(2) the Forest Service appeals process and reg-
ulations.
(f) JUDICIAL REVIEW.—
(1) REVIEW OF PROJECTS.—Any application for
judicial review under this or any other law of a
project selected under this section shall—
(A) be filed in the Federal District Court
for the district in which the Federal lands are
located within 60 days after legal notice of the
decision to conduct a project under this section
is made to the public in a manner as deter-
mined by the appropriate Secretary;
(B) be completed not later than 360 days
from the date such request for review is filed
with the appropriate court unless the District
Court determines that a longer time is needed;
and
(C) not provide for the issuance of a tem-
porary restraining order or a preliminary in-
junction
(2) PROCESS
REVIEW.—The processes devel-
oped under subsection (d) shall not be subject to ju-
dicial review.
(g) RELATION TO OTHER LAWS.—The authorities
provided to the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior
in this section are in addition to the authorities provided
in any other provision of law, including section 706 of
Public Law 107–206 with respect to Beaver Park Area
and the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve within the Black Hills
National Forest.
SEC. 2. STEWARDSHIP CONTRACTING.
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Agriculture or
the Secretary of the Interior may enter into stewardship
contracts with private persons or other public or private
entities to perform services to achieve land management
goals for the national forests and other Federal lands.
(b) LAND MANAGEMENT GOALS.—The land manage-
ment goals to be accomplished using a contract under sub-
section (a) may include—
(1) road and trail maintenance or obliteration
to restore or maintain water quality;
(2) enhancement, restoration and maintenance
of soil productivity, habitat for wildlife and fisheries,
or other resource values;
(3) use of prescribed fires to improve the com-
position, structure, condition, and health of forests,
woodlands, and rangelands or to improve wildlife
habitat;
(4) removing vegetation or other activities to
promote healthy forest stands, woodlands, and
rangelands, to reduce fire hazards, or to achieve
other land management objectives;
(5) watershed restoration and maintenance; and
(6) control of noxious and exotic weeds and re-
establishing native plant species.
(c) CONTRACTS.—
(1) AWARD PROCEDURES.—
(A) FOREST SERVICE.—In connection with
contracts under subsection (a), for the purposes
of meeting the requirement for selling timber or
forest products at not less than the appraised
value pursuant to section 14 of the National
Forest Management Act of 1976 (16 U.S.C.
472a), the Secretary of Agriculture may take
into account the value the services received
from the contractor and may consider the con-
tractor’s performance under other public and
private contracts and the contractor’s ability to
meet performance measures and outcomes con-
sistent with the goals of subsection (b) with re-
spect to the contract.
(B) DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.—In
connection with contracts under subsection (a),
the Secretary of the Interior may award the
contract on a best-value basis, including consid-
eration of the contractor’s performance under
other public and private contracts and the con-
tractor’s ability to meet performance measures
and outcomes consistent with the goals of sub-
section (b) with respect to the contract.
(2) MULTI-YEAR TERM.—Notwithstanding any
other provision of law and subject to any such re-
quirements as the Director of the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget may prescribe, the term of any
contract entered into under subsection (a) may ex-
ceed 5 years but may not exceed 10 years.
(3) OFFSETS.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Agri-
culture and Secretary of the Interior may apply
the value of the removed timber or forest prod-
ucts, or other vegetative materials, removed as
an offset against the cost of services received in
connection with contracts under subsection (a).
(B) METHODS OF APPRAISAL.—The value
of forest products, other vegetative materials, or
timber used as offsets under subparagraph (A)
shall, be determined —
(i) using existing agency guidelines
commensurate with the quality and quan-
tity of products to be removed;
(ii) through a competitive bidding
process; or
(iii) using a unit of measure appro-
priate to the contracts.
(C) EXCESS OFFSET VALUE.—If the offset
value of the products exceeds the value of the
resource improvement treatments, the Secretary
of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior
may collect any excess offset value and apply it
as provided in subsection (d).
(d) RECEIPTS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Agriculture
and the Secretary of the Interior may collect monies
from a contract under subsection (a) so long as col-
lection is secondary to the land management goals in
subsection (b).
(2) USE.—Notwithstanding any other provision
of law and subject to any such requirements as the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget
may prescribe, funds described in paragraph (1) and
subsection (c)(3)(C) shall—
(A) be made available to the Secretary that
collected the funds without further appropria-
tion and remain available until expended;
(B) in the case of funds collected by the
Secretary of Agriculture—
(i) be used by the Secretary of Agri-
culture for activities under a contract au-
thorized by this section; or
(ii) deposited into the Knutson-Van-
denberg Fund authorized by the Act of
June 9, 1930, commonly known as the
Knutson-Vandenberg Act (16 U.S.C. 576
et seq.); and
(C) in the case of funds collected by the
Secretary of the Interior be used by the Sec-
retary of the Interior for activities under a con-
tract authorized by this section.
(3) RELATION TO OTHER LAWS.—The value of
services received by the Secretary of Agriculture and
the Secretary of the Interior under a contract au-
thorized by this section and any payments made or
resources provided by the contractor or the Secre-
taries under such a contract shall not be considered
to be monies received from the National Forest Sys-
tem or other Federal lands under any other provi-
sion of law, including, but not limited to—
(A) the Act of June 9, 1930, commonly
known as the Knutson-Vandenberg Act (16
U.S.C. 576 et seq.);
(B) section 3 of the Materials Act of 1947
(30 U.S.C. 603); or
(C) provisions regarding Oregon and Cali-
fornia Railroad and Coos Bay Wagon Road
Grant Lands Trust Lands (43 U.S.C. 1181f
and 1181f–1; 43 U.S.C. 1735 and 1736a).
(e) COSTS OF REMOVAL.—The Secretary of Agri-
culture may collect deposits from contractors covering the
costs of removal of timber or other forest products pursu-
ant to the Act of August 11, 1916 (16 U.S.C. 490); and
the next to the last paragraph under the heading ‘‘Forest
Service’’ under the heading ‘‘Department of Agriculture’’
in the Act of June 30, 1914 (16 U.S.C. 498); notwith-
standing the fact that the timber purchasers did not har-
vest the timber.
(f) PERFORMANCE
AND
PAYMENT
GUARANTEES
UNDER A SERVICE CONTRACT.—The Secretaries may re-
quire performance and payment bonds, in accordance with
sections 103–2 and 103–3 of part 28 of the Federal Ac-
quisition Regulation (48 C.F.R. Chapter 1, 28.103–2,
28.103–3), in an amount that the contracting officer con-
siders sufficient to protect the government’s interest in the
estimated value of the products to be removed under con-
tract under subsection (a).
(g) AUTHORITIES.—In carrying out this section, the
Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior
may use existing contracting authorities and procedures
or may develop by regulation new authorities and proce-
dures.
(h) REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.—To ensure ac-
countability and a full cost accounting of work completed
under this authority, the Secretaries shall be required to
separately track the full costs of individual contracts and
the value of the forest products exchanged for such work.
The Secretaries shall report annually to the Congress on—
(1) the status of development, execution, and
administration of contracts authorized under sub-
section (a);
(2) the specific accomplishments that have re-
sulted; and
(3) the full cost of projects completed under
contracts entered into under subsection (a) including
a separate accounting of—
(A) the value of services received;
(B) payments received from the sale of
timber and forest products; and
(C) the difference between the payments
received for such timber and forest products
and the fair market value for such timber and
forest products.
SEC. 3. REPEAL.
Section 322 of the Department of the Interior and
Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1993, Public Law
102–381 (commonly known as the ‘‘Appeals Reform Act’’;
16 U.S.C. 1612 note), is repealed.
SEC. 4. BALANCE OF SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM ENVI-
RONMENTAL HARMS.
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds that—
(1) past land management practices, particu-
larly fire suppression, have severely altered many
fire-adapted forest and rangeland ecosystems;
(2) such severely altered ecosystems are less re-
silient and more vulnerable to long-term harm by
fire, drought, insects, disease, loss of biological di-
versity, and by exotic or invasive species;
(3) such degradation and replacement of native
fire-adapted forest and rangeland ecosystems causes
irreparable harm to the public interest by increasing
risk to public health, safety, property, and dimin-
ishing the biological productivity of the land and
natural resources of the Nation, including loss of
forest and rangeland resources, native species, habi-
tat for threatened and endangered species, recre-
ation opportunities, watershed protection, soils, and
the economic and social values that depend upon
such resources;
(4) mechanical thinning of forests and range-
land, reduction of natural fuels through prescribed
fire, and similar land management practices are nec-
essary to restore the diversity and resilience of na-
tive fire-adapted forests and rangelands; and
(5) the public interest in such restoration, in-
cluding avoiding irreparable harm to forest and
rangeland ecosystems if restorative action is not
taken, typically outweighs the short-term effects of
restoration projects on the quality of the water, air,
soils, and habitat of threatened and endangered spe-
cies.
(b) STANDARD FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—In any
action under section 703 of title 5, United States Code
or any other law for writs of prohibitory or mandatory
injunction against agency action in which the agency has
found that such action is necessary to restore fire-adapted
forest or rangeland ecosystems, the reviewing court shall
consider the public interest in avoiding long-term harm to
such ecosystems and shall give deference to any agency
finding, based upon information in its administrative
record, that the public interest in avoiding the short-term
effects of such action is outweighed by the public interest
in avoiding long-term harm to such ecosystems.
Æ