Date: 1991-10-29
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. and first I want to thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. the gentleman from Mississippi . for their consideration of our needs. and I want to assure him that we are prepared to move expeditiously to reconvene the scientific panel and. further. to describe how we anticipate the $210.000 would be allocated in order that we might assist the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations with his dilemma as to how the funds would be allocated. and. hopefully. they can be allocated as we work together to address this issue. Mr. Chairman. it is important to understand that the study of the Pacific Northwest foreststhe socalled spotted owt forests of western Washington. Oregon. and northern California--has been conducted with the technical support of a myriad of Forest Service. Bureau of Land Management. and Fish and Wildlife Service resource personnel. Part of the funds for this study are to provide reirOctober 2.9. 1991 bursement for expenses already incurred by the scientific panel in conducting this review. The remainder is to be used to support the study of the Sierras. The committees. anticipate that the Forest Service and the Interior Department will provide experts and technical personnel and other support assistance for the review of the Sierra Nevada range. just as they did for the scientific panels report on the Pacific Northwest forests. Our committees are prepared to move expeditiously to reconvene the scientific panel on late successional forest ecosystems as soon as this bill is signed into law so that their work on the Pacific Northwest forests can be completed and the work on the Sierra forests can be started. I want to thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for his assist. ance in clarifying this issue. At this time. I would like to insert in the RECORD a statement which further describes how we expect the $210.000 to be allocated. Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of the bill. H.R. 3543. I want to commend the Appropriations Committee. and especially its distinguished chairman. Mr. WHITTEN. for bringing this legislation to the floor. In particular. I want to commend the Appropriations Committee for including nearly $1.8 billion for emergency payments to farmers and ranchers who have suffered severe production losses during the 1990 and 1991 crop years. As the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee often points out. American agriculture is the foundation of our Nations entire economy. The economic health of American agricultureand particularly our Nations farmersare vital to our whole Nation. The funding provided by this bill is critical for financially hardpressed farmers around the country who have experienced disastrous weather conditions and low crop production in 1990 or 1991. We have been fortunate that this springs wet conditions and this summers drought did not adversely affect the Nations overall grain harvest more than it did. But in certain areas of the country and for thousands of individual farmers around the Nation. 1991. like 1990. has been a disaster. In 1990. nearly 1.400 counties out of the 3.000 rural counties in the United States were declared disaster areas. As early as duty of this year. 559 counties have already been declared disaster areas. In this year alone. farmers and farm workers in California have had to deal with a devastating freeze this past winter on top of a prolonged drought. This spring there was severe flooding and excessively wet soils that delayed planting throughout much of the middle part of the country. On top of that some areas of the Nation went through another year of drought conditions that shriveled up their crops and reduced their production. We on the House Agriculture Committee and many of our colleagues have heard from our farm constituents about the financial stress caused by these natural disasters. The situation has been worsened by the fact that less than half of the Nations eligible producers cary crop insurance. and for others crop insurance is not even available. In July the Agriculture Committee brought to the House floor a disaster authorization bill. That legislation basically extends through 1991 a disaster assistance program for producers that was authorized in the 1990 farm bill. the Food. Agriculture. Conservation and Trade Act of 1990. It alsoextends the same threshold loss levels and payment rates as were included in earlier disaster assistance programs. It also authorized funding to help migrant. seasonal and permanent farm workers who lost work due to natural disasters. The House approved this disaster authoriza tion. bill. 32867. Last week the Senate Agriculture Committee approved a similar bill. Thousands of farmers throughout the country are facing financial ruin because of these natural disasters and depressed market prices for their crops. These farmers are experiencing a crisis that demands our attention. There is no question that $1.75 billion for farm. disaster payments is a significant expenditure. The reality is. however. that this will not make any farmer whole. In fact. estimates as of this July were the total losses experienced by farmers in 1990 and 1991 were more than $5 billion. Indeed. the agricultural losses in just two StatesTexas and Californiatotaled more than the funds allowed for in this bill. These payments will only go to farmers who have been hardest hit by these natural disasters. This is the least we can do to help these farmers stay in business and hopefully have a chance to recover with next years crop. In addition. I am pleased to see that the supplemental appropriations bill includes $210.000 for "Forest Research Studies." The need for this funding is directly related to the activities of the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries to resolve oldgrowth forest issues. Earlier this year. the two committees requested the assistance of four leading forestry scientists in helping Congress identify options for an interim strategy to protect oldgrowth forests and spotted owl habitat in the - Pacific Northwest States. Our goal is to have an interim strategy in place until a permanent solution to this issue can be developed. In conducting this study for the committees. the scientific panel sought input and assistance from the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management [BLM] personnel. as well as the aid of scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other State natural resource agencies. The result of this study was an outstanding report "Alternatives for Management of LateSuccessional Forests of the Pacific Northwest." which will be of great assistance to the committees as we continue working on this important issue. While the majority of expenses associated with this effort were covered by the panels regular employersthe Forest Service and several universitiesa number of other personal expenses that they incurred were not The total of these expenses is $60.000. of which $4.000 is for the cost of reproduction of the panels final report. These expenses have been temporarily covered by Oregon State University. In order to reimburse the -university for these expenditures. this legislation directs the Forest Serv-. ice to provide these funds to Oregon State University. The remainder of the. $210.000 in the chairmans en bloc amendment for "forest research studies" is to support a study of the California Sierra Nevada forests. This study is to be conducted under the guidance of the same scientific panel that prepared the Pacific Northwest study. As with the Pacific Northwest study. we anticipate that the Federal agencies involved will provide the same level of technical support and expertise for -the Sierras study as they provided for the study of the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Chairman. -the chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee. Mr. MILLER. and I have been working closely on the issues of oldgrowth forests for some time now. We both received a letter signed by 17 Members of the California delegation requesting that this study of the national forests in the Sierra Nevada range be conducted. I am pleased that H.R. 3543 includes- the necessary funds to undertake this important study. Mr. Chairman. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.