IB 
Union Calendar No. 228
108TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2696
[Report No. 108–397, Part I] 
To establish Institutes to demonstrate and promote the use of adaptive 
ecosystem management to reduce the risk of wildfires, and restore the 
health of fire-adapted forest and woodland ecosystems of the interior 
West. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 10, 2003
Mr. RENZI (for himself, Mr. HAYWORTH, Mr. MCINNIS, Mr. KOLBE, Mr. 
PEARCE, and Mr. TANCREDO) introduced the following bill; which was re-
ferred to the Committee on Resources, and in addition to the Committee 
on Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speak-
er, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the ju-
risdiction of the committee concerned 
NOVEMBER 21, 2003
Additional sponsor: Mr. UDALL of Colorado 
NOVEMBER 21, 2003
Reported from the Committee on Resources with an amendment 
[Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed in italic] 
NOVEMBER 21, 2003
Referral to the Committee on Agriculture extended for a period ending not 
later than November 21, 2003
NOVEMBER 21, 2003
The Committee on Agriculture discharged; committed to the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
[For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on July 10, 2003] 
A BILL 
To establish Institutes to demonstrate and promote the use 
of adaptive ecosystem management to reduce the risk 
of wildfires, and restore the health of fire-adapted forest 
and woodland ecosystems of the interior West.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Southwest Forest Health 
and Wildfire Prevention Act of 2003’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds that—
(1) there is an increasing threat of wildfire to 
millions of acres of forest land and rangeland 
throughout the United States; 
(2) forest land and rangeland are degraded as a 
direct consequence of land management practices (in-
cluding practices to control and prevent wildfires and 
the failure to harvest subdominant trees from over-
stocked stands that disrupt the occurrence of frequent 
low-intensity fires that have periodically removed 
flammable undergrowth;
(3) at least 39,000,000 acres of land of the Na-
tional Forest System in the interior West are at high 
risk of wildfire; 
(4) an average of 95 percent of the expenditures 
by the Forest Service for wildfire suppression during 
fiscal years 1990 through 1994 were made to suppress 
wildfires in the interior West; 
(5) the number, size, and severity of wildfires in 
the interior West are increasing; 
(6) of the timberland in National Forests in the 
States of Arizona and New Mexico, 59 percent of such 
land in Arizona, and 56 percent of such land in New 
Mexico, has an average diameter of 9 to 12 inches di-
ameter at breast height; 
(7) the population of the interior West grew 
twice as fast as the national average during the 
1990s; 
(8) efforts to prioritize forests and communities 
for wildfire risk reduction have been inconsistent and 
insufficient and have resulted in funding to areas 
that are not prone to severe wildfires; 
(9) catastrophic wildfires—
(A) endanger homes and communities; 
(B) damage and destroy watersheds and 
soils; and
(C) pose a serious threat to the habitat of 
threatened and endangered species; 
(10) a 1994 assessment of forest health in the in-
terior West estimated that only a 15- to 30-year win-
dow of opportunity exists for effective management 
intervention before damage from uncontrollable wild-
fire becomes widespread, with 8 years having already 
elapsed since the assessment; 
(11) following a catastrophic wildfire, degraded 
forests in the interior West that have lost their resil-
ience may not return to their former grandeur; 
(12) healthy forest and woodland ecosystems—
(A) reduce the risk of wildfire to forests and 
communities; 
(B) improve wildlife habitat and biodiver-
sity; 
(C) increase tree, grass, forb, and shrub pro-
ductivity; 
(D) enhance watershed values; 
(E) improve the environment; and 
(F) provide a basis in some areas for eco-
nomically and environmentally sustainable uses; 
(13) sustaining the long-term ecological and eco-
nomic health of interior West forests and woodland, 
and their associated human communities requires
preventing severe wildfires before the wildfires occur 
and permitting natural, low-intensity ground fires; 
(14) more natural fire regimes cannot be accom-
plished without the reduction of excess fuels and 
thinning of subdominant trees (which fuels and trees 
may be of commercial value); 
(15) ecologically-based forest and woodland eco-
system restoration on a landscape scale will—
(A) improve long-term community protec-
tion; 
(B) minimize the need for wildfire suppres-
sion; 
(C) improve resource values; 
(D) improve the ecological integrity and re-
silience of these systems; 
(E) reduce rehabilitation costs; 
(F) reduce loss of critical habitat; and 
(G) protect forests for future generations; 
(16) although the National Fire Plan, and the 
report entitled ‘‘Protecting People and Sustaining Re-
sources in Fire-Adapted Ecosystems—A Cohesive 
Strategy’’ (65 Fed. Reg. 67480), advocated a shift in 
wildfire policy from suppression to prevention (in-
cluding restoration and hazardous fuels reduction), 
Federal land managers are not dedicating sufficient
attention and financial resources to restoration ac-
tivities that simultaneously restore forest health and 
reduce the risk of severe wildfire; 
(17) although landscape scale restoration is need-
ed to effectively reverse degradation, scientific under-
standing of landscape scale treatments is limited; 
(18) the Federal wildfire research program is 
funded at approximately 1⁄3 of the amount that is re-
quired to address emerging wildfire problems, result-
ing in the lack of a cohesive strategy to address the 
threat of catastrophic wildfires; and 
(19) rigorous, objective, understandable, and ap-
plied scientific information is needed for—
(A) the design, implementation, monitoring 
and adaptation of landscape scale restoration 
treatments and improvement of wildfire manage-
ment technology; 
(B) the environmental review process; and 
(C) affected entities that collaborate in the 
development and implementation of wildfire 
treatment. 
SEC. 3. PURPOSES. 
The purposes of this Act are—
(1) to enhance the capacity to develop, transfer, 
apply, and monitor, and regularly update practical
science-based forest restoration treatments that will 
reduce the risk of severe wildfires, and improve the 
health of dry forest and woodland ecosystems in the 
interior West; 
(2) to synthesize and adapt scientific findings 
from conventional research programs to the imple-
mentation of forest and woodland restoration on a 
landscape scale;
(3) to facilitate the transfer of interdisciplinary 
knowledge required to understand the socioeconomic 
and environmental impacts of wildfire on ecosystems 
and landscapes; 
(4) to require the institutes established under 
this Act to collaborate with Federal agencies—
(A) to use ecological restoration treatments 
to reverse declining forest health and reduce the 
risk of severe wildfires across the forest land-
scape; 
(B) to ensure that sufficient funds are dedi-
cated to wildfire prevention activities, especially 
restoration treatments; and 
(C) to design, implement, monitor and reg-
ularly revise wildfire treatments based on the use 
of adaptive ecosystem management; 
(5) to assist land managers in—