U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

46–036 CC WASHINGTON : 1998

H.CON.RES. 151

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

H.CON.RES. 151

EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE CONGRESS THAT

THE UNITED STATES SHOULD MANAGE ITS PUBLIC

DOMAIN NATIONAL FORESTS TO MAXIMIZE THE REDUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE AMONG MANY OTHER OBJECTIVES AND

THAT THE UNITED STATES SHOULD SERVE AS AN

EXAMPLE AND AS A WORLD LEADER IN ACTIVELY

MANAGING ITS PUBLIC DOMAIN NATIONAL FORESTS

IN A MANNER THAT SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCES THE

AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE ADDED TO THE ATMOSPHERE

SEPTEMBER 18, 1997, WASHINGTON, DC

Serial No. 105–61

Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources

(
(II)

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana

JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

KEN CALVERT, California

RICHARD W. POMBO, California

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

LINDA SMITH, Washington

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina

WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas

JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona

JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada

ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

RICK HILL, Montana

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho

GEORGE MILLER, California

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia

BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California

CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO ́ , Puerto

Rico

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York

ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam

SAM FARR, California

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

ADAM SMITH, Washington

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana

DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin Islands

RON KIND, Wisconsin

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas

LLOYD A. JONES, Chief of Staff

ELIZABETH MEGGINSON, Chief Counsel

CHRISTINE KENNEDY, Chief Clerk/Administrator

JOHN LAWRENCE, Democratic Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho, Chairman

JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

RICK HILL, Montana

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York

BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, Am. Samoa

————— —————

————— —————

BILL SIMMONS, Staff Director

ANNE HEISSENBUTTEL, Legislative Staff

LIZ BIRNBAUM, Democratic Counsel
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held September 18, 1997 .......................................................................... 1

Statements of Members:

Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Idaho .......................................................................................................... 1

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2

Statements of witnesses:

Department of the Interior, prepared statement of ....................................... 98

Lyons, James R., Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, United States Department of Agriculture ........................................ 3

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

Oliver, Chadwick D., Professor, University of Washington, College of

Forest Resources ........................................................................................... 15

Perez–Garcia, John M., Associate Professor, College of Forest Resources,

University of Washington ............................................................................. 13

Prepared statement of John M. Perez–Garcia, Associate Professor,

College of Forest Resources, University of Washington and

Chadwick D. Oliver, Professor, University of Washington, College

of Forest Resources ................................................................................ 46

Ross, Gordon, County Commissioner, Coos County, Oregon ........................ 17

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 29

Affidavit of Gordon Ross ........................................................................... 70

How Much Old Growth Can We Save? .................................................... 97

Additional material supplied:

Briefing Paper ................................................................................................... 27

Evergreen, magazine, question and answer ................................................... 94

Forest and Wood Products, Role in Carbon Sequestration, R. Neil Sampson .................................................................................................................. 34

Text of H.Con.Res. 151 ..................................................................................... 31
(1)

HEARING ON: H.CON.RES. 151, EXPRESSING

THE SENSE OF THE CONGRESS THAT THE

UNITED STATES SHOULD MANAGE ITS PUBLIC DOMAIN NATIONAL FORESTS TO MAXIMIZE THE REDUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE

IN THE ATMOSPHERE AMONG MANY OTHER

OBJECTIVES AND THAT THE UNITED

STATES SHOULD SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE

AND AS A WORLD LEADER IN ACTIVELY

MANAGING ITS PUBLIC DOMAIN NATIONAL

FORESTS IN A MANNER THAT SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCES THE AMOUNT OF CARBON

DIOXIDE ADDED TO THE ATMOSPHERE.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1997

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOR- ESTS AND FOREST HEALTH, COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room

1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen Chenoweth

(chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest

Health will come to order. The Subcommittee is meeting today to

hear testimony on H.C.R 151. I would like to welcome our witnesses today. I am very pleased to be holding this hearing on

H.C.R. 151, a concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the

Congress that the United States should manage its public domain

national forest to maximize the reduction of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere among many other objectives and that the United

States should serve as an example and world leader in actively

managing its public domain public forests in the manner that substantially reduces the amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

[Text of bill H.Con.Res. 151 may be found at end of hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Chairman Young and I introduced this resolution along with Speaker Gingrich, Mr. Taylor of North Carolina,

Mr. Herger, Mr. Peterson of Pennsylvania, Mr. Pombo, Mr.

McInnis, Mr. Sessions, Mrs. Smith of Washington, Mr. Riggs, Mr.
2

Cunningham, Mrs. Cubin, Mr. Nethercutt, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Lewis

of California, Mr. Skeen, Mr. Schaffer of Colorado, Mr. Hansen and

Mr. Radanovich.

Global warming has been an issue of great debate and discussion

in Congress. Whether or not you believe human induced global climate change is occurred, this resolution deserves the support of everyone. Science has proven to us that carbon dioxide, the leading

greenhouse gas, can be taken out of the atmosphere by allowing a

young vibrant forest to absorb carbon through a photosynthesis.

Carbon dioxide can also be kept out of the atmosphere by harvesting the forest before it begins to decompose or burn, thus storing the carbon in wood products that are environmentally friendly

as well as providing an economic benefit to society and to communities.

In the words of Gifford Pinchot quoting from his book Breaking

New Ground, he states, ‘‘the purpose of forestry, then, is to make

the forest produce the largest possible amount of whatever crop or

service will be most useful, and keep on producing it generation

after generation.’’ I agree with these sage words and feel that we

must manage our forests better. One of the things that we must

begin to do is to improve the management of the national forests

to maximize the benefit to our environment.

In December of this year, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change, which may commit the United States

to mandatory greenhouse gas reductions, is expected to be signed

in Kyoto, Japan. The ramifications of this treaty could be enormous

for people in the United States, our economy and our way of life.

There are alternatives to mandatory reductions of carbon emissions. One alternative is to manage our public forests better in

order to extract from the atmosphere and store more carbon dioxide

than we currently do. This means giving and using the controls on

greenhouse gases that mother nature gives to us rather than controls that government mandates this nation to follow.

President Teddy Roosevelt said, ‘‘we have a right and a duty second to none, to protect ourselves and our children against the

wasteful development of our natural resources, whether that waste

is caused by the actual destruction of such resources or by making

them impossible of development hereafter.’’ Our charge then is to

strike a proper balance in the management of our forests to maximize the benefits to the environment and prevent the wasteful development and destruction of our natural resources.

The thrust of this resolution is to direct the Federal Government

to take the lead in managing our national forests to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By managing our public

domain national forests to minimize additions of carbon dioxide

into the atmosphere we will improve air quality, the health of our

Nation’s forests and set an example for other nations as the world

prepares for the negotiations in Kyoto, Japan.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Chenoweth follows.:]

STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM

THE STATE OF IDAHO

I would like to welcome our witnesses out today. I am very pleased to be holding

this hearing on H.Con.Res. 151, a concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the

Congress that the United States should manage its public domain National Forests
3

to maximize the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere among many other

objectives and that the United States should serve as an example and as a world

leader in actively managing its public domain national forests in a manner that substantially reduces the amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

Chairman Young and I introduced this resolution along with Speaker Gingrich,

Mr. Taylor of North Carolina, Mr. Herger, and Mr. Peterson of Pennsylvania, Mr.

Pombo, Mr. McInnis, Mr. Sessions, Mrs. Smith of Washington, Mr. Riggs, Mr.

Cunningham, Mrs. Cubin, Mr. Nethercutt, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Lewis of California,

Mr. Skeen, Mr. Schaffer of Colorado, Mr. Hansen, and Mr. Radanovich.

Global warming has been an issue of great debate and discussion in Congress.

Whether or not you believe human induced global climate change is occurring, this

resolution deserves the support of everyone. Science has proven to us that carbon

dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas can be taken out of the atmosphere by allowing

a young vibrant forest to absorb carbon through photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide can

also be kept out of the atmosphere by harvesting the forest before it begins to decompose or burn, thus storing the carbon in wood products that are environmentally

friendly, as well as providing an economic benefit to society.

In the words of Gifford Pinchot quoting from his book Breaking New Ground, he

states, ‘‘the purpose of Forestry, then, is to make the forest produce the largest possible amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing

it generation after generation . . .’’ I agree with these sage words, and feel that we

must manage our forests better. One of the things that we must begin to do is to

improve the management of the National Forests to maximize the benefit to the environment.

In December of this year, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, which may commit the United States to mandatory greenhouse gas reductions, is expected to be signed in Kyoto, Japan. The ramifications of this treaty could

be enormous for people, the economy and our way of life.

There are alternatives to mandatory reductions of carbon emissions. One alternative is to manage our public forests better in order to extract from the atmosphere

and store more carbon dioxide than we currently do. This means using the controls

on greenhouse gasses that mother nature gives to us rather than controls that government mandates us to follow.

President Teddy Roosevelt said, ‘‘we have a right and duty second to none, to protect ourselves and our children against the wasteful development of our natural resources, whether that waste is caused by the actual destruction of such resources

or by making them impossible of development hereafter.’’ Our charge then is to

strike a proper balance in the management of our forests to maximize the benefits

to the environment and prevent the wasteful development of our natural resources.

The thrust of this resolution is to direct the Federal Government to take the lead

in managing our National Forests to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By managing our public domain national forests to minimize additions

of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere we will improve air quality, the health of our

nation’s forests and set an example for other nation’s, as the world prepares for the

negotiations in Kyoto, Japan.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And when the Ranking Minority Member arrives, I will recognize him for a statement. But now I will introduce

our first panel, Mr. Jim Lyons, Undersecretary of Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture. Mr. Lyons,

good to see you again.

Mr. LYONS. Good to see you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Lyons, would you proceed.

STATEMENT OF JAMES R. LYONS, UNDERSECRETARY FOR

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, UNITED STATES

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. LYONS. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I want to apologize up front for the delay in getting testimony to you. We focused

on some issues in the Senate the last few days and therefore, we

were not able to focus in on this important matter, so I do apologize. I am also glad to see that you have been reading Breaking

New Ground, which I gave you just the other day, so——

Mrs. CHENOWETH. That is right. I am enjoying it very much.
4

Mr. LYONS. Very good. I am glad you are into it. I want to thank

you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the

Administration’s views regarding the active management of the national forests to maximize reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We welcome the Congress’ attention to this matter and concern for arresting, or at least addressing, global climate change,

and we look forward to working with you in that regard. However,

we must oppose H. Con. Res. 151 because of its narrow focus and

perhaps its conflict with existing national forest management policy and legal direction.

The premise of the concurrent resolution is that young, fastgrowing trees fix carbon dioxide more efficiently than mature trees,

and therefore, the Forest Service should maximize carbon sequestration by harvesting mature trees, converting the wood to durable

products and replanting sites with seedlings, which will then take

up carbon at a faster rate.

As the Committee is aware, the scientific basis for our mutual

concerns about global climate changes is extremely complex. Accordingly, our efforts to make substantive policy changes are equally complex and driven by scientific analysis. What I would like to

do this morning is make three basic points or address three basic

issues. One is the role of recycling in dealing with this issue; the

second is the role of the national forests in the carbon cycle; and

the third is the potential for carbon sequestration from Federal

lands as opposed to private lands.

The Forest Service Research Program has done some extensive

research quantifying the benefits of recycling wood fiber on carbon

releases into the environment. Through technology developed by

the Federal Government and the private sector and supported by

government incentives to recycle, the U.S. has made significant

contributions to carbon sequestration by reducing energy costs of

production and by reusing wood fibers several times before it ultimately ends up in landfills or disposed of in some other way.

Recognizing the value of storing carbon in wood products and

substituting wood products for more fossil fuel-consuming products,

the President included in his 1993 Climate Change Action Plan, a

proposal to extend paper recycling technology research. Priorities

included research on the use of recycled wood and fiber in durable

structural products suitable for the housing market. The President

requested $2 million in increased funding for that research, however, unfortunately, only $200,000 was appropriated.

The President’s Forest Plan in the Pacific Northwest was analyzed specifically for its contribution to carbon sequestration. It

thus offers, I think, a good case study to evaluate national forest

management policies in general. Since a great deal of time and effort has been placed on the development of that plan. Contrary to

the presumption of the concurrent resolution, the conservation

strategy and the President’s Forest Plan actually increases the

amount of carbon dioxide sequestration by about 7 million metric

tons per year by the year 2000. A careful balance was struck in forest protection and management in seeking to protect old-growth

forests as described well in a 1990 Science magazine article by

Harmon, Ferrell and Jerry Franklin, one of the key architects of

the plan.
5

In addition, the President’s Forest Plan adopted strict standards

harvesting so as to minimize the environmental effects of harvesting timber in the so-called matrix lands into the Forest Plan.

And this approach, in fact, is supported by the work of R. Neil

Sampson, who has testified before this Committee many times.

Neil found that harvesting practices, such as clear cutting, eliminate canopy shade, increase soil temperatures, accelerate organic

decomposition due to soil disturbance and have other negative impacts on carbon storage in the forested ecosystem. Since the Forest

Plan minimizes clear cuts and focuses on protecting shade, foliage

and canopy closures and, of course, minimizing ground disturbance

because of the potential effects on water quality, the plan seems

consistent with the recommendations of Mr. Sampson.

Lastly, the President’s Forest Plan meets all Federal land management and environmental laws and your resolution would create,

I believe, a conflict with existing law. While the resolution suggests

that national forests should be managed to maximize carbon sequestration, current law requires us to practice, of course, multiple

use as requested by the philosophy of Gifford Pinchot and others.

U.S. forest sector will store about 109 million metric tons of carbon

in the year 2000. Of this, the national forests are projected to fix

21 million metric tons of carbon, store over 8 billion tons, as well

as conserve biodiversity and provide for multiple use according to

our legal mandates. And although the annual carbon storage and

private forests is expected to decline over the next several decades

due to the declining net growth in the Northeast, as trees age and

removal of trees in the South increases, probably at the same rate

as growth, annual carbon accumulation in our national forests is

expected to increase.

Finally, what I would like to do, Madam Chairman, is turn to the

issue of maximizing growth of new biomass through forest management and how we best would capture that to achieve the goals that

I think are part of your concurrent resolution. As you know, the

productivity of forest land varies widely across the United States.

Productivity, that is the rate at which trees grow or wood is accumulated, biomass is accumulated, is influenced by soil type and soil

depth, growing season, rain fall, and many other factors. Productivity is commonly measured according to the number of cubic feet

of wood which one acre of land could grow annually in a year’s

time. If Congress were interested in maximizing carbon sequestration through tree growth, I would suggest that is more logical for

us to focus on investing in those most productive sites which will

grow trees the quicker. Now I know you know this, Madam Chairman, but I just want to point out that 73 percent of the forest land

in the United States is actually in private ownership, 59 percent,

almost two thirds, is owned by what we refer to as nonindustrial

private forest landowners, 14 percent of that is owned by the industry. Of the remaining 27 percent of land, which is in public ownership, the Forest Service administers 17 percent. The Forest Service

published a document called Forest Resources of the United States

(1994), which summarizes forest productivity across all land ownerships using the standard of 85 cubic feet per acre per year as a rate

of production. In the West, for example, the Forest Service notes

that 67 percent of the private industrial lands are capable of pro-
6

ducing more than 85 cubic feet per year compared to only 15 percent on the national forests. The reason for this is that national

forest lands are typically high elevation lands with shorter growing

seasons, are often on steep slopes and poor sites. In fact that is

why they are in public ownership and they have been referred to

in the past as the lands that no one wanted. As Americans moved

West and homesteaded, they, of course, homesteaded in those lands

that were easier to access, that were more productive, that could

support what then, of course, was an agrarian economy.

Similarly, in the East, 55 percent of the private industrial land

is capable of producing 85 cubic feet or more a year compared to

only 20 percent of the national forest land. This trend is the same,

though less dramatic, between nonindustrial private lands and national forest lands in both East and West. And in fact if you were

to look at a breakdown of land ownership types by productivity,

you would find—industry lands, industrial lands are the most productive by far. Private nonindustrial lands are second. National

forest system lands are third, and other public lands, lands administered by the BLM, Department of Defense and others are last in

terms of productivity.

My point is this, if growing trees quickly is our goal or the goal

of the resolution, so as to maximize carbon sequestration, in my

mind, it makes much more sense to focus our efforts to areas where

we will receive the greatest return on our investment, in our investment in terms of carbon sequestration. That is on the most productive lands, i.e., private lands.

The Forest Service can help make this investment, not through

a change in priorities in our land management of public lands, but

by providing technical and financial assistance to private landowners to help them increase their productivity. The state and private forestry programs of the Forest Service, and your staff and I

were most recently out with the State Forest Meeting in Salt Lake

City to discuss these programs, can deliver exactly this kind of assistance to landowners. In addition, the National Resources Conservation Service administers a number of programs which help

landowners develop and implement plans that promote tree planting. The more efficient and effective place to focus tree planting in

aggressive management really is on private lands. The President’s

Climate Change Action Plan includes two actions that provide technical assistance and cost-sharing assistance for nonindustrial private landowners to plant trees and improve forest management.

I would note, however, Madam Chairman, that in the budget for

the Forest Service for fiscal year 1998, which was passed by the

House and is being debated over on the Senate floor, the investment that is made in programs like stewardship and stewardship

incentive, which are designed to help increase productivity on private nonindustrial forest lands is one tenth the investment we are

making in producing timber on the national forests, which as I

have just pointed out have a much lower capability to sequester

carbon given their lower productivity. I would suggest if carbon sequestration were a goal, then we want to reverse that investment.

The programs that we currently have in place, stewardship and

stewardship incentive, have resulted in tree planting on about

135,000 acres of land. Many states, as you know, are seeking to fos-
7

ter a good stewardship and encourage good land management on

private and industrial lands. The State of Idaho, for example, the

State of Alaska have forest practices acts. These laws continue the

efforts to insure that landowners practice sustainable forestry.

Some states, however, such as Georgia, do not in fact have forest

practices laws. And they depend on market conditions to encourage

tree planting. I would suggest another policy change that we are

not responsible for, but the states are responsible for, is policies

that would insure and encourage tree planting immediately after

harvest. In any case, the role of the private landowner, however,

is influenced by state or Federal policy and we believe that private

landowners have a much greater opportunity to contribute to the

carbon sequestration goals that this concurrent resolution suggests.

There are many efforts throughout the Forest Service and the

Administration which are targeted specifically to address the issue

of climate change that are beyond the immediate scope of this resolution and hearing. However, in summary I want to tell you that

the Administration is enthusiastically supportive of the concerns of

the Congress in addressing global climate change, however, believe

that the resolution is too narrowly focused and, in fact, would be

counter to the other legal mandates we have for management of

the national forest.

I think I will stop there, Madam Chairman, and entertain any

questions you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lyons may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. That is very interesting testimony and I did

not—I was not able to study it ahead of time because, as you say,

we did not receive it until last night. But I am a little surprised

at it and Mr. Lyons, I have to say, you are one of the brightest men

that I have met, but I am not sure that I understand the logic here

at all. So I want to take this step by step and would ask, even

though I know you are running between here and the Senate, I

would ask that you remain for the second panel because I may

want to call you back.

I am not sure given the comments that you just gave us that

there is a way to reasonably and logically convince the Administration to support this concept, however, I am very, very surprised at

some of the, at some of the statements because we seem to be

abandoning the tradition set forth by Gifford Pinchot and Teddy

Roosevelt, the National Forest Management Act, and did I, did I

understand you to say that you feel that the focus of the work by

the Forest Service in managing land should be working with private landowners on their own private land to manage their forests?

Mr. LYONS. Well what I meant to suggest, Madam Chairman, we

in fact do do a great deal of work with, with private nonindustrial

landowners, some with private industrial landowners, in helping to

promote good stewardship of their land through the state and private programs that are run through we call a Cooperative Forestry

Assistance Authorities. If we were to focus intently on carbon sequestration as a goal of land stewardship and forest management,

that in fact is where we would want to focus our efforts because

of the benefits of capitalizing on the higher productivity of those
8

private lands. So if that were the case and that was our sole goal,

I would suggest that is where we would be making investments.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Let us look at the land mass. I think you used

the figure 73 percent of our forested land is on nonFederal land.

Of that 73 percent, 14 percent of the 73 percent are used for commercial harvest.

Mr. LYONS. Well, they are industrial lands technically. They are

owned by the Weyerhaeusers and the Plum Creeks and the Boise

Cascades.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Right.

Mr. LYONS. Some of the nonindustrial land contributes to commercial ventures as well and produces wood products. In fact a sizable portion.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. So calibrating that out, that would amount to

about 10.2 percent of our landbase that you are talking about. And

our Federal lands, our timber dominated Federal lands are 27 percent of our landbase. And so we are abandoning not only the National Forest Management Act, but twice the landbase, and the

landbase that is primarily concentrated in the Northwest, a whole

sector of our country.

Mr. LYONS. I want to make sure we get the numbers right so,

so we can start from the same bases. Of the entire United States,

the forest landbase in the United States, 73 percent is in private

ownership.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Right.

Mr. LYONS. OK, so really three quarters of our forest are in private ownership. Of the remaining forest land in the United States,

which is in public management, 17 percent is administered by the

Forest Service. So we have 17 percent of the 27 percent that remains. So we have a relatively small slice of the pie in terms of

the total forest landbase that we administer. The most dominate

share, and I wish I had a pie chart that I had yesterday to show

you, is in private ownership.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I do not think it quite comes out that way but

I will review your testimony.

Mr. LYONS. Well it is not true in Idaho. I will grant you that.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And many of our Northwestern states. But it

is my understanding that President Clinton, as said in his speech

last Tuesday, September 9th, that ‘‘we could reduce global warming

pollution by 20 percent tomorrow with technology that is already

available at no cost, if we would just change the way we do things.’’

Does the Clinton Administration consider managing our national

forests to maximize reductions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

to be a ‘‘technology that is already available at no cost if we just

change the way we do things.’’

Mr. LYONS. Well, I would suggest, Madam Chairman, that we

are seeking to manage the national forests so as to achieve that as

one of many, many goals and objectives. We are managing those

goals to achieve the goals that you cited in the quotation from

Breaking New Ground, to assure the production of crops as Pinchot

referred to them, and other goods and services that emanate from

the national forests on a sustainable basis. Carbon sequestration is

one element of many.
9

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Neil Sampson wrote in Forest and Wood Products Role in Carbon Sequestration, that ‘‘if our object is to increase

carbon storage over time, however, then harvest and replanting becomes the best option.’’ Do you not agree with that statement?

Mr. LYONS. I agree totally, but the key there is where do you

make that investment? Where do you harvest? And where do you

seek reforestation? And my point is simply this. With the productivity of private lands being so much greater than the productivity

of public forest lands, that is where you are going to make that investment.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And it appears that your plans are then to

pretty well shut down the Northwest.

Mr. LYONS. No, I would not say——

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Let me finish my question.

Mr. LYONS. OK.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Forest Service trust funds are nearly

gone. A GAO study has just come in that the press just reported

on that the Forest Service is near bankrupt in its trust funds. We

are having to lay off employees up in—large numbers of employees

up in the Northwest in various regions. It is a desperate situation

up there. We have the Forest Service now asking for fees for services that were there for the people. I mean the argument over the

last few years have been these lands belong to the people and yet

we are charging people now to simply go in and gaze at these

lands. And so we are transferring the ability of the Forest Service

to generate income from the trust funds to now be for access in

camp grounds, on cabins, in just our natural and national forests.

It seems to be a great departure from the National Forest Management Act.

And while I am personally concerned and I know the Congress

is that the Forest Service does not go bankrupt and does not break

both its management and economically, we have got to be able to

manage the forests not only economically for the best return, but

for the best return in the atmosphere, and that does not mean just

on private ground. It means in a whole segment in the Northwest.

You know, the Forest Service has gone from harvesting around 12

billion board feet of timber each year to well below 4 billion board

feet. From 12 billion to below 4 billion. And that—therein lies the

problem. That is the picture. Is this trend beneficial to the forest’s

ability to sequester carbon, when we, as Neil Sampson has said in

his, in his paper would—very, very well done—that this idea of reducing harvesting and replanting with good healthy trees wars

against what we are trying to achieve in the balance of oxygenation

and carbon dioxide sequestration. Do you agree with Mr. Sampson

and that statement?

Mr. LYONS. As, as I said, I agree with Mr. Sampson that one way

to increase carbon sequestration is through harvest replanting of

productive sites. And I would suggest that if you ask Neil—I will

let you ask Neil, I do not know if he is going to testify today or

not—that he would suggest that focusing on the highly productive

sites would be, would be the most productive way to go.

You mentioned the point of going bankrupt. I would suggest this,

if you look at the unit cost of production of timber on the national

forest as opposed to the unit cost of producing the same amount of
10

timber from private industrial and nonindustrial lands, I think you

would quickly decide if you were responsible for the entire forest

landscape, you would not be investing a lot of money in, in Federal

lands to produce timber, because the unit costs are astronomical

compared to that on private lands. We still invest in timber production on the national forests for various reasons. To support communities, to achieve wildlife habitat improvement, to protect watersheds, to achieve other goals.

You mention Neil Sampson’s excellent work on this issue of carbon sequestration. Neil points out, for example, that forest fires

emit enormous amounts of carbon and can cause tremendous harm

over time. The policies we have adopted to reduce fuel loads, to increase thinning and to restore fire—to fire adapted ecosystems in

the long term will help reduce wildfires and the emissions of high

amounts of carbons. So I think that is a beneficial outcome from

what we do.

Neil also points out in the same paper, though I want to mention, that the practice of clear cut harvesting attracts negative public reaction for various reasons, as he suggests. Then he goes on to

talk about the fact that the Forest Service has declared a new policy minimizing the use of clear cutting as a harvest method wherever other methods are available. In fact that policy was adopted

during the Bush era, not the Clinton era. But Neil points out, ‘‘this

should be a positive change in terms of carbon sinks and the effects

of forest harvest upon them.’’

My point is simply this, there are a lot of factors that come, come

into play. Changes in management practices can help improve the

role the national forest can play in carbon sequestration. But if as

the Concurrent Resolution suggests, we should focus solely on as

a primary objective, trying to improve carbon sequestration, we do

not want to focus on increasing timber harvest on the national forest. We want to focus on increasing land stewardship on 75 percent

of the landbase that is forested and in addition, converting marginal lands to forested lands where trees can grow and can begin

to accumulate carbon as other forests do.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I am very—I guess I did not believe that you

would say that. I guess that it has taken me a long time to realize

that there has been a paradigm shift of emphasis in the Forest

Service from that of good stewardship management in the Northwest to, as you say, of being of assistance to the private landowners. I hope you are not saying that the Forest Service has become an assistant to big business at the expense of—and no doubt

about it, I mean we have huge companies here in the East that are,

that are doing very, very well and they are responding to market

demand, and their forests are giving off great amounts of oxygen

and they are maximizing the carbon sequestration because of the

way they manage their forests. But I submit to you, Mr. Secretary,

we are, we are abandoning an entire area in this United States

that is quickly growing out of, out of balance as far as our ability

to reduce fuel loads, to limit the potential of carbon being released

into the atmosphere because of fire, because of unit costs. I do not

think that is a good argument.

I realize you are making me very testy and this is the first time

that this has happened since I have been Chairman, but I am ut-
11

terly shocked at what I am hearing. And I hope that you will review this or, or submit more detail into your testimony so that we

come closer in our thinking as far as, No. 1, your appearance of

abandoning National Forest Management Act, and the appearance

of abandoning an entire area in management in the Northwest and

in California.

Mr. LYONS. If I could, Madam Chairman, I want to, I want to

make clear we are certainly not abandoning our stewardship role.

I infer from your statement though that you equate stewardship

with timber harvesting and harvesting levels. The fact that harvest

levels have declined or offer levels have declined from 12 billion

board feet in some a decade or so ago, to 4 equates with abandonment of stewardship, that is not the case. I want to be abundantly

clear about that. Stewardship involves harvesting trees, replanting

new trees, restoring water sheds, dealing with the road maintenance and deterioration problems that we have on the national forests, providing high quality recreation, good range land improvement, et cetera, et cetera. So that is all part of our stewardship

mission as required in the law. And I certainly do not mean to create friction between the good working relationship we have.

I simply want to point out that I think, I think it is wrong to

manage the national forest for any one purpose. I think that is consistent with your opening statement. It is wrong to manage the national forest simply for carbon sequestration. If we want to manage

forests for carbon sequestration, we would invest elsewhere. We

would not invest in the national forests. We want to manage the

national forest for the wide range of goods and services they can

provide on a sustainable basis to help people. People in Idaho and

Washington and Oregon and California, and in the East as well.

And that is really our stewardship role and that is where we are

headed.

This Concurrent Resolution would change our priorities and have

us focus on carbon sequestration. I think the implication is that we

would harvest more. That is really the wrong way to approach our

stewardship role, and it is really the wrong way to achieve the carbon sequestration goals that are suggested. If the Concurrent Resolution suggested that forests nationwide should be managed to improve carbon sequestration, well then we might have a focus on

which we could discuss. Because as I suggested private lands offer

tremendous opportunity to capture more carbon through their productive use.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. H.C.R. 151 expresses the sense of the Congress that the U.S. should manage its public domain national forest

to maximize the reduction of carbon among other objectives and

that was made very clear in my opening statement and in the content of the resolution. The resolution does not require that carbon

sequestration should be given a higher priority while at the same

time meeting all Federal land management and environmental

laws.

My question is could the objectives of this resolution be achieved

while at the same time following all of our other environmental

laws? I think it could. And I totally agree with you about the fact

that we should not manage the forest for one single purpose,
12

whether it be a theological purpose, whether it be for carbon sequestration, whether it be simply for harvesting.

But as I have mentioned before from their chair and in letters

to you, we are in a desperate situation out in the Northwest. And

I think that, that the shock that was registered by our leadership

team who came out and viewed the forest in the Northwest, is evidence of the fact that we really, really need some attention paid to

our forests in the Northwest for the sake of forest health.

So let me just finish with one more question. Some of the groups

have advocated no commercial harvest of timber from our national

forest. They seem to be winning the battle today over the logic

whether it is based on a balance in our forest, whether it is based

on fuel reduction, whether it is based on carbon sequestration,

whatever it may be. They seem to be winning the battle that we

should have absolutely no commercial harvest of timber on our national forest. Now we have a very minimum amount now and we

are not keeping up with the need just for forest health. Do you support this policy for the Northwest?

Mr. LYONS. Well, Madam Chairman, the Administration does not

support the elimination of commercial timber harvesting on the national forests.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. What implication would this policy have on

our national forest’s ability to sequester carbon if we, if we simply

did not harvest anything?

Mr. LYONS. Well obviously it would have some impact in those

areas where productivity would, would be lost. And would also

hamper our ability to make forest improvements for—purposes or

to reduce fuel loads and therefore, reduce the risk of wildfire, et

cetera. And that is one of the reasons we continue to invest in commercial and noncommercial vegetative management on the national

forests.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Secretary, I am going to let you off the

hook for right now. I do want to personally study your testimony

and I will be submitting questions to you personally. I would like

for you to stay, if you could. We only have three more witnesses.

I do want to say that I very, very much appreciate the book

about Gifford Pinchot that you sent and I dove right into it. I also

want to say that I have most of the Presidential papers of Teddy

Roosevelt in my office, and I am going to copy some of them and

send them to you. He gets into addressing the issue about deforestation in China and how the natural resources were abused because

there was massive clear cutting and it created a difference in the

entire climate because of the lack of aspiration and because it

changed the entire complexion of the soils because of great erosion.

We have heard for a long time of decertification. It is not entirely

fictional. It is not going to happen in the Northwest. But we are

getting close to a point where there is a massive area that is not

responding well and healthily in the Northwest and I am greatly

concerned about this. And I think Teddy Roosevelt really hit the

nail on the head. I think he had great, great wisdom and great vision. So if you do not mind, I would like to share that with you

and would be very interested in your personal opinion on that.

Mr. LYONS. I greatly appreciate that.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. So thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
13

Mr. LYONS. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And I appreciate your time.

The Chair now recognizes the second panel. Dr. John Perez-Garcia, Associate Professor at University of Washington, Seattle,

Washington. Dr. Chad Oliver, Professor at University of Washington, College of Forestry Resources in Seattle, Washington, and

Gordon Ross, County Commissioner Coos County, Coquille, Oregon.

Gentlemen, I am very pleased to welcome you to the hearing and

very pleased to have your addition to the hearing record, which will

be very valuable to us in the future. And before we get started with

the testimony, I wonder if you could please rise and take the oath.

[Witnesses sworn]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I have just been advised that we do have a

vote and it is at the second bell it looks like, so I am going to have

run and vote. And I think it is a procedural vote, is it not, Kathy?

Procedural vote. And so I will cast that vote and I will be right

back. So we will just temporarily adjourn.

[Recess]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The hearing on H.C.R. 151 will resume. We

look forward to the testimony from Dr. Garcia. Doctor.

STATEMENT OF JOHN M. PEREZ–GARCIA, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, COLLEGE OF FOREST RESOURCES, UNIVERSITY OF

WASHINGTON

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. Thank you, Madam Chairman. What I would

like to do today is summarize the findings of our July 7th, paper

presented to the Committee on how forests can help reduce carbon

dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. There are four points that I

would like to make today; three of them relate to carbon dioxide,

and one, the last point I would like to make, relates to tradeoffs,

which I think is something that should be discussed here.

Carbon dioxide is reduced by forest growth. I think everyone understands this statement and accepts it. There are two points that

you need to realize with this statement though. One, there is a

limit to the amount of carbon that a forest can capture, remove

from the atmosphere and save as biomass. Second, these forests

are subject to disturbance so they can quickly return that carbon

to the atmosphere.

The importance of the limit to the amount of carbon that forests

can sequester is a technological one. Carbon storage can further be

increased by transferring that carbon out of the forest into products. And I think there is general agreement in this statement also.

The point to recognize here though is that there is a limit to the

amount of carbon that can be transferred from forest to products.

Depending on the type of management, the type of forest and the

product that is associated with them, this increase in the capacity

of forest to sequester carbon can range from 10 to 66 percent according to several studies.

The way forest management increases carbon sequestration is to

concentrate growth in timber that is utilizable. What forest management is doing is concentrating the growth, the carbon, into

something that we can take out of the forest and preserve as product pools.
14

The forest type affects carbon storage through its different

growth rates, different regions and different species composition.

Forests across the U.S. grow differently and therefore, sequester

carbon at different rates.

Wood products affect carbon storage since they hold carbon captured by the forest in terrestrial form and delay its return to the

atmosphere. Short-lived wood products return carbon faster than

long-lived wood products. So things like paper would return carbon

faster to the atmosphere than the solid wood products like lumber.

Wood products also save terrestrial carbon when they displace fossil fuel energy through either direct substitution by use of biofuels

or indirect substitution through manufacturing process energy.

And this is the third point that I would like to bring out: Forest

products saves fossil fuel carbon. And that is perhaps one of the

more important things I would like to leave with you today. Wood

products used in construction, furniture and other wood product

uses extend the storage capacity of forests by physically transferring the biomass carbon to a product carbon pool. But there is also

a savings in fossil fuel carbon associated with the use of products.

The savings occur because wood products use less manufacturing

energy derived from fossil fuels than it’s competing non-wood products.

The effect on atmospheric carbon of fossil fuels displaced by wood

products may be large. Studies that I and others have conducted

estimate the effect of less wood products used through national

harvest reductions to be around 19 million metric tons. This effect

alone is larger than the estimated U.S. average annual increase in

carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 to 1995, which is about 14 million metric tons. The 14 million number is important because that

is really a target set by the President’s Climate Change Plan. This

also is important because it says something different than what the

Secretary was stating with regard to the impact national forests

have on atmospheric carbon.

The last point I would like to make is about tradeoffs. By far the

most effective way to keep carbon out of the atmosphere is to use

wood products and save fossil fuel energy. I would like to reiterate

that point. Planting and growing more forests can take carbon out

of the atmosphere and can be effective as long as these plantations

do not substitute more productive plantations for carbon sequestration. Large scale planting programs have a limit to their potential

to capture atmospheric carbon and may even reduce long term carbon storage of forest if the use of wood is not increasing at the

same rate as these plantings.

As an example of tradeoffs, take the reduction of harvest from

Federal forest which has led to greater carbon admissions nationally and internationally. Other forest areas within and outside of

the U.S. increased their harvest to replace a portion of the lost

Federal timber harvest. These areas are less productive than those

they replaced, contributing to greater amounts of carbon emission

through less product recovery and greater acreage required to substitute the lost harvest. The amount of harvest reduction not made

up by other producers has led to greater use of non-wood substitute

products. This indirect substitution effect through the use of more

fossil fuel-based manufacturing energy has further increased car-
15

bon emissions associated with Federal timber harvest. The Federal

policy to preserve habitat illustrates unintended consequences of

single issue policies such as carbon emissions.

In summary, there are three points that I would like for the

Committee to remember. One, forest sequestered carbon; second,

wood products act as a reservoir of forest carbon extending the forest’s capacity to move carbon out of the atmosphere; and thirdly,

by far the most effective way to keep carbon out of the atmosphere

is to use wood products and save fossil fuels. Thank you, Madam

Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Perez–Garcia may be found at

end of hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Dr. Garcia. That was very interesting, very technical, but very good and very interesting.

Dr. Oliver, welcome, it is good to see you again. Dr. Chad Oliver,

Professor at University of Washington, College of Forest Resources.

STATEMENT OF CHADWICK D. OLIVER, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, COLLEGE OF FOREST RESOURCES

Dr. OLIVER. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I would

like to build on what Dr. Perez–Garcia said and maybe I can clarify

some of the apparent confusion with what Mr. Lyons had said. Mr.

Lyons was basing the idea of sequestering carbon by growing the

forest or keeping the wood in the forest and not harvesting it on

the paper of Harmon, et al, of 1990. That paper shows that forests

basically, if you keep the forests and do not harvest it, you will

store a lot of carbon. A paper of 1993 by Kershaw, et al, in the

Journal of Sustainable Forestry, showed that that is only true if by

not using the wood you do not use more polluting substitute products, such as steel, aluminum, brick and concrete. If, however, you

do use—do not harvest the forest but instead use these—utilize

these substitute products, you add far more carbon dioxide to the

atmosphere than if you used—if you had harvested the forest and

used those wood products. The interesting thing there is then that

actual harvest of the forest and utilizing of it actually reduces the

total carbon dioxide addition to the atmosphere by saving on the

use of fossil fuels, because you do not use substitute products.

The second point there was a bit confusing is that actually you

could use more of the wood to substitute for these more polluting

products if you grow the forests on—for high quality timber as opposed to short rotation type of wood, timber management, thinning

the forest, grow into high quality wood which would substitute for

other beams. Therefore, rather than saying the contrast is between

preservation on the one hand and short rotation on the other. Actually you are better, apparently, you are better savings of carbon dioxide would be longer rotation, high quality. Which, incidentally,

would also provide many of the habitat values from the forest before it is harvested.

Now planting and growing more forests on presently marginal

agricultural lands will temporarily reduce your carbon dioxide as

the forest is growing. Once it is ready to harvest, as Dr. Perez–Garcia pointed out, unless you have an expanding use of wood, that

wood will just substitute for wood from another place and you will,

actually calculations will show you will not get an increase—a re-
16

duction in carbon dioxide but may actually be adding more carbon

dioxide to the atmosphere. The net results—the net point here is

that wood use and expanded wood use where it substitutes for

products that need more fossil fuel is the best way to keep carbon

dioxide out of the atmosphere by keeping the fossil fuels in the

ground. That is something that the Harmon, et al, paper that Mr.

Lyons referred to did not consider, but subsequent papers have

considered.

Now I want to—this brings, brings up the whole issue of tradeoffs. On the one hand, some people want reserves such as national

forests, and on the other hand, other people want to conserve carbon dioxide, which is best done, by far the best way is by utilizing

wood to substitute for alternative products. Now the problem is of

single issue advocacy. If we simply get into we must have absolute

carbon sequestration, we must have absolute reserves, then you

end up with a polarized position. What really needs to be done as

a resolution is decide how much of each of these values we value,

and is there a way to provide both of these to certain extents.

As a tradeoff, for example, we might not want to ever harvest the

Olympic National Park. But just accept that that is a tradeoff that

we are going to give up a certain amount of possible sequestration,

but then how much other area do you also set aside recognizing

that the tradeoff is more carbon added to the atmosphere and the

resolution that you put forward here points out this carbon dioxide

reduction among many other values gets to that tradeoff consideration. Now, on the other hand, you can decide there is certain

areas you are willing to give up the carbon sequestration by setting

aside as national parks. There are ways of supplementing those

with other areas where you could manage by doing such things as

thinning or selection cutting to create some of that habitat to a

large extent, but at the same time, harvesting it providing the high

quality wood that would also lead to your carbon sequestration. So

that you could look at a mixture of these, but it is a matter of

tradeoffs among the different issues.

Basically we need to look at it from the point of view of forest

management is not necessarily managing all forests for a single

way or a single value. The decision is how much forests in each region of the world do we manage and in which way in order to provide the greatest balance of values recognizing if we set aside more

forests or do not manage them, or do not harvest them in one area,

we are increasing the CO2 by the use of substitute products as well

as by harvesting forests elsewhere. I hope that is helpful.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Oliver may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. It is Dr. Oliver. Do you have anything else you

would like to add in your testimony?

Dr. OLIVER. I believe everything else is in here. I will be glad to

respond to questions.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And Dr. Perez–Garcia, do you have anything

else you would like to add in testimony?

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. No, I believe I have said everything that I

wanted to say and I will also be happy to answer any questions

that you might have.
17

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, and I do have some. Mr. Gordon

Ross, I have been looking forward to your testimony. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF GORDON ROSS, COUNTY COMMISSIONER,

COOS COUNTY, OREGON

Mr. ROSS. Madam Chairman, if you will forgive me, I would like

to also quote from the greatest because I remember a quote from

Gifford Pinchot after spending three years on the Olympic Peninsula said that he had not seen a single Douglas fir seedling under

the canopy nor an opening that was not filled with them, and my

remarks have to be confined to the Douglas fir region because that

is the only region I am familiar with. I am a local historian as well

as county commissioner in Coos County. I have been giving discussions on local history and the development of transportation, how

it effects the way we live, for about 30 years now and the matter

of, of carbon going into the atmosphere always becomes a part of

that if we look at the different energy sources as we use up our

energy savings account.

In 1976, I thought this was going to resolve itself when the first

gas crunch came and the gentleman, Bill Bradbury, and myself,

Bill became President of the Senate years later, in Oregon Senate,

we put on a little half hour television program called, ‘‘We’re Going

Back to Horses Because We’re Running Out of Dinosaurs.’’ But my

predictions are not any better than my authority. As you notice,

maybe I have no credentials and my predictions do not come true

either.

In 1991, I gave testimony before the Endangered Species Committee in Portland, Oregon, and I put this in the record all 22

pages of it. No pride in authorship here at all. But it makes good

evening reading. Judge Harvey Switzer took it home and read it

and came back for a second day of testimony, taking it a paragraph

at a time, and finally it was all admitted into the record over the

objections Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. But I would just turn

to page four where we deal with four myths. A myth in Oregon

about forestry is something that is believed inside of Portland or

some parts of Eugene. Myth fourth was that setting aside old

growth timber will provide future generations with clean air. And

the response is the amount of oxygen a forest releases into the atmosphere, the amount of carbon dioxide a forest takes into its—

takes in, is in direct proportion to the amount of wood fiber produced. When a forest is mature it has no net gain of wood fiber.

There is no longer a net benefit to the atmosphere. It is oxidizing

as fast as it is growing.

In Oregon we can grow 50,000 board feet per acre per year—excuse me, 50,000 board feet in 60 years. And this is what we are

doing on our Coos County forest. I have to qualify that. And in the

past few years, that was ‘89 to ‘91, the average old growth sale on

our Federal lands produced 42,000 board feet per acre. A net loss.

I have also given you two pages from technical bulletin No. 201,

U.S. Department of Agriculture showing the growth rates of Douglas fir and the mean advantage or the mean average volume increase. On Table 16 is described below and about a 90 year, a 90-
18

year harvesting cycle would maximize growth and therefore, maximize both timber production and the carbon sequestration.

I have given you a color graph and I want to call your attention

to the graph at the bottom of this color page, it shows the U.S.

growth and removals in billions cubic feet per year. Notice in 1920

our lands were only producing about 6 billion cubic feet per year

while our harvest was a challenge harvest of over twice that

amount. By harvesting and replanting each year, we see that the

growth increase. Until now we are harvesting less than is growing,

and of course, in the Northwest now on the approximately 25 million acres in the Douglas fir region, that has been reduced substantially.

If half of the Douglas fir region, under Federal ownership were

in mature status, then it would be breathing with just one lung,

you might say. This half of it would be, would be not giving any

net benefit to oxygen released in the atmosphere or to carbon storage. Under the present record of decision, only about 10 percent is

going to continue in harvest management. Eventually 90 percent

will be in old growth. Some call this good forest health. But if it

is only breathing with 10 percent of its lung capacity, I think a doctor would call it acute emphysema.

I want to conclude by saying that I have also given you a copy

of something that I authored here called How Much Old Growth

Can We Save. In the Northwest, all of our stands of Douglas fir

timber are either the result of catastrophic fire, or timber harvest.

And if we should listen to history, we should certainly listen to it

now. We cannot save those stands from ultimate harvest. Either if

we do not harvest them, nature will. And nature will put all of the

carbon dioxide, all of the carbon back into the atmosphere through

the initial burning and through the subsequent deterioration afterwards, and she will not distribute the receipts very well either.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ross and attachments thereto

may be found at end of hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, very much. I do have some questions here for Dr. Perez–Garcia. I have questions for all of you, but

Dr. Perez–Garcia, what is the impact to the atmosphere to moving

to a less active timber program?

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. In terms of carbon dioxide?

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Yes.

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. It probably would increase the emissions of

carbon to the atmosphere.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And the overall greenhouse gasses effect.

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. Well carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse

gasses, so if you increase that gas, it would probably increase

greenhouse gasses. But I am less confident in that statement than

knowing that it will increase carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. For the record, would you please tell us what

are the effects of catastrophic wildfires on air quality and on carbon sequestration.

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. Like I said in my statement, forest are subject to disturbances, and one of these disturbances would be

wildfires. As a matter of fact those wildfires release carbon from its
19

terrestrial form into carbon in its atmospheric form, which is carbon dioxide. So it would increase carbon dioxide emissions.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Can you tell us what has been the effect of

stopping the harvest of wood from our national forests on global additions of greenhouse gases?

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. There have been two effects to this and this

is documented in a study conducted under EPA sponsorship. One

effect is a national effect and one is an international effect. Nationally, the effect of reduced harvest, Federal harvest, has been to increase carbon dioxide emissions and to decrease the absorption of

carbon. The way that occurs is through substitution of regions

which produced the timber that is not produced by the Federal timber, i.e., the South will produce more, but it is not as productive

in sequestering carbon as the Pacific Northwest. The international

effect is similar and it also increased carbon emissions internationally. And the reason there was that some of the timber replacement

for the Federal timber comes from countries like Chile, New Zealand, the former Soviet Union, which are less productive in sequestering carbon than the Pacific Northwest.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. That is interesting. We have gone from a harvest of around 12 billion board feet to below 4 billion board feet of

timber. What effect has this had on the global greenhouse gases?

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. It has been to increase carbon emissions.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Dr. Perez–Garcia, I will have other questions

for you that I will submit in writing. Is that all right with you?

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. Yes.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And we would like to be able to complete the

circle of getting the questions to you and the answers within three

weeks.

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. That will be fine.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Dr. Oliver, can old growth be made a part of

a forestry management scheme that means to maximize reduction

of the greenhouse gases?

Dr. OLIVER. Well, as I mentioned earlier, it is a question of tradeoffs on if you set aside an area of old growth and leave it and do

not harvest it, then you force either wood to be harvested in other

areas or what is happening more and more is you force the use of

substitute products, such as steel studs in homes, which increase

the amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. On the other

hand, it is a question of tradeoffs. How much of this old growth are

you willing to set up in exchange for having a little bit more carbon

dioxide into the atmosphere for these other uses. There are other

ways of possibly managing by managing on long rotation, selective

cut, and creating old growth-like conditions, and at some time harvesting the trees, or as the area blows down, salvaging the trees

so that they can be used in another area be used in this old growth

condition. I want to point out just as a caveat, that if you are concerned about biodiversity, you would not want all of your forest in

this old growth condition, because not all species can live there.

But it is a question of tradeoffs in that leaving the forest there and

not doing anything with it but using substitute products, as we are

increasingly doing, is basically adding more carbon dioxide to the

atmosphere.
20

Mrs. CHENOWETH. From your testimony, you point out that

greater utilization of higher grade wood is one of the best ways to

maximize reduction of greenhouse gases. I would like you to elaborate on this if you would for us.

Dr. OLIVER. Some of the high grade timbers have both some of

the more valuable properties for structural uses and because they

are strong, knot-free, et cetera, they can be used in lesser weights

and therefore, lesser amounts in things such as high quality construction. These can then be substituted for such things as steel reinforced concrete, et cetera. And if that is done, then you save you

from having to produce the concrete and steel, and therefore, you

keep fossil fuels from being used, and you keep the carbon in the

ground instead of the atmosphere. So high quality wood seems to

have a very important effect in keeping the carbon in the ground.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And another thing, too, is these alternative

materials are all nonrenewable, are they not?

Dr. OLIVER. Yes, they are nonrenewable. Actually, there is another point. The higher quality wood often means more sequestration in the forest before the time they are harvested.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Forest Service has gone from harvesting

about 12 billion board feet down to about 4 billion board feet. Is

this trend beneficial to the forest’s ability to sequester the carbon?

Dr. OLIVER. Actually, I would like to, if you do not mind looking

at page eight of the testimony, figure five, it gets to this issue. And

I would like for Garcia to explain it in detail. Do you have this figure before you? I think it is an important figure.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Please proceed.

Dr. OLIVER. Excuse me. Do you have it—OK. Basically what it

is is the MMTCE is million metrictons of carbon equivalent per

year. Just shows the total amount of carbon. Just think of that as

carbon dioxide. And then John will proceed with showing the effects both of the target reduction in carbon dioxide and the calculated effects of stopping the harvesting in the national forest.

Looked at it, calculating at different levels. John could you proceed? Dr. Perez–Garcia.

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. Sure, the first bar at the top of the graph

where it says fossil fuel consumption has the number 14. I always

like to put things into perspective and so you must think of the 14

as the perspective that you want to look at. The 14 comes from the

annual average increase in carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 to

1995, i.e., it is a target that some have proposed to reach in terms

of reducing carbon emission. So that the 14 is really a baseline

number, OK?

When we look at the second bar below that, we had fossil fuel

consumption carbon emission plus the habitat preservation in the

Pacific Northwest. These activities have increased carbon dioxide

by 20 million metric tons of carbon equivalent. OK, so 14 of those

is from the fossil fuel target, plus six from the habitat preservation

program. So now our target really is not 14, it is 20. OK?

Now if we add in substitution of non-wood products, i.e., the fossil fuel used to produced non-wood products that we lost with the

reduced Federal harvest, we add another 19 million metric tons to

that bar. So now our target is really 39 rather than 14. And then

there are two levels of wildfires. There is an estimated low level
21

and an estimated high level of fires and these activities increase

the carbon emissions from 50 million metric tons of carbon equivalent, to I forget what the big number is, close to 80 million metric

tons of carbon equivalent. And that number you might think of as

our target that we need to reach.

The whole idea here was to show how some of the previous single-issue policies that were implemented affect carbon dioxide emissions, and that these effects can be very large.

Dr. OLIVER. So instead of the initial target of trying to reduce

carbon dioxide emission by 14 million metric tons, we have actually

increased it so that to get to the base level, we would have to reduce it between 54 and 75 million metric tons, cause we have

added that much more carbon by these policies, both not harvesting

and the fire problem that we have.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. This is very interesting. Can you tell me what

effect salvage logging would have on CO2, Dr. Oliver or Dr. Perez–

Garcia?

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. I would expect it to transfer the carbon that

is on the ground into products. If those products are long-lived

products, i.e., they are lumber, then that carbon remains in lumber

for a period longer than it would have been on the ground.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I see.

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. And there is also the substitution effect with

the fossil fuels. So the salvage logging would reduce the amount of

carbon entering the atmosphere. If you leave it on the ground, it

will decompose and go into the atmosphere.

Dr. OLIVER. If you would have the effects of if you did not salvage log, then instead of using the wood products, there is a high

change you would use substitute products, which would add more

carbon to the atmosphere. If you had fires or if the salvage was

after fires, if you had reburns, and you would add more carbon to

the atmosphere. If you had salvaged it and you had thinned it,

then you may even be growing higher quality products on the remaining trees, which can further reduce the carbon dioxide on the

atmosphere.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Very interesting. I am pleased to recognize

Mr. Schaffer from Colorado has joined us. I would like to proceed

with questions for Mr. Ross right now.

Mr. Ross, I want to let you know that I think Coos County is just

about the most beautiful part of the world there is. My sister lived

in Coos Bay and I always enjoyed visiting your corner of the world.

I understand that that specific coast area there is the most highly

productive—has the most highly productive capability for growing

and harvesting trees than any place else in the world. Is that true?

Mr. ROSS. Madam Chairman, I was actually called to task for

making that statement before Harvey Switzer, Federal Magistrate,

because I had not been everywhere in the world. I thank you for

your compliments about Coos County. We had a person come there

a few years ago to set about to stop harvesting timber in the County and he said that he was from California, and we had the most

beautiful place in the world and he was here to save it. And I said,

Dr. Miller, you are late. It burned off in 1868, we have logged it

twice since then.
22

Mrs. CHENOWETH. You are right. Do you believe the harvest of

timber should be the primary use of the national forests?

Mr. ROSS. Madam Chair, if I may, I certainly believe it should

be one of the primary uses. When it is dealt as one of the primary

uses, using best management practices, of course, and latest technology, we can preserve all the other amenities. Furthermore, we

get all the other amenities free. You alluded to this earlier today.

In Coos County, I have constituents now that are having to pay $3

to go look at the Pacific Ocean because the Forest Service is out

with their tin cup trying to stay alive with no harvest and no

means of support. I certainly think that when you maximize timber

harvest, you maximize the ability for, or the benefit to the atmosphere, plus you get jobs, you get county revenues for public health

and safety, and you get materials for people to build houses with

for Americans to live in. And it is tragic to what is happening to

the Douglas fir region. Knowing what I know, what I know is in

inevitable. My forebears saw the Siuslaw National Forest when it

was ashes. And that is one of the reasons, and Mr. Lyons is absolutely correct, the reason people did not take much of that land is

because it was not what they wanted. It was not because it was

not productive. It was because they were agrarian in nature, they

needed a place to grow food. This was just going to grow little trees

and it did not have timber on it then.

That forest is probably one of the most productive forests in the

world, and I will have to couch that probably now because of what

I have been told in the past about saying things I cannot substantiate. But today under the record of decision, there is almost no

place on that forest we can hold a timber sale because of the intermittent stream buffers, the overlap. Sometimes they triplicate in

areas. And so the productivity of that forest is—it is beautiful. It

is 130-year-old timber on about two thirds of it, one third of it has

been harvested and is growing. The roads are in. The roads are

managed and we have mills in the area being dissembled because

there is nothing there for them to harvest. They cannot harvest it.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I understand the big mill downtown is no

longer operating.

Mr. ROSS. That is right. Yes.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. What is in there now?

Mr. ROSS. A casino.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. A casino?

Mr. ROSS. Yes.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Good grief.

Mr. ROSS. And the Coquille Indian tribe has a casino in there.

It is the only mill in town that is working three shifts a day.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The casino.

Mr. ROSS. It is called the Mill Casino as a matter of fact.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I am going to ask you one more question and

then I am going to yield to Mr. Schaffer. How will increasing the

harvest of timber to increase carbon storage affect our salmon

runs?

Mr. ROSS. Madam Chair, we have harvested more timber than

any county in Oregon. Principally because we started earlier. We

started in 1855. We had the only deep water port on the Oregon

coast. And we supplied timber to build San Francisco and to re-
23

build it after the fire in 1906. We continue to and for most of my

lifetime and for decades before my lifetime, we are the largest timber shipping port, wood products shipping port in the world. And

yet we have the highest rate of salmon returns on the Oregon

coast. We have more Coho salmon return to the streams every year

in Coos County than all of the rest of the coastal counties in Oregon put together. Now this was our experience. I had no scientific

background for it until this year.

Oregon State University is completing a 10-year study on the

coastal productivity enhancement program understanding how

managing our riparian areas effect salmon runs. And it is been determined that these are disturbance based ecosystems. The large

woody debris and the spawning gravel are essential for our salmon

runs, are a result of disturbances. In the past forest fires and flood,

but today logging and flood. And this work has been done by the

same people that drew the lines on the FEMAT report and they are

telling me that this needs to be revisited, that they did not understand this at the time they drew the lines. And when they drew

the lines, they did not consider them to be permanent. Only until

watershed assessments could be done and you could determine

where the timber needed to be left on the head walls that might

fail. Not so they would not fail, but when they did fail, large woody

debris would come into the proper places in the watershed. And

they are telling me maybe 10 percent of the watershed could be

saved in that area and the rest harvested. And we would be doing

something really meaningful for our aquatic resources.

So it is—besides the other tragedies of the Northwest forest plan,

it is exactly wrongheaded when it comes to anadromous fisheries.

We all thought that these beautiful little brooks and shaded areas

must be the place that fish like. But fish like what comes from disturbances. The large woody debris that creates the sheltering areas

that salmon need to overwinter and oversummer, and the spawning gravel that they need. So Madam Chair, I appreciate you asking that question and giving me an opportunity to respond to it.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, sir. The Chair now recognizes the

gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Schaffer.

Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Commissioner, I

saw one of your bumper stickers. It said, housing——

Mr. ROSS. I made this available. Sometimes I try to make a

point——

Mr. SCHAFFER. Oh, here it is, ‘‘Affordable Housing Begins in the

Woods.’’ What is the story on this?

Mr. ROSS. If I may, is Mr. Lyons still here? I apologize to him

because I did not send him one. I sent one to Mike Dombeck when

I read in the Oregonian that he and Mike Dombeck had been before a subcommittee in Congress, and I do not hold everybody accountable for what I read in the Oregonian either, my apologies if

this is reported wrong, but they had said that it was not the Administration’s policy to not harvest timber on public lands. They

were only reflecting the wishes of the people of the United States.

So I wrote to Mike, knowing him, and I said, Mike, I have always

followed whenever I see your name, I read it and this is what I

wrote, ask the people of the United States the right question. And

do not ask them while they are watching Bambi on television. Ask
24

them when they are arranging financing for a new home or when

they are at the lumber yard, or when the mortgage payment is due

or when the landlord is collecting the rent. And then ask them the

question, how much more are you willing to pay for shelter, for

housing, to not harvest timber on public lands. And that was the

reason I sent that. And I made it available for your Committee

also.

Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you. I would also like you to discuss, if you

would a little bit, just the role of controlled burns and fire with respect to forest management form your perspective as a county commissioner.

Mr. ROSS. Thank you. For many years we managed our timber

in Coos County by harvesting, burning, and then replanting. And

it is certainly an aid in allowing the young seedlings to get a jump

on the brush that grows so fast on the coast. But fire in a natural

role in a Douglas fir region is not an option. It is very different in

the pine area. But in the Douglas fir region, things grow so fast,

you are not going to reduce the fire loading long term by little, frequent, nonintensive burns. The Douglas fir region is famous for

only the catastrophic events that take place after timber reaches

maturity. And that certainly is not an option, we need to harvest

to prevent that from happening.

The real danger in Western Oregon is at the same time we are

not harvesting, the same time the fuel is building up, we are also

losing the biggest fire department ever assembled in the world. At

every foreclosure, at every bankruptcy, at every sale held to sell

out the equipment that the timber companies have had and the

logging companies have had, we lose that fire department, which

is made of the loggers and their water wagons and Caterpillars and

Lowboys to move the Caterpillars to the sites, and fire fighting

equipment, and manpower and just plain know-how. And we are

losing that fire department at the same time it is going to be needed the most. Certainly public safety is paramount in the thinking

of this County Commissioner.

Mr. SCHAFFER. When you say fire department, you are referring

to just the whole community, not——

Mr. ROSS. I am referring to the many, many, many contract

loggers that have gone out of business. They were the first response. Now they were not the certified fire fighters, but they believe in putting fires out. They did not understand how to monitor

fires and how to take these 27 objectives and determine whether

you are going to let it burn or not. They knew if you did not put

it out, it was going to burn up the whole country, and it was going

to do it quick, and the quicker you can get on it, and that was our

first response capabilities.

The Coos Force Protective Association, which is an association of

all of the private and public landowners in Southwestern Oregon

is reluctant to do a complete closure even when humidity gets high.

They would rather do a hoot owl where you start early in the

morning and you go home by noon and, and so that they know

where these people are. If you do a complete closure, the Cat operator, the Lowboy driver, he goes home, he throws the fishing equipment in the car, he takes the wife and the kids and heads for a

lake in the Cascades, and you do not know where he is at. So they
25

recognize the need for these—for this as their first response capability on these fires.

Mr. SCHAFFER. I have one more question as well, the debate on

status of the purchaser road credits. The debate continues on the

purchaser road credits, it is cut in half here on House side. I think

that is taking place, I think, this week over in the Senate, to some

degree, that is true. With respect to your community, can you

speak to that issue and the effect it has on your——

Mr. ROSS. There is two issues here and I faxed information to

both Senator Wydon and Senator Patty Murray on this issue day

before yesterday. Because those road funds are needed so that we

can maintain the roads and keep the sediment from going in and

impacting our anadromous streams. What the well-maintained

road system is what is important to parts of forest health as it applies to the aquatic resources.

The other part of that was to take away the purchasers credits.

This is a program that has worked so well. Under the old program,

you sold a timber sale knowing that a road was going to have to

be put in and the amount that they paid for that timber sale reflected the fact that they were going to have to build the road,

build it according to the standards which were predetermined.

With the purchaser credits, people bid on forest service sales as

though the road is there. So they pay top price and then they build

the road and when something else needs to be done, if you need

a culvert that will allow fish passages as opposed to what has been

described, change orders could be made so, so easily. This is not

any kind of a subsidy to business. This is a matter of just building

the road and using credits rather than selling at a lower price and

allowing them to build the road predetermined. And it is one of our

best tools in forest management and forest health when we can design those roads and make change orders as it goes along rather

than the more difficult way of changing something once it has already been in the contract.

Mr. SCHAFFER. What is going to be the results——

Mr. ROSS. Well the result was last night 51 people in the Senate

had better sense. It failed 51 to 49.

Mr. SCHAFFER. Assuming though that if those who oppose purchaser road credit program prevail, if that were to occur, with respect to forest management, this whole issue of atmospheric impact, and so on, what would be your guess on what your county

would look like without road purchaser credit program?

Mr. ROSS. It would adversely impact the sale program. It would

be one more thing taking away from the managers that has been

a tool for the good environment. And they have been losing those

tools rapidly.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Dr. Oliver, I have some more questions that

if you do not mind that I would like to ask you. What about wood

as an energy source. What effect would utilizing woody biomass as

a replacement for fossil fuels have on the levels of carbon in the

atmosphere?

Dr. Oliver. Well, I will ask John Perez–Garcia to add to this as

well, but wood can be harvested and used as an energy source and

thereby keeping fossil fuels in the ground. However, in terms of the

efficiency of using wood in that way versus using wood as a direct
26

product that would substitute for something like concrete or steel

or aluminum or brick, you save a lot more energy and keep a lot

more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than using wood as a

substitute product. The way it would probably be most effective

would be to use as much of the wood as possible as a substitute

product, and use the residuals, the chips, the shavings, the sawdust to then be burned as energy to save for fossil fuels. Dr. Perez–

Garcia, is that basically correct?

Dr. PEREZ–GARCIA. Yes, I would agree with what Dr. Oliver has

stated. Basically, one of the bottom lines that I said in my presentation this morning was that the way to reduce atmospheric carbon

is to save fossil fuels. Wood products do that. And there are two

ways that wood products do that. One is directly substituting fossil

fuels for biofuels, and the second way is indirectly substituting the

manufactured energy that is based on fossil fuels through wood

product production.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Very interesting. Well, gentlemen, I do have

other questions that I would like to submit to you. But for right

now I am going to ask Mr. Schaffer if he has anything to add. I

do want to say that I very, very much appreciate your coming

across the country to join us in this hearing. Your testimony has

been invaluable, and I appreciate it very much. The members of

the Committee may also have additional questions for the witnesses and we will ask that you respond to these in writing. The

hearing will be held open for those responses for three weeks.

If there is no further business, the Chair again wants to thank

Mr. Schaffer for joining us. We have three Subcommittee hearings

going on out of this main Committee today, and so a lot of the

members who wanted to be here simply could not be here. But as

of now this Subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
27

BRIEFING PAPER

H.CON.RES. 151, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION REGARDING MANAGING PUBLIC DOMAIN

NATIONAL FOREST TO MAXIMIZE REDUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE AMONG OTHER

OBJECTIVES

Summary

The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health will meet on Thursday, September 18, 1997, to hold a legislative hearing on H.Con.Res. 151, a concurrent resolution Expressing the sense of the Congress that the United States should manage

its public domain National Forests to maximize the reduction of carbon dioxide in

the atmosphere among many other objectives and that the Unites States should

serve as an example and as a world leader in actively managing its public domain

national forests in a manner that substantially reduces the amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

Background

Chairman Don Young (R-AK) introduced H.Con.Res. 151 along with Speaker

Gingrich, Mrs. Chenoweth, chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, Mr. Taylor of North Carolina, Mr. Herger, and Mr. Peterson

of Pennsylvania, Mr. Pombo, Mr. McInnis, Mr. Sessions, Mrs. Smith of Washington,

Mr. Riggs, Mr. Cunningham, Mrs. Cubin, Mr. Nethercutt, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Lewis

of California, Mr. Skeen, Mr. Schaffer of Colorado, Mr. Hansen, and Mr. Radanovich

expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should manage its public

domain national forests to maximize the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Global warming has been an issue of great debate and discussion in Congress.

This is due to the fact that in December of this year, the United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change meets in Kyoto, Japan. The Clinton-Gore Administration has stated publicly that they intend to commit the United States to mandatory greenhouse gas reductions at the convention in Kyoto, Japan.

Science has proven to us that carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas can be

taken out of the atmosphere by allowing a young vibrant forest to absorb carbon

through photosynthesis. It is stored as wood. Carbon dioxide can also be kept out

of the atmosphere by harvesting the forest before it begins to decompose or burn,

thus storing the carbon in wood products that are environmentally friendly, as well

as providing an economic benefit to society.

The most extensive scientific work on this subject has been conducted by Dr. John

Perez-Garcia, Associate Professor, University of Washington, Dr. Chadwick Oliver,

Professor, University of Washington, Bruce Lippke, Professor and Director of the

Center for International Trade in Forest Products and R. Neil Sampson. A copy of

their studies can be obtained from the Subcommittee.

Staff Contact: Bill Simmons, Staff Director, Subcommittee on Forests and

Forest Health at X5-0691.

STATEMENT OF JAMES R. LYONS, UNDER SECRETARY FOR NATURAL RESOURCES AND

ENVIRONMENT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the views

of the Administration regarding the active management of the National Forests to

maximize the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Administration

welcomes and supports efforts to address climate change, but strongly opposes

House Concurrent Resolution 151 because it is misguided and undermines current

national forest management laws.

The premise of the concurrent resolution is that young, fast-growing trees fix carbon dioxide more efficiently than mature trees. Therefore, the Forest Service should

maximize carbon sequestration by harvesting mature trees, converting the wood to

durable products, and replanting sites with seedlings.

As the committee is aware, the scientific basis for our mutually shared concerns

about global climate change is very complex. Accordingly, our efforts to make substantive policy changes are equally complex and driven by scientific analysis. I want

to make three basic points today: (1) the role of recycling, (2) the role of national

forests in the carbon cycle, and (3) the potential for carbon sequestration from Federal lands compared with private lands.

The Forest Service research program has done some extensive research quantifying the benefits of recycling wood fiber on carbon releases into the environment.
28

Through technology developed by the Federal Government and private industry, and

supported by government incentives to recycle, the United States has made a significant contribution to carbon sequestration by reducing energy costs of production

and reusing wood fiber several times before sending it to a landfill.

Recognizing the value of storing carbon in wood products and substituting wood

products for more fossil fuel-consuming products, the President included in the 1993

Climate Change Action Plan a proposal to expand paper recycling technology research. Priorities included research on the use of recycled wood and fiber in durable

structural products suitable for housing markets. The President requested a $2 million increase in research funding. Congress has appropriated $200,000.

The President’s Forest Plan was analyzed specifically for its contribution to carbon sequestration, and thus offers a good case study to evaluate national forest

management policies in general. Contrary to the presumption of the concurrent resolution, the conservation strategy in the President’s Forest Plan actually increases

the amount of carbon dioxide sequestrated by about 7 million metric tons by the

year 2000. The careful balance of forest protection and management and the role

of old-growth forests is described well in a 1990 Science magazine article by Harmon, Ferrell and Franklin. In addition, the President’s Forest Plan has strict standards about harvesting which are supported by scientific work by Mr. R. Neil Sampson. Sampson (1997) found that harvesting practices such as clear cutting eliminate

canopy shade, increase soil temperatures, accelerate organic decomposition due to

soil disturbance, and have other negative impacts on carbon storage in a forested

ecosystem. The Forest Plan minimizes clearcuts, protects shade, foliage and canopy

closures, minimizes ground disturbance, and avoids whole sale burning of slash,

stumps and debris. Last, the President’s Forest Plan meets all Federal land management and environmental laws, and your resolution would create a conflict with

existing law. While your resolution suggests that national forests should be managed to maximize carbon sequestration, current law requires us to practice multiple

use which does not allow one use or management goal to dominate other uses. The

U.S. forest sector will store lO9 million metric tons of carbon in 2000. Of this, our

National Forests are projected to fix 21 million metric tons of carbon in 2000, store

over 8 billion of tons of carbon, conserve biodiversity (and thus flexibility for private

land management), and provide for multiple use according to our legal mandates.

And although the annual carbon storage in private forests is expected to decline

over the next several decades due to declining net growth in Northeastern forests

as the trees age and removal of trees in the South at the same rate of their growth,

annual carbon accumulation in our National Forests is expected to continue increasing.

Finally, I want to turn to the issue of maximizing growth of new biomass through

forest management. The productivity of forestland in the United States varies widely across the country. Productivity is influenced by soil type, soil depth, growing season, rainfall, and other physical factors. Productivity is commonly measured according to the number of cubic feet of wood which one acre of land can grow in one

year’s time. If Congress was interested in maximizing carbon sequestration through

tree growth, it is logical to look for the most productive sites which will grow the

most cubic feet per year.

The Forest Service published a document called the Forest Resources of the United

States (1994) which summarizes forest productivity across different landownerships

using a standard of 85 cubic feet/acre/year. In the West, 67 percent of the private

industrial lands are capable of producing more than 85 cubic feet per year compared

to only 15 percent of the national forest lands in the West. The reason for this is

that national forestlands are typically high elevation forests with shorter growing

seasons and poorer soils. Similarly in the East, 55 percent of the private industrial

land is capable of producing 85 cubic feet or more, and only 20 percent of the national forest land in the East have this level of productivity. The trend is the same,

though less dramatic, between nonindustrial private lands and national forest lands

in both the East and the West.

Thus, if growing trees quickly is the goal of this resolution, it makes much more

sense to focus our efforts in areas where we will receive the greatest return on our

investment—the most productive lands—the private lands. The Forest Service can

help make this investment not through a change in priorities for public land management, but by providing technical and financial assistance to private landowners

to help them increase productivity. The state and private forestry programs of the

Forest Service are designed to deliver exactly this kind of assistance to landowners.

In addition, the Natural Resource Conservation Service administers a number of

programs which help landowners develop and implement plans that promote tree

planting. The more efficient and effective place to focus tree planting and aggressive

management is on private lands. The President’s Climate Change Action Plan in-
29

cludes two actions that provide technical assistance and cost-sharing for nonindustrial private landowners to plant trees and improve forest management. These programs have resulted in tree planting on 135,000 acres of land.

I want to highlight for a minute your state, Mr. Chairman. The State of Alaska,

as well as your neighbors Washington and Oregon, have replanting laws which help

continue the benefits of carbon sequestration on private lands in those states. Most

states have forest practice laws which contribute to efforts to ensure that landowners practice sustainable forestry. Some states, such as Alabama and Georgia, do

not have state forest practices laws, but rely instead on market conditions to encourage tree planting. In these cases, we depend on high lumber prices to promote replanting. In any case, the role of the private landowner, however it is influenced

by state or Federal policy, has the opportunity to make a much more significant—

and more profitable—contribution to carbon sequestration through active management of productive lands.

There are many other efforts throughout the Forest Service and throughout the

Administration which are targeted specifically to address the issue of climate

change that are beyond the immediate scope of this resolution and this hearing. In

summary, the Administration is enthusiastic about continuing this dialog with Congress about the importance of addressing carbon sequestration and climate change—

and the role of the forest sector, but is compelled to strongly oppose the concurrent

resolution. I am happy to answer questions that the Committee might have.

STATEMENT OF GORDON ROSS, COMMISSIONER, COOS COUNTY, OREGON

The amount of CO2 used in photosynthesis per acre of forest land; the amount

of oxygen released into the atmosphere; the amount of carbon stored in the forest

is in direct proportion to the amount of wood fiber produced.

This is high school biology. I am not an expert witness. This information does not

require an expert witness. This knowledge is part of the public domain.

I would like to bring two aspects of forest management to your attention that aid

in reducing greenhouse gasses on the globe, both of which compliment each other

in addition to having many other societal benefits.

First: Maximizing Forest Growth.

For every soil classification and for each climatic condition there is a growth potential depending on stalking and non-utilizable competition.

I happen to live in the most productive area of North America, the Pacific Northwest or more specifically, the Douglas Fir region. The federally managed portion of

this area amounts to just under 25 million acres of which approximately 1/2 is in

mature status. According to Roger A. Sedjo in ‘‘Forests, a Tool to Moderate Global

Warming,’’ approximately one-half of the CO2 emissions on earth annually are taken

up in natural processes present today. Of the 5.8 billion tons of carbon thus emitted,

2.9 billion need to be dealt with if the atmosphere were to remain carbon natural.

If the 12.5 million acres of federally managed Douglas Fir forests in the Northwest

that are presently mature, could over the next 50 years be harvested and converted

to growing forest averaging sequestration of 2 tons of carbon per acre per year, the

Northwest’s contribution on these lands alone would be 2 5 million tons of carbon

or about .8 percent of the needed additional carbon fixation on earth. This would

constitute a major commitment on the part of the United States to the Global Community and would have societal benefits including jobs, revenue to local governments and affordable housing nationwide.

On the converse side, if those timber lands are not actively so managed, the contribution of carbon to the global community could be equally as great when history

repeats itself. Every acre of Douglas Fir timber prior to planned harvest was a result of a natural regeneration event, mostly fire. If ever we needed to heed the lessons of history, it is now. If we do not harvest, nature will and without any of the

societal benefits and at a great threat to public safety.

The second aspect of forest management I wish to give a few minutes to is fire.

Wildfire has been touted in recent years as the forester panacea, the answer to all

our forest health problems; but fire of catastrophic proportions is the most rapid

form of oxidation in the forest. Beyond that point, the timber that is dead continues

to rot, a slower form of oxidation. Finally, when the oxidation is complete, the tree

has turned to soil and the carbon has united with oxygen and is in the atmosphere.

When a forest reaches the point where there is no net increase in wood fiber (when

it is oxidizing as rapidly as it is growing there is then no net benefit to the atmosphere). In maximizing wood fiber production we not only maximize the benefit to

our atmosphere but we also produce societal benefits such as homes, jobs and government services. Further, in Western Oregon our managed forests are also produc-
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ing better aquatic resources. Coos County annually harvests more timber than any

county on the Pacific Coast and it has more Coho Salmon than any county on the

Pacific Coast. In fact, it has more Coho than all the rest of the Oregon counties put

together.

When my forebears came to Western Oregon in the early 1850’s they found even

aged stands of Douglas Fir in varying ages of growth depending on how long it had

been since the last fire. What is now the Siuslaw National Forest was ashes. They

saw the fire of 1868 jump the South Fork of Coos River and burn over 1/3 of Coos

County. This was a function of nature, a recycling of carbon but at a time before

we began using fossil fuels. Today, when the average American uses 7 gallons of

petroleum per day to transport themselves, their supplies and services, there is no

dispute but that there is adequate carbon in the atmosphere for our crops and forests to meet their maximum growth potential. The forest effected by the N.W. Forest Plan have the potential of growing 5 billion board feet of timber per year.

If we only harvest 10 percent of that potential as under the Northwest Forest

Plan, eventually the forests will only be growing at that rate. However, speaking

historically, we can say with assured certainty, if we do not harvest at a rate closely

approaching growth potential, nature will, through catastrophic fire.

In the Northwest, as we see our mills and logging operations shutting down, as

we see timber being imported, further tilting our balance of trade; as we witness

the loss of jobs, loss of county revenue for public health and safety we are also witnessing the loss of the largest fire department ever assembled in the history of the

world. The loggers and their bulldozers and lowboys and water wagons and fire

fighting equipment and manpower and just plain know how. As fuel buildup continues, our ability to deal with it decreases.

Because Coos County is in the general proximity of the best tree growing area

in North America, and because we maximize that growth by optimizing our harvest

cycle, it is encouraging to know that Coos County has done more to enhance the

atmosphere in the past century than probably any other county of its size in America.

We, from Coos County, Oregon, would like to challenge the rest of America,

through legislative commitment to do as well.

Thank you.
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