of open space are lost each year to 

development. That is about four acres per minute. The Forest Service’s Land and Water Conservation investment would permanently 

protect working forest lands and help maintain our rural jobs. 

I just want to also mention that people in my state expect public 

access to their land, so I’m especially pleased to see your proposal 

for five Land and Water Conservation Fund initiatives focused on 

increasing public access. 

I am pleased to note the President’s budget proposal emphasizes 

forest restoration. This is most clearly highlighted by the $822-million investment in the Integrated Resource Restoration line item, 

or the IRR, which would improve 20 watersheds. 

I also appreciate the way the Administration has viewed timber 

harvesting as a means of restoration. In this term alone, the President is bringing a 25 percent increase in timber harvesting by foVerDate Sep 11 2014 02:25 Jul 10, 2015 Jkt 094047 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A047.XXX A047

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cusing on the timber harvesting that helps the forests. This proposal calls for national forests to produce 3.2 billion board feet of 

timber by 2016. This is 50 percent more timber than the 2.1 billion 

board feet of the Bush Administration. So, to me, this is how we 

can take care of the land and take care of people. 

Lastly while I remain concerned about the sharp decline in the 

miles of streams the Forest Service would restore under this budget proposal, I am excited about the increase in road decommissioning. The budget increases the miles of decommissioning to 

2,000 miles in 2016, a 25-percent increase. 

I want to specifically thank Regional Forester Pena for working 

with me to secure a substantial increase in the Legacy Roads and 

Trails funding for the State of Washington and reducing our quantity of roads while allowing the Forest Service to concentrate its 

limited resources. It has been greatly appreciated. 

I am sure we’ll have a lot more to say, and our colleagues will, 

on subjects like the reauthorization of Secure Rural Schools. As I 

said earlier, there are many things my colleagues, who are here 

this morning, will have, I’m sure, for the Forest Service because 

each of us represent States that have an integral relationship with 

the Forest Service. 

So, again, thank you and Mr. Dixon for being here this morning. 

The Chairman: With that we will turn to you, Chief, and welcome to the Committee. Good morning. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS TIDWELL, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST 

SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Mr. TIDWELL. Madam Chair Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, Senators of the Committee, once again it’s a privilege to be 

here to be able to talk to you about the President’s budget request 

for the Forest Service for FY ’16. 

I appreciate your comments. You made many of my key points 

already for me during your opening remarks, but I just want to 

amplify a couple things. 

This budget request, once again, will allow us to continue to 

move forward with our efforts to restore the nation’s forests and 

grasslands. It will allow us to treat over 2.9 million acres to improve the health and reduce the threat. It will allow us to restore 

3,200 miles of streams, restore 2,000 miles of roads and improve 

the ecological conditions on 20 different watersheds and also will 

produce 3.2 billion board feet. 

We want to add to our collaborative forest landscape restoration 

project. This has proven to be a very successful program we’ve had 

where we can make the commitment to provide funding, multiyear 

funding, on a dedicated large landscape and through a collaborative 

effort. It’s producing very favorable results, and this budget request 

will ask for an extension of that program. 

I also want to build on this concept for this has worked out very 

well where we have hazardous fuel issues, but there are parts of 

the country where we have forest health issues that I’d like to propose doing a pilot approach and probably five or six projects across 

the country in areas outside of the hazardous fuel situations where 

we have a fire dependent ecosystem, where we can show we can 

produce the same type of results by making a multiyear investment 


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on larger landscapes to address forest health and to sustain our industry. 

This budget will also allow us to continue to build our support 

addressing hazardous fuels. We’ll be able to treat another 1.7 million acres in our Wildland Urban Interface. We deal with 58 million acres of Wildland Urban Interface. 

And Senator Cantwell, her facts and figures about how many 

homes we have in the Wildland Urban Interface just stresses the 

point why it’s so important for us to be able to move forward with 

that. 

Once again, our budget request is asking for a shift in how we 

deal with fire suppression funding. It would allow us to budget for 

70 percent of suppression costs within our budget and then 30 percent of those costs would come out of the Disaster Relief Fund. 

That equals one percent of our fires. We’ll continue to suppress 99 

percent of the fires within our budget, but that one percent which 

we really feel we should be looking at these types of catastrophic 

fires as really a natural disaster, and it should be funded out of the 

Disaster Relief Fund. For instance last year our ten largest fires, 

over $329 million. We dealt with over 5,200 fires just on the National Forest, but ten of those fires, $329 million. Those are the 

type of fires we feel should be considered a ‘‘natural disaster.’’ 

This approach will eliminate the disruptive practice of having to 

shut down operations and transfer funds come August and September. Provide a stable level of funding. Allow us to be able to 

continue to work through those months, so we can be more 

proactive to address these concerns. 

The other parts of this budget is that, you mentioned with Land 

and Water Conservation funding, we again are proposing to move 

forward with those programs and really target properties where 

there is strong public support. In every case it reduces our management costs by acquiring these properties. It also assures public access will be able to be guaranteed in the future. It allows us to be 

able to improve the overall watershed, you know, conditions. With 

our Forest Legacy Program it allows us to help people to keep their 

private lands working, to keep their private forested lands working. 

We also are requesting some additional funds to deal with the 

deferred maintenance in our recreation facilities, roads and also on 

trails. 

We also want to continue our work to expand and build on wood 

markets. With the Secretary’s proposal on green building initiatives to continue our work around biomass and we’re also asking 

for additional funding for forest inventory and analysis. That is the 

data that every state uses, that industry uses, to be able to have 

the information to be able to back up the investments we need to 

make in our integrated wood products industry, and it gives us the 

information to really understand what we need to be doing on the 

landscape to address the overall forest health concerns. 

Then yes, once again, we’ve included the funding for a framework 

around Secure Rural Schools. It’s just essential we find a way to 

be able to extend this program. It’s proven to be very successful in 

the past, not only the funding that goes to the counties and the 

boroughs for their schools and roads, but also in Title II. It provided a significant amount of funding where we worked with the 


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counties to be able to move forward with restoration projects and 

has been proven very successful to eliminate a lot of the controversy and in my way, some of our best collaborative work has 

come through the RAC Committees that are established under Secure Rural Schools. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here, and I look forward to answering your questions this morning. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tidwell follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Chief, and since we have so few 

members here we will probably have an opportunity for several 

rounds. Senator Cantwell had to excuse herself to go to another 

markup, but she will be back. So we will be going back and forth. 

Chief, I was listening to your comments and appreciate what you 

are saying about forest health and what we need to be doing to address the fire borrowing. As I mentioned in my opening statement, 

I am clearly with you on that. What I did not hear was what we 

are going to do about timber harvest. 

We are talking about everything else on our national forests. The 

national forests that are supposed to be used, be managed, for multiple use. Well, multiple use, last time I checked, included harvest. 

So I want to talk about that part of it in my first round here because I’m just concerned that, again, when we talk about this transition to second growth and this proposal that the Secretary has 

and that you are tasked with implementation it’s not something 

that can actually bear fruit. 

Until we passed the Sealaska Lands bill last year the CMAI requirement of the National Forest Management Act prohibited timber harvest on the Tongass until the timber had reached its so 

called rotation age, and the rotation age for the Tongass is 90 to 

100 years depending on where you are. Since we really did not see 

significant timber harvest in the Tongass until the 1960s, the harvest of young growth ordinarily would not be allowed under the 

National Forest Management Act for another 30 to 40 years. 

You have also got a situation where, in the 60s when we saw 

most of that timber harvest, it was along the beaches, it was along 

the streams. So harvest of any of the young growth timber is not 

going to be permitted in these areas because of the Tongass Timber 

Reform Act and the 2008 Forest plan restrictions. The oldest of the 

young growth isn’t available for harvest, not withstanding this departure from CMAI. 

So how do we get to what you are talking about here to really 

see any viable harvest of second growth that will be available in 

this time period when you are talking about this transition? It just 

does not add up. I can understand on paper what it is that you are 

looking for, but in the Tongass, given the nature of what we are 

dealing with, how do you make this work? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Madam Chair, first of all when I look at the 

progress we’ve been making over the last few years I feel good 

about the progress we’re making. When I look back—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Describe to me the progress because— 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well—— 

The CHAIRMAN. People in Southeast Alaska do not feel like there 

is a lot of progress. A lot of our small operators are looking and 

saying, I’m out of here. They cannot keep people on a payroll if 

they do not have logs in their yard. So where are we on progress 

with that? 

Mr. TIDWELL. So with what we’re proposing in our FY ’16 budget 

nationally our level of harvest will have gone up 33 percent over 

the last, about, six years. 

The CHAIRMAN. Are we talking the Tongass? 

Mr. TIDWELL. No, we’re talking nationally. 


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The CHAIRMAN. But we are not talking the Tongass. I want to 

talk the Tongass. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Because this is my state’s or used to be my 

state’s economy, but now there is no economy down there anymore. 

You are talking about this transition to second growth and there 

is no way, at least in Southeast Alaska, at least in the Tongass, 

our nation’s largest national forest, that we are seeing progress. I 

want you to define progress for me to the people of the Tongass. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well the progress, I think, as you look at what 

we’ve been able to accomplish, you know, the last couple years. We 

are putting up more. It’s not adequate. 

The bridge timber we talked about to be able to provide the 

bridge until we can move into the second growth. We were able to 

get the Big Thorne sale out last year. We’re optimistic we’ll be 

moving forward with it this year. 

The CHAIRMAN. We have got a little bit of an ESA issue with Big 

Thorne. You and I both know that. So to say that we have got it 

out there—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. We’re working—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And it is going to be this big bridge out there. 

The people on Prince of Wales are not so optimistic about this right 

now. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, I’m going to remain optimistic based 

on the work that we’ve done to be able to address the concerns with 

species. At the same time we’re going to be moving forward with 

additional sales this year. We’re going to be moving forward with 

Wrangell, with Saddle Lakes. 

The CHAIRMAN. What will those sales yield us in terms of board 

feet? 

Mr. TIDWELL. We’re going to put another 70 million board feet 

up for sale this year, and then the same thing the next year and 

maybe a little bit more. The Kausko sale with the Sealaska bill— 

and I do want to thank you for getting that through because it does 

help us to address the CMAI issue. It will modify the Kausko sale, 

so we’ll have to put a little more work into that before we can move 

forward with it. 

But we’re going to be moving forward with those. We are planning to do the bridge, what we call the bridge timber, until we can 

get to second growth, and there are areas in that—you know, we 

worked—we’ve actually been using some of the examples of 

Sealaska as put forward with some of their sales to be able to show 

that there is a market for the second growth. 

It’s one of the things that, not only the Forest Service wants to 

move into this, but you see that Sealaska also wants to move into 

developing the markets for second growth. We’re going to continue 

to put up our bridge sells, and as we begin to start putting up second growth—we had a small second growth sale last year. We’re 

going to have some more small sales this year. Next year we’ll have 

a larger second growth sale. So that’s the transition. 

It’s also essential that the Advisory Committee that, once again, 

I’m confident that that Advisory Committee is going to come up 

with some very good recommendations about what should be the 

land base as we move forward with second growth. What are some 


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of the guidelines that people can maybe agree to about how to 

move forward? What are the timeframes? I’m optimistic that that 

Advisory Committee will provide us with a recommendation that 

could be one of the alternatives that we’ll look at as we amend the 

forest plan. 

So that is our path forward, and I’m going to remain confident 

on the Big Thorne until otherwise. At the same time we are moving 

forward with additional sales this year. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chief, I have let you go over two minutes because I wanted to actually hear if there would be anything in your 

statement that I could believe was going to provide hope that we’re 

going to see something different out of the Forest Service for the 

people of the Tongass. Maybe two minutes wasn’t adequate to let 

you explain it, but I don’t think you were offering anything more 

than you have which is nothing, which is nothing to the people of 

the Tongass. 

Now, I am going to have an opportunity for a second round here 

to talk about some of the retooling. I want to talk about Secure 

Rural Schools because right now I’ve got an industry that is not 

confident of their future. They’ve got to figure out how they’re 

going to keep the people who want to live and raise their families 

in the Southeast, how they are going to find some other work. 

I am not encouraged this morning, and I don’t think the people 

in my state are encouraged this morning. 

With that I’ll go to my friend from New Mexico. 

Senator HEINRICH. Thank you, Chairman. 

First, Chief, I want to thank you for the work around the transition for the Valles Caldera National Preserve and all the effort that 

the Forest Service has put into that. As you know that CFLRP 

work there is the foundation on which we can then do the Santa 

Fe National Forest CFLRP work in the surrounding Jemez Mountains. It’s incredibly important for the Jemez. 

I really appreciate your staff’s work, together with the Park 

Service, to resolve those transitional issues and to keep that local, 

tribal contractor in business so that we continue to have that capacity to then put them to work on the Santa Fe National Forest 

areas as they finish up their NEPA process. I think that’s really 

important, and I want to say thank you for that work. 

I also want to commend you for the increase in CFLRP. That 

funding and that program have been incredibly successful at reducing hazardous fuels, at restoring watersheds, at reducing the conflict that we’ve seen in our national forests. It is a big piece of how 

we get ahead of the fire curve. 

Speaking of fire, your budget request includes reform of how we 

budget for the largest, most catastrophic and expensive fires in the 

National Forest system. That is a reform that has been driven on 

a bipartisan basis by a number of the people on this Committee. 

It’s something I strongly support. In New Mexico we know we need 

to spend more resources restoring our forests to a healthy condition 

so that we can spend less time and effort and resources fighting 

the huge, catastrophic fires that result from unhealthy forests. 

If the proposed fire budget reforms were passed, how would that 

impact funding for hazardous fuels reductions in both watershed 


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and watershed restoration in New Mexico and other Western 

states? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, if we’re able to pass legislation to 

address the fire suppression issue it will, once again, eliminate the 

need to transfer funds in August and September to allow us to continue to be able to do that work. It also allows us in this budget 

to request the same level of Hatfield’s funding that we received in 

the past. Last year was a significant increase of over $50 million, 

and we really appreciate the Committee’s support on that. 

It allows us to request additional funding to do more forest restoration. We have countless examples, many in your state, where 

by getting in there and thinning out the forests we not only can 

reduce the threat, but we reduce the severity of wildfire. It is what 

we need to do. We just need to find ways to be able to continue 

to expand on that work. The other thing it will help us is to be able 

to move forward with the new Farm bill authorities because, once 

again, we will not have to worry about having to stop and shut 

down operations. 

Senator HEINRICH. Well, I appreciate your focus on it. I couldn’t 

agree more. And we’ve seen around the state in the Cibola in Western New Mexico. It’s a great example, but in many places around 

the state, we simply don’t have the big old 36–40 inch, DBH trees 

anymore in New Mexico. Being able to retool and then focus on 

these thinning projects has been key to sustaining what industry 

we have and making those fires much more manageable and much 

more like what they were historically when they served such an 

important ecosystem function within our Ponderosa Pine forests. 

Shifting gears just a little bit. I have heard from constituents 

who have faced some pretty severe obstacles in applying for recreational special use permits on national forest. I know firsthand 

how challenging that is having run an organization that relied on 

those special use permits to get kids into the back country for educational purposes. We also are seeing a large number of veterans, 

a large interest in getting veterans, into our national forests for 

therapeutic reasons. 

One of my constituents, who is a veteran himself and runs a 

business that provides those sort of therapeutic outings for veterans recovering from PTSD has been told by the Cibola National 

Forest that they won’t even begin to consider his application for his 

permit until 2016 because they lack the staff. How does this budget 

address the backlog in recreational permit review and is the backlog a matter of funding or are there other obstacles that we can 

help with to get to more timely decisions on those? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well this budget request does ask for some additional money in recreation that will help address that backlog, but 

we also need to look at our permitting process to find some ways 

to put more efficiency into that, especially around, not only with 

outfitter and guides, but also with folks who want to take out 

youth. 

Senator HEINRICH. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. And to find, maybe, a different mechanism to be 

able to deal with that in a way so that there’s certain areas where 

we need the skills of outfitters and guides. There’s other areas that 


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people can take youth out to experience the outdoors for the conservation education, and it can be, maybe, a different experience. 

So we want to work to come up with an approach that will allow 

us to be able to address that a little bit faster, be more effective. 

When I hear not until next year we can even address it, I hate 

that. I understand why our folks would say that because of the reduction of our staffing, but it’s another example of what’s happened 

to our agency staffing with the cost of fire suppression. 

Since 2003 cost of fire suppression, the ten year average, has gone up $740 million. It’s—the result of that. We reduced our staffing and our national forest system staffing by 35 percent. Foresters, 49 percent. When I think about the work our folks are getting done every year, I’ll tell you it’s just so impressive, but at the 

same time we just have to find a fix. 

Senator HEINRICH. Yeah. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Because the cost of fires, even though doing everything we can are going to continue to increase, especially in the 

Wildland Urban Interface. We’ve got to find a way to fix that so 

that we don’t continue to have to look at moving funds from other 

programs in a constrained budget. 

Those are the things we’re looking at to improve our recreation 

services immediately, but this fire suppression fix is a long term. 

Senator HEINRICH. I apologize, Madam Chair, for going over. I 

look forward to working with you on that issue. We are working 

on legislation. 

I know firsthand the old system really treats the Boy Scouts the 

same way they treat a hunting outfitter guide, and I think we need 

some more nuance. We need some more efficiency. 

And in a state where 68,000 people work in the outdoor recreation industry, we can’t afford to be telling a veteran-owned business like that wait until next year. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Heinrich. Senator Daines. 

Senator DAINES. Alright. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chief Tidwell, thank you for being here today. 

Montana used to boast a robust timber economy. However since 

the late 80s harvests on our national forests are down 82 percent, 

and we’ve lost now nearly 30 mills. In fact, of the 11 surviving 

mills many workers there today are facing layoffs and reduced 

hours. As we look at strong demand in the lumber industry we 

can’t get enough logs. 

Meanwhile our national forests are suffering from insect infestation, overgrowth and, as you described, the risk to catastrophic 

wildfire. The deteriorating health of Montana’s national forests 

jeopardize our public safety, our watersheds, undermines recreational hunting and frankly, is harmful to habitat. 

Chief Tidwell, I hope we can work together to find some workable solutions trying to crack this nut that significantly increases 

responsible timber harvest and improve the forest health across 

Montana. 

In fact, just last week I met with a variety of stakeholders regarding National Forest policy. It was a recess week in Washington, and I was back home in Montana. We had conservation. We 

had sportsmen. We had mill workers. We had members from the 

wood products industry. One strong message I heard from these 


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folks, from a variety of directions, is the impact of objections and 

lawsuits in obstructing these much needed timber sales and these 

collaborative projects. In fact, to hear that our mills today, the surviving mills, are receiving logs from Oregon, from Washington, 

from Canada, from Wyoming, when we’re surrounded by millions 

of acres of national forests and much of it dying and still harvestable, to me, is a tragedy. 

When I was growing up in Montana in Bozeman, my home high 

school was a double A high school, the largest classification in 

sports. The Libby Loggers up in Northwest Montana, they were a 

double A school when I was going to high school. Today the Libby 

Loggers, they’ve dropped to A and just going into this year now 

they’re a Class B high school. There’s a reason they call them the 

Libby Loggers. This is where the heart of our logging industry is 

in Montana. There’s not a single mill in Lincoln County today as 

a result of what’s going on in our timber industry. In fact, somebody said last week perhaps we should rename the Libby Loggers 

and call them the Libby Lawyers because that’s what’s going on 

now. The timber industry has been stopped by this habitual litigation. 

So my question is how are these objections and litigation affecting the Forest Service’s ability to complete timber projects in Montana in a reasonable time period? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Senator, since we’ve moved from the old appeals 

process to the objection process that actually is a better way to 

move forward. We’re able to address the concerns before we make 

the decision, and it’s proving to be an effective approach. However, 

it does take some time. The litigation definitely does impact. It’s 

not just the litigation when we get a temporary restraining order 

where we have to stop and wait. Every time we get a lawsuit the 

same staff that would be preparing for the next project have to prepare to go to court. We pull the information together for our attorneys to go to court. For me, that’s probably the biggest impact to 

litigation because we don’t have a separate staff just to be able to 

put together the information so the attorneys can go to court over 

it. It’s the same folks that would be working on the next project. 

We’re very successful. We win the majority of our cases, and I 

think up in your part of the country, the last I heard, something 

like 17 and 19, the last cases we won. Even when we win, it still 

has that impact because it slows down the development of the next 

project because we only have one set of staff to be able to deal with 

it. 

Now we are making good progress with the collaborative efforts 

in your state, and we’re seeing that. I do understand the frustration where you have that strong collaborative and people reach 

agreement about the project going forward. 

I can use the Colt Summit a couple years ago where we had really tremendous support across the board from the conservation community, the environmental community and of course, the county 

and the state. Then we got sued, and we went through the process. 

Yes and we finally implemented the project, but it took another 

year or so to do it. So I understand that frustration. The solution 

I do believe, is to—— 

Senator DAINES. Go ahead. The solution is? 


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Mr. TIDWELL. The solution, I think, is to continue to find ways 

to support these collaborative efforts so that we can move forward 

in a way to actually implement the projects. 

I understand from time to time we’re going to be sued. and if we 

ever do anything that’s wrong, I’ll understand that. I understand 

that’s part of the process. 

Senator DAINES. Quickly to this insect infestation issue. 

Our governor designated five million acres in the Montana National Forest Service that’s eligible to be managed under the 

streamline processes established in the 2014 Farm bill. Based on 

feedback from Montanans I heard, I heard all about it last week. 

I’m concerned the Forest Service is not moving fast enough to implement this policy. I think it’s good policy that came out of the 

Farm bill. This is exactly the kind of solutions we need to start 

moving on harvesting dead trees. That’s what we’re asking for 

right now. 

I anticipate Congress funding Fiscal Year ’16 to help implement 

this program, but can we expect some meaningful results on the 

ground now between today and October when the new fiscal year 

begins? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, Senator. In fact the first project that we used 

under the Farm bill authority for a CE. We actually put the decision out last December in your state. I know in that region they 

planned another five to six projects this year. They’re moving forward with both the CEs and also using the expedited procedures 

for EAs and EISs. So we are moving out, and I want to thank the 

governor for his approach to be willing to put some state funding 

to work with us on that to be able to help us get more work done. 

We’re also looking forward to using the Good Neighbor Authority 

where we can work closely with the states to be able to use some 

of the state resources to help us to be able to get more work done. 

So we are moving forward on that. And FY ’16, I think, is when 

you’ll really see probably the big increase in the number of projects 

where we’ll be using those new authorities. 

Senator DAINES. Okay. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Warren. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

According to Forest Service’s assessments, more than half our 

nation’s fresh water comes from forest ecosystems. Agricultural 

Secretary Vilsack has noted that clean, healthy, forests are vital to 

our efforts to protect America’s fresh water supply. 

Chief Tidwell, can you just explain a little bit about why that’s 

so? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, to provide clean water you need healthy forests because it protects the soil. It has the over story plus the 

under story so that when we do have disturbance events like big 

rains or floods, wind storms, etcetera, having that healthy forest 

maintains the ecosystem so that the system can filter the runoff 

and produce that clean water. 

It’s one of the reasons that you’ll see—especially when we’re 

working with EPA about how to continue to make sure we’re providing clean water. There is a general understanding we have to 

start with healthy forests. You know that as well as anyone from 

your state. 


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Senator WARREN. Yes, thank you, sir. Let me then follow up on 

that by asking I know you’re concerned about how climate change 

threatens our forests and threatens the many benefits that they 

provide to Americans including clean water. You’ve testified before 

this Committee and I think I’ve got your quote here that, ‘‘climate 

change is already altering our nation’s forests in significant ways 

and those alterations are likely to accelerate in the future.’’ What 

I’d like to ask is how does climate change affect the clean water 

benefits that our forests provide to our communities? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, if we lose our forested ecosystems from any 

disturbance event, but especially what we’re seeing with the shift 

in climate, we’re going to lose that filtering process to be able to 

provide the clean water. That’s why we’ve continued to invest in 

our research and development part of the agency so that we understand the effects of a changing climate on vegetation and what we 

need to do differently to be able to address whether it’s a threat 

of wildfire, whether it’s the threat of insect and disease, whether 

it’s the threat of more invasives. 

It seems like every invasive that comes into our ports, especially 

here in the East, that a warmer climate seems to provide a more 

favorable environment for those species. 

Senator WARREN. Yes, we evidently are very hospitable to 

these—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, the Emerald Ash Borer is a perfect example. 

It came into the country over 30 years ago and it pretty well just 

stayed in the mid part of the Atlantic Coast. As we’ve seen the 

weather change, the climates change, the Emerald Ash Borer has 

now made it to Canada because of the lack of having, really, any 

long, cold winters. 

Senator WARREN. Can you talk just a little bit about what the 

Forest Service is doing right now in response to climate change? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, what we’ve done is we’ve looked at each one 

of our national forests and we’ve done an assessment to first of all, 

make sure we understand the current conditions, and then to make 

sure that our staff understands the things they need to be looking 

at into the future. 

When we talk about restoring the forests it’s not to restore it to 

something in the past. We need to be restoring the forest to the future. And in some situations to really look at if there’s going to be 

a different species composition of the forest as we’re looking out 20, 

30, 40 years in front. 

So that’s where we rely on our scientists to provide the science 

and then for our land managers to use that in designing the 

projects as we go forward. 

Senator WARREN. Well, thank you very much, Chief. You know, 

our forests face a number of threats and climate change is a very 

big one. Protecting our forests from threats has so many benefits, 

soil erosion, protect habitats for wildlife, take in atmospheric carbon, not to mention providing the recreational opportunities and 

contributing to regional economies, as others here have talked 

about. 

As we’ve heard, healthy forests are vital to protecting our fresh 

water supply. It makes sense to make forward looking investments 

to address the real threats that our forests face today so that our 


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forests can continue to contribute in providing important health 

benefits for all of us and building a strong future. 

Thank you very much, Chief, and thank you for your work. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Capito. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Chief, 

for being here with us today. 

I’d like to talk about one aspect of your area of responsibility 

that is impacting our state right now. I’m from West Virginia, and 

the construction and maintenance of adequate pipeline capacity is 

critical to our nation and our state. We have a shale gas boom in 

the Marcellus shale in West Virginia and that’s providing us with 

amazing opportunities, but we can’t do this without pipelines. 

In West Virginia at least four natural gas pipelines are being discussed. One such pipeline, I hope you’re familiar with this, is the 

Atlantic Coast pipeline which is going through the Mon Forest in 

West Virginia, a 17.1 segment will go through Pocahontas and 

Randolph counties. 

I think they’re having, as part of the review process, community 

meetings and review. But the Forest Service has to make a separate determination as to whether to issue a right of way permit to 

conduct, operate and maintain a natural gas transmission project. 

I would like to know if you are working with FERC and DOE to 

examine the importance of proposed pipelines and what this process is, in terms of your role in the Forest Service? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, we do work with FERC on projects 

and also Department of Energy. We have many, many, thousands 

of miles of pipeline that cross the national forests, so this is something that we deal with on a routine basis. 

As part of the analysis, we’ll look at the location. Where’s the 

best location to minimize impacts. That’s a thing that we look at. 

We also look, if possible, to minimize the amount of road construction that needs to be done because often with a pipeline they can 

just use the construction zone as their access point. 

Those are the things that we look at to minimize the impact but 

then also to ensure that everything is being considered so that 

pipelines are located in a place where they’ll have less of a potential problem in the future. It’s one of the things we work very closely with the proponent, but then also with the public, to be able to 

get the public’s concerns and be able to address that. That’s the 

path we’ll move forward with this pipeline, like we do it for all. 

Senator CAPITO. Right. I think that’s the process you’re in right 

now, and I appreciate that. 

I’d like to talk about the Secure Rural Schools. I’ve been a supporter of that. I have, obviously, some rural counties in West Virginia. Pocahontas County, for instance, has gone from $581,000 a 

year to $95,000; Randolph County, $383,000 to $62,000; Webster 

has lost $176,000; Pendleton County, $171,000; Tucker County, 

$170,000. I know this doesn’t sound like large figures but when 

you’re trying to—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. Right. 

Senator CAPITO. In a rural area afford your schools it really impacts the schools. There are long bus rides, and it’s an expensive 

system to maintain in a rural area like this. 


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I would like to work with you to try to address this issue, so 

what suggestions would you make at this point for us besides reauthorizing, so we can make sure that these school systems which are 

really struggling and the county systems are able to rely on us for 

reliable funding? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, first of all, Senator, there’s tremendous urgency around this. 

Senator CAPITO. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. As you point out that the impact of this. We’ve proposed a framework in our budget request which provides funding. 

We really want to work with the Committee on the path forward, 

but I think the past with the titles of the past Secure Rural School 

authorizations worked very well. There’s a lot of benefits for all 

three of those titles, but it’s just essential that we find a way to 

move forward and get this reauthorized just as quickly as we can. 

I don’t care what county, I mean, for some counties there’s larger 

levels of funding. But when I look at the impact and how severe 

it was from one year to the next. 

Senator CAPITO. Yeah. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Without any time for any planning, etcetera, it’s 

essential that we just find a way to get this reauthorized as soon 

as we can, and we want to do everything we can to work with the 

Committee to find a path forward. 

Senator CAPITO. I’m sure the Chair intends to work diligently on 

this, because I think there’s a lot of bipartisan agreement that this 

needs to move forward. 

I’ll just make a quick comment and then I’ll thank you again. 

You’ve mentioned a lot about the cost of fire suppression. I think 

while we haven’t been, on the East Coast or at least in West Virginia, the victim of large and broad wildfires, we have been the victim of the shifting of the funds. So I would encourage and work together to try and meet that challenge. Thank you very much. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Capito, and know that this 

is a priority, certainly, to figure out how we deal with Secure Rural 

Schools. I know that Senator Wyden is very keyed in on this, and 

I look forward to working with him and with you as well. Senator 

Wyden. 

Senator WYDEN. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I appreciate that. And Senator Capito, we’re very pleased to hear your 

comments. I know you joined as a co-sponsor of our legislation this 

week, the bill that I introduced with Senator Crapo. We wrote that 

bill in this room in 2000. 

Chief, thank you for your continued support and persistence in 

speaking up for it. I’ll just very quickly mention I do hope that we 

can make mandatory the PILT program as part of it because that 

helps give us a broader base for it. Senator Capito made, I think, 

essentially that same point. 

We’re looking for ways to grow our coalition for Secure Rural 

Schools, and making PILT mandatory will help us do that. As you 

know in the one year reauthorization for PILT we basically came 

up with a process that short changed that formula so now we’ve got 

frustrated communities about two areas of Secure Rural Schools 

and about PILT. So we look forward to working with you on that. 


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Let me talk to you about water for a moment. As you know my 

constituents are really on the cusp of coming up with a fresh approach for dealing with these contentious water battles, and we’re 

having them all over the West. Again, this Committee played a 

leading role because essentially out of our work in the last Congress we came up in the Klamath Basin with something that really 

hadn’t been done before and that was a task force that cut the cost 

of the program, eliminated some of the political battles between 

folks in different parts of the Basin. We felt we were really right 

on the cusp of being able to enact it into law. 

Most recently we have bumped up against a serious problem involving the ownership of the Mazama Forest. As you and I have 

talked about here in the last couple of days, the Klamath tribe has, 

as I’ve indicated, continually worked in good faith. They have concerns about what’s happened. We’re going to have to find ways to 

deal with it, and make sure the tribes are treated fairly. I would 

just like to have, because I know people at home are listening to 

this, your thoughts on this and the commitment you gave to me, 

that you’ll work with us to make sure the tribes are treated fairly 

because this will be key to actually getting this passed into law. I 

introduced it in the last session of Congress. Senator Merkley with 

the California Senators, we want to get it done this time. So having 

your commitment and having you on record today would be very 

helpful. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, we are committed to work with you 

and Senator Merkley to be able to find a solution, and I look at the 

benefits here providing a solution for the tribe and at the same 

time to deal with the water issues that are essential for the farmers and the ranchers. Once again, we’re going to be faced with another very, very dry year. 

Then at the same time to be able to factor in opportunities for 

us to increase the level of forest management here. I think there’s 

some opportunities here for a very creative approach, and it’s something that we could look at finding not only to address the solutions here but maybe in other parts of the country too. 

So we’re more than committed to being able to work with you to 

be able to find a solution to this because it’s one of those issues 

that you can’t change the past, can’t change the history, but it’s an 

opportunity to, kind of, move forward in a way that we can address 

this in a way that everybody benefits. The tribes benefit. The water 

users benefit. Industry can benefit from it. The public, in general, 

benefits from it. That’s what I’m looking forward to, and I’ll tell 

you that I talked to my staff. They’re already rolling up their 

sleeves ready to go to work on this to look at some creative solutions. 

Senator WYDEN. Well, thank you, Chief, and this will help Oregon. This will help people who live in the Basin. But I do think 

it has the potential to be a model for dealing with water issues 

around the country. 

Let me ask you about one other question before my time runs 

out, and that’s the question of fighting wildfires. As you know we 

have a bipartisan bill in the Senate. We have a bipartisan bill in 

the House because the system is essentially broken. 


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What we have is a situation where you all don’t get enough resources in order to deal with prevention, then you have a situation 

where it gets hotter and drier and you have a lightning strike and 

all of a sudden you have an inferno on your hands. In effect the 

Prevention Fund is asked to put up money to help put the fire out 

and the problem gets worse because you have shorted prevention. 

We’re trying to change that. We have the Administration’s support so these big fires, these infernos, would get handled from the 

Natural Disaster Fund. 

Tell me what it means to you as we wrap up to have that kind 

of flexibility as the bipartisan bill in the Senate and House seeks 

to do. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, the benefits of having this legislation pass is 

one, it resolves the issue. It provides stable funding for suppression, and we no longer have to start off and sometimes in July, but 

definitely in August, contacting all of our units to see what funds 

are available then start to pull that money back to be able to transfer it. 

Even in the very few years that we end up not having to transfer, we still have to go through all that work. It shuts down operations, it puts people out of work, and most times Congress then, 

sometime in the future, pays the money back. 

So this is your proposal, it was scored neutral by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s just a better business model, a better approach. At the same time, 99 percent of the fires will still be covered out of our budget. It’s just this one percent. 

You had one fire in your state last year. Senator Cantwell had 

one. We had quite a few in Oregon. But just last year the top ten 

fires, $329 million, and that’s out of 52,000 fires just on the national forest. So we’re going to continue to suppress 98 percent of 

our fires where we take initial attack. It’s just this one percent that 

really does need to be considered a natural disaster. 

Senator WYDEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Senator Gardner. 

Senator GARDNER. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, 

Chief Tidwell, for your time and testimony today. 

Following up on the theme that Senator Wyden was talking 

about, one of the things that we have to work on together, I think, 

is this issue of how disaster designations work when it comes to 

forest fires. The immediate aftermath of the hydrophobic soil conditions as it results in flooding and some of the damage that can 

occur to transportation systems, drinking water systems and others 

and making sure that our disaster declarations and designations 

reflect the nature of Western catastrophies like a wildfire verses an 

Eastern disaster like a hurricane or something else. I mean, that’s, 

kind of, what we have to work on in some of our disaster designations and would enjoy the opportunity to work with you on that. 

I wanted to also talk a little bit about fire suppression issues. As 

you know the various insect infestations in Colorado continue to 

grow, and the spruce beetle last year alone, we had a 22 percent 

expansion of the spruce beetle infestation, which of course, results 

in greater fire dangers. 


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It appears as if the request for fire management within the budget for research and development request for fire management remains stagnant. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Mr. TIDWELL. On the research and development part? 

Senator GARDNER. Yes, for fire management, yes. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yeah, our budget request just reflects the constrained budget scenario we work under and where we’ve tried to 

target some very specific areas of our program to ask for additional 

funding around, for instance, wanting to move forward with forest, 

increasing forest management, but we’re asking for a continued 

level with research. 

We’re also contining to expand our partnership with universities. 

In fact, some work that’s potentially going to occur in your state 

about how to expand and leverage the funding we have to be able 

to work with others to be able to continue to do that essential research. 

There’s no question, we could always use more, broadening every 

program and every research area, but we feel that this is an adequate level to continue the research that’s ongoing to be able to understand and address the problems that we’re going to be facing. 

Senator GARDNER. If we have time we’ll get into a little of that 

work of whether it’s the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, the 

Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes, I would love to continue our conversation on that. 

In line with the wildfire issues though, I know we’re talking 

about various changes to the funding of wildfire efforts and activities. In Fiscal Year 2016 the FLAME account is not included in the 

budget request, I believe. At $303 million in that account from last 

year what happens to that money going forward, that $303 million 

that was in the FLAME account? 

Mr. TIDWELL. You’ll see in our budget request that we’re maintaining the increase in hazardous fuels funding that we received 

last year which is a little over $50 million. We’re asking for another $20 million in our CFLR projects which helps us to address 

hazardous fuels and restore forests. We’re also asking for another 

$27 million in our integrated resource restoration that allows us to 

be able to restore our forests, reduce the threat. 

And then also, the ten year average, once again, it’s gone up 

$115 million, so just 70 percent of that is about $80 million. You 

add those numbers up, plus you look at our overall budget request 

is actually $130 million less than last year. That basically is that 

$300 million difference. 

That’s our approach so we can be more proactive and at the same 

time understand the budget issues in this country and have, I 

think, somewhat of a constrained budget. But there’s where we’re 

looking for that flexibility so we can be more proactive. 

Senator GARDNER. And two additional questions on the Ski Area 

Water Rights issues and the Ground Water Management Directive. 

Where do we stand right now with the Ski Area Water Rights Directive? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we’ve had good meetings and a lot of good 

public comments so that we’re in a place to solve this issue in that 

we’re not going to be—we’re going to address it by just working 

with the permitees to provide—it will be up to the ski areas to proVerDate Sep 11 2014 02:25 Jul 10, 2015 Jkt 094047 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A047.XXX A047

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vide the adequate water that’s needed to operate their facilities, 

and then when that permit transfers it will be up to the new operator. If they want a permit, they’re going to have to be able to show 

they have water. 

I feel that we’ve basically resolved this. We’ve got a couple small 

issues we have to work out on how, just the mechanics of it, but 

I think we’re real close to having a final solution on this that will 

work for everyone. 

Senator GARDNER. Under the original proposal, I believe, it’s a 

violation of both Colorado Water Law and the federal Takings Law, 

Constitutional law. Do you think the proposal violates the Fifth 

Amendment? 

Mr. TIDWELL. What we’ve been operating under since 2004 which 

was an agreement we worked out with the ski areas at the time, 

everyone was happy, and we actually thought that it would work. 

Senator GARDNER. Everyone was happy after that agreement? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, yes, in 2004 the NSAA worked with us to be 

able to put that together, but then we found as we were implementing it that there was conflicts with state law and that was the 

reason we had to go back and take another approach. 

It’s taken some time, a lot of discussion, a lot of dialogue, but 

we’re now finally in a place that, I think, it will resolve this once 

and for all. It’s my understanding that we made good progress, and 

NSAA is in agreement that this is a good approach. 

Senator GARDNER. Well, I look forward to talking with you because I believe it’s also a violation of Takings, language in the Constitution, the Fifth Amendment. 

Last year the Forest Service released a proposed directive on 

ground water resource management. The Forest Service Ground 

Water Directive obviously created a great deal of concern for states 

like Colorado, including organizations like the Western Governors 

Association, the National Water Resources Association, talking 

about concerns both the substance of the rule and the lack of stakeholder outreach that went into its development. 

I’m very concerned about what this means and how this directive 

was put together, and I hope you would commit right here to improving your outreach to stakeholders and to working with the 

states and water users to address their concerns. 

The second part of this question is I’d like to learn more about 

how this water directive, how this ground water management directive would work in areas like national grasslands where you 

have checkerboard ownership, issues like the South Platte water 

basin, the alluvial aquifer and the connections between the two. I 

think that’s opening up an entire area that has a lot of people concerned. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well the proposed directive is something we’ve 

been working on for many years to have a consistent approach on 

how to evaluate the impacts of our decisions on ground water to 

prevent contaminating ground water from our decisions or impacting other people’s water, their water rights, with our decisions. So 

we’ve never had a consistent approach, and there’s been times 

when we’ve been inadequate level of analysis and we’ve gone to 

court. There’s been times when our actions have contaminated 

ground water, and we’ve been sued. I want to—we need to have a 


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systematic approach so that we minimize any chance of contaminating ground water. When our decisions will have an impact on 

water rights, someone else’s water, we need to disclose that. 

Sometimes we don’t have any choice. We can mitigate as much 

as we can, but there’s sometimes we may, for instance, with the 

mine proposal. We make a decision, a decision we have to make, 

need to make, and it may impact water. So we want to be able to 

work with the states. 

So where we are today is that we’ve stopped. We’re going to go 

back. We’re going to sit down primarily with the states, state water 

engineers, and to really sit down with them and get their ideas 

about how we can do this and ideally how we can do it together. 

There’s some opportunities where some states are well positioned 

to provide this for us, to be able to do the analysis that we can use. 

That’s where we’re at right now. We’re going to stop. We’re going 

to continue to work with the states until we figure out the right 

way to go forward with this. 

In the meanwhile I expect in some forests we’re going to probably 

do more analysis than we need to. Hopefully in some places we 

won’t do less and end up in court again, but that’s our approach 

right now. It’s something we’ve been working on for years. 

Senator GARDNER. What about stakeholder outreach? Will you 

commit to increasing more? 

The CHAIRMAN. The Senator’s time has run out. 

Senator GARDNER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Cantwell. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chief Tidwell, I apologize for having to run out to another committee markup. I very much appreciate you being here today. 

My colleague, Senator Wyden, had a chance to talk to you, in 

more detail about his fire budgeting proposal, S. 235. Obviously, we 

want to get it enacted. If we don’t, we’ll be out of funds again this 

year. 

You and I had a chance to talk about the devastation that happened from the Carlton Complex Fire. Again, thank you for your 

discussions yesterday and today about that. I am very interested 

in what we’re going to do, the Forest Service and USDA, on moving 

ahead on flood control with the Burned Area Emergency Response 

teams. I definitely want your help and support in those communities in preventing the movement of the large amounts of ash that 

are there, which could caused flooding in the area. 

What are you thinking about pilots? Are you thinking about 

using community wildfire protection plans to help us alleviate 

these kinds of predicaments in the future? When communities find 

themselves overrun by all of this, are you thinking about a way to 

help bring order into communities after these events, like the 

Carlton Complex Fire? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, first of all we are going to continue 

our restoration work on the Carlton Fire. We did the work last 

year. We’ll continue to do more work here to stabilize some key 

areas to reforest, replant some areas and also continue to do some 

additional road work to stabilize that. 

I guess that we were somewhat fortunate we have a pretty shallow snow pack this year and so we may not be subject to as much 


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flooding as we could have been. I say that there’s some benefits 

and not with that because it sets us up for another potential dry 

year. 

But your point about—in our community wildfire protection 

plans they’re all focused on the work that we need to put into place 

to prevent the catastrophic loss of homes and impact on communities. You bring up a good point about what we also need to be 

thinking about when we do have fire because no matter what we 

do we’re going to continue to have large fires, and we can make 

steps so that we can definitely reduce the number of homes that 

are lost, reduce the severity of wildfires. But we’re going to have 

large fires. 

So there’s probably another component of this about what else do 

we need to have in place so that, not only before the fire, the actions we need to take, but also during the fire, the actions that we 

need to take. But also how can we make sure that we have thought 

out what we need to do following that fire. And we worked quick 

with our Burned Area Emergency Teams. They come in and quickly analyze the area and put some emergency steps into place. 

Often the restoration then takes several years to follow that. It’s 

an opportunity for us to really think about after the fire, which is 

also something we need to focus on. It’s something to really look 

at with our partners and our cooperators, the private landowners 

and the communities. 

So as much as I wish I could say yeah, if we can restore our forests, reduce the hazardous fuels, we’re not going to have these scenarios. We’re still going to have large fires in this country from everything that we’re seeing, but we can reduce the threat to communities. We can definitely reduce the numbers, the thousands of 

homes that are lost to wildfires every year, but we’re still going to 

need recovery efforts. 

Senator CANTWELL. Well, I think the entire Okanogan, which is 

what we refer to as the region there, would gladly participate in 

ways to increase the work in the community wildfire protection 

plans and what we need to do moving forward, but I certainly want 

your help on the emergency response teams now for flood control 

and the community response in the area. So we definitely want to 

work with you on that. 

I think the one thing that we’ve talked about but maybe it’s really not been stated so specifically is we’re not really talking about 

what we’re getting ready for and what we don’t have resources for 

and whether they’re emergency disasters or not. I think the thing 

here that we saw, at least with the Carlton Complex, is this was 

a weather event. That really high winds caused this acceleration. 

So the question of weather and taking into consideration weather 

patterns as it relates to our fire season, I think, is something we’re 

going to have to pay a lot more attention to. 

I wanted to ask you about recreation permits. My colleague had 

a chance to ask you about that. Can you just discuss quickly about 

getting nonprofit youth serving groups like the YMCA into our national forests and what we need to do to get that permit process 

going so that they can also have access? It just seems to me if 

somebody from the YMCA or YWCA only wants to take ten people 


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into the forest service and educate them one Saturday morning 

that they should be able to do that. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, Senator. As I described earlier we have our 

outfitter and guide special use process that works very well for the 

outfitter and guides that want to take people more into the back 

country and have quite unique experiences. What you’re describing, 

especially with our youth, is really a different experience. We need 

to look at being able to provide access so that it’s easy for folks to 

take school kids, YMCA, YWCA, up onto the national forest and 

the grasslands to be able to experience that. 

It’s one of the things that this coming year, actually for the next 

ten years, working with the Department of Interior we’re going to 

try to get every fourth grader out to a park, out to a forest for the 

next ten years to expose them to the outdoors, provide an activity 

for them. At the same time we need to find a way to make it easier 

for school groups, community groups, nonprofits to be able to get 

our youth out. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And just for my colleague’s information the Chief is very familiar with the situation that we had in 

a very small community in Southeastern Alaska where a day care 

provider took her young charges out to have a picnic in a shelter. 

It’s not even a closed in shelter, just a picnic, and she was fined 

because she didn’t have a permit. Now this is not how we welcome 

people to our public lands. So know that we want to work with you 

on that. 

Senator Risch. 

Senator RISCH. Were they singing, this land is your land, this 

land is my land, at the time? [Laughter.] 

Chief Tidwell, thanks so much for your service. We really appreciate it. On behalf of Idahoans I can tell you that you’ve just been 

a pleasure to work with, and I find you to be reasonable and hopefully continue with that relationship over the next 694 days as we 

move along. I do want to put a couple of things on your radar 

screen. 

First of all I know you were a big proponent of the forestry section in the 2014 Farm bill, and we had high hopes for the categorical exclusion from the NEPA process in there. 

Well, the first one we tried is the Jasper Mountain project. I 

don’t know if you’re familiar with it or not. You might mark that 

down. It’s about 3,000 acres. They tried to use the designation by 

prescription and a designation by description processes to move the 

thing forward. As fate would have it they’re high centered with all 

four wheels spinning now because they say they couldn’t use those 

in this particular situation, so I’d appreciate it if you’d have a look 

at that. This is something you and I were both excited about, and 

now here we’ve got the first one and the wheels have come off. So 

if you could take a look at that I would appreciate it. 

The second thing that I think my staff has talked to yours and 

told you that I was going to ask you about this, but in 1980 the 

Central Idaho Wilderness Act was passed. You may have been living in Idaho in 1980 at the time. In any event, as you recall, it was 

very controversial, but we were patted on the head and told that 

everything was going to be alright. And one of the provisions in 


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there was the people who fly into the back country. As you know 

in Idaho, that’s a big deal, and there’s a number of back country 

airports that have used for decades back there. Section 7(a)(1) of 

the Central Idaho Wilderness Act states, ‘‘the landing of aircraft 

where this has use has become established prior to the date of enactment of this act shall be permitted to continue.’’ 

I’m told the Payette National Forest supervisor has proposed 

closing four of those air strips, so you might send a little memo 

when you get back to your desk about that and maybe send him 

a copy of the section because I’m just a poor country lawyer, but 

it seems to me, shall means shall. I know the Forest Service hates 

getting sued, but this looks like one that’s set up to be a lawsuit 

if they proceed with that. I understand they may not want to do 

it anymore, but the 1980 Act is pretty clear about that. So I would 

appreciate it if you’d have a look at that. Again, thanks for your 

service. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Flake. 

Senator FLAKE. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chief. 

Thanks for all you do for Arizona. 

We’ve talked before about this topic. We have the Eastern Forest, 

the White Mountains, where I grew up, that we’ve had the White 

Mountain Stewardship Contract. It’s revitalized the private industry in that area and has done some good work. We’ve seen about 

$130 million in private investment flow in. 

Senator Heinrich and I toured, last April, some of the facilities 

and the mills and what not that are there because of the stewardship contract, and steps have been taken to give some kind of certainty moving ahead before 4FRI really kicks in. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Right. 

Senator FLAKE. There’s that gap that we know was there, but 

we’re still hearing from private industry, a couple of them in particular, that they just don’t have the certainty moving ahead that 

they’re going to be able to get their product out of the forest. 

What is the Forest Service doing to give them the assurance that 

they’ll be able to continue? As you know if we lose private industry 

this time, we’ll never get it back. We’ll just never get the investment there, and that’s the only way that we can get these forests 

thinned and managed the way they should be. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, with the 4FRI area we’re—I think 

they have just under the 4FRI contract, they have, I think, close 

to 19,000 acres that we’ve issued task orders on that. So there’s 

plenty of work for them to do. 

We’re also getting close to be able to address the objections that 

we received on the EIS that cover about a million acres of your 

state and will allow us to be able to go forward and do the level 

of restoration on that type of landscape for many years in the future. 

In addition to that to address the concern, there’s also about 

25,000 acres that’s outside of the 4FRI and we’re going to put up 

another 6,000 acres this year. I know it was really tight, especially 

last year, to be able to provide at the same time removing the 4FRI 

to be able to support the industry had come in. With this additional 

work that we’re putting forward this year it should put us in a 

much better place. 


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Then as we move forward and once again, the additional hazardous fuels funding that we received in FY ’15 will allow us to be 

able to put up more sales and not just for 4FRI but for also the 

other parts of your state that we need to move forward with. So 

that level of funding is going to be very—well, the timing was excellent on it and we’re requesting that same level again so we can 

be able to have, kind of, a stable program across the country. 

So we’re going to be in a better position this coming year than 

we were in the past and to be able to continue to provide the work 

that needs to be done and to keep people employed. 

Senator FLAKE. With regard to 4FRI since FY ’13 there have 

been notices to proceed of about 21,000 acres, but only just north 

of 3,000 acres have actually been treated. What’s the next milestone for the task orders with and what criteria are we using to 

judge these contractors? They just don’t seem to be moving. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, each task order, I mean, it has a certain 

amount of time to be able to start the work and be able to implement it. At the same time the 4FRI contractor, I think, they too, 

were waiting to see if we were able to get this EIS done, this large 

EIS, to give them the confidence that they can make the additional 

investments. 

If they’re not able to get the work done we’ll be able to offer 

these contracts to others who will be able to get the work done. You 

have to give an adequate amount of time, but if they’re not able 

to perform on that or if they’re not able to keep up with the level 

of work that we’re putting out, we’ll be able to contact with others. 

So we want to be able to not only get the—make 4FRI successful, 

but at the same time to be able to have enough work on the landscape and also to use more of these stewardship, these long-term 

contracts, that have proven to be a success. I mean, your state was 

probably our early model about the difference that we can make. 

You personally have seen the difference on the ground, but also the 

investments that are in place were because of that. 

We have to be able to maintain that, so we’re going to do whatever it takes to, not only keep 4FRI going forward, but at the same 

time to be able to get more work available so that we can maintain 

that infrastructure that came in initially with our first stewardship 

contract there. 

Senator FLAKE. Just one quick question in terms of overall priorities and budget. 

In 2014 there was an A&E story about USFS that you had aban- doned a $10 million initiative to hire an outside firm with a five 

year strategic organizational transformation or branding management contract, and I’m glad to see that that was abandoned. I 

would hope that we don’t see that kind of money. That’s big figures, a $10 million contract. 

I know there are other contracts, smaller ones, for rebranding of 

the Department. I would think the best rebranding is for the Department to do as you have been in many areas, move forward and 

be able to treat these forests. That’s a lot better than a $10 million 

project paid to an outside public relations firm to rebrand the Forest Service. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, it was never about rebranding. The 

purpose of the contract which was guaranteed for one year was to 


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help us find ways to strengthen our connection with communities 

because we found, as you’ve seen in some of your communities, 

where we’ve been able to come together. We can resolve a lot of the 

issues, bring people together in a way to be able to move forward 

with the work. 

We don’t have that everyplace across the country, so part of this 

was to strengthen our connection and to help people understand all 

of the multiple use that comes with their national forests. There 

are times that I meet with a lot of people and they’re really interested in promoting their use, but at times it gets a little lonely 

when it comes to multiple use because that’s our challenge. 

So part of it is to be able to strengthen our connection with communities, but also to let people understand all the benefits that 

come from their national forests and to also understand this concept of multiple use and the benefits that they receive from our forests. 

So I appreciate your comments on that. We’re not moving forward with that contract. We’re going to take a different approach 

on how to strengthen our connection with communities. 

Senator FLAKE. Alright. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I just might add that if you’re looking to strengthen the connection to communities you should be listening to some of these comments from colleagues here about the 

ways that the Forest Service puts a hand out and says, no, don’t 

come in here unless you have the appropriate permit. Whether it’s 

a day care provider in Wrangel or whether it’s the kayaker in Seattle or in New Mexico. 

If we’re trying to get young people onto our lands it’s one thing 

if you take the fourth graders in and you give them a great field 

trip, but if they can’t come back with their families without having 

the right kind of a permit, I don’t think we need to have a campaign to do that. I think it’s simple common sense. 

Let’s go to Senator Manchin, and then we’ll go to a second round. 

Senator MANCHIN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

As you might know, West Virginia is proud to be the third most 

forested state in the nation, close to 80 percent of the entire state 

is forested. We have 12 million acres of beautiful mixed hardwoods 

and softwoods. Timber production from these forests are critical to 

our state’s economy, but they are equally important for providing 

the clean water, outdoor recreation, hunting, fishing and all the 

other uses that we enjoy. 

Importantly 87 percent of our forest land is privately owned 

while only 13 percent is publicly owned. So east of the Mississippi 

we don’t understand the BLM and all the things that go with it 

and all the challenges our friends out West may have. The largest 

expanse of public land is Monongahela National Forest, the fourth 

largest national forest in the Northeast and one of the most ecologically diverse forests in the entire National Forest system. We’re 

also proud of our beautiful forests and the forest management practices that we have enjoyed working with you, so I appreciate that 

very much. 

My question to you, sir, is that Governor Tomblin, from the State 

of West Virginia, requested a designation of Monongahela National 

Forest as an insect and disease epidemic area citing a number of 


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insects and diseases impacting that area. I think you’re well aware 

of that. In May of last year you designated that requested area. 

Could you provide an update to me on the efforts to address these 

issues and how the agency is using its expedited authorities to get 

more done on the ground? If you could give me a brief on that, I’d 

appreciate that. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, you’re referring to the designation 

of areas where we need to use the insect—what we call the insect 

and disease authority from the Farm bill. So the first thing was 

that to get to work with the governors to get their recommendations which we were able to do that. And then last year we designated, I think, close to 40—over 45 million acres across the country. It gives us the opportunity to use these expedited procedures 

when it comes to doing EAs and EISs where we only will have to 

look at like one action alternative and then a no action alternative. 

And where we—so many places we have these strong collaborative groups come together. Folks understand what type of work 

needs to be on the landscape. And so, by just having to deal with 

maybe one, at most, two action alternatives, it will save time in the 

analysis. It will allow us to be able to move forward faster. 

Then the other key part of this is also to have the categorical exclusion where we can look at up to 3,000 acres at a time and be 

able to use the CE to be able to cover that decision. Last year when 

the bill was passed, which I cannot thank you enough for that, we 

had our program of work in place for ’14. And it had, often, a lot 

of our planning started for ’15. But as we now move forward to 

start to do the planning for projects that we’ll be implementing 

later this year and early next year, we’ll be able to talk about specific examples to how using these new authorities. It’s one of the 

things that I look at what’s going to really help us to be more effective, look at larger landscapes. Once again to be able to reduce the 

amount of analysis and the amount of time that we have to spend 

to be able to implement which in most cases is what people want 

to see done on the ground. 

Senator MANCHIN. Here’s a follow up question. Chief Tidwell, 

your budget proposes a small reduction to total funding for R and 

D, research and development. But due to a $13 million proposed increase in the forest inventory and analyst program, the budget 

would ultimately reduce funding for other R and D programs by 

$17 million from your FY2015. Can you tell me what kind of impact this reduction will have on R and D programs and how it may 

affect my great State of West Virginia? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, working under a constrained budget 

we have to make some tough decisions. 

Senator MANCHIN. Sure. 

Mr. TIDWELL. And be able to move forward with the FIA that’s 

absolutely essential. There had to be some tradeoffs, so what we’ll 

be looking at in FY ’16 is that some of our research we can slow 

down, things that are more long term, that whether we continue 

at this pace or we could actually slow down. 

There’s also some of the work that is getting close to being completed on certain projects that we can identify. We’ll stop that. But 

it will have a reduction in the level of research. 


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Senator MANCHIN. What type of research and development would 

affect, let’s say states in the Northeast, West Virginia, maybe out 

West too? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well it could, for instance, if we had a new species 

or a new invasive—— 

Senator MANCHIN. I just asked you about the species. What we’re 

getting, is that going to affect what I just—the first question I 

asked you about, the species we know is invading Monongahela, 

the National Forest? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, the ongoing work that we’re dealing with 

we’ll want to continue to do that. But what could happen is if we 

had another invasive come that just showed up tomorrow or if 

something like Thousand Canker started to expand, we’re not probably going to be able to get into additional research onto that. 

So there is going to be some consequences. It’s one of the things 

we’ll look at what we can do by working with area universities and 

others to be able to see how we can, kind of, minimize that impact 

and see if we can’t create some different partnerships on that. But 

it’s just one of the consequences that we will have to slow down 

some of our research in certain areas, but we’ll do everything we 

can to minimize the impact. 

Senator MANCHIN. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Manchin. 

Chief, I want to bring up the issue of Secure Rural Schools again 

because in your response to the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Capito, I did not really hear what the proposal was. 

Earlier in the hearing we had some folks from Petersburg here. 

They were in my office yesterday. This is their biggest issue. Seven 

percent of their community’s budget comes from Secure Rural 

Schools funding. Last year they got $1.2 million under Secure 

Rural Schools, but this year under the 25 percent proposal they’re 

going to be down to $41,000. Clearly it’s rattled a small community 

like that. 

What funding source is the Administration looking to to use to 

pay for the Secure Rural Schools extension? Then what I would 

like to understand is how much timber would have to be cut and 

sold on our national forests to fund the Administration’s own Secure Rural Schools program? 

Mr. TIDWELL. So our proposal is just part of the overall President’s budget to provide that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So there’s no pay for them for that. It’s just included as part of the budget. What I’m trying to get at, we’ve got 

great interest, I think, from members of this Committee to find a 

way to fund Secure Rural Schools. Do you have any proposals for 

us in terms of how we can fund it? And if it’s not from timber receipts, how are we going to do it and what would those timber receipts be? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, all the receipts, the timber receipts, are going to be part of the two hundred—in our proposal there’s $275 million 

that’s provided for the first year. I just want to stress it’s a framework, and we really want to work with the Committee about how 

to put a reauthorization together on that. The timber receipts will 

be part of that, but the challenge is—— 


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The CHAIRMAN. How much a part of that? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, you see with under the 1908 Act the $50 million that’s spread across. That’s about the level of funding that you 

see available. You know, the other part—and so it takes—we’re 

going to continue to provide, you know, the receipts as part of Secure Rural Schools funding. So, those—— 

The CHAIRMAN. But we don’t know how much those receipts are or is it the $50 million? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, $50 million, what was available under the 25 

percent of the receipts. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. You know, there’s about $125 million total that 

could be potentially made available, but there will have to be additional funding just like there has been for like the last what, 15 

years, under Secure Rural Schools. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, okay, there’s $125 million potentially that is 

available to fund Secure Rural Schools. But we’re only going to use 

$50 million of it? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, under the 1908 Act—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Mr. TIDWELL. With 25 percent. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. That’s what it equates to. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask about the recreation activities and 

how much they actually generate in terms of receipts. Which recreation activities are shared under the 25 percent payments? And if 

you don’t know that—what I’m trying to understand is what receipts from activities from our national forests are coming in and 

just an understanding as to how much is coming in and where it’s 

coming in from? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, we can provide you a breakdown of 

each activity that generates receipts and how much that—we expect that to be, you know, in FY ’16. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Mr. TIDWELL. And the majority of it will come from, you know, 

from timber harvest. But the point that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If you could get us a breakdown that lays this 

out, I think that that would be helpful. I’ve got a whole bunch of 

other questions, and I know that Senator Heinrich wanted to go 

another round here. 

The 2008 amended Forest Plan for the Tongass does not contain 

a renewable energy plan. As you and I discussed as we were flying 

over the Tongass, in order to deal with the high cost of energy in 

Southeast, hydro is the cheapest, most available and renewable resource. But it’s frustrated. It’s complicated because of the roadless 

rule down there. I believe, pretty strongly, that we need to have a 

renewable energy plan in the amendment to the Tongass plan the 

Forest Service is now considering. 

I received a letter yesterday directed to Forrest Cole, your forest 

supervisor in the Tongass, that outlines why this is an imperative. 

I want to make sure that is available to you. This is something, as 

important as it is to help with our struggling industry there in 

Southeast, our communities can’t survive if we don’t have affordable energy and the blessing in that part of the country is that the 


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affordable energy is a renewable energy. If our own policies are 

limiting or blocking our ability to either build that hydro facility 

or build transmission lines, we can’t achieve that. 

I’m going to make sure that you’ve got a copy of this letter and 

hope that you all are working aggressively to make sure that we’ve 

got a renewable energy plan within the amended Forest plan. 

Okay? 

I’ll turn to Senator Heinrich. 

Senator HEINRICH. I want to thank you both for letting me go 

next. 

I want to ask you, Chief, about funding for recreational facilities. 

I’ve heard from communities like Pecos, New Mexico, who really 

their businesses depend on hikers and fishermen and picnickers 

driving through their town as their primary customer base, particularly in the summer months. In the last few years we’ve seen 

a campground, a trail head, and several picnic and fishing areas 

in the Santa Fe National Forest all closed due to a lack of operations and maintenance funds. The small businesses in the nearby 

communities have really been hit hard by that. 

Does your budget include increased resources for recreational facilities and what else can we do to make sure that these facilities 

stay open so that the public lands stay public? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Our budget request asked for an additional $33 

million to deal with some deferred maintenance around recreational facilities and also with our trails which will be a start on 

really what we need to address. 

Once again, we’ve got to find a way that we can continue to respond to the public’s needs to provide the level of service. Our 

full—proposal, that is something else we need to discuss about the 

reauthorizing that. It does help us out of the 14,000 rec sites that 

we have across the country. 

There’s about 4,000 of those where we collect fees that we retain 

and are able to use on site. We keep 95 percent of that on site, so 

that’s one of the tools. The other thing, we need to continue to look 

for ways to work with businesses, with our concessionaires to find 

ways to be able to offset the costs of operating. We’ve also had 

some success with communities, especially when a facility is close 

to the community, the community can take it on as just part of 

being able to maintain that and keep it safe and operating. 

So we’re going to have to use all of those tools, but there’s just 

no question this is an area that the public expects a higher level 

of service. They want to see these facilities. 

And I’ll tell you it’s really difficult when we have to look at closing a facility when we can no longer afford to keep it open and safe. 

Senator HEINRICH. Yeah, I would agree. Chief, this sounds like 

a joke, but it’s really not. Do you know why the fish crossed the 

road? It’s usually because the Forest Service put in a culvert or 

some other aquatic species crossing device, but the number of those 

has gone down precipitously in recent budget years. Particularly 

with the changes we’re seeing in climate, the ability for our fisheries, particularly in cold weather fisheries in states like New Mexico, to be able to move up and down through the watershed in response to those changes is really limited by that infrastructure. 

We’ve seen that drop from, I think it was close to 600 crossings 


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funded in 2010 down to 275 in 2012, 168 in FY2014. This is troubling. I wanted you to address it. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Once again it just reflects the consequence of going 

from 14 percent to over 40 percent of our budget into dealing with 

the cost of fires. We are asking for some additional funding in our 

Integrated Resource Restoration that will allow us to do work on 

about 3,200 miles of streams which is often to address these culverts, but it’s a tremendous backlog. 

The thing that adds to it is that 20 years, 30 years ago the culverts that we were putting in place were of a certain size. Today, 

with the change in the weather, the change in the climate we’re 

seeing that often these culverts are undersized. And so whether we 

get a rain on snow event or in your country, in the, you know, the 

late summer. 

Senator HEINRICH. Monsoons. 

Mr. TIDWELL. When we get the monsoons that we’re getting the 

duration is in a case where we’re getting more of these culverts 

blowing out. So it’s just another thing we’re dealing with with the 

changing climate, and it’s going to be something we’re going to 

have to address to be able to find ways to not only be able to address this for fish, but also to maintain the access. 

Senator HEINRICH. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Because when we lose the culvert. 

Senator HEINRICH. We lose the road. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Not only do the fish lose, but then so does the public. 

Senator HEINRICH. You bet. Last thing. Congress provided the Forest Service $65 million in FY2015 to begin modernizing the 

large aircraft tanker fleet. What’s the status there of the action 

plan and business case analysis for the large tanker program and 

when do you think you’ll be able to provide Congress with the action plan to spend that appropriation? 

Mr. TIDWELL. With that specific appropriation we’ve actually contracted with a company to do the business case to expedite that 

process. I’m hoping to have that completed in May, and we’ll submit that into clearance. Then hopefully by later this year we’ll be 

able to have that discussion about what’s the best way to move forward with acquiring additional aircraft. 

In addition with what we’re doing with the next generation, we 

expect to have, probably, around 24 large air tankers operating this 

year plus our MAFFS units from the air force and air reserves. So 

we’re going to be in a good position this year. We’ll also be starting 

to bring on the C–130Hs that we’ll begin to transfer. We’re hoping 

to have the first one that we can start to use late this year, and 

then it will probably be in 2017 when they come on. But this potential new aircraft would help, basically replace one of those C– 

130Hs that have a very limited life span for us. 

Senator HEINRICH. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Cantwell. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

Chief Tidwell, I learned recently that the Forest Service entered 

into a MOU, a memorandum of understanding, with the Biomass 

Power Association to expand wood energy use in the U.S. This is 

something that’s very interesting to me. Obviously there are comVerDate Sep 11 2014 02:25 Jul 10, 2015 Jkt 094047 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A047.XXX A047

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munities in our country that use wood pellets and they can come 

from smaller trees and debris and things of that nature. Obviously 

collection is an issue and getting them to market. 

Older, non-EPA certified wood stoves are considerable polluters, 

but new EPA-certified wood stoves don’t even produce smoke. So 

this is a big opportunity to move forward. Separately I know EPA 

is revising how it will count emissions from woody biomass in its 

framework, and this framework can determine how biomass can be 

used to comply with the Clean Air Act regulations. Could you tell 

me about your participation in that and also about the MOU and 

what you hope to accomplish from that? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well a couple things will come out of the MOU. 

First of all, there’s active competition between folks that make 

wood stoves to actually produce the most efficient stoves, but also 

to minimize any emissions. The advances that have been made in 

that technology is tremendous over the years from what it used to 

be. So that’s one of the things we expect will come out of this is 

basically a product that will not only meet any air standards but 

also be even more efficient. 

The second part of that is that we’re going to continue our work 

to provide loans and grants to help folks design facilities. Senator 

Murkowski, in your state we’re working with some of your communities to provide that upfront money to be able to do the design to 

be able to put facilities into place so that we can use this renewable 

energy. So it’s not just for wood stoves but our program also wants 

to look at more of the commercial facilities, our schools, potentially 

hospitals and also look at our buildings so that we could be able 

to model this. 

Another key part of this is with the Farm bill we have the authority to be able to subsidize the transportation of biomass. That’s 

still the economic problem of biomass is getting it to where it could 

be used either to a facility to convert it into pellets or to haul it 

to a CoGen plant, etcetera. So we do have that authority. We’ll continue to use it. We used it last year in California on the rim fire 

project. 

So those are the variety of tools that we’re using to really expand 

the use of wood. It’s not the solution, but it’s renewable. It’s green 

energy. 

But it’s just another thing that we need to look at, because this 

biomass needs to be removed from our forests. The saw logs, that’s 

the easy part. But there’s a lot of other smaller diameter material 

and some of it we can put it into some of the advanced wood products that are available on the market today but there’s also a need 

to use this residual material. 

We have a project actually in Southern Colorado where we provided some initial funding for this project to get it started, and we 

expect now that it’s probably going to save us $1 million a year because it provides a use of this material verses having to pay somebody to pile it and burn it to remove it. And so those are the things 

we want to continue to build on but having efficient, emission free, 

wood stoves is one of the things we hope to get out of this agreement. 

Senator CANTWELL. Well I think the fact that those wood stoves 

are a game changer, and there are new products on emissions. I 


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think we should look more deeply at this. When I look at the 

Northeast and so many homes are still on home heating oil and 

paying exorbitant prices or visiting Alaska with my colleague here 

and seeing the exorbitant prices, I just keep thinking there’s got to 

be a better solution. 

Wood pellets, as you said, it is a green source of energy and certainly would be cheaper. And I know that in some non-attainment 

areas in parts of the United States communities have worked harder to transfer out these inefficient wood stoves and put in new 

ones. Those are the kinds of programs I think we should look at. 

I have a related question. My colleague from New Mexico made 

me realize when we had the Carlton Complex Fire we had this 

question. There was a long delay on getting access to drones as a 

way to help us with that fire. What do we need to do to get the 

Department of Homeland Security to give the Forest Service the 

access and the authority to share drones to help us in fire fighting 

awareness on our forests? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we’re working with Homeland Security, also 

the FAA, to look into being able to use drones. 

We’ve had a couple situations where working with the state, with 

the Air National Guard, we’ve actually been able to use drones on 

fires. We did in California a couple years ago, and it provided excellent intelligence. It actually identified a place in the fire where it 

crossed the line, but because of the heavy smoke cover we were not 

able to see it. But the drone was able to pick that up. 

It was just a perfect example of—it’s a tool that we’re going to 

be moving forward to be able to use, but it’s something that needs 

to be done in a way so that it can be done safely with conjunction 

of all the other air activity on fires. And at the same time to address the public’s concerns about the use of these drones on fires. 

So it’s going probably take us a little while before we’re able to 

have everything in place. But when we have the opportunity, especially working with the states to be able to use the military aircraft 

from time to time, it’s one of the things we’ll probably continue to 

do in the near term. 

Senator CANTWELL. I hope that you will get an agreement with 

them because, to me, this is good information to have. When you 

think about some of these fires that do blow up and the challenges 

that we’ve had in the past, having that kind of data would be very, 

very helpful. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, the issue of drones is a really interesting 

one. I believe it was the Funny River fire in Alaska where—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. It was very, very helpful in terms of being able 

to target the drops. I have got a couple questions about young 

growth and then one on filming on public lands. 

With this transition to young growth that the Administration 

continues to speak about, you have stated that it’s going to be necessary to export the young growth logs outside of the United States 

to other countries instead of processing them at the mills in Alaska 

and that export is going to have to be part of the transition to 

young growth timber in order for it to be economic. Tell me how 


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exporting the young growth trees would help our struggling saw 

mills? How does this actually make the transition to young growth 

work? We are trying to figure out how you transition to young 

growth so that the Industry in Southeast Alaska stays alive. But 

if you’re sending all the product overseas you’re not going to be 

able to sustain these communities. So I don’t see how it works. 

Again, I have been very skeptical during this hearing, and I 

think you can sense my frustration, but this is yet another example 

of where I am not seeing the contribution to the local community 

here. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, I wish we didn’t have to export any 

logs out of Southeast Alaska. It’s my understanding to make, 

whether it’s the old growth sales or second growth sales, economically viable that we have to allow for some export to occur. And it 

will be done based on the market, etcetera. Ideally if we could actually keep all that wood in Southeast Alaska and have it the facilities—— 

The CHAIRMAN. This isn’t your idea that this is a good thing to 

export? You appreciate that part of what we are trying to do here 

is figure out how we can keep these smaller operators going and 

that you do that through ensuring available product is available in 

these communities. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Not necessarily sending it out of the country. 

Let me ask about the issue of retooling. Back in July of ’13 the 

Secretary of Agriculture issued this memorandum that outlined the 

goal to transition from the old growth to the second growth. In his 

memo he says ‘‘we’re going to pursue opportunities to facilitate investments in retooling and to develop by December 31 of 2013, in 

collaboration with rural development and other stakeholders, a 

plan for providing financial assistance to retool timber processing 

equipment in Southeast Alaska to assist the industry to handle 

youth growth timber.’’ 

That plan was due December 31 of ’13. The question to you is 

where is the plan that the Secretary asked for and what, if anything, can you point to within this budget on retooling financial assistance to help the small industry in Southeastern Alaska make 

the transition? 

First, where is the plan and second where do we see the retooling 

efforts in the budget? 

Mr. TIDWELL. So it’s my understanding with the plan that it has 

been different generations of that to address different issues working with rural development. 

I’m also aware of another issue that’s come up that we weren’t 

aware of. I think it’s the Credit Reform Act. I do not understand 

all of it, but it’s my understanding that we may need to come to 

you and ask for a reprogramming request to be able to provide the 

funding that we want to be able to use on that retooling. 

So I’m going to need to get back to you on this that we may need 

your help on a reprogramming request to be able to work with 

rural development to be able to do this. 

To retool that mill is essential, and I think the sooner we can be 

able to move forward with that and work with the owners there to 

be able to do it, it will help us to be prepared to be able to not only 


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start using some second growth but to be prepared with the transition that will occur sometime in the future. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, we need to talk about this, Chief, because 

again, this was a directive that is now a year and a half stale. 

There has been no plan developed, and now you are saying we need 

to talk about reprogramming so that we can start doing some retooling. These are promises that were made, I think, in good faith, 

fairly, that just simply have not been delivered on. In the meantime every time I go back home to Ketchikan or any of the communities in the region they are saying, okay, we haven’t been able to 

do anything to keep our operators alive. On the other, the Administration has promised us retooling. We don’t see either, so this is a 

real tough spot for us. I think you know that. So you are either 

going to have to help me figure out how we allow for an industry, 

even a small industry, or what you are going to do to keep the 

promise on the retooling because it is just not there. I will look forward to visiting with you on this. But this is something. Promises 

made, promises not kept. So we’ve got to do better, Chief. 

Let’s go to Senator Franken. 

Senator FRANKEN. Chief Tidwell, you and I have discussed the 

devastating impact of climate change on wildfires previously. 

Fighting wildfires costing a lot of money, about half your budget 

and all that spending means that preventive measures such as hazardous fuels treatment is receiving less funding, right? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

Senator FRANKEN. So I’m very interested in exploring how we 

can find new markets for forest waste in order to help pay for the 

removal of hazardous fuels and simultaneously bring economic benefit to plants that can burn the waste. For example, in my State 

of Minnesota the District Energy of St. Paul was recently recognized for its leadership in using wood waste to generate heat and 

electricity for downtown St. Paul while providing its customers 

with stable and competitive energy prices and at the same time reducing CO2 emissions. It seems to me the District Energy projects 

and combined heat and power plants are an ideal market for hazardous fuels, particularly ones that are located near our forests. 

Chief Tidwell, can you describe what your energy is doing on 

such bio-based energy efforts and can you also tell us what needs 

to be done to encourage more facilities to get involved in that 

arena? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, we’re continuing to make investments in the technology itself with our research scientists to be 

able to look at how to increase the efficiency, especially in pellets, 

to make them not only more durable, but actually increase the 

BTUs. But by doing that it expands the use. It also makes it more 

efficient. 

The other part of it is to find ways to be able to defer the transportation costs because that’s usually the limiting factor. If we 

have the biomass material at the facility, economically it makes 

good sense to use it. But it’s to be able to find a way to deal with 

the transportation. So looking at the benefits of chipping a material 

in the woods and then hauling it out that way is some of the things 

we’re using. We’re also—continuing to make loan money and in 

some cases grant money available, especially through all the USDA 


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programs to help provide the funding to do the designs. So it helps 

communities if they want to put a facility in place then here’s some 

funding to help pay for the design, do the feasibility study, so that 

they can see if they make the investment that, over time, they’re 

actually going to break even on it through the use of wood. 

The other key part of it is to provide the source. In your case 

there’s a lot of wood available off of private lands and county lands, 

but also in certain parts of your state the wood that comes off the 

national forest is also essential. So it’s a combination of continuing 

to improve the technology, providing a reliable source of material 

and then looking at ways to be able to address the transportation 

costs. 

It may mean looking at multiple facilities and maybe less large 

facilities that—and you have to factor in the economics of that. But 

those are the things we’re going to continue to work on because we 

need to make use of this material. Not only is it a green energy 

source, but also we need to remove the biomass one way or another. 

Senator FRANKEN. Yeah. 

Mr. TIDWELL. And so we’ve got to find a way to use this material 

instead of piling it up, burning it in cases which just costs more 

money. It makes more sense to be able to haul it to a facility and 

to use it. 

We just had a discussion about wood stoves and the competition 

that’s occurring to create the most fuel efficient, the most emission 

free wood stove to create, you know. And there’s a market for that. 

But that’s another thing that’s going on. 

Granted that’s just in homes, but every little piece will help. So 

it’s not just what we can do in homes, but also in businesses. And 

we have numerous examples across the country where we put these 

facilities in and in many cases, the business has been able to pay 

off their investment in a matter of years because of their energy 

cost savings. 

Senator FRANKEN. Well, thank you. I see my time is about to expire, so I’ll submit a question for the record. Thank you, Madam 

Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Senator Hoeven. 

Senator HOEVEN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chief Tidwell, good to see you. Thanks for your previous visits 

to North Dakota. 

I guess my first question is before you finalize the EA for the update to the management plan for our lotees on the grasslands in 

North Dakota are you going to be back in North Dakota? We’d certainly like to see you again. Any chance you’ll be back? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, I’ll look at my schedule. I appreciate 

the times that I’ve been able to be up there with you and also the 

time I worked up there in the past. Those meetings, I’ve felt, have 

always been helpful to not only for me to understand, continue to 

understand the issues, but also the challenges you’re facing up 

there. 

Senator HOEVEN. You’ve been good about coming. I think there’s 

some concerns on the part of our ranchers and grazers as far as 

your draft EA. And so both in terms of their input, some of the specific recommendations they have and input from North Dakota 


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State University Range Science, I need to understand how you’re 

going to take those comments and concerns into consideration in 

going from the draft to a final EA. And I think it would be good 

if you’re back to talk about that before you finalize the EA. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we look at the comments from the university 

along with the comments from everyone else plus the other science 

that’s available, and it’s all factored into those decisions. I understand we’ve made some progress, you know, in resolving some of 

the issues, but there still is this concern about the biological capable areas. 

Senator HOEVEN. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. As to which areas the grass can actually grow tall 

enough to have the stubble height that we’d like to see for some 

of the upland game species. So that’s the thing. 

It’s going to continue to look at the science that the universities 

provide and the science that we have from our scientists, the work 

that’s been done with NRCS and the comments from the ranchers. 

I’m going to remain optimistic that we can find a way through on 

this because there’s definitely areas where folks agree that it’s biologically capable, but there’s also some areas where we have this 

disagreement and a lot of that is something we don’t have to continue to look on and work on. 

I also think there’s some flexibility here to be able to look at 

these areas and to be able to go out there and just monitor it too 

because there’s may be some that it’s right on the edge. Depending 

on years it may work, it may not. But I’m going to remain optimistic that if we can just understand areas we’re in agreement and 

then areas where there’s disagreement and then go and take a look 

at those areas and just see what it will take for us to be able to 

reach agreement on that and to be able, then, to monitor it because 

we’re in this for the long term. 

Senator HOEVEN. Can we look at getting you out to have that 

discussion with our grazers and the NDSU Range Scientists and 

your folks before you issue the final EA? Because I think that 

would be a good discussion so that our people can get a sense of 

where you’re going and what that flexibility is before you finalize 

that EA? 

Mr. TIDWELL. I’ll check to see what the schedule is on completing 

that EA and my schedule, and if there’s any way I can get up there 

I’ll do it. 

Senator HOEVEN. Okay. Let’s see if we can make that happen. 

It’d be great. I think it’d be helpful. 

The other question is on controlled burns. What measures are 

you taking to make sure that you’re taking proper precautions to 

coordinate with people on the ground who live, work, ranch, graze, 

farm, in the area before you’re doing any controlled burns on forest 

lands? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well it’s essential that we, before we even plan to 

do a prescribed burn that we, not only go through our public comment process, but we’re also taking the time to meet with our cooperators, meet with the community, so that folks understand what 

we’re trying to get done here, factor in their concerns, you know, 

make sure we’re using all the information that we need to have to 

ensure that when we are in prescription to be able to carry out the 


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burn under the conditions where it can be controlled, that we have 

all the information that’s needed. 

In your case that we need additional weather information. And 

if we’re relying on it from one state or one area we may have to 

recognize we need additional information. And if that means putting up some portable weather stations ahead of time that’s the 

sort of thing we need to do to make sure that we can continue to 

use the tool. But at the same time to do everything we can to make 

sure that we do not have the situation where we have a fire, a 

burn, a prescribed burn, that it gets out of prescription and impacts private land, destroys facilities. It’s the last thing we want 

to do. 

Senator HOEVEN. Yeah, and again, I’d really urge you to emphasize to your people that are out on the ground, that local coordination, working with those folks. I understand there may be different 

considerations when you’re actually working in forests, but we are 

grasslands. That is different, and so anything and everything you 

can do to coordinate with the locals I think is very important. 

Thanks, Chief. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Cantwell, do you have any additional 

questions? 

Senator CANTWELL. No. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chief, if I may, just ask one final question? I 

have hinted at this throughout this morning’s conversation, and 

this is relating to filming on public lands. 

I have been at a couple of different venues, one inside the state, 

one outside the state, and I thought that I would be asked questions about hunting and fishing and sportsmen’s issues but what 

it came back to was just this hue and cry over filming on public 

lands. It ties in with what we have heard from Senator Heinrich 

and Senator Cantwell here in terms of public access and just understanding what the rules are on our public lands. 

It would seem to me that the law on commercial filming that we 

passed in Congress in 2000 is being grossly misconstrued and applied in a way that really limits or restricts or sometimes outright 

denies access to our public lands. The folks that I am talking to, 

these are not big movie producers. These are a couple people, three 

people, film crews. They have cameras. They have hand held video 

equipment. They are not disturbing the landscape. They are basically going in and taking these beautiful pictures that allow people 

who would otherwise not be able to access these amazing lands an 

opportunity to see it. The frustration, I think, is that in some 

places they are being allowed access and others they are not. 

Now I understand that you are planning on issuing a new directive on commercial filming in wilderness areas. I don’t know if it’s 

this month or how soon it’s coming up, but can you give me a heads 

up in terms of what this directive will actually allow, particularly 

as it relates to individuals and small film operations? We are working together on a proposal in the context of the sportsmen’s bill 

that would exempt a diminimus number of people who would be 

engaging in filming on our Forest Service lands. What do you think 

about something like this? 

I need to understand a little bit more from your perspective 

where the Forest Service is going on filming. 


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Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we’re going to move forward with taking the 

comments and all the meetings we’ve had across the country to put 

forward a proposal on how and when, for commercial filming, in 

wilderness. Because of the Wilderness Act that restricts or limits 

commercial activities we need to have a system in place so it’s consistent across the board for when it comes to commercial filming 

in wilderness. 

And really, what is commercial filming? You know, in the past, 

it’s the movies, the Hollywood movies, definitely it is a commercial 

film. But there’s a lot of other things—today people go out and take 

pictures. You never had to have a permit for that before. Don’t 

have to have a permit for it now. So this is all about commercial 

filming in wilderness. But what did come out of the discussions we 

had across the country was a lot of questions around this. And that 

we’ve never charged for somebody to take a picture. 

The CHAIRMAN. I hope we are not planning on it. 

Mr. TIDWELL. No, we’re not. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Mr. TIDWELL. We never have nor would we. This is about commercial filming, and really the permit is to address the requirements under the Wilderness Act to be able to put in place; these 

are the opportunities we have for commercial filming in wilderness. 

There’s a lot of other places you can go film, but certain things. 

We have situations where people want to film in wilderness and 

they want to carry the story about wilderness, whether it’s wilderness ethic or the importance of wilderness. We feel that that fits 

in fine. 

If it’s a Hollywood production that could be filmed someplace else 

verses being in a wilderness we’ll probably say, hey, here’s another 

landscape. Go film over here. 

The CHAIRMAN. What about this diminimus idea? So you have a 

few guys. Let’s just say for discussion you have three folks and 

they are carrying all their gear on their back and they are hiking 

in? 

Mr. TIDWELL. If it’s for a commercial filming and this is one of 

the things we’re working on. We’re actually working with the industry to come up with some clear definitions of just what commercial filming is. It’s something we’re going to have to address to be 

able to find what is the right approach to be able to do that, because you’re right, today from when we put these procedures in 

place in, what was it? 2000? When the bill was? Well today the 

equipment most of the time, it’s something like this. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, this, on a stick, maybe. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yeah, exactly. And so it really changes the concern 

about impact on the ground because you’re not looking at large film 

crews in a lot of cases when somebody wants to do a commercial 

film when they can use the equipment that’s either on their hand 

or on their shoulder at the most. So that’s the thing that we’re trying to work through this. 

The CHAIRMAN. So—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. This is just about wilderness and wilderness only. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So when do you anticipate that this directive is going to be out? 

Mr. TIDWELL. I’ll get back to you on that date. 


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The CHAIRMAN. You mean, like, soon or a month? 

Mr. TIDWELL. It’s going to be this year. 

The CHAIRMAN. This year? Okay. 

The CHAIRMAN. So again, I hope the direction you are taking recognizes that it is not necessarily big Hollywood crews, that there 

is a distinction when you go out with this small equipment. I would 

think that we would have an allowance within our public lands and 

a recognition that this is not the type of activity that we want to 

preclude. I appreciate what you are saying about the differences 

between wilderness areas and non-wilderness areas, but again, 

there has to be some level of consistency out here. What I am hearing from folks is there is none right now. It is more than confusing, 

and it makes folks really angry. 

I think we have to get this right. And I’m thinking that if you’ve 

got small operators using this small equipment and you’re, I don’t 

know, you mentioned drones, Senator Cantwell. There is some really great video footage of the Tongass that was taken by these little 

drones you can get at Best Buy and put your camera on it with 

your GoPro—you get some pretty amazing shots. 

I am sure hoping that we are not going to be telling people that 

we can’t do that without a permit. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Senator, we’ve had this interim directive out, 

I think, for four or five years. And we did have two or three situations where it was applied inconsistently which makes the case for 

why we need to have very clear direction to all of our offices about 

how to approach this. 

And also what is commercial? And that’s where we’ve had some, 

I think, some very productive meetings with the industry where 

they’ve really helped provide some additional insight about how to 

do this in a way that will make sense to them. And so that’s where 

a lot of the comments that we’ve received have come directly from 

those and a lot of public comments too. But because of that work 

and the meetings we’ve held across the country with industry on 

this that I feel we’ll be able to move forward in a way with something that works, that it’s clear and people won’t have to worry 

about when they need a permit or not. It will be very clear for 

those that do need it around this concept of commercial and wilderness. 

That’s the thing we’re moving forward to. And I’m optimistic, 

based on the comments in the meetings that I have had with some 

of the folks, that we’ll be in a much better place than the interim 

directive we’ve been following in the past. This will be improved. 

It will be easier, and it will be better. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I hope so because I do not think it does the 

Forest Service any good—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. To see top of the fold headlines in the Juneau 

Empire about the Forest Service banning the use of photographs or 

photographers in the Tongass. That is not good for you. It creates 

confusion. 

Mr. TIDWELL. It’s never happened. It never will. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, with that I appreciate the time that you 

have given the Committee this morning. I think you got a whole 

host of issues placed in front of you. 


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I would like to talk to you a little bit more about some of the 

things we discussed here this morning, but I think you can hear 

the continuing concern and frustration from the people of the 

Tongass as we try to live in an area where we are a hundred percent surrounded by our nation’s largest national forest. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. And not much room to move around. So thank 

you and I thank my Ranking Member this morning. 

[Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 


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