The Forest Service, within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, manages the 192 million-acre national forest system with its 155 national forests. During the past 12 years, such phenomena as insect infestations, droughts, and wildfires have increased on the national forest system’s lands—particularly for western national forests—which have been altered over several decades by timber-harvesting practices and the control of wildfires. In 1996, for example, almost 50,000 wildfires on national forest lands burned over 1.1 million acres. The aforementioned phenomena have contributed to the amount of salvage timber on the national forest system’s lands. Since fiscal year 1977, the Forest Service has annually offered for sale about 1.6 billion board feet of salvage timber. Over this same 20-year period, however, the range of salvage timber offered varied from a low of 762 million board feet in fiscal year 1977, when the Forest Service first funded salvage sales, to a high of almost 2.9 billion board feet in fiscal year 1990 (see app. I). However, notwithstanding these efforts over the last 20 years, the Forest Service estimates that the national forests still contain about 13 billion board feet of salvage timber. While some of the salvage timber is inaccessible or too deteriorated to be of commercial value, much of it is marketable. Selling such timber can lessen the danger from future fires, improve the health of forests, and provide mills with a supply of timber. However, time is critical when selling salvage timber because it can deteriorate rapidly, thus making the harvest of such timber economically unfeasible. To reduce the amount of salvage timber on national forest lands, the Congress established the emergency salvage program—referred to as the salvage rider—as part of the rescissions act of July 27, 1995. The salvage rider contained a number of provisions that were intended to increase the volume of salvage timber that the Forest Service offered for sale during the emergency period—July 27, 1995, to December 31, 1996. To increase the volume of salvage timber offered, the provisions in the salvage rider, among other things, exempted salvage sales from administrative appeals, limited the time available for the judicial review of salvage sales, eased the environmental procedures for planning and preparing salvage sales, and allowed rehiring retired employees without penalty. The salvage rider, which expired on December 31, 1996, also required the Secretary of Agriculture to provide congressional committees with periodic progress reports. For fiscal years 1995 and 1996 and the first quarter of fiscal 1997, the Forest Service offered for sale a total of 4.6 billion board feet of salvage timber, which was 1.2 billion board feet above the programmed levels for this period before the salvage rider. In addition, the total volume offered was about 2 percent more than the projected target of 4.5 billion board feet specified in the Secretary of Agriculture’s June 29, 1995, letter to the Speaker of the House. However, significantly greater volumes could have been offered because the Forest Service, at the Department of Agriculture’s direction, delayed 251 salvage sales involving about 752 million board feet that the Forest Service had planned to offer for sale under the emergency salvage program. In enacting the emergency salvage program, the Congress did not establish a specific level of increased salvage offerings that would achieve the purposes of the legislation. However, the Congress indicated that the Secretary of Agriculture was to achieve, to the maximum extent feasible, a sale volume of salvage timber above the previously programmed levels to reduce the backlogged volume of salvage timber. By letter dated June 29, 1995, the Secretary of Agriculture advised the Speaker of the House that the Forest Service projected that its target was to offer about 4.5 billion board feet of salvage timber, plus or minus 25 percent, for sale under the emergency salvage program in fiscal years 1995, 1996, and the first quarter of fiscal year 1997. The Secretary said that the actual amount offered would depend on resource conditions, markets, and changes in resource capability. As can be seen from table 1, the Forest Service offered 1.2 billion board feet more than the amount that had been programmed before the salvage rider. In the Department’s first and second required reports, the Secretary of Agriculture informed the Congress on September 1, 1995, and February 29, 1996, that the Forest Service intended to offer 4.5 billion board feet of salvage timber for sale, or an increase of about 1.1 billion board feet over the planned level of about 3.4 billion board feet. However, the Secretary emphasized that this target was an estimate and that final volumes could vary as much as plus or minus 25 percent—that is, from 3.4 billion to 5.6 billion board feet. As can be seen in table 2, the Forest Service exceeded the target specified by the Secretary of Agriculture. Because the Forest Service does not maintain an inventory of salvage timber, we were unable to determine the extent to which the Forest Service’s salvage timber sales during the emergency period had actually reduced the estimated 13 billion board feet of salvage timber capable of being harvested from the national forests. The Forest Service does not know whether the volume of available salvage timber increased or decreased during the emergency period, because additional insect and fire damage continued to destroy green timber, while other timber was being lost to deterioration. The Forest Service does not know whether the current estimate of salvage timber capable of being harvested is more or less than the 13 billion board feet estimated at the time of the legislation. The Secretary of Agriculture’s July 2, 1996, memorandum to the Forest Service provided revised direction for the emergency salvage sale program. According to the memorandum, the Secretary wanted to ensure that, pursuant to the President’s direction, the sales prepared under the program (1) met the same environmental standards that they would have if they were prepared absent the enabling legislation and (2) would withstand normal review and appeal. The Secretary prescribed the criteria for all proposed sales for which bids had not yet been opened but allowed the sales not meeting these criteria to be prepared under authorities other than the emergency salvage program. In accordance with these more stringent criteria, the Forest Service reviewed its proposed salvage offerings and identified a total of 224 salvage sales, with an associated volume of 722 million board feet, that did not qualify for emergency sale status under the program. According to Forest Service officials, these sales were delayed until after the salvage rider expired on December 31, 1996. Appendix II shows, by national forest, the number of sales, associated volumes, and reason why the sales were delayed as a result of the Secretary’s July 2, 1996, memorandum. The third required report to the Congress, dated August 30, 1996, reflected the more stringent criteria in the Secretary’s memorandum. The projected volume of salvage timber to be offered was reduced from 4.5 billion to 3.8 billion board feet, which the report said was within the 4.5-billion board foot (plus or minus 25 percent) target in the Secretary’s letter to the Speaker of the House. On December 6, 1996, the Department of Agriculture’s Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment issued a memorandum to the Forest Service that provided the results of the Department’s review of the deferred sales submitted for exemption from the Secretary’s July memorandum by Members of Congress or the public. In total, the Under Secretary exempted 10 sales from the Secretary’s memorandum and allowed these sales to proceed. Eight of the 10 sales, comprising a total volume of 6.93 million board feet, were offered before the expiration of the rider on December 31, 1996. According to Forest Service officials, the remaining two sales, comprising a total volume of 0.6 million board feet, were not offered because there was not sufficient time to prepare the sales. Finally, on December 13, 1996, the Under Secretary issued a second memorandum to the Forest Service that provided the final direction for the remainder of the emergency salvage program. The Under Secretary stated that the Forest Service should begin a steady transition to the expiration of the salvage rider and the return to full public participation in and legal review of the sale of salvage timber. He further stated that”o reenforce the Department’s commitment to implement the salvage rider in an evenhanded manner according to established time periods and procedures, the Forest Service should withhold all further advertisements” of salvage sales under the rider effective at the close of business on December 13, 1996. As a result, the Forest Service delayed an additional 27 sales with a volume of 29.7 million board feet. Appendix III shows, by Forest Service region, the number of sales and associated volumes affected. The salvage rider contained numerous provisions designed to help the Forest Service expedite the preparation and award of salvage sales, thus increasing the volume of salvage timber offered for sale. We examined the Forest Service’s implementation of and the effect of four of these provisions dealing with the elimination of the appeals process, expedited judicial review, preparation of combined environmental documents, and use of retired Forest Service employees and contractors at four national forests located in four different Forest Service regions. As discussed below, however, we found that at each of the forests we visited, the four provisions had little effect on expediting the sales or increasing the volume of the salvage timber offered for sale. The salvage rider exempted the salvage timber sales from the Forest Service’s normal appeal regulations and exempted the salvage sales from the automatic 45-day stay during which an appeal could be filed after the issuance of a decision by the Forest Service to offer timber for sale. Before the salvage rider went into effect, the amount of time required for an appeal to be filed and resolved could have delayed a timber sale by as much as 105 days. Exempting the salvage sales from appeal had little effect on the number of sales or the actual volume of salvage timber offered for sale because few salvage sales had been appealed in the past.