[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NATIONAL FOREST MANAGEMENT AND ITS
IMPACTS ON RURAL ECONOMIES AND
COMMUNITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSERVATION, ENERGY,
AND FORESTRY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 13, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-2
Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
agriculture.house.gov
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
80-079 PDF WASHINGTON : 2013
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma, Chairman
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota,
Vice Chairman Ranking Minority Member
STEVE KING, Iowa MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JIM COSTA, California
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BOB GIBBS, Ohio MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
SCOTT R. TIPTON, Colorado SUZAN K. DelBENE, Washington
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas GLORIA NEGRETE McLEOD, California
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama FILEMON VELA, Texas
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas
KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan JUAN VARGAS, California
JEFF DENHAM, California CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
STEPHEN LEE FINCHER, Tennessee SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
DOUG LaMALFA, California JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JOHN GARAMENDI, California
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
TED S. YOHO, Florida
______
Nicole Scott, Staff Director
Kevin J. Kramp, Chief Counsel
Tamara Hinton, Communications Director
Robert L. Larew, Minority Staff Director
______
Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy, and Forestry
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania, Chairman
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota,
BOB GIBBS, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
SCOTT R. TIPTON, Colorado GLORIA NEGRETE McLEOD, California
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan SUZAN K. DelBENE, Washington
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Peterson, Hon. Collin C., a Representative in Congress from
Minnesota, prepared statement.................................. 6
Thompson, Hon. Glenn, a Representative in Congress from
Pennsylvania, opening statement................................ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Walz, Hon. Timothy J., a Representative in Congress from
Minnesota, opening statement................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Witnesses
Tidwell, Thomas, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D.C................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Submitted questions.......................................... 82
McKetta, Ph.D., C.F., Charles W., Natural Resources Economist,
Forest Econ Inc., Moscow, ID; on behalf of Society of American
Foresters...................................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Sample, Ph.D., V. Alaric, President, Pinchot Institute for
Conservation, Washington, D.C.................................. 37
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Kane, Kenneth C., President, Generations Forestry, Inc., Kane,
PA; on behalf of Association of Consulting Foresters of America 43
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Schuessler, James, Executive Director, Forest County Economic
Development Partnership, Crandon, WI........................... 55
Prepared statement........................................... 57
Submitted Material
Rigdon, Phil, President, Intertribal Timber Council, submitted
letter......................................................... 79
NATIONAL FOREST MANAGEMENT AND ITS IMPACTS ON RURAL ECONOMIES AND
COMMUNITIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy, and Forestry,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room
1300 of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Glenn
Thompson [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Thompson, Goodlatte,
Rogers, Tipton, Crawford, Ribble, Noem, Walz, Negrete McLeod,
Kuster, Nolan, and DelBene.
Staff present: Brent Blevins, Debbie Smith, Lauren
Sturgeon, Patricia Straughn, Suzanne Watson, Tamara Hinton,
Anne Simmons, Keith Jones, Lisa Shelton, Liz Friedlander, John
Konya, Merrick Munday, and Caleb Crosswhite.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GLENN THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM PENNSYLVANIA
The Chairman. Good morning, everyone. This hearing of the
Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy, and Forestry to discuss
the National Forest management and its impacts on rural
economies and communities, will come to order.
Let me begin by welcoming everyone to the first hearing of
the Conservation, Energy, and Forestry Subcommittee of the
113th Congress. I particularly want to extend a warm welcome to
our new Ranking Member, Mr. Walz. We are all honored to be able
to serve with him and for his leadership to this Committee as
well as the new Members of our Subcommittee. This Subcommittee
has broad jurisdiction over a large number of issues and areas
at the U.S. Department of Agriculture including forestry, an
important topic for many of us here today.
Forestry plays an important role in the rural economy. The
forest product industry employs almost 900,000 people across
the country not including jobs directly supporting the
industry, and in 2012, the forest products industry had an
economic impact approaching $190 billion.
Our National Forests are capable of providing and
sustaining these economic benefits but they need proper
management in order to do so, which is the topic of today's
hearing, the management of our National Forest System and what
impacts this management has on neighboring communities.
The Forest Service manages more than 193 million acres of
land across 41 states. Within those 41 states, there are over
700 counties containing National Forest land. These communities
rely on us to be good stewards of these Federal lands. The
people who live in those communities depend on well-managed
National Forests to foster jobs and economic opportunity. These
jobs can come from diverse sources such as timber, energy
production or recreation. If these jobs disappear, so too do
jobs that support those industries. If these disappear, then
school systems and infrastructure in these communities are
certainly threatened.
Thus, effective management and Forest Service decisions
have significant consequences on our constituents who live in
and around our National Forests. When Congress created the
National Forest System more than 100 years ago, it was designed
so that the surrounding communities would benefit from the
multiple uses. A share of the revenue from each forest's
activities has to be returned to the community in exchange for
the fact that these lands were taken off the local tax rolls.
Additionally, these forests would provide jobs to communities
by harvesting timber, collecting natural resources or providing
recreational opportunities.
However, as timber outputs have declined over the last 25
years, we have seen the impacts on these communities.
Unemployment is higher in these communities, and we have
witnessed some of the most intense fire seasons in the last 50
years recently. I continue to be very troubled by the
significant reduction in timber harvesting in the National
Forests. Harvesting is a critical piece of management, and the
Forest Service cannot effectively manage our forests without
it.
To his credit, Secretary Vilsack recognized these concerns,
and last February he stated his goal for the Forest Service to
harvest 3 billion board feet annually by 2014. The Forest
Service harvested more than 2.6 billion board feet last year,
its highest total since 2000.
Now, I applaud these efforts and I hope that the agency
will go further to see harvesting levels closer to the
recommended sustainable cuts in each forest. However, I hope
the agency does not make a shortsighted decision to reduce
treatments to National Forest land in an attempt to meet the
obligations of the sequester. Though it is a decision that may
save a bit of money in the short term, it will only further
impair the National Forest System that is already dangerously
mismanaged, resulting in fewer jobs, more fire-prone forests,
and communities struggling to make ends meet. Sequestration is
an unfortunate approach to achieve deficit reduction but we
must face reality: the Federal Government must shrink. We must
utilize resources more efficiently and effectively.
With any hope, these austerity measures will held remind us
of just how critical forest management for both Federal
spending and economic growth, and through better forest
management we will spend less money fighting wildfires. Through
increased timber harvests, we will see more revenues to the
U.S. Treasury and our local communities, and I look forward to
hearing today from Chief Tidwell as to how the Service will be
managing this process. Today we are going to hear testimony
about other ways the Forest Service can help promote rural
economic health including energy production or by providing
recreational opportunities in our forests.
I want to welcome our panel of witnesses and thank them for
sharing their perspectives today. I would also like to
especially say thank you to Mr. Ken Kane, a constituent of mine
who will be testifying later this morning. I look forward to a
productive discussion on how we can be certain the Forest
Service is doing everything within reason to produce a stronger
rural America.
I welcome Chief Tidwell back before the Subcommittee. He
has been a great partner to work with as we share this common
commitment towards healthy forests. We have enjoyed a good
working relationship in the past, and I look forward to working
with you to ensure that we have healthy and prosperous rural
communities across America.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thompson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Glenn Thompson, a Representative in Congress
from Pennsylvania
Good morning. I want to welcome everyone to the first hearing of
the Conservation, Energy, and Forestry Subcommittee this Congress.
I particularly want to extend a warm welcome to our new Ranking
Member, Mr. Walz, as well as the new Members of our Subcommittee.
This Subcommittee has broad jurisdiction over a large number of
issue areas at USDA, including forestry--an important topic for many of
us here today.
Forestry plays an important role in the rural economy.
The forest products industry employs almost 900,000 people across
the country, not including jobs directly supporting the industry, and
in 2012, the forest products industry had an economic impact
approaching $190 billion.
Our National Forests are capable of providing and sustaining these
economic benefits, but they need proper management in order to do so,
which is the topic of today's hearing: the management of our National
Forest System and what impacts this management has on neighboring
communities.
The Forest Service manages more than 193 million acres of land
across 41 states. Within those 41 states, there are over 700 counties
containing National Forest land.
These communities rely on us to be good stewards of these Federal
lands.
The people who live in those communities depend on well managed
National Forests to foster jobs and economic opportunity.
These jobs can come from diverse sources such as timber, energy
production, or recreation.
If these jobs disappear, so too do jobs that support those
industries. If these disappear, then school systems and infrastructure
in these communities are threatened.
Thus, effective management and Forest Service decisions have
significant consequences on our constituents who live in and around our
National Forests.
When Congress created the National Forest System more than a
hundred years ago, it was designed so that the surrounding communities
would benefit from the multiple uses.
A share of the revenue from each forest's activities was to be
returned to the communities in exchange for the fact that these lands
were being taken off local tax rolls.
Additionally, these forests would provide jobs to communities by
harvesting timber, collecting natural resources, or providing
recreational opportunities.
However, as timber outputs have declined over the last 25 years, we
have seen the impacts for these communities.
Unemployment is higher in these communities and we have witnessed
some of the most intense fire seasons in the last 50 years recently.
I continue to be very troubled by the significant reduction in
timber harvesting in National Forests.
Harvesting is a critical piece of management--and the Forest
Service cannot effectively manage our forests without it.
To his credit, Secretary Vilsack recognized these concerns. Last
February, he stated his goal for the Forest Service to harvest 3
billion board feet annually by 2014.
The Forest Service harvested more than 2.6 billion board feet last
year, its highest total since 2000.
I applaud these efforts and hope that the agency will go farther to
see harvesting levels closer to the recommended sustainable cuts in
each forest.
However, I hope the agency does not make a short sighted decision
to reduce treatments to National Forest land in an attempt to meet the
obligation of the sequester.
Though it's a decision that may save a bit of money in the short
term, it will only further impair a National Forest System that's
already dangerously mismanaged, resulting in fewer jobs, more fire-
prone forests, and communities struggling to make ends meet.
Sequestration is an unfortunate approach to achieve deficit
reduction, but we must face reality: the Federal Government must
shrink. We must utilize resources more efficiently and effectively.
With any hope, these austerity measures will help remind us of just
how critical forest management is for both Federal spending and
economic growth.
Through better forest management, we'll spend less money fighting
wildfires. Through increased timber harvests, we'll see more revenue to
the U.S. Treasury and our local communities. I look forward to hearing
today from Chief Tidwell as to how the Service will be managing this
process.
Today, we will hear testimony about other ways the Forest Service
can help promote rural economic health, including energy production or
by providing recreational opportunities in our forests.
I want to welcome our panel of witnesses and thank them for sharing
their perspectives today. I'd also like to especially say thank you to
Mr. Ken Kane, a constituent of mine, who will be testifying later this
morning.
I look forward to a productive discussion on how we can be certain
the Forest Service is doing everything within reason to produce a
stronger rural America.
It is good to see Forest Service Chief Tidwell and I welcome Chief
Tidwell back before the Subcommittee.
We have enjoyed a good working relationship in the past and I look
forward to working with you to ensure we have healthy and prosperous
rural communities across America.
The Chairman. And now I yield to the Ranking Member, Mr.
Walz, for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIMOTHY J. WALZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM MINNESOTA
Mr. Walz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
congratulations on assuming the chairmanship. It has been
obvious since you came to Congress, you have been a champion of
rural issues, rural America, and done it in a positive,
visionary way. I am very grateful and proud to be serving with
you.
I would also like to acknowledge one of my constituents who
is here. Kevin Paap from Blue Earth County, Minnesota, is here.
He is President of the Minnesota Farm Bureau. He often says he
has a farm there where he raises corn, soybeans and boys, and I
think that kind of sums up what we are about; trying to make
the land productive, gain the wealth for the country and do it
in a way that is managed for future generations, so Kevin, I
appreciate that.
Chief Tidwell, thank you for your service to this country.
Thank you for being here and sharing your expertise on how we
can correctly manage our forest resources. I of course
represent Minnesota's 1st District. That is the deep south of
Minnesota down by Iowa. We as a state have vast timber
resources, 16.3 million acres of forestland, 3 million of that
is National Forest, 3.9 million is state forestland. Our
Department of Natural Resources does a wonderful job. They are
a front-runner in many of the management techniques that are
being developed in forest fire suppression, so we are grateful
for that.
The thing I find most interesting is that the forest and
timber industry, provides about $9 billion in economic impact
to the state. I also represent the Mayo Clinic. That $9 billion
represents about twice what the Mayo Clinic does, and they
employ 40,000 people. I think that puts it into perspective,
forest and timber is a huge industry.
The interesting part is, it is not an all or nothing. Our
recreational activities contribute an additional $11.6 billion.
So you can have your cake and eat it too if we do it right in
terms of managing these resources, using them correctly and
still being able to have the multi-use that we want to try and
get.
My focus, much like the Chairman's, is to ensure that
Federal funding for state and private forestry is well spent
and that our National Forests are managed in a way that meets
that multiple-use mission. I would like today, to hear from
some of you--Chief Tidwell, you may be the person to help me
more with this--and get a clearer picture of what sequester is
going to mean. I have been told that sequester is Latin for
idiotic governance, and it may be true. My fear is that when
you do indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts that if instead we
could use smart money, we could save money in the long run. I
want to hear how the Forest Service is making plans for that.
So again, to all of our witnesses, thank you. I had a
chance to read your testimony. I appreciate that there is a lot
of expertise in this room today, so I want to hear where you
are coming from, making sure we get this right, and certainly a
renewable resource like our timber resources is one that this
nation can put to good use both now and in future generations.
Mr. Chairman, I again congratulate you and yield back my
time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Timothy J. Walz, a Representative in
Congress from Minnesota
Thank you, Mr. Chairman
Chief Tidwell and other distinguished witnesses, thank you for
being here today to share your knowledge and expertise with the
Subcommittee.
I want to first of all offer my complete cooperation in listening
and learning from your testimony today, and hope that you will feel
free to contact me at any time to discuss any issue of concern to you.
My interests are those of MN in general and Minnesota's First
District in particular.
MN is home to nearly 16.3 million acres of forestland total; 3
million acres of National Forest land and 3.9 million acres of state
forestland.
Our DNR is a national forerunner in developing techniques to
control and suppress forest fires.
We have a robust forest products industry with annual value
northwards of $9 billion that coexists with an even more robust
economically significant outdoors tradition with $11.6 billion yearly
in consumer spending alone.
My focus is to ensure that Federal funding for state and private
forestry is well-spent and that our National Forests are managed in a
way that meets the multiple-use mission of the Forest Service.
I also understand that we all must adjust in this new world of
sequestration, and would like to get a clearer picture of exactly how
cuts to the Forest Service funding will impair program delivery on the
ground.
With that, I look forward to hearing your testimony and thank you
again for your willingness to participate today.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The chair would request that other Members submit their
opening statements for the record so the witnesses may begin
their testimony and to ensure that there is ample time for
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Peterson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Collin C. Peterson, a Representative in
Congress from Minnesota
Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Thompson, and Ranking Member Walz
for holding today's hearing, the first Conservation, Energy, and
Forestry Subcommittee hearing this Congress.
As we all know, the Committee will again try to write a new farm
bill this year. The budget situation remains our biggest challenge. We
need to make sure that all programs overseen by the Agriculture
Committee are operating as efficiently as possible, free of waste and
abuse. Today's hearing will be helpful in giving us a better
understanding of how forestry programs currently operate; maybe we'll
find some improvements that can be made in the next farm bill.
Before the Committee begins farm bill consideration, it bears
repeating that while there are significant challenges ahead of us, the
more we can work together, the more smoothly the process will go.
Again, I thank the Chairman for holding today's hearing and look
forward to hearing from our witnesses.
The Chairman. At this time I would like to welcome our
first panel to the table, and our first panel is our Chief of
our U.S. Forest Service, Mr. Tom Tidwell of the United States
Department of Agriculture. Chief Tidwell, please begin when you
are ready.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS TIDWELL, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST
SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you again for the opportunity to present the views of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding National Forest
management and the benefits of public and private lands on
rural economies and our communities.
In my written testimony, I try to share many of the
benefits of the National Forests, and in my remarks today, I am
going to briefly highlight a few of those key points.
The benefits of the National Forests and Grasslands without
question are significant to this country and especially to
rural America. For instance, in 2011, the various activities on
the National Forests and Grasslands contributed over $36
billion to America's gross domestic product and supported
nearly 450,000 jobs. Now, recreation related activities, which
support 166 million visits to the National Forests, support a
little over 200,000 jobs and about $13.5 billion to the GDP.
Forest products from the National Forests, they support another
42,000 jobs, another $3 billion to the GDP. Grazing, over
19,000 jobs. Minerals and energy production, about 56,000 jobs
and $8 billion to the GDP. We administer 160,000 mining claims
and 2,600 mineral sale contracts. Returns to the Treasury on
these lease rentals, royalties and bonus bids, ranges from $650
to $850 million a year.
Now, especially in rural America, these benefits and
associated activities are just essential to sustaining our
communities. But in addition to the commercial activities, 20
percent of Americans rely on the drinking water that originates
off the National Forests. Our forests in this country offset a
significant amount of the carbon emissions in this country, and
on the National Forests we estimate offsetting over four
percent of those emissions. On the recreation use, it goes
beyond just those numbers. I can't stress enough that I think
many of you can relate to how many people enjoy going out and
recreating on their National Forests and Grasslands. It is
where America plays. It is where they hunt, they fish. It is
where their ride their horses, their motor bikes, their ATVs.
In addition to these benefits, we also administer 74,000
use authorizations that help benefit the public and local
communities such as 15,000 miles of transmission lines, 6,000
miles of energy pipelines, 1,600 mountaintop communications
sites, and sir, I could go on and on about these benefits.
But the other thing I wanted to point out is that through
our state and private programs, we also help support private
forest owners. In fact, we have a program with our Forest
Stewardship program where we are helping private landowners
with 20 million acres of private forested lands to provide them
the technical assistance that they need to be able to manage
their private forestlands and to keep those private lands
forested.
Now, all these benefits that I have been talking about,
there is a threat to these benefits and it is something we have
been very clear about over the last couple of years, about the
number of acres that we feel need to have some form of
restoration. We estimate between 62 and 85 million acres of our
National Forests are in need of some form of restoration. When
you think about the more than 60 percent of this country that
is in a moderate to severe drought, and that over the last 10
years we have had 45 million acres out West that have been
affected by bark beetle--and we estimate there is another 80
million acres of trees that are projected to be at risk from
severe mortality due to insects and disease--you add to that
the threat of rapid escalation of the severe-fire behavior that
we have seen over the last 10 years, and you understand that
our National Forests, and the benefits that they provide,
really are threatened right now. That is why we have moved to
increase the rate of restoration on these forests, and I
appreciate you acknowledging Secretary Vilsack's support for us
to be able to increase the amount of restoration work we are
doing on these lands by 20 percent between last year and 2014.
That includes the outputs, not only the streams that are
restored, the miles of roads that are improved, it also
increases timber output by 20 percent. It is just essential
that we are able to maintain the resiliency and resistance of
these National Forests so they can deal with the stresses--the
stresses of drought, the stresses of insect and disease, and
the natural disturbances that we are seeing significant
increases year in and year out, whether it is wind storms, ice
storms, whether it is flooding, whether it is fire. It is
essential that we do what we can to help these forests to be as
resilient as they can so they can continue to provide the
benefits that we all rely on.
I want to thank you for your time this morning and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tidwell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas Tidwell, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to present the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
regarding National Forest management and its benefits for public and
private lands on rural economies and communities.
The National Forests and Grasslands were established to protect the
land, secure favorable conditions of water flows, and provide a
sustainable supply of goods and services. National Forest System (NFS)
lands are managed using a multiple-use approach with the goal of
sustaining healthy terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems while addressing
the need for resources, commodities, and services for the American
people. Rural and urban communities depend on the forests for a variety
of resources, commodities, and services, but for the rural communities
in particular, National Forest management can impact local economic and
social conditions. With our many partners, the Forest Service is
working to maintain the functions and processes characteristic of
healthy, resilient forests and watersheds, and through delivery of our
programs, maintain and enrich the social and economic environment of
our local communities.
Vegetation Management
Our forests are important to all of us, and people understand that
forests provide a broad range of values and benefits, including
biodiversity, recreation, clean air and water, forest products, erosion
control, soil renewal and more. Forests, which cover \1/3\ of the
country's landmass, store and filter more than \1/2\ of the nation's
water supply and absorb 20 percent of the country's carbon emissions.
Our mission of sustaining the health, resilience and productivity of
our nation's forests is critically important to maintaining these
values and benefits. Restoring the health and resilience of our forests
generates important amenity values. A study by Cassandra Mosely and Max
Nielson Pincus has shown that every million dollars spent on activities
like stream restoration, hazardous fuels reduction, forestry or road
decommissioning generates from 12 to 28 jobs. Through implementation of
the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program--which relies
heavily on stewardship contracting--the proponents of projects on NFS
lands created or maintained 1,550 jobs through 2011.
The Forest Service is leading the USDA Wood to Energy Initiative, a
partnership between five agencies, including Rural Development and the
Farm Service Agency. This interagency effort is focused on creating
value for woody biomass by creating energy, for heating buildings,
manufacturing and producing electricity. The initiative is focused on
economically viable uses of wood. For example, wood chips and pellets
are about \1/2\ the cost of fuel oil and propane for heating. The U.S.
uses about 25 billion gallons of fuel oil and propane at a cost of
about $75 billion, most of it consumed in rural America. It is
important to keep in mind that wood energy is just one more part of an
integrated wood products industry that produces structural material,
furniture, pulp and paper. Our goal is to use all the parts of the
trees for the highest value we can so that landowners can effectively
manage their land whether it is public or private.
Unfortunately, it is estimated that there are between 62 and 85
million (high and very high fire risk) acres of National Forest System
(NFS) lands in need of restoration. More than 60 percent of the
contiguous United States is in a moderate or more severe stage of
drought--with 20 percent of those areas experiencing exceptional
drought conditions. In addition, insects and disease have weakened the
resilience of America's forests. Nationally, approximately 80 million
acres of trees are projected to be at risk of severe mortality due to
insect and disease. Over the past 10 years in the west, approximately
45 million acres across all land ownerships have been affected by 20
different species of bark beetles.
It is widely recognized that management of our forest resources has
not kept pace with the ever increasing need for restoration.
Organizations such as the National Forest Foundation, American Forest
Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, the National Association of State
Foresters, the Wilderness Society, U.S. Endowment for Forests and
Communities, the Intertribal Timber Council, and the Western Governors
Association have embraced an agenda to actively restore resilient
landscapes and provide for community vitality. The Forest Service is
striving to increase the number of acres that are restored by a variety
of treatments annually. This increase would allow the Forest Service to
increase the number of acres and watersheds restored across the system,
while supporting existing infrastructure and jobs.
The Forest Service recognizes the need for a strong forest industry
to help accomplish forest restoration work; the best opportunity for
reducing the cost of these restoration treatments is through timber
harvest and stewardship contracting.
The benefits of maintaining a robust forest industry flows not only
to local communities but also to the Forest Service itself as the
agency relies on local forest contractors and mills to provide the
workforce to undertake a variety of restoration activities. The
industry's workforce is larger than either the automotive or chemical
industries, currently employing nearly 900,000 workers. And the good
news is that there have been recent upturns in the housing market and
lumber prices, resulting in higher demand and prices for sawtimber. The
capacity exists within current infrastructure to meet this increased
demand for lumber through adding extra shifts, reopening mills, and
efficiency gains. The higher demand and prices for timber will enable
the Forest Service (FS) to complete more restoration treatments,
especially under a stewardship contract.
Stewardship contracting is a critical tool that allows the Forest
Service to more efficiently complete restoration activities.
Permanently reauthorizing stewardship contracting and expanding the use
of this tool is crucial to our ability to collaboratively restore
landscapes at a reduced cost to the government by offsetting the value
of the services received with the value of forest products removed. In
Fiscal Year 2012, 25 percent of all timber volume sold was under a
stewardship contract. Stewardship contracting authorities, such as
goods for services, funded watershed and wildlife habitat improvement
projects, invasive species removal, road decommissioning, and hazardous
fuels reduction activities.
The Forest Service continues to be a leading agency in the Federal
Government to preferentially select domestically harvested wood
products in building construction projects while increasing its
commitment to green building standards. All Forest Service building
projects incorporate green building principals such as energy
efficient, locally produced wood products, recycling and reuse of
building materials. New building construction and major renovation
projects for administration facilities or research laboratories over
10,000 gross square feet must be registered and certified using either
the United States Green Building Council LEED rating system, or other
accredited third-party certification systems.
The Forest Service and USDA, as well as the forest products
industry and resource management organizations, support a science-based
approach of outlining the benefits of using wood and wood-based
products in green building in the U.S. The inherent benefits of using
wood go beyond economic gains. Conservation components such as
increased forest productivity, cleaner air and water, and enhanced
wildlife habitat will be realized as we actively manage our nation's
forests. The process of harvest, transport, manufacturing and use of
wood in structures creates less gas emissions than other building
products such as concrete or steel. (``Life-cycle inventory and
assessment research at the Forest Products Laboratory: Wood products
used in building construction, U.S.D.A. Forest Service'').
The Forest Service provides a significant amount of value to the
rural economies through its active management of rangelands. 95 million
acres are within grazing allotments on National Forest lands,
Grasslands or the Midewin Tallgrass Prairie, in 30 different states.
Ten million private acres are within grazing allotments which are
cooperatively managed, providing open space and un-fragmented wildlife
habitat, connecting state, private, and Federal lands.
To accomplish effective vegetation management, the Forest Service
is fostering an efficient National Environmental Planning Act (NEPA)
process by focusing on improving agency policy, learning, and
technology. These NEPA process improvements will increase decision-
making efficiencies, resulting in on-the-ground restoration work
getting done more quickly and across a larger landscape. In addition to
the Forest Planning rule, the agency has initiated a NEPA learning
networks project to learn from and share the lessons of successful
implementation of efficient NEPA analyses. The goal of this effort is
to ensure that the Agency's NEPA compliance is as efficient, cost-
effective, and up-to-date as possible. Specifically we are looking at
expanding the use of focused Environmental Assessments (EAs), iterative
Environmental Impact Statement documentation (EISs), expanding
categories of actions that may be excluded from documentation in an EA
or an EIS, and applying an adaptive management framework to NEPA.
Regarding technology, the Forest Service's investments in Electronic
Management of NEPA (eMNEPA) provide considerable cost and time savings,
contributing to an efficient NEPA process by reducing the
administrative workload.
Our landscape-scale NEPA projects will also increase efficiencies.
For example, our Mountain Pine Beetle Response Project on the Black
Hills National Forest is implementing a landscape-scale adaptive
approach for treating current and future pine beetle outbreaks. We are
also implementing the Four Forest Restoration Initiative project in the
Southwest for landscape-scale forest restoration projects. All of these
efforts are aimed at becoming more proactive and efficient in
protecting the nation's natural resources, while providing jobs to the
American people.
Water
Water is a vitally important natural resource flowing from
America's forests, which provides great economic benefit to many rural
and urban communities. It is estimated that forests provide clean
drinking water to more than 180 million people from coast to coast.
Watersheds on National Forests and Grasslands are the source of 20
percent of the nation's drinking water supply and over 50 percent of
the water supply in the West. Many major urban centers, like Denver,
Portland, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, depend on National Forests for
their water.
Water on the National Forests is an important recreational resource
and rural areas near forest land often depend on tourist spending to
help support their local economies. Water-based outdoor recreation is a
major attractant since more people in the U.S. fish, 30 million, than
play golf, 24.2 million, or play tennis, 10.2 million (The Economic
Benefits of Protecting Healthy Watersheds, EPA 841-N-112-004). National
Forests and grasslands contain more than 200,000 miles of fish-bearing
streams--streams that support nationally renowned recreational
fisheries and local jobs.
Forest Service research helps maintain clean water important to
communities by providing watershed management tools and educational
programs. An example is the Stream Systems Technology Center which
improves knowledge of stream systems and watershed hydrology by
developing operational tools and technology, providing training and
technical support, and identifying needs to secure favorable conditions
of water flows.
Recreation
Recreation on the National Forests is extremely important for many
communities. Over the past few years, the National Forests and
Grasslands have hosted an average of nearly 166 million visits per
year. Visitors engage in activities such as camping, picnicking,
skiing, snowboarding, hunting, fishing, hiking, off highway vehicle and
snowmobile use, viewing scenery and wildlife, scenic driving and
visiting cultural sites and visitor centers. In connection with their
visits, recreation visitors directly spend about $11 billion in
communities near National Forests. With multiplier effects, this
amounts to $13.5 billion and accounts for 47% of the Forest Service
contribution to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (National
Visitor Use Monitoring, 2011).
The direct visitor spending, combined with the ripple effects in
the nearby economies, sustains more than 200,000 full and part-time
jobs (National Visitor Use Monitoring, 2011). The vast majority of
these jobs are in gateway communities. These towns' distinguishing
feature is proximity to public lands; the vitality of their social and
economic structure often depend on the management decisions being made
on and for these public lands.
Partnering with private sector businesses to develop and maintain
ski areas on NFS lands has proven to be a particularly significant
economic engine for gateway communities. Currently, 122 alpine ski
areas are located on NFS lands, which together comprise over 60% of the
downhill skiing capacity in the United States. The direct spending on
downhill skiing and snowboarding by visitors to National Forests
amounts to about $3.5 billion annually. With ripple effect, this
translates to nearly a $5 billion contribution to GDP and represents
approximately 4,000 full and part-time jobs. Moreover, many of these
locations are expanding their summer activity offerings, further
enhancing their importance to gateway communities. (National Visitor
Use Monitoring, 2011).
The number and diversity of our recreation opportunities and the
quality of our recreation settings are the primary reasons visitors
keep coming. Stable and robust visitation numbers provide desirable
opportunities for a wide array of businesses. High quality natural
resource settings are among the benefits that people seek when deciding
where to live or retire. Gateway communities benefit from both.
The operation and maintenance of many of our recreation sites and
reservation system is dependent on user fees, such as campground fees.
The agency collects about $65 million annually in user fees through the
Forest Land Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA), which sunsets December
8, 2014. Ninety five percent of FLREA funds go back to where they are
collected for the maintenance and operation of recreation facilities.
The Forest Service is working with the Department of the Interior to
reauthorize FLREA. A loss of this funding would create a burden that
could not be made up with appropriated or other partnered funding and
would have a direct impact on rural economies due to closures of
recreation sites and loss of jobs.
Special Uses
The Forest Service manages approximately 74,000 special use
authorizations. Special use authorizations allow for the use of NFS
lands for numerous purposes to benefit the public such as energy
transmission and communications infrastructure, renewable energy-
related uses, public service facilities such as ski areas, resorts and
marinas, as well as services such as outfitting and guiding. There are
180 types of special uses.
The special uses program provides significant public benefits. Over
6,600 miles of energy-related pipeline and some 15,000 miles of
transmission line rights-of-way cross NFS lands. In addition
approximately 1,600 communication sites are located on NFS lands.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licensed dams provide
enough power for some 15 million homes. Private businesses and
nonprofit entities provide approximately \1/2\ of the recreation
opportunities on NFS lands, including 122 ski areas, 259 resorts, 77
marinas, 311 organizational camps, 230 concession campground
operations, nearly 5,000 outfitting and guiding operations, and nearly
1,000 recreation events each year. The agency also leases some 14,000
forest cabin lots.
Forest Service special uses generate approximately $100 million in
land use fees annually Special uses provide many benefits to the
American public and are one of the many ways that NFS lands provide
resources and services in areas such as energy, communications, and
recreation. Special uses provide business opportunities for large and
small companies, thereby supporting the national and local economies.
Because ten percent of the continental U.S. is National Forest System
land, the agency necessarily plays a critical role in energy
development, energy transmission and communications.
In addition, the public benefits greatly from this program by
receiving recreation and other services which could not be provided by
the Forest Service.
Minerals, Oil and Gas
Over 5 million acres of NFS lands are currently leased for oil,
gas, coal, and phosphate mining operations. Our energy and minerals
programs contribute to sustainable domestic energy production and
support many jobs and socioeconomic benefits to the American people,
while protecting healthy ecosystems.
At any given time, the Forest Service administers operations on
approximately 160,000 mining claims and manages approximately 2,600
mineral material sale contracts. The value of energy and minerals
production from these operations on NFS lands typically exceeds $6.5
billion per year, as calculated by the Forest Service and the
Department of the Interior's Office of Natural Resources Revenue.
Mineral receipts are derived from annual lease rentals, royalties
on production, bonus bids for competitive leases, and mineral material
sales. Of the total revenues received, between 25 and 50 percent--
depending on whether production is from acquired lands or lands
reserved from the public domain--are returned to the state or county of
production. Federal royalties from oil and gas leases on NFS lands were
$136 million in calendar year 2009. Returns to the Treasury each year
from lease rentals, royalties on production, bonus bids, and mineral
material sales on NFS lands typically range from $650 million to $850
million. The Forest Service is analyzing additional lands across the
country which could be made available for leasing.
Wildland Fire
Within the United States, many states have recently experienced
their largest and/or most destructive fires in history. Similar
situations are happening on the global stage as well.
Two primary factors are contributing to additional acreage being
burned by wildfires: climate and vegetation. We can only expect
climate-related drivers to increase. We are experiencing increases in
the frequency of warm days and decreases in cold days. Heat waves are
increasing in length, frequency, and/or intensity over most land areas.
Researchers have shown a 78 day increase in the western fire season
since 1970. Rising spring and summer temperatures across the west
appear to be correlated to the increase in size and number of
wildfires. Time of snowmelt also may be a factor. Scientists predict
the western states will get hotter and drier by the end of the century.
Fire seasons will grow longer and fires will increase. More and bigger
fires will become the norm as climate continues to change. Key
considerations to consider:
In the absence of treatment, fuels continue to accumulate,
setting the stage for future fires to be more extreme. In many
areas fuels are at higher levels than historic norms.
Where we are able to treat fuels and vegetation, we are able
to reduce fire impacts. The Forest Service monitors when
wildfires burn into treated fuels and the monitoring showed
that, of almost 1,200 cases studied, 94% of the fuel treatments
were effective in changing fire behavior and/or helping with
suppression.
The pace of our fuel management activities has not kept pace
with the trends that drive fuel accumulation. Even with the
increase in wildfire many areas are still accumulating more
fuel than is being burned. Natural vegetation succession,
drought, land use patterns, insect outbreaks, invasive species,
and fire suppression--all contribute to accumulating fuel
loads.
New construction of homes in the wildland urban interface
(WUI) greatly compound the fire management problem. About \1/
10\ of land area occupied by housing and about \1/3\ of all
housing units in the conterminous United States are located in
the wildland urban interface.
Severe fire may bring landscape conversions which can lead
to reduced habitat for endangered and threatened species such
as spotted owls, sage grouse, and cold water fish species.
These type conversions will also have impacts on water yield
and quality.
The increased presence of wildfire is already having costly
and serious impacts on public health with increased levels of
smoke. As the fire seasons grow longer and fires increase,
there will be increased impacts to local and state economies.
Regional action plans are being developed with Federal,
state and local cooperators to meet the goals of the National
Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (Restoring and
Maintaining Resilient Landscapes, Creating Fire-Adapted
Communities and Responding to Wildfires)
State and Private Forestry Programs
The Forest Service works with a variety of partners to help private
forest landowners conserve and manage their forest resources so the
lands can contribute to local, rural economic growth and provide
ecosystem services on which we all depend. Many rural economies rely on
the proximity of forests and forestry sector jobs, and most of the
nation's forest land, about \2/3\, is in private ownership. Through our
National Woodland Owner Survey and other related studies, we attempt to
better understand private and family forest owners--about 11 million of
them--so we can continue to deliver appropriate tools and the types of
technical assistance most needed.
The Forest Stewardship, Forest Legacy, Community Forest, Urban and
Community Forestry, Conservation Education, Forest Health Protection,
and Cooperative Fire Protection Program first work to keep our state
and private forests as forests in the face of increasing development
pressures and other threats. These programs then work to protect these
forests from harm while enhancing the benefits they provide.
The Forest Stewardship Program is delivered directly to landowners
through state forest agency partners, and a vast network of forestry
technical assistance providers, forestry consultants, state forestry
agencies, and nonprofit partners. Sustaining forest health on private
ownerships through this program is thus vitally important, not only for
the environment but also for the economic and social well-being of
surrounding communities. Program funding is frequently leveraged
locally to train professional consulting forester pools that landowners
can then access. Assistance is provided primarily in the form of
comprehensive long-term Forest Stewardship Management Plans. Currently,
about 20 million acres of private forestland are being sustainably
managed under these plans nationally. According to a study by the
National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO, 2009), the contribution of
these managed acres to employment is significant: ``On average, each
1,000 acres of privately-owned forest is responsible for the creation
of eight jobs.''
The program is also increasingly serving as a ``gateway'' through
which landowners can gain access to a variety of assistance, programs,
and incentives including USDA cost-share, state tax abatement, forest
certification, and emerging ecosystem service and renewable energy
markets.
Our newly adopted Landscape Stewardship Approach is attempting to
provide further access to emerging markets by creating economies of
scale for smaller landowners. Landscape-scale plans also facilitate
cross-program and interagency coordination, make more efficient use of
limited resources, tie individual ownership objectives to landscape-
scale resource management objectives, and help landowners understand
how their actions contribute to broader landscape management efforts
and their local economies.
The Forest Health Protection Program (FHP) is helping states,
landowners, communities and tribes combat insect pest, disease and
invasive plant infestations that, if left unchecked, can have severe
local and regional economic impacts. Restoration of bark beetle
infested landscapes across rural western communities is one of the
priorities of the Forest Service Western Bark Beetle Strategy. FHP also
produces the National Insect & Disease Risk Map, which provides vital
information on future risk to forests across all lands. In addition,
on-going Aerial Detection Surveys are conducted to assess general and
annual forest health conditions. Both of these information sources are
essential to help Federal, state, and local land managers make better
management decisions in the face of landscape change, potentially
resulting in significant rural forest industry and related economic
benefits.
Forest Research and Development
Forest Research and Development (R&D) serves the nation and
communities with a variety of research efforts to better understand
forests and their economic impacts. Forest Service R&D continues to
adapt and reposition its programs as needed to address the needs of a
rapidly changing society. The social, economic, and environmental
forces driving the change have the potential to fundamentally change
existing relationships among people, cultures, communities, political
institutions, and the natural environment. Forest Service R&D is
responding to these issues through six priority research Areas: (1)
Forest Disturbance, (2) Biomass and Bioenergy, (3) Urban and Natural
Resources Stewardship, (4) Nanotechnology, (5) Water Management and
Restoration, and (6) Localized Needs Research. These priority research
areas demonstrate Forest Service R&D's commitment to remaining an
interactive, vibrant, and visionary partner in addressing today's
critical natural resources problems with science and technology. This
science and leadership service is a highly important investment for a
world struggling with environmental change.
Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) information provides the forest
resource information needed to assess current and future opportunities
and risks to maintaining healthy forests and vibrant rural communities.
FIA data and information are updated annually for all 50 states. The
information is used by states, forest landowners, forest planners and
forest investment firms to plan silvicultural treatments. Investment
decisions for development and location of wood based manufacturing
facilities also access FIA information. We have also learned from
assessments based on FIA information that urbanization is resulting in
forest losses and that reduced demand for domestic forest products is
impacting rural communities.
Additionally, we continue to set priorities for fuels treatments
around communities linked to restoration goals resulting in avoided
costs to water, decreased insurance costs to owners, and decreased loss
of infrastructure. Forest Service fire scientists, analysts, and
technology transfer specialists put science in the hands of managers,
decision makers, policy makers, homeowners and communities in the form
of user-friendly software and data, real-time support of trained
analysts on active wildfires, and educational material for
schoolchildren. Smoke modeling tools have been developed to integrate
meteorological data, cutting edge smoke science, and fire behavior
predictions to help fire managers schedule essential prescribed burns
to minimize these health impacts. The Wildland Fire Decision Support
System assists fire managers and analysts in making strategic and
tactical decisions for fire incidents by providing easier sharing of
analyses.
I-Tree, a peer-reviewed software suite, provides urban forestry
analysis and benefits assessment tools to help communities strengthen
their urban forest management and advocacy efforts by quantifying the
structure of community trees and the environmental services that trees
provide.
The Forest Service is expanding the use of wood and a sustainable
and environment friendly material by developing new materials and
technologies at the Forest Products Laboratory. These new materials
range from Nano sized particles that can be used in developing light
weight and strong car bodies or a green substitute for petroleum based
plastics and films to new construction materials and techniques for
multiple story buildings. These new technologies use low value wood
from restoration treatments to provide sustainable alternatives to non-
renewable materials and create jobs in rural area. Forest Service
studies show that using wood products for building materials, instead
of fossil-fuel intensive alternatives, results in a smaller carbon
footprint.
The Forest Service also provides science-based information for
community planning in recreation planning, including the social and
quality of life benefits of recreation on communities and society, and
the impacts of economic cycles on tourism-dependent communities and the
effects of changing land use and ownership patterns, amenity migration,
and labor markets on recreation businesses and management.
In summary, the Forest Service continues to work toward
accomplishing restoration objectives, providing information, research,
and quality recreational experiences, all linked to healthy rural
communities. I want to thank the Committee for its interest,
leadership, and commitment to our National Forests and their
surrounding communities. I would be pleased to answer any questions you
may have.
The Chairman. Thank you, Chief. Let me take the liberty of
taking the first 5 minutes of questions.
Chief, within your testimony, you noted, and specifically
to wildfires, that climate change and vegetation were two
issues, and I can see that it has been dryer, it has been
hotter, and obviously if vegetation quite frankly is not
managed, the undergrowth provides a tinderbox. Given the fact
that we have known for some time we have had this trend of
warmer summers, it seems to me the only real remediation to
that is to be more aggressive with harvesting. Some of it is
stewardship contracting, also green timber sales. I actually
prefer that because that has to tie back into the local
communities with dollars. So we need to use both tools. What
have been the obstacles to using those tools to provide more
wildfire prevention?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, Mr. Chairman, you are correct. We
recognize we need to be doing more, and one of the ways to
reduce the threat, especially to our communities and to improve
the effectiveness of our suppression activities is to get in
there and reduce the amount of biomass, reduce the number of
trees on these landscapes. That is one of the reasons why we
have increased our rate of restoration, increased our rate of
harvest, and especially with a focus on the areas around the
communities and our wildland-urban interface. Each year over
the last few years we have continued to increase the number of
acres that were treated. There is strong evidence to show that
when we do that, we definitely change the fire behavior and our
firefighters are more successful. So we are moving forward with
that.
The challenge that we have is the amount of acres that need
to be treated, and in the last few years, of the markets for a
lot of the saw timber that needs to be removed and the smaller
diameters, there is very little value in a lot of this timber
that needs to be removed. And so that is one of the things that
has slowed down the efforts, especially with stewardship
contracting. There haven't been as many receipts available. I
am pleased to know that the prices especially for saw timber
have been improving over the last year, so that is going to
help us.
The other thing that is really making a difference is these
collaborative efforts across the country where people have come
together and recognized the type of work that needs to be done
on these forests so that there is more and more support for us
to be able to move forward and to treat the areas that we need
to treat. The thing that we have really changed over the last
couple of years is to recognize we need to treat larger areas.
The 500 acres, the 1,000 acres, that is not enough, and that is
why we put our efforts in the last couple years into doing
analysis on tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of acres
at a time so that we can treat the amount of country we need
to, to really make a difference.
The Chairman. It seems like those collaborations are a way
to leverage other monies obviously with different areas of
government, so I congratulate you for including that as part of
the strategy.
You talked about the market, and the market is somewhat of
an issue obviously, and I am a huge fan of our Forest Research
Labs. These are scientists that are really doing tremendous
work. I have had an opportunity to visit some of the
laboratories and I know that the Forest Service is involved in
looking at nanotechnology, and they are battling invasive
species, they are looking at all different types of things. How
well does the forest research look at developing other
innovations? I have a bill that Mr. Schrader and I introduced
last week, the Forest Products Fairness Act, and that is more
of a marketing to make sure that our forest products are able
to benefit from that BioPreferred label. That is about
marketing and expanding, but obviously innovation, creating,
looking for new markets for our forest products. How much is
the Forest Service involved with that?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank you
for your support for finding ways to use more forest products,
and whether it is in the BioPreferred markets or whatever, and
I know that we are moving forward with trying to provide some
additional flexibility, so I appreciate your support around the
BioPreferred market opportunity.
Our Forest Products Labs, they spend a lot of their time
really looking at how we can not only improve the marketability
of wood but actually to create new markets. The first one is
our Green Building Initiative where we are trying to find ways
to be able to create more buildings out of wood. For instance,
they developed a product called cross-laminated timber, which
is able to take a combination of the high-quality wood plus the
lower-quality wood and put it together in a way that passes all
the tests so that it is stronger than just a timber cut from a
tree. This will allow us to be able to pursue wood buildings
that go beyond four stories so that commercial buildings will
be able to go five to six stories, which is common in Europe
and where they are moving to in Canada. So that is one of the
things that we are moving forward with.
We do a lot of research in bioenergy to be able to find
ways to make it more economically viable for us to use the
small-diameter residual material that has no market like it for
saw timber but it too needs to be removed, and so if we can
defray the costs by converting that into usable, renewable
energy, it is another way that will make it more economically
feasible for us to get this work done. It also makes it easier
for the mills to be able to have a co-gen plant, that they can
use the energy for their operations. USDA, with the Forest
Service and Rural Development, have had a very successful
program the last year to use a combination of loans and grants
and expertise to be able to create more of a demand for
bioenergy.
The other thing we are working on is with biofuels, and we
have a ways to go yet, but our scientists are now to the point
that they can produce a gallon of fuel for about $6 to $7 a
gallon. We know we need to get it down to about $4 a gallon
before it will actually become economically viable, but it is
one of the things that we are continuing to work on as just
another way to help create more markets so that we can manage
our National Forests.
You mentioned nanotechnology, and of everything I have
talked about, it probably has the highest potential, but we are
still a ways away with that technology, but I wish I would have
brought an example today. I could show you a sheet that looks
like plastic to me that is made out of cellulose, made out of
wood cellulose, and I will tell you, it is stronger and more
durable than any piece of plastic that is sitting here on the
desk right now. But that is the potential that we have in these
other markets. That along with being able to maintain our wood
products industry, to maintain the saw timber, the sawmills in
this country, that is what it is going to take for us to be
able to have the infrastructure to be able to do the work that
needs to be done on our forests.
The Chairman. Thank you, Chief.
At this time I will yield to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Walz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chief
Tidwell.
Again, I am really pleased to hear you talking about this
commitment on moving towards biofuels. In southern Minnesota we
have a pretty advanced biofuels industry and most of us who
have watched this understand that this is an ongoing process.
We are still in the infancy, but again, it is about providing a
broader portfolio of energy uses, and there are folks that want
to collaborate, and I am glad to see that that is moving
forward.
Just a couple of questions here. In a February letter to
the appropriators, Secretary Vilsack anticipated the effects of
sequestration to the Forest Service fire management to be $134
million and the National Forest System to be $78 million. If
you could verify those amounts and provide some details on how
you are going to implement those cuts and what the impact will
be on those programs?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, those numbers are correct, and I will
talk first about the five percent reduction to our fire
funding. That is both in our preparedness funds and also in our
suppression funds. So it will result in a few, we are
estimating maybe up to 500 less firefighters, 50 to 70 less
fire engines this year. To put that in perspective, just the
Forest Service alone, we usually provide around 10,480
firefighters, so that would drop the number to just a little
bit to 10,000.
So we will start the year with a few less resources.
However, we have the ability to move our resources around the
country to be able to preposition the crews and fire engines
where they are needed, ideally right before that part of the
country starts their fire season. So we will be able to
mitigate some of the impacts by just moving more of the
resources around.
Mr. Walz. Do you save much money by moving firefighters
that were there from another part to put them there?
Mr. Tidwell. No, sir, it increases the cost so the
suppression costs will go up because when we move prepositioned
resources, they are then charged to a suppression code, fire
code, and so the suppression codes will go up so that we can
preposition these resources, but we will respond and we are
going to do whatever we need to to be able to respond to
wildfires without any question.
Mr. Walz. Okay. I appreciate that. A question. We all talk
about it is hotter, dryer, looking at some of these things. I
am of the belief that that is probably the new normal. Should
there be a new way of thinking about management based on that
new normal, not based on historical past trends? Is that
something that is being talked about and done?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, sir, you are correct. It is the new
normal, and I would like to talk about it. Our fire seasons,
they are warmer, they are dryer and they are longer, in fact,
often 60 to 70 days longer today than just what they were 10,
15 years ago. And so that is what we are up against. That
stresses the need for us to be able to do hazardous-fuels
reduction so that when a fire does threaten a community, that
the flames drop out of the trees, get on the ground so the
firefighters can be successful. It also makes it safer for our
firefighters because we will not put our firefighters at
unnecessary risk. So it is essential that we move forward and
not just on the public lands, but this is an issue for all
lands and it needs to be done in conjunction with the work done
on private lands.
When I first started my career as a firefighter, it was
seldom that we ever had to be worried about a fire threatening
a building or a subdivision. Today it is seldom that we ever
have a fire that we don't also have to factor in keeping that
fire away from the community.
Mr. Walz. And that is a combination of changes but also
encroachment near these lands and buffers. Would you agree?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. People like to live next to these lands.
I understand that, and we can do that in a way but they need to
be able to treat the fuels on their private land in conjunction
with us treating the fuels on the National Forests.
Mr. Walz. My final point, and I guess this is more to think
about. I would kind of like to hear what you think. You are
going to hear testimony after you, Chief Tidwell, from folks
who are seeing a way of life disappear, who are seeing it more
difficult to continue, and we are looking for ways to make sure
that people have the opportunities to live in these areas and
to do that. What are the factors do you think in addition to
what the Forest Service is doing that are leading to those
changes, in your opinion?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, it is probably a combination of things,
but there is just no question that the economic benefits that
come from the activities off the National Forests and
Grasslands and how they can help sustain the local economies,
and as you mentioned in your remarks, from recreation, it is
across the board in this country. It is very important economic
activity. And then the other part of it is to manage these
lands. I mean, there are studies out there now that show for
every million dollars that we invest in restoration activities,
it creates another 12 to 20+ jobs. So we have those things
going for us.
The other thing that we have that has changed in just the
last, I am going to say the last 5 years where I spent the
majority of my career dealing with controversy and conflict
about how the National Forests should be managed, and I can
tell you today that is being replaced with just constructive
dialogue about how and why, not should you or should you not.
Because of that, I tell you, we are building support across
this country where people are coming together. They want to
work together. We are seeing it from communities that are
willing to put their own money to help restore these lands
because they recognize that if they can improve the conditions
of that watershed, it is going to save the city more money,
because when a flood occurs, there is going to be less impact.
Folks are seeing that there is a connection to maintaining
these lands with direct economic benefits. So those are the
things that I think we can really start to turn this around. We
just need to stay the course.
Mr. Walz. Well, I am grateful for that, and our public land
legacy is the envy of the world, so I appreciate the work you
are doing, and I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize the
gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hate to waste time
in this hearing on a parochial issue, but apparently I have to
since your staff has not been able to handle this for me.
I have a church in my district called the Union Baptist
Church. It has had a permit for a cemetery since 1954. It is
less than \1/2\ an acre of land. And as late as 2009, your
Department confirmed their permit was still active. They have
been mowing it, burying people there for years. They sold the
plots. Not all of them have been filled yet, which is a good
thing, but there are people that own them. They were recently
notified in 2012 that their permit had been revoked. We
contacted your office to try to clear this up, and we are not
getting anywhere. My question to you is, are you going to be
able to take care of the Union Baptist Church cemetery for
them?
Mr. Tidwell. Congressman, I will personally look into that.
This is a common situation throughout this country where we
have cemeteries that are on National Forest System lands and we
do have several different authorities that sometimes will help
resolve this, so I will personally look into this and see if we
can't use one of our existing authorities to be able to address
this, and I will get back to you.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I appreciate it. I understand my staff
has been in contact with your staff, and I understand that you
may not be able to do a waiver but we could do a land swap. The
aggravating part to me is, this is less than \1/2\ an acre of
land they have had for 70 years almost, had a permit on, and it
is costing your staff more time than the land is worth to fuss
over this. Just handle it. Let them swap land or whatever. And
it is also ridiculous to come up to these folks 70 years later
after they have already sold the plots and say well, you can't
bury anybody there when you have had permission to do it for
all this time. So I would appreciate that and I look forward to
hearing back from you.
My second question is a little broader. It deals with
sequestration. I have a huge National Forest in my district. I
am very interested in what, if any, guidance you have been
given by the Administration as to how you are supposed to
handle the cuts in sequestration.
Mr. Tidwell. Well, the five percent is across the board,
each of our appropriations, and so within each appropriation,
we are looking at how we can best minimize the impacts on
operations. So I have asked each of my regional foresters and
research station directors to provide me with their thoughts
about how they are going to reduce their planned expenditures
this year by five percent and then look at how we can work
together to minimize those impacts. So we are in that process
right now, but there will be impacts. The five percent for the
National Forests that we look at with our trust funds, it is
close to $300 million. And when I think about what I could do
with an extra $300 million and if I take it right down to your
forest what I could do if I could send an extra $3 or $4
million to that forest and how much more work they could get
done, it is significant. So we are going to do everything we
can to minimize but there will be reductions.
The thing I worry the most about is with our staffing, that
over the last 15 years our fire staff has increased
significantly because of the fire seasons we have. At the same
time, the rest of the workforce has reduced significantly,
almost 30 percent from where we were in the mid 1990s. That is
our foresters, our biologists, our engineers. It is the people
who do our business, financial work, and so there is less
capacity there. And so that is the thing we are really focused
on is trying not to lose any more of that expertise because as
we are trying to move forward to look at new ways to do our
work, to be more efficient, whether it is improving the
efficiencies of how we do our NEPA or how we are just doing our
sale preparation for timber sales, it is essential that we
maintain that expertise. Those are the people that I need. I
need their thinking, their knowledge, their expertise.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I agree with that. My concern is, there
has been some press reports that the Administration has given
guidance to maximize the pain in the sequestration to
demonstrate to the public these cuts are unreasonable. So I am
glad to hear that you intend to minimize the effect of these
cuts.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, Secretary Vilsack has been very clear
that he wants these cuts of course to be fair across the board
but he expects us to do everything we can to minimize the
impacts.
Mr. Rogers. That is all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Will the gentleman yield? Thank you for
yielding.
Is there any consideration--I mean, there are certainly
areas that sequestration, with the rate flexibility, why would
we make cuts in areas that are revenue generators? And I go
right back to timber sales and all that is necessary to make
those happen. Those are bringing revenue in to the Treasury.
That is great for the Treasury. It puts on somewhat of a
projection hopefully maybe some day balance this budget and pay
down this debt, but it is also good for the local communities.
And I guess this is more of a statement than a question. I
would just hope that as you look within whatever latitude you
have. I mean, I used to manage rural hospitals. I never had a
year where I didn't have to cut maybe five percent. You know,
it was just the way it was, given the economics of rural health
care. But it just makes no sense in those areas that generate
revenue to make significant cuts there.
At this time we will recognize the gentlelady from New
Hampshire, Ms. Kuster.
Ms. Kuster. Thank you very much, Chairman Thompson and
Ranking Member Walz for the hearing today. I am excited to join
this Subcommittee and bring a New Hampshire perspective for the
first time in 70 years, and I look forward to working with my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle here to advance
commonsense solutions to create economic opportunity and
support our rural communities.
I also want to thank you, Chief Tidwell, for joining us
today to discuss the work that you are doing in the Forest
Service. I am honored to represent a district that includes the
majority of the White Mountain National Forest, which is truly
a national treasure. Having grown up skiing and hiking in the
White Mountains, I can attest to the recreational
opportunities, and certainly for us, tourism is our number one
industry and we appreciate the role that you play.
There is also tremendous opportunity in terms of the timber
industry, and I am very excited to have recently visited the
biomass plant in Berlin, New Hampshire, which is bringing back
the forest services, and Secretary Vilsack was scheduled for a
visit to New Hampshire today. I have just learned that that
might have been canceled. But it is an interesting company,
Pleasant View, where they have installed a biomass wood-fired
boiler system to heat commercial greenhouses. So I would love
to hear more from you about this wood-to-energy program that
you are spearheading and opportunities for economic development
in rural areas.
Mr. Tidwell. Well, Congresswoman, thank you. You just
provided an excellent example of the potential to be able to
help folks to be able to move forward, and sometimes it is to
be able to get loan guarantees or a grant to help defray some
of the initial costs. And then the other key part of it is to
make sure that the wood is available so that if after they make
the investment, we have to be--before we even work with anyone,
we make sure that there is the wood available, whether it is
the pellets or the chips, to be able to continue that. The more
that we can do this in various places, especially in the rural
parts of this country, it really will help offset the costs of
doing the work on the National Forests because it creates an
additional market, and often that is the difference to make a
timber sale viable or not if they can also make use of some of
this low-value material, plus the benefit of renewable energy.
So with USDA, basically our Green Energy Initiative, that
is what is bringing Rural Development, Rural Utilities along
with the Forest Service, and the NRCS together where we are
really making a difference, and I tell you, I am so excited
about this because what we have been doing on our own in the
past just wasn't getting much done. With the Secretary's
direction on this, we are really changing the amount of
investment, and the example that you are seeing now is that we
are getting many of those in place. So thank you for your
support and your recognition of the potential there.
Ms. Kuster. Well, we look forward to many more of these
programs in New Hampshire.
I just had one other question, and this also relates to the
sequester that has come up a couple of times and access to
recreational activities. As you know, this is the time of year
that families are planning their recreational activities over
the summer, camping and hiking and using the new ATV trails
that we have, and again, I share my colleague's concern about
senseless across-the-board cuts. Could you comment on the
impact to the public about the closure of recreational
facilities this summer, and are any steps being taken to
alleviate those closures?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, we estimate that we may need to close
around 670 recreation sites, and once again, we manage over
19,000 across the country and so what we are looking at are the
areas that are low-use areas and whether it is a trailhead or
maybe it is a boat ramp or maybe it is a small campground, but
once again to really minimize the impact. So around 670 is what
we estimate, and once again, as we move forward with this, we
are going to try to find opportunities with more volunteer
efforts or maybe working with the local community, that they
would then take on maybe the maintenance to keep the place
cleaned up, that sort of thing. So those are the things that we
will continue to go forward with. But once again, there is
going to be some impact but we will do everything we can to
minimize it.
Ms. Kuster. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady and I now recognize
the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Tipton, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tipton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate you
holding this hearing, and Chief Tidwell, always a pleasure to
be able to see you and I appreciate you taking the time to be
able to come to our Subcommittee today.
In your testimony, you noted that between 62 and 85 million
acres of National Forest land are classified as high fire risk,
and in Colorado, the Forest Service does partner with the state
through the use of the Good Neighbor policy and authority to
allow greater state input and discretion in hazardous-fuel
treatment projects. Do you favor these types of frameworks that
foster partnerships between the Forest Service and the state
and local communities?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, I do. Colorado is a great example of
where we have been able to use the Good Neighbor authority and
for the state and the Forest Service to work together, and then
you all have a long list of communities that have stepped up in
your state that are also working with us in conjunction so that
we can get more of this work done, create more jobs primarily
to be able to improve these watersheds, so there is less of an
impact from the next fire season.
Mr. Tipton. You know, I noted during some of your comments
to the Chairman's question in regards to be able to create some
economic opportunity and concurrently to be able to increase
the health of the forest that you had noted some of the carbon
emissions that are offset by our National Forests. Has there
ever been a study in terms of the carbon output when we do have
a forest fire?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, there is. Our research scientists have
done analysis on those events too. I mean, it is part of the
cycle. But there is no question that if we can reduce the size
of these catastrophic fires, we will in the short term reduce
the amount of carbon emissions. It is one of the things, if we
can change the fire behavior by thinning out these forests, we
are still going to have fires but they are going to burn at a
much lower intensity, thus release less carbon into the
atmosphere.
Mr. Tipton. I know in our areas, that is going to be
critically important for the air quality issues in terms of
some other industry as well, the impacts that we had from the
fires in Colorado this past year. I think we are pretty
dramatic when we are talking about being able to get in, create
some of these treatments. Are you a little concerned in terms
of some of the management programs with road closures going on
that it is going to actually impact that opportunity to be able
to get in and treat some of the forests?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, before we make a decision on closing a
road, it has to be a road that is not needed, so if there is a
reason for us to be able to get in there to access, to be able
to treat areas, especially around our communities, that is one
of the factors that is factored into that decision. We do have
more roads in the National Forests than we need or can afford
to maintain, and they are impacting the water quality to the
point where there are some places they restrict our ability to
be able to manage some of the timber stands because of the
amount of erosion that is coming from a road system that is no
longer needed. So by making good decisions to close
decommissioned roads that are no longer needed, it actually
increases our ability to do more work but we need to factor
that in. If we need access to be able to get that work done, we
need to get in there and get that work done before we make a
change in the access.
Mr. Tipton. And hopefully to be able to build in some
flexibility into those rules as well to be able to address
that, and you did note a number of the methods that are in
process now to be able to create some of the economic
opportunity. Are there specific changes to current rules on
stewardship contracting that you believe would be beneficial?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, I will tell you, the first thing I
believe is to get it reauthorized. I mean, it has been an
important tool for us. We are doing about 25 percent of our
work through stewardship contracts. We will always use our
timber sale contracts but it is a tool where there is strong
support across the board for that. It creates more jobs. So the
first thing would be to get it reauthorized so that our folks
know that we are going to be able to continue to have this
authority.
Mr. Tipton. In your testimony I think that you explained
very clearly the degree to which active forest management is
actually necessary to be able to create healthy forests. In our
district where we have one program going on in Pagosa Springs,
we saw that the groundwater actually went up 15 percent after
the forests were treated. The health of the trees returned
within 2 weeks to be able to get in. But, it is very important,
Colorado, with the public forest lands where they are
interspersed with the state and the private lands as well, to
be able to bring together a comprehensive approach to be able
to deal with this patchwork that we are dealing with. We have
introduced, as I know that you are aware, the Healthy Forest
Management and Wildfire Act, which is going to be very
important as we approach this coming forest firefighting season
to be able to address and to be able to empower those states,
those local communities to be able to play an active role
because it is not only the urban interface with wildlands but
it is also when we start to get into those deeper areas of the
forest, how that impacts our water quality and ability to be
able to address it. I hope that we are going to be able to
count on your support to be able to push that forward. Thank
you for being here. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman for yielding back and
now recognize the gentlelady from Washington State, Ms.
DelBene.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Chief,
for being here today and for all the work that you are doing.
I come from northwest Washington, and the Mt. Baker-
Snoqualmie National Forest is located in my district, and about
five million people come annually to just that particular area,
and it is comprised of about 2,500 miles of roads. In the
prairie rural, there is no one stop, it is people driving all
over. We talked a little bit about roads before but when you
look at the impact of roads and recreation together and how you
factor that in and what you think the impacts on recreation
might be, even if things are open, just physical availability
to drive and get there in regions such as ours.
Mr. Tidwell. Well, Congresswoman, it is essential that we
provide access to these lands so that we can all enjoy them, if
you are just out for a hike or for hunting or just for driving.
So when we go through the process with the public to determine
the set of roads that we need to be able to manage the National
Forests and the set of roads and trails that they want to see
on the land. We work together with the public to make that
determination. There is no question that we do have some roads
that either need to have major work done on them or be
decommissioned because of where they sit in the watershed that
they are impacting our water quality, so we can do that.
Sometimes that means we have to realign that road. But we do
have more roads on the National Forests than are needed,
without any question, and they are affecting the water quality
and so over the years we continue to make decisions about which
roads we need to keep open and which roads need to be
decommissioned, and also the maintenance standard. We are
finding in the past we used to maintain a lot of our roads to a
much higher standard than really what the public needed. I
mean, today most people have a vehicle that has a little higher
clearance, so we are finding that they are okay driving on a
rougher road, as long as it is left open. We just have to make
sure that there is good drainage on that road so it is not
impacting the streams, the fisheries that are in that country.
So those are the things that we look at to be able to find this
balance between having a road system that we can maintain, that
we can minimize the impacts to water quality and at the same
time provide the recreation access, the management access that
we need on our National Forests.
Ms. DelBene. So do you think that given the sequester and
lack of funds that you will still be able to make the right
tradeoff because you have more roads than you need to and not
impact roads that you wish you were going to be able to keep
open?
Mr. Tidwell. And once again, the five percent cut across
the board is also going to have an effect on the planning that
we do, and addressing the road maintenance, there is definitely
going to be less, and it is something that we are going to have
to factor that in. So there will be less roads that will
probably be closed this year because of that, and I am
concerned about the water impacts that can occur, so we are
going to have to do our best to make the decisions to
prioritize this money where it really will buy us the biggest
benefit, and I have a lot of confidence in our forest staffs,
that they can do the very best to make the right decisions.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you. A slightly different question.
There have been multiple definitions of biomass and also
multiple definitions of sustainable and what that means. How do
you view those, and are you working to help us clarify and come
up with a common definition for terms like sustainability?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, there are several definitions out there
for biomass, especially when it comes to renewable energy. The
2008 Farm Bill had a good definition that will work. I think it
is important as you go through your deliberations to think
about the benefits of being able to use wood off our National
Forests for renewable energy; it will never be the driving
reason why we are ever doing anything on the landscape. It is
not to produce energy. But being able to make use of that
renewable material for energy, it makes more sense than to pay
somebody to pile it up out there in woods and then burn it,
because that is our option. So it one of the things I would
encourage you to be careful in your deliberations about is that
we need to think about what it takes to maintain healthy
forests. The benefit: healthy forest equals clean water,
healthy forest, equals clean air. Healthy forests provide the
habitat for our species, provides for viability. So we need to
be able to have the tools to be able to do that, and if we can
offset the costs of managing these forests through renewable
energy, it is a good thing to do. We need to do it the right
way, but I can tell you from my view, that will never, ever be
a driving purpose of why we are doing any activity on the
National Forests is to produce energy from biomass, but it is a
byproduct that can really help us to be able to do the
management that these lands need.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady and now would
recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Crawford, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief Tidwell, I appreciate you being here today. I
represent the 1st District of Arkansas, and the State of
Arkansas has a strong forest product industry. I am sure you
know that. But we are always looking for ways to strengthen the
industry and create new market opportunities and job creation
and so on, and I am equally concerned that we have well-managed
and healthy forests, both national and private forests. Several
of my constituents have expressed some concerns about LEED
standard, the system that sets standards for building
construction, and obviously one of the primarily wood markets.
My question is, they believe that this disadvantages wood. Does
the U.S. Forest Service use the LEED system for the buildings
that they have?
Mr. Tidwell. We use the LEED system and then a couple other
systems to be able to measure the sustainability of our
buildings, and I agree with you, the LEED standard does not
fully factor in the benefits of wood and so it is one of the
things we are also looking at other standards to be able to
show that the buildings that we are building not only meet the
LEED certification but other certifications where we can stress
the benefits of wood. We think that is a better way to go
forward. The challenge we have is, the LEED standard is by far
the best known around the world, and it is valuable to have
that certification on a building but it doesn't fully factor in
the benefits of wood, and so that is why we try to use other
certifications so that we capture that benefit, the lifecycle
of having wood in our buildings.
Mr. Crawford. Given the importance of wood in the
marketplace for construction, do you think that there ought to
be some revisiting of that standard to try and accommodate wood
products in a more competitive way?
Mr. Tidwell. We would like, yes, to have that certification
revisit the use of wood and to fully factor in the lifecycle of
wood products in buildings. For instance, the carbon that is
sequestered in the lumber that is in a building should be part
of what is considered to help promote the use of wood. I think
that green building material is wood.
Mr. Crawford. Thank you. I am going to switch gears on you
a little bit. My district in Arkansas is home to Blanchard
Springs Caverns, the St. Francis Unit of the Ozark-St. Francis
National Forest. I am sure you are familiar with both of those.
And they are huge tourist attractions. I know that St. Francis
Unit is working with the Arkansas Parks and Tourism on the
completion of a visitors center. Mississippi River State Park,
I know that you have supported that and appreciate that. All
that has a huge impact on our local economy, and that said,
with the sequester possibly resulting in closure of 670
recreational sites, can you elaborate on what your plan is or
what the guidelines would be for determining whether a
recreation site might be closed?
Mr. Tidwell. The direction we will be giving is to once
again minimize the impact to the public, so we will be looking
at those lightly used recreation sites, whether it is a picnic
site, whether it is a small campground or maybe a boat ramp
that just doesn't have a lot of use, and there may be another
facility a few miles down the road. Also, once again, we will
work with our local communities to see if there may be an
opportunity for a volunteer group or maybe for a county or the
city that would want to take on managing and maintaining that
facility so that it can stay open. So those are the things we
are going to look at, but there is just no question that there
is going to be some impact but we will do everything to
minimize, and I want to keep that in perspective. We have over
19,000 recreation sites on our National Forests and so we are
talking around 670 spread across 42 different states.
Mr. Crawford. Okay. And has there been any kind of analysis
done to measure the potential impact on those communities? Do
you have anything in writing that you might be able to provide
the Committee?
Mr. Tidwell. I can just share with you, we estimate that it
will result in probably a loss of about 1.6 million visits. I
mean, that is the capacity, the use that occurs on these lower-
developed sites. As we move forward with that, and before we
actually make the decision to close a site, we are going to be
working with our communities and we will keep Members of
Congress informed so you are aware of that, but that is the
only information I have at this time.
Mr. Crawford. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate your being
here. I am out of time, so I will yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman for yielding back and
now will recognize Mr. Nolan, from Minnesota. You are going to
pass? Okay. We will recognize the gentlelady from South Dakota,
Mrs. Noem.
Mrs. Noem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Chief Tidwell, it
is good to see you today. Thank you for coming. I have a couple
of questions I want to visit with you about, but one of them is
regarding grazing permits.
As you know, one of the responsibilities of the Forest
Service is to maintain and manage our National Grasslands as
well, and you do that in cooperation with many of our producers
who are having trouble with grazing permits because they are
trying to get out there and maintain existing structures. It
may be to water their cattle, fences that currently exist, and
apparently with this Administration there has been a change. If
they are going to disturb any kind of soil, they are facing
some challenges in actually doing that work to make sure that
that maintenance can happen. I am wondering if you will help me
with this. This is a situation that didn't exist previously. It
is really challenging for them to go out and graze their
cattle, get water to them when the Forest Service is blocking
any kind of maintenance to those structures.
Mr. Tidwell. Congresswoman, I will need to meet with you
and to get a little more information on this. You know, grazing
is part of multiple use and our record is very strong that we
are doing everything we can to be able to maintain that, and we
want the ranchers to maintain their improvements. I mean, the
more water developments that we have, the more options we have,
less impact, and so I will need to follow up with you and get a
little more information so I can address that issue for you.
Mrs. Noem. Yes, let us do that. I know specifically when it
comes to disturbing the soil, so if it is putting a fence in,
repairing a fence, fixing a water system where they may need to
put a new pipe in the ground, that is where they running into
the problem. So I appreciate your effort to help me on that.
The second thing I wanted to talk about is the mountain
pine beetle response project that we have in the Black Hills,
which I feel is very needed and necessary, and I want to thank
you for your support. Secretary Vilsack recently came out and
said due to sequestration, there was going to be a reduction in
board feet harvested, 420 million board-feet reduction in
timber outputs, and I was wondering, were you consulted on that
number when it was put forward on what the reduction would be?
Mr. Tidwell. That number is produced with a five percent
reduction and it costs us about $65 a thousand board feet to
put up a sale, and so you just factor that across and it comes
up to be that level of reduction.
The other thing I need to stress is that 50 percent of our
budget that we get each year is committed to dealing with
ongoing timber sale contracts or with personal use for folks
that want to be able to have access to firewood and some fixed
costs. So you have 50 percent of the budget that is available
for preparing the next year's work or getting the contracts out
late this year. So five percent of that 50 is really a ten
percent reduction, and so those are the things that are
factored into that number.
The other thing I want to stress is that our goal of
getting to 3 billion board feet with a 20 percent increase by
2014, that is a stretch goal. We are budgeted for 2.4 billion
but we made the commitment through some of the efficiencies
that you have been so supportive of; I believe we can get to
that 3 billion.
Mrs. Noem. Can you use carryover funds?
Mr. Tidwell. I will tell you, I am going to use every
flexibility I have to be able to continue to move forward, but
it does result in five percent less funds, and I can use the
Black Hills Forest as a good example. Five percent of our
forest products is about $17 million. You know the difference
if we can send an extra $2 million to the Black Hills what we
can get done with that. So that is the challenge that we have
is to be able to work with this, to minimize the impacts and
still be able to go forward and get the work done. I just want
to be on record to thank you for your support for the work that
is going on in the Black Hills, and especially from the State
of South Dakota. To me, that is a model of really what we want
to get done.
Ms. Noem. Is that something you think could go nationwide?
Mr. Tidwell. That is what we are moving forward with, the
idea that they can do it on the Black Hills, to have one EIS to
cover 248,000 acres so that we can get in there and do the work
we need to, to maintain the forest health, we ought to be able
to do that everywhere. But, it takes somebody to lead out, it
takes support from people like yourself to be able to encourage
our folks to be able to take that risk, and we are really
excited now to be able to move forward with that decision.
Ms. Noem. Thank you. One more thing I want to touch on
while I have 20 seconds left, I want to thank you for your
investigation into the collapse of our sheep industry that we
have seen in South Dakota and the prices, so I appreciate you
pursuing that for us. I know in Idaho, a recent court decision
maintained and ordered forest management decisions to protect
some of the big horn sheep habitat, and that is impacting their
domestic sheep industry as well. Now, is that something that is
going to stay isolated to Idaho? We are not going to look at
that kind of a decision being spread nationwide and impacting
our sheep industries across the country, will we?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, we look at every situation separately.
We have also in the State of Wyoming had a different outcome,
working with the State of Wyoming to address the same problem.
I think there are different solutions to this problem of being
able to find a way so that domestic sheep grazing can continue
along with maintaining our big horn sheep. There are a lot of
folks who like the big horn sheep, whether to hunt or just go
out and look at them, but we have to find a way to be able to
do both, and from what we have been able to work out in the
State of Wyoming is maybe a better approach than where we ended
up in Idaho, but we still want to move forward in Idaho to be
able to do everything we can to maintain our sheep industry.
Mrs. Noem. Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady. Now it is my honor to
recognize a gentleman who was a former Member of this
Subcommittee, and my first 2 years in the chair, he had my back
at my side. Now he has still got my back with his picture
behind me. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Goodlatte is not
currently a Member of the Subcommittee but has joined us today,
and I have consulted with the Ranking Member and we are pleased
to welcome him to join in the questioning of witnesses today.
Mr. Goodlatte.
Mr. Goodlatte. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is an
honor to be back on this Subcommittee. In fact, when I served
as Chairman of the Subcommittee that then had jurisdiction over
forestry, we did not have near as much interest and
representation from people all over the country in forestry
issues. In fact, the Chairman of the full Committee told me
that he had a town in his district in west Texas that was
called No Trees, Texas, and so he gave me a lot of latitude on
forestry issues, so I really appreciate your extending that to
me.
And Chief, we are delighted to have you with us here today
and we thank you for your efforts with our National Forests. I
have a lot of forestland in my district. In fact, probably \2/
3\ of my district is covered in forests and about \1/2\ of that
land or 1.3, 1.4 million acres of National Forest land is in
the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, so in
some respects it is like lot a western district in southwest
Virginia. The George Washington National Forest has been
leading an effort to do an update of their plan, and this has
already been a multi-year process. What can you tell us about
the effects of sequestration on further delays in that plan?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, Congressman, we are going to do what we
can to minimize those impacts and especially with the forest
plans that we have started to be able to complete those. I look
at that five percent reduction. It will affect new starts. But
I feel it is essential we move forward and finish these plans
that we have started. The public has spent a lot of time
working with us and it is essential we get those completed as
quickly as we can. So it will probably reduce the start of some
new plans on the forests but we will maintain our efforts that
we have ongoing.
Mr. Goodlatte. So we should expect a plan some time in the
near future on the GW?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Mr. Goodlatte. The last release of the draft George
Washington National Forest Plan caused concern among many since
the plan had a ban on horizontal drilling. I think that is
questionable whether there are any recoverable resources in the
George Washington National Forest but there is a lot of concern
about the precedent that this would set for other forest plans
in other parts of the country. There are lots of National
Forests that have extraction of natural gas and oil as a part
of multiple-use purpose of our forests, and I am very concerned
about the precedent that might be set there. And horizontal
drilling is actually a very environmentally sound way to
extract resources because it involves drilling fewer wells and
then using lateral drilling efforts to extract from a broad
geographic area with minimal impact on the surface, and there
are environmental issues with regard to that but they are
addressed well in many places, and I just want to get some
assurance from you that the Forest Service will look for other
ways to ensure the environmental soundness of these efforts
than simply a blanket ban on horizontal drilling in one of our
forests.
Mr. Tidwell. Now, what you see in the draft plan reflects
what the forest has heard from the communities, and it is
driven by a concern, sometimes of the unknown about horizontal
drilling along with the fracking that is now becoming a--we are
seeing more and more of that. But you are right, we have been
doing this type of oil and gas operations in this country for
decades, and we know the industry knows how to do it correctly.
I think there is some opportunity to provide some
reassurances to the public along the lines of the rule that the
BLM is proposing that would require for the proponents or the
oil and gas companies to disclose what chemicals they are using
to ensure that flow-back off of these wells is contained either
into a pond or some type of a container so it doesn't pollute
surface waters, to ensure that the well casings are designed
correctly and implemented correctly. I think some of those
reassurances, those are the sort of things I think will help
our communities understand that this type of operation can be
done in a way that is environmentally sound. I think that is
the thing that we want to continue to work on to really address
what is the concern when we hear folks say, ``Well, we don't
want you to allow any horizontal drilling.'' We need to really
think about, ``Okay, what is the real concern and then is there
a way that we can address that concern so that they feel
better.''
Mr. Goodlatte. Well, thank you. I am glad to hear that. I
agree with that, that there are legitimate environmental
concerns and you need to have a good regulatory process--
disclosure of the chemicals used in the process are certainly
good--but a blanket ban on a technology that is good and
actually used correctly is environmentally very sound is a
mistake. I would hope that the future plans would reflect
something that would be compatible with all the different
forest plans and the need to have this multiple use in our
forests where it is appropriate, and as I say, so far it hasn't
been done in the George Washington National Forest. I don't
think we should set a precedent here that would create a
difficult situation across the country.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for allowing me to
participate today.
The Chairman. My pleasure. Thank you.
Chief, I just want to follow up on Mr. Goodlatte's line of
questioning and then bridge that to one final question.
Obviously we know what the sound science is in terms of oil and
gas production, horizontal drilling, hydro fracking. Certainly,
if you run into those folks who are just not confident because
they don't know, this is new to them, invite them to the
Allegheny National Forest. You know, it was an oil and gas--it
was not just timber rich, and we have some of the best timber.
We are real, real proud of the timber that is there. That is
why we need good management. We don't want to lose that
hardwood cherry to something else. It is one of the most, I
understand--despite its size, it is one of the most profitable
for us for the Forest Service and the country.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, it is.
The Chairman. But it was an oil and gas field as well,
those that exist concurrently as well as other multiple uses,
and so I want to help make your job easier. So you get these
doubters. If they want to come visit the Allegheny National
Forest, I will be glad to join them in the forest. Any time I
can get the time to spend in the ANF is a good day for me, so I
just extend that as a resource for you, because it is not a
matter of possibly can be done. Let us not talk about in terms
of speculation because we have been doing for decades in the
Allegheny National Forest, you can't find a more beautiful
place to--I am a little biased obviously--to visit and to spend
time.
I know that one of the biggest problems we have, and this
is my opinion, I am not expecting you to go on the record with
this and weigh in on it. I do have a follow-up question I am
looking for an answer from. You know, the biggest problems we
have, the biggest threats that we have to healthy forests and
therefore healthy rural economies, rural communities are the
lawsuits by environmental groups. They have had--environmental
groups unfortunately have had a completely contradictory
outcome on our National Forests. With all the actions and the
lawsuits that they file, they have actually created unhealthy
forests, because I know that that has really stood in the way
of a lot of the management practices the Forest Service knows
that are based on sound science to keep our forests healthy and
therefore our rural economies.
As a part of that, the Federal Government in a broader
sense has contributed to that. We have allowed the Equal Access
to Justice Act to be abused. You know, that was originally
designed to help those who have a stake in the game, those
folks who are property owners where the Federal Government was
impinging upon their rights, their property. You know,
obviously the Federal Government has the resources of every
pocket of every taxpayer in this country, rather a lot of
pockets, maybe not so deep but a lot of them. And that is why
the Equal Access to Justice Act was created. It has been
hijacked, I believe, by groups who now use it to fund very
specific purposes and missions, and they are not key
stakeholders. They don't have direct interest in terms of
ownership of property. Do we know how much the Forest Service
has paid from agency budgets in attorney fees? And not just our
agency, not just the Forest Service. I know the Justice
Department gets involved with this. They have a lot of lawyers
over there. But do we have any idea of how much has been paid
in attorney's fees through the Equal Access to Justice Act in
the last 5 years to environmental groups dealing with grazing
decisions or, quite frankly, forest decisions? I know we were
into a battle that there was--after three appeals by the Forest
Service and others--I hope they finally given up on in terms of
infringing on the subsurface property owners' rights up in the
Allegheny National Forest.
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, I can tell you what the Forest
Service has paid out in EAJA fees, and it averages about $1.2
million a year. We can actually provide you the last 5 years. I
don't have the information from the Department of Justice but
we can provide that, but that is on average. It has been about
$1.2 million.
For me the solution is our collaborative efforts because I
see time after time where people, because of their concerns,
they would turn to litigation. Those same people today are
sitting at the table working with industry, working with the
county commissioners to find ways for us to be able to move
forward. I will tell you, that is what we are going to continue
to focus on, and the more that we can do that and reduce some
of these conflicts, the better off all of us are.
The Chairman. Well, I guess one of the indicators to
monitor that is to see if that $1.2 million decreases at all. I
hope it does.
Chief, thank you so much for your testimony today and for
being with us, and thanks for your leadership with the U.S.
Forest Service. It is greatly appreciated.
Mr. Tidwell. Thank you.
The Chairman. And now I will ask that the four panelists on
the second panel to please make your way up to the table, and
we will prepare for our second panel.
Just brief introductions. I want to welcome our second
panel of witnesses to the table. We are going to be joined by
Dr. Charles McKetta, Natural Resources Economist, Forest Econ
Inc., out of Moscow, Idaho, on behalf of the Society of
American Foresters; Dr. V. Alaric Sample, President, the
Pinchot Institute for Conservation based here in Washington,
D.C.; Mr. Kenneth Kane, a constituent of mine who is President
of the Generation Forestry Incorporated of Kane, Pennsylvania,
on behalf of the Association of Consulting Foresters of
America; and Mr. Jim Schuessler, Executive Director for the
Forest County Economic Development Partnership in Crandon,
Wisconsin. It looks like we are all seated. Gentlemen, you had
a chance to watch--there are the lights there, the green, the
yellow, the red. So each of you will have 5 minutes for your
testimony. All Members have a copy of your written testimony,
just so that you are aware.
Dr. McKetta, please begin when you are ready.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. McKETTA, Ph.D., C.F., NATURAL RESOURCES
ECONOMIST, FOREST ECON INC., MOSCOW, ID; ON BEHALF OF SOCIETY
OF AMERICAN FORESTERS
Dr. McKetta. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Charlie McKetta. I am a Professor
Emeritus from University of Idaho and a consulting Natural
Resources Economist. Today I represent the Society of American
Foresters with 1,200 forestry professionals who are members.
They all believe in sound management and stewardship of the
nation's public and private forests, and so we would all like
to see the Federal forests restored to health and contributing
efficiently to serve natural and local interests.
Our question is, how can National Forests use known
economic linkages between them and natural resource communities
to mutual advantage? I am kind of a gearhead, so what I will do
is, I will share some of my findings that will help identify
complementary economic opportunities from forest restoration. I
gave similar testimony last March to the United Nations because
they are trying to use forestry for economic development as
well.
The first point is that the National Forests have some
economic power, and the resolution of region and local, when
the Forest Service acts, it changes the markets for resources
and it changes the market for the labor and the community
services, even though it does so unintentionally. The trade
linkages in these societies means that these ripples get
distributed across economies. We have the technology to be able
to identify and predict where the ripples will lay.
I have studied the market and community effects of forest
policy changes since the early 1970s. We have specialized
techniques that allow us to do this, and with few exceptions
what we have found since the 1990s is forest policy changes
from the National Forests generally have negative economic
effects. However, four impact analyses that we have completed
all set in Oregon most recently are starting to demonstrate
positive opportunities. I looked at the Bureau of Land
Management western Oregon plan, and we found that when they
were going to increase timber supplies 200 million board feet a
year that their 75 percent fund returns to the ONC trust
counties would be significant. They would accrue in patterns
that we could predict, and they could almost offset their
expected sunset losses of the Secure Rural Schools Act funds
but that varied a lot by county. The most interesting finding
was in Portland, Oregon, which thought it was not a timber
community until we showed that it was the trade center for 34
timbered counties in four states. People don't know their
linkages to forests.
Our 2012 Oregon report, we found out why the timber
industry had contracted and how much it had contracted. There
is still a major sector, about $12.9 billion a year, and they
are recovering. Some counties have as much as 30 percent of
their economic base tied directly to timber. The National
Forest is a big player acreage-wise, about 60 percent, but a
small power production-wise, only about 12 percent of the
harvests across Oregon. There are bottlenecks to recovery in
mill capacity, labor and public timber supplies.
The more interesting one is our analysis of forest
restoration in northeast Oregon. We found that there is about
1.4 percent of the eastern Oregon land being updated and
restored, and the gains do go across in those regions but they
vary a lot by region but they also by what is done. They ranged
from 15 jobs for million dollars spent to 132 jobs per million
dollars spent between a watershed project or a stewardship
project, and we found that the National Forests are dependent
on private labor machinery and markets to succeed. There are
avoided costs of about $1.40 in fire losses for every $1 of
recreation--excuse me--of restoration spent, and there is
avoided costs in unemployment of about $16,000 per job
formulated. But to scale up, you need expanded acceptability,
expanded activity, more efficient National Forest projects and
get rid of the bottlenecks in private infrastructure and the
markets for biomass.
I am available for questions or clarifications on these
points, so on behalf of the Society of American Foresters,
thank you for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Dr. McKetta follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles W. McKetta, Ph.D., C.F., Natural
Resources Economist, Forest Econ Inc., Moscow, ID; on Behalf of Society
of
American Foresters
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. My name
is Charles W. McKetta. I am Professor Emeritus from the University of
Idaho and a consulting Natural Resources Economist. I am here today to
testify on behalf of the Society of American Foresters (SAF).
The Society of American Foresters (SAF), with more than 12,000
forestry professionals across the country in all segments of the
profession, believes in sound management and stewardship of the
nation's public and private forests. The Society of American Foresters
(SAF) and the USDA Forest Service (USFS) share goals. We'd all like to
see Federal forests restored to health and operating efficiently to
serve national and local interests.
I am here to address a narrow set of questions:
1. ``What are the economic linkages between natural resource-
oriented communities and nearby National Forests?''
2. ``How can National Forests recognize those linkages to the
mutual advantages of the agency and resource economies?''
The first is a technical question that I answer for specific
projects on a regular basis. The second is inferential. From the
numerous analyses that we have done, I've generated a set of personal
insights that might be helpful to your Committee.
What do I bring to the discussion? The Society of American
Foresters knows that I have worked on market and community effects of
Federal forest policy changes since the 1970s. I did this while forest
research station economist at University of Idaho and since 2002 as a
natural resource economics consultant in cooperation with two regional
economists, Dr. M. Henry Robison,\1\ and Dr. Daniel Green.\2\ They
invented the spatially disaggregated input-output modeling process that
we use to estimate policy effects at multiple economic resolutions. We
have generally found, with few exceptions, that since the Endangered
Species Act (ESA),\3\ National Forest policy change effects on western
natural resource community economies have been negative. However, one
project in 2007, and two of our 2012 impact analyses, all set in
Oregon, demonstrate that future interactions could be more positive in
three ways.
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\1\ Dr. M. Henry Robision is founder of Economic Modeling
Specialists Inc. (EMSI). Moscow, Idaho.
\2\ Dr. Daniel Green is principal of Economic Modeling Systems
(EMS). Moscow, Idaho.
\3\ Endangered Species Act of 1973 (7 U.S.C. 136, 16 U.S.C.
1531).
1. Unilateral resource supply augmentation: The Western Oregon
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) districts are charged with a
community economic development objective. Their W. Oregon plan
Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) \4\ would have
increased resource flows from BLM trust lands to improve 75%
fund returns to 18 O&C \5\ trust counties. Our work found that
the pre-NW Forest Plan \6\ forest industry had contracted
significantly, but that total job and income and county revenue
gains could still accrue in new patterns to many of the O&C
counties.
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\4\ Forest Econ Inc. 2007. Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR).
Background analyses for Chapter 4: The affected environment.
Subcontract to Mason, Bruce & Girard for Bureau of Land Management.
\5\ O&C Lands Act of 1937 (P.L. 75-405) Oregon & California
Railroad revested lands to be managed by BLM with returns to O&C
counties.
\6\ NWFP 1994 Northwest Forest Plan Overview. Regional Ecosystem
Office. www.reo.gov. The NWFP reduced National Forest timber harvests
90% and to a lesser extent reduced other public harvests.
2. Integrated resource supply augmentation: We quantified Oregon's
forest sector economic linkages last year.\7\ We found that
national economic recovery is stimulating Oregon's forest-based
industries, fueling recovery of the state's economy. This
increases demands for Federal timber (and for other forest
ecosystem services). We were able to show where bottlenecks to
recovery exist (in existing mill capacities, lack of skilled
labor, and public timber supply) and how relaxing such
constraints could increase secondary economic benefits.
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\7\ Forest Econ Inc. June 2012. The 2012 Oregon Forest Report: An
economic assessment of Oregon's forest and wood products sector.
Subcontract to Mason, Bruce & Girard for Oregon Forest Resource
Institute.
3. Individual restoration project selection to enhance economic
development: Our analysis of E. Oregon National Forest
restoration projects for Oregon Department of Energy \8\
quantified how three specific types of National Forest
restoration projects differentially stimulated local jobs,
incomes, and tax flows. We also showed differential gains per
unit of public expenditure and a lack of private manufacturing
capacity for using the increased availability of
undifferentiated Federal forest biomass.
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\8\ Forest Econ Inc. November 2012. National Forest Health
Restoration: An economic assessment of forest restoration on Oregon's
eastside National Forests. Subcontract to Mason, Bruce & Girard for
Oregon Department of Energy.
Start by replacing dated resource community constructs: Much as
concepts of forest health and ecosystem management displaced commodity
production in Federal forestry, rural community economic health has
replaced the old concept of forest-dependent community stability.
Almost by definition, rural resource communities are small,
specialized, and resource dependent. The model is that a few service
sectors import commodities to service one or two dominant export
sectors. These are open economies so multiplier effects may occur
elsewhere up regional trade hierarchies. Community specialization makes
their economic vitality subject to any external economic pressures that
affect their dominant sectors. This happens to agriculture, grazing,
mining, timber, or recreation-specialized communities. They are also
sensitive to local pressures that affect the resources that they need
in production.
There is a useful analytical corollary that is often ignored in
forest policy formulation. It is popular to categorize rural resource
communities as being dependent on National Forests for the resource
base they utilize. Conversely, to make forest restoration work,
National Forests are also dependent on the labor, services, capital and
infrastructure that can be found in these communities. This is what
ecologists call symbiosis. In an economic symbiosis, mutual well-being
is equally important to both organisms. National Forest policies that
ignore resource community economic health could be self-defeating.
Policies focused on complementary moves are more likely to achieve
mutual goals.
Scale and resolution matter: As in ecology, economic effects vary
by the resolution scale. An organization's share of an economy dictates
the extent of its influence. In perfect competition any one actor is
too small to affect outcomes. At a national economy scale, the National
Forest System is small. Failures of intentional forest community
stabilization efforts as far back as 1944 \9\ demonstrated that
intentional National Forest actions are insufficient to buffer them
from boom-bust national economic cycles.
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\9\ Sustained Yield Unit Act of March 29, 1944 (58 Stat. 132; 16 U.
S. C. 583-5831).
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At higher geographic resolutions, e.g., multi-county regions,
coordinated National Forests' economic powers become influential. When
the USFS acts, it changes markets for resources, labor, and community
services. By affecting related sectors such as recreation, timber or
water, trade linkages to other regional sectors mean whole regional
economies can be affected. Those economic ripples are predictable.
Whether such influences would be positive or negative depends on the
nature of the policy change. Regional economic responses to the NW
Forest Plan demonstrated that single agency policy changes can
radically change the vitality of linked sectors and undermine the
economic health of the communities that house them. Negative effects
have declined. Now we are finding that positive responses to changed
forest policy are becoming plausible.
National Forests as local monopolists: At the scale of individual
community economies, a National Forest is usually economically dominant
with many market powers. There is also a parallel social dominance
caused by higher salaries, better education, and job security that is a
peripheral complicating factor. We focus on just their exercise of
economic power and typically find it to be both ``unintentional'' and
``inept.'' As such, National Forests' economic influences on open rural
economies can be erratic and counter-productive.
I say ``unintentional'' because the power to reengineer nearby
economies has rarely been a conscious objective of National Forest
decision-makers. Impacts analyses are made as required for NEPA \10\
changes, but typically these have small influence on selections of
preferred alternatives. The 1993 Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem
Management Project (ICBEMP) \11\ was a singular coordinated exception
that affected 24% of the National Forest System land base. ICBEMP
analysts rationalized that National Forest ecosystem management changes
could replace lost private timber jobs and incomes with preferred
amenity recreation and retirement-based equivalents. The Association of
Oregon Counties asked us for more realistic estimates, alarmed because
the Wallowa-Whitman N.F. was quickly reducing timber harvests. Our
projections of NE Oregon mill closures \12\ accurately predicted the
order and magnitude of job and income losses. We found few new non-
commodity opportunities. Two decades later, few replacement jobs
materialized, the collateral damage to commodity economies was
compensated only to the extent of previous 25% fund payments,\13\ while
both local economic vitality and forest ecosystem health declined.
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\10\ National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (Pub. L. 91-190, 42
U.S.C. 4321-4347).
\11\ USDA Forest Service. 1993. Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem
Management Project. www.icbemp.gov.
\12\ McKetta and Associates. 1993. NE Oregon responses to Wallowa-
Whitman timber harvest reductions. Chapter 3: Distribution of economic
effects. For county commissioners of NE Oregon.
\13\ Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of
2000 (16 U.S.C. 500, P.L. 106-393).
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I say ``inept'' for two other reasons:
1. USFS non pecuniary decision criteria, such as achieving
ecosystem function, do not maximize its own profitability, but
redistribute potential gains (and losses) to others. Other
actors game against generally predictable USFS market
distortions. I used my own 1994 predictions of tripled timber
prices in NC Idaho \14\ to profit from buying my own private
forest. My neighbor paid for a new tracked excavator when a
widespread National Forest road removal project sucked up all
the private earth-moving equipment within a 300 mile radius.
For 2 years few private forest roads were built in the
vicinity.
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\14\ McKetta and Associates. 1996. Market effects of National
Forest timber harvest reductions and projected NC Idaho mill closures
and market effects. Report to the Idaho Governor's office.
2. Often unintended (and potentially self-defeating) feedback loops
with nearby private labor and capital resources can impede the
agency's own internal objectives. Our two studies for the SW
Idaho Forest Ecosystem Management DEIS \15\ showed how three
coordinated National Forest \16\ timber program changes would
close seven of eight mills without creating compensating non-
timber jobs. Six years later, when the same National Forests
wanted to increase ecosystem restoration harvests, private wood
collection and processing infrastructure had disappeared. We
calculated the present value of risky, dispersed, and low-
quality Federal raw material flows and predicted little new
private investment in wood processing capacity. The one attempt
to build a new mill with Federal stimulus funds failed.\17\ The
point is that, at local scales, National Forest decisions could
have incorporated the predictable reaction patterns of
associated private decisions. Such a process might have
stabilized the balance of public projects and supporting
private infrastructure to mutually improve long-run outcomes.
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\15\ Forest Econ Inc. August 2000. Predicted wood products
responses to Forest Service planning alternatives in SW and west-
central Idaho. Subcontract to Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. for
the SW Idaho Forest Ecosystem DEIS.
\16\ Boise, Payette, and Sawtooth National Forests.
\17\ Emerald Forest Products sawmill, Emmett, Idaho.
Private monopolies are illegal\18\ because of their power to extort
wealth and erode economic efficiency. Government monopolies are used in
special cases, but are regulated to harness and direct that power to
achieve social objectives. In the unusual case of the National Forests,
that economic power is generally overlooked. The Forest Service used to
characterize its monopoly power as of the ``benevolent type,'' \19\ but
have since avoided the terminology. However, ``With great power comes
great responsibility.'' \20\ Forest restoration projects could be
designed to complement local economic development, but the process
would require explicitly integrating social preference and value
criteria into National Forest planning decisions. As analysts, we have
to measure the extent that National Forest actions affect economic
linkages to make accurate policy response estimates. We try to avoid
the moralities of how that power is ultimately exercised.
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\18\ Sherman Anti-trust Act (July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209,
15 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1-7).
\19\ Lyle Watts, 1947. Statement of the U.S. Forest Service Chief
on the 1944 Sustained Yield Unit Act of 1944.
\20\ Voltaire, Jean, 1832. ``)vres de Voltaire, Volume 48''.
Lefevre, (also Uncle Ben to Spiderman 2002).
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Focus on the economic linkages: Policy impact analyses are simpler
for competitive functional economies. For National Forest-dominated
open economies, we have to adapt our effects estimation process to
reflect the dominance. We typically look at six factors that determine
the potential influence of any particular economically dominant
National Forest.
1. The direction of the Federal policy shift and the signs of its
various linkages: This can be complicated and counterintuitive.
For example Federal log export
restrictions,\21\-\22\ had positive effects for
domestic log users, but negative effects of similar magnitudes
on shippers and private timber growers.
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\21\ January 1, 1969 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of
1968 (82 Stat. 966).
\22\ Dr. Charles McKetta. 1996. Economics of log export
restrictions. U of Idaho white paper for the Idaho Governor's Office.
Forest Econ Inc. Subcontractor to Economic Modeling Specialists Inc.
2. The economic dominance of the agency and the size of its
changes: This varies by the type of change and the public
market share. We've found small Federal harvest changes that
caused a large price and local job effects, and large
recreation changes that dispersed small job effects over a
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large spatial matrix of access routes.
3. The availability of local private infrastructure, its technical
flexibility, and its financial resilience: Local private
sectors have to accommodate Federal policy changes. The only
part of a typical random length sawmill that effectively uses
undifferentiated ecosystem management biomass is boiler. Woody
biomass hauling requires both transportation capital and a
viable end user. Even logging and restoration equipment may be
specialized. Large fire expenditures are good examples of
insufficient local services. Fire has become big business in
the West, but little of that spending is retained locally
either for control or rehabilitation spending. We examined one
fire salvage project\23\ where local contractors had long gone
bankrupt, so all the contractors and their equipment came from
300 miles away at higher cost. As transients they left an
extremely limited local economic footprint.
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\23\ Forest Econ Inc. 2006. School fire proposed salvage sales
economic analysis. For USDA Forest Service Umatilla National Forest.
4. The sensitivity of the community economic structure in four
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dimensions:
a. Dispersed rural communities are low on regional transactional
hierarchies, i.e., they are naturally specialized as
resource-linked sectors (e.g., resorts, mill towns,
transportation services). They have to react to changes in
both directions--national economic and local forest policy
changes. This pushes the limits of resilience.
b. Decisions in nearby National Forests can dominate large
sectors of small undiversified adjacent economies. Actions
of the Forest Service can effectively control private
decisions that are forest linked.
c. Local effects leakages can be high and distributed spatially
along trade hierarchies. By looking at linkages across the
functional regional economy of N. Idaho, we found one case
of direct job losses from a hinterland mill closure that
were smaller than secondary job losses in the regional
trade center 60 miles away. However, the smaller absolute
losses were a huge percentage of a small population,
compared to a larger absolute job loss in a more diverse
economy 15 times larger.
d. Socioeconomic demographics are important. We often find
working middle class compression, while entitlements
households and retirees have expanded. Labor and equipment
trade linkages often jump adjacent communities.
5. The nature of policy change: Rural subfunctional economies can
adapt, but success depends on predictability, being within the
limits of societal resilience, certainty of the response
environment, and sufficient time to mitigate adjustment costs.
Adjustment is a concern whether the effects are negative or
positive. A rule of thumb is that a standard deviation change
in a short period is likely to generate socioeconomic crisis.
Spreading even large certain changes over longer time spans
stimulates economic evolution within a set of survival
parameters.
6. Linkages mutate: One of our toughest messages to local community
leaders is that National Forest policy reversals do not return
economies to historical patterns. The corollary is that
intentional social reengineering can cause new and sometimes
unexpected economic responses.
Ecosystem management and resource community health are
complementary: A prime purpose of ecosystem management is to improve
forest health and ecosystem function. Why? Because healthy forests
produce lots more human benefits such as carbon sequestration, water
quality, wildlife habitat, wood products, reduced risks of fire and
disease, recreation opportunities, and aesthetics. Notice that these
objectives can be simultaneously produced. With the exception of
wilderness and some ESA species habitat protection, there are very few
mutually exclusive benefits. In private forests, such complementarity
means increased profitability, although public forests have non
pecuniary objectives, complementarity increases net social benefits.
Economic linkages to surrounding communities are also typically
complementary. Except for a few exclusive destination resorts, we have
found that rural timber sectors and recreation sectors typically
complement each other, enabling communities to have some diversity and
larger service sectors. This construct recognizes a more complex
potential for resource-based communities.
National Forests are aware of these linkages: Both NEPA and NFMA
\24\ require economic impact analyses. To that end, the Forest Service
underwrote the IMPLAN \25\ model development, and their specialists use
this well-regarded tool. Most forest plans have plausible economic
effects estimates for every alternative. We have often been hired by
affected parties and counties to check or augment these estimates. Up
to now a crucial disclaimer to our clients has been that that job and
income effects arguments rarely sway National Forest choices between
alternatives. We are recently seeing a change in that relevance. Our
privately funded N. Idaho caribou policy effects study \26\ was used by
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to justify reducing designated habitat
acreage on the Panhandle National Forest.
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\24\ National Forest Management Act of 1976 (P.L. 94-588).
\25\ IMPLAN is a widely used economic impact estimation input-
output model currently marketed by Minnesota IMPLAN Group. http://
implan.com.
\26\ Forest Econ Inc. June 2012. Economic effects of woodland
caribou habitat designation in N. Idaho. Report to the Idaho State
Snowmobile Assn.
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A take-away message: The National Forest System already has the
technology and the professional capability to combine both forest
restoration needs and surrounding economy improvements into project and
forest planning decision processes. Decision criteria could include
facets of economic development as complementary (or win-win) joint
outcomes do exist. However, for this to succeed, and to expand the idea
nationally, cooperative private activity and investment has to be made
politically acceptable, profitable, and less risky. In the end, each
National Forest would need the political will, authority, and budget to
recognize local public expectations and allocate public resources as
credible long-run product flow guarantees.
National Forests need an effective public interface to integrate
their operations with local communities: In our experience, National
Forest public information offices and public meetings function more as
barriers to access than providers of useful data and insight. Recent
National Forest experiments with collaborative working groups may
mitigate this problem. For example, the Four Forest Restoration
Initiative (4FRI) \27\ organizes many stakeholders around an explicit
goal of restoring forest ecosystems. Increased 4FRI wood supplies are
also expected to attract private investment and 300 new processing
jobs. In our Oregon studies, we had positive experiences with similar
collaborative working groups. Their overhead costs appear high, but we
have not yet explicitly studied their cost-effectiveness.
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\27\ Four Forest Restoration Initiative includes coordinated
ecosystem restoration and industrial development efforts involving the
Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab, and Tonto National Forests.
www.fs.usda.gov/4fri.
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I am available for questions or clarifications of these points. On
behalf of the Society of American Foresters, I thank you for this
opportunity.
The Chairman. Dr. McKetta, thank you. I apologize for the
pronunciation of your name. There is only one thing we come
into this world with and leave with, and that is our name, and
I hate screwing them up. Thank you for your testimony.
Dr. Sample, go ahead and proceed whenever you are ready.
STATEMENT OF V. ALARIC SAMPLE, Ph.D., PRESIDENT, PINCHOT
INSTITUTE FOR CONSERVATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dr. Sample. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Most of my testimony
will be submitted for the record so I just want to sort of cut
to the chase here.
We have talked a little bit about stewardship contracting
this morning, and one of the things that I would suggest to you
and the other Members of this Committee is, the enactment of
permanent authority. Reauthorization of existing authority for
stewardship contracting is probably the single-most effective
thing that Congress can do to strengthen this relationship
between National Forest management and the communities that
depend on those forests and provide a lot of support for those
forests.
The relationship between communities and the National
Forests is very much like the symbiotic relationship that we
see in nature. We have two entities that depend on one another
to the extent that if one fails, the other is not going to
survive very long, and up until the early 1990s when the timber
sale program was significantly reduced on the National Forests,
there were a lot of activities--watershed protection
activities, road maintenance, which goes along with that,
wildlife habitat improvement. There was a large range of things
including hazardous-fuel treatment, which we referred to a
number of times here today, and all of these were accomplished
through requirements that were in the government's contracts
that they issued to the timber sale operators. With a decline
in those timber sales, a lot of those things didn't get done,
and the first thing that really sort of hit the wall was road
maintenance, and what happened was, a lot of these roads began
to erode and contribute sediment and debris into streams, in
many cases the very streams where the Forest Service was under
court order to protect habitat for endangered fish species.
Stewardship contracting was something that was developed to
really address that, and it began with a small number of pilot
projects. Eventually Congress authorized 83 different pilot
projects. All of those were monitored very closely with multi-
party monitoring teams at the community level. In 2003, based
in part on the success of those early pilot projects and the
reports that were developed and submitted annually to Congress
on what was happening with those convinced Congress to go ahead
and authorize that across the National Forest System and also
extend that authority to the Bureau of Land Management. That
was 2003, and that authority expires September 30 of this year.
I won't repeat a lot of what the Chief covered in his
testimony but this has been an extremely effective way for the
Forest Service to work with the kind of small businesses that
really characterize most of this capacity that we have for
doing forest management that exists in rural communities. You
know, the multiyear aspect of this gives them an opportunity,
and frankly their bankers an opportunity to have the confidence
to invest in equipment that tends to be very expensive, but
also to invest in employment and in training of those employees
and to develop and maintain the kind of capacity at the local
level that the Forest Service itself needs in order to do these
sustainable forest management activities.
We have talked a lot about timber but there is a lot more
that goes on in these stewardship contracts. In fact, timber
is--actually merchantable timber is a very small part of that.
We have had allusions here this morning to the effects of
climate change, this warming and drying trend in the interior
West but also actually even heavier precipitation, more of that
coming in the form of severe storm events in the northeastern
region of the United States, so it is not just about drought,
it is about the role of these forests in flooding mitigation,
stormwater management, protecting water quality and water
supply.
I will stop there and yield the rest of my time to my
fellow witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Sample follows:]
Prepared Statement of V. Alaric Sample, Ph.D., President, Pinchot
Institute for Conservation, Washington, D.C.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee. My
name is Al Sample. I am a forester and President of the Pinchot
Institute, a nonpartisan conservation think-tank based here in
Washington. This year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Pinchot
Institute's dedication by President John F. Kennedy at Grey Towers
National Historic Site, the former home of Gifford Pinchot-first chief
of the U.S. Forest Service and twice Governor of Pennsylvania. The
Pinchot Institute is a non-lobbying scientific and educational
organization, so my statement here today is on my own behalf as an
expert witness, and is not intended to reflect any policies or
positions of the Pinchot Institute.
The relationship between communities and forests has parallels with
the symbiotic relationships that we see in Nature--two entities that
depend upon one another to the extent that when one fails the other
cannot long survive. Sustainable forest management cannot take place
where there is no local capacity, usually in the form of small
businesses, to actually carry out the work of forest management--from
reforestation, to ecosystem restoration, to maintenance of
transportation systems for protection of water quality and aquatic
habitat. Likewise, these community-based enterprises cannot survive for
long when there is not a reasonably reliable stream of project work to
sustain local capacity and expertise. When actions are needed to
protect the ecological integrity and resilience of forests, resource
managers have no one to whom they can turn to actually perform the
work.
Resource managers on National Forests all across the country faced
this situation in the early 1990s, in connection with the reduction in
timber sales to expand protection for endangered species habitat.
Stewardship activities for watershed protection, wildlife habitat
improvement, and hazardous fuels treatments that had once been
accomplished by incorporating them into the government's requirements
in timber sale contracts were no longer being accomplished. Resources
and environmental quality began to degrade. One particular problem was
that forest roads that no longer received regular attention began to
deteriorate, allowing sediment and debris to get into streams, damaging
aquatic resources including spawning habitat for a number of threatened
or endangered fish species.
Starting with a single pilot project on the Flathead National
Forest in Montana, the Pinchot Institute worked with the U.S. Forest
Service and local community groups to test the concept of a
``stewardship end-results contract''--a multi-year contract that could
encompass a wide variety of land management and stewardship activities.
The long-term nature of the stewardship contract gave local
businesses--and their bankers--the confidence to continue to invest in
costly equipment, as well as in local employment and training. To the
Forest Service it gave assurance that key resource management
activities would be accomplished to high standards of performance,
accountability, and efficiency, and within a specific agreed upon
timeframe.
Congress subsequently authorized the Forest Service to conduct
additional stewardship contracting pilot projects, 83 in all, the
results of which were watched closely by local, multi-stakeholder
monitoring groups, in a process facilitated by the Pinchot Institute.
Each year the monitoring results were compiled nationwide, and
summarized in an evaluation report delivered to Congress, as required
by the temporary legislative authority. Based in part on the successes
described in these annual reports, Congress acted in 2003 to expand the
legislative authorization for stewardship contracting to all National
Forests across the country, and extend the authority to Interior's
Bureau of Land Management as well.
This legislative authority is set to expire this year, and I come
before this Subcommittee to ask for your support and leadership in
renewing this authorization. In a 2011 letter to Members of the Senate
Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, six former chiefs of the U.S.
Forest Service noted that ``stewardship contracting authority has
provided public land managers with an important tool in achieving
forest management objectives, and increasing and diversifying job
opportunities in rural communities.'' They further stated that:
``Treatments authorized under these contracts promote healthy
forests, reduce wildfire hazards, increase watershed
resilience, and increase business and job opportunities.
Stewardship contracting encourages collaboration and long-term
commitments among agencies, contractors, local communities, and
other interested stakeholders. Organizations across the
`political spectrum' collectively agree that stewardship
contracting authority extension is needed at this time to
support public land management agency activities. Between the
FY 1999 and FY 2010 Fiscal Years, the Forest Service has
awarded approximately 854 contracts, resulting in thousands of
acres of better managed forests and the establishment of jobs,
expanded forest products markets, and improved watershed
resiliency. Successful collaborative efforts across the nation
have relied on this authority as a cornerstone of agreements
for future planned activities in major watersheds.''
Mr. Chairman, and Members of this Subcommittee, these assertions
are backed up by the detailed results from more than 10 years of multi-
party monitoring, evaluation, and reporting on stewardship contracts
across the country. I would submit to you here today that the enactment
of permanent legislative authority to extend the use of stewardship
contracting on the National Forests and BLM lands is the single most
important and effective step that Congress can take to support the
positive, constructive, and mutually supportive long-term relationship
that exists between these Federal public lands and the local
communities that play a critical role in their sustainable management.
Appended to my statement is additional statistical information
pertaining to the accomplishments under stewardship contracts, and the
positive effects on income and employment in rural communities. Also in
the appendices is information based on the results from studies by the
Pinchot Institute on biomass energy development as it relates to the
sustainability of forests, including the National Forests.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to appear today
before this Subcommittee. I would like to submit the balance of my
statement for the record, and I would be pleased to address any
questions you or the other Members may have.
Appendix 1
September 19, 2011
Hon. Jack Reed, Hon. Lisa Murkowski,
United States Senate, United States Senate,
Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.
Dear Chairman Reed and Ranking Member Murkowski,
As the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies considers the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget for the
United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Department of the Interior,
we as retired USFS Chiefs request your support for extension of the
Stewardship Contracting authority as part of FY 2012 appropriations
process. First enacted as a pilot program in the FY 1999 Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, and then
reauthorized for another 10 years within the 2003 Omnibus Public Lands
bill, Stewardship Contracting authority has provided public land
managers with an important tool in achieving forest management
objectives, and increasing and diversifying job opportunities in rural
communities.
Although initial use was limited, now more than a decade after this
authority was provided, stewardship contracting is rapidly becoming the
contracting ``tool of choice'' throughout the USFS. Treatments
authorized under these contracts promote healthy forests, reduce
wildfire hazards, increase watershed resilience, and increase business
and job opportunities. Stewardship Contracting encourages collaboration
and long-term commitments among agencies, contractors, local
communities, and other interested stakeholders. Organizations across
the ``political spectrum'' collectively agree that Stewardship
Contracting authority extension is needed at this time to support
public land management agency activities.
Between the FY 1999 and FY 2010 Fiscal Years, the Forest Service
has awarded approximately 854 contracts, resulting in thousands of
acres of better managed forests and the establishment of jobs, expanded
forest products markets, and improved watershed resiliency. Successful
collaborative efforts across the nation have relied on this authority
as a cornerstone of agreements for future planned activities in major
watersheds.
We urge the Subcommittee to extend Stewardship Contracting
authority through inclusion in the FY 2012 appropriations process. It
has provided many successes to Federal agencies and rural communities
alike. Extending this authority will continue to build on successes
already achieved while expanding positive impacts to our National
Forests and other public lands.
Thank you for consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
R. Max Peterson F. Dale Robertson Jack Ward Thomas
Chief, Forest Service Chief, Forest Service Chief, Forest Service
1979-1987 1987-1993 1993-1996
Michael P. Dombeck Dale N. Bosworth Abigail R. Kimball
Chief, Forest Service Chief, Forest Service Chief, Forest Service
1997-2001 2001-2007 2007-2009
Appendix 2
Restoration Needs in the National Forest System
According to data provided by the Forest Service, 43% of the
National Forest System (82 million acres) is in need of restoration.
Over the past 10 years, 18 million acres of National Forests have seen
widespread tree mortality associated with bark beetle damage. Before
the 2012 fire season began, the Forest Service cited 65 million acres
of National Forests as being at very high risk of severe wildfire. In
2012 alone, over 9.2 million acres of the country burned in wildfire
according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
mostly on Federal public lands.
The Role of Stewardship Contracting Authorities
Stewardship End-Results Contracting concepts have been around in
one form or another for approximately 20 years. In 1998, Congress
authorized a pilot program for the Forest Service to develop a small
number of Stewardship End-Result Contracts and Agreements to:
1. More effectively involve communities in the stewardship of
nearby public lands, and
2. Develop a tool in addition to the timber sale program that could
more effectively address the complexity of forest ecosystem
restoration.
The pilot effort concluded early with Congress passing
legislation\1\ in 2003 that removed the cap on the number of projects,
extended Stewardship Contracting authorities to the Bureau of Land
Management, and offered a 10 year authorization to the agencies to use
stewardship authorities through September 30, 2013 to: ``perform
services to achieve land management goals for the National Forests and
the public lands that meet local and rural community needs.''
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\1\ Interior Appropriation Act of 2003 Sec. 323 of P.L. 108-7 (16
U.S.C. 2104. Note, as revised February 28, 2003 to reflect Sec. 323 of
H.J. Res. 2 as enrolled) the Consolidated Appropriations Resolution,
2003, amended P.L. 105-277, Sec. 347.
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Stewardship Contracting in the Context of National Forest Restoration
The Pinchot Institute has annually monitored 25% of active
Stewardship Contracting projects nationwide since 2005. Conclusions
from this monitoring include:
Ten of the 500 active Forest Service stewardship contracts
are 10 year landscape scale projects, including the Four Forest
Restoration Initiative, White Mountain Stewardship Contract,
and Front Range Stewardship Contract discussed below.
Landscape-level and multi-year contracts are realizing
efficiencies and have enabled some contractors to make
investments toward accomplishing ambitious programs of
restoration work.
From 2010 to 2012, non-Federal partners provided funding in
40-48% of stewardship contracts or agreements.
Significant multi-year investments of private funds are
being leveraged in Forest Service Collaborative Forest
Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) projects, and stewardship
contracts and agreements are critical to the success of these
landscape-scale restoration projects.
Stewardship contracting and CFLRP is resulting in private
investments being made that are focused on processing the
byproducts of restoration treatments, benefiting rural
economies and reducing the cost of restoration work.
Front Range Stewardship Contract. In Colorado, insect and disease
has devastated more than 1.7 million acres of forest on the
Front Range over the last 15 years, with some areas seeing tree
mortality as high as 80%. The Front Range Long-Term Stewardship
Contract covers a 1.5 million acre landscape reaching south of
Colorado Springs to the Wyoming border. The local business
holding the contract, West Range Reclamation, suggests that
they have ``built our business around stewardship
contracting.'' In doing so, West Range Reclamation has treated
approximately 5,000 acres in 2012, creating at least 52 jobs.
After receiving a USDA Forest Products Laboratory Grant they
also began manufacturing new value-added products, tapping into
19 markets including mulch, wood chips, post and poles,
shavings for animal bedding, kitty litter, and wood pellets,
adding significant value to the raw material removed and
reducing treatment costs below $300/acre in some places.
White Mountain Stewardship Contract. According to contract holder
Future Forest LLC., the White Mountain Stewardship Contract has
reduced restoration costs by 36% and created 226 direct jobs
and 96 indirect jobs through a host of small scale businesses.
Economic reports for the project state $30 million in
government expenditures and $40 million in economic return.
Future Forest LLC. is a partnership between WB Contracting and
pellet manufacturer Forest Energy Corp, harnessing the
ingenuity of the private sector to link restoration work on the
public lands with new thermal energy markets, supporting
biomass utilization.
Need for Market Development for Expanded Biomass Utilization
Public and private investments in local biomass utilization
capacity are important to reducing the per-acre cost of restoration
treatments. Federal investments through USDA and DOE loan guarantee
programs, and grant programs like the Forest Biomass Utilization grants
and Community Wood Energy Program authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill
contribute to improved stability in rural economies.
For example, the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest recently
entered into a 1,000 acre, 10 year stewardship contract with Confluence
Energy, a pellet manufacturer in Kremmling, Colorado, which will supply
a new 11.5 megawatt power plant backed with a USDA loan guarantee. In
Arizona, the Four Forest Restoration Initiative is underway with the
Forest Service entering into their largest 10 year stewardship contract
to date designed to restore 300,000 acres. Pioneer Forest Products
based in Montana received the award, with plans to create 900 jobs and
build an advanced biofuels plant in Winslow, Arizona.
Given long-term electricity market projections, due in large part
to low natural gas futures, the prospects for biomass fueled electric
power remains dim in most places. However, densified products
(compressed wood logs, bricks, and pellets) and direct conversion of
biomass to thermal energy for space heating and industrial process heat
remain promising. Roughly \1/3\ of U.S. energy consumption is thermal
energy for heating and cooling spaces and for industrial processes.
Using biomass as a fuel source has tremendous potential to offset
costly consumption of petroleum-based heating fuels in rural
communities while supporting forest restoration objectives.
For instance, in Oregon, the Oregon Department of Energy and USDA
Forest Service have recently made investments to expand thermal energy
markets in communities adjacent to National Forests in Eastern Oregon.
Investing in these locations makes sense because these communities are
adjacent to National Forests in need of restoration and are currently
without access to natural gas, making woody biomass systems very
competitive to fossil fuel alternatives, i.e., propane and heating oil.
Since 2008, at least ten small-scale biomass thermal installations have
been installed in Eastern Oregon, ranging from a hospital to a small
industrial complex.
On-farm uses of wood fuel are promising as well. Food production
and packaging uses significant amounts of process heat, and in many
places biomass is well suited to supply this energy. For example,
consider that the average poultry house consumes about 6,000 gallons of
propane per year at a cost of $2.04/gallon or $12,240 per year. If the
poultry house is heated with wood chips costing $60/ton, the poultry
house needs 40 tons of wood chips annually, costing $2,400, saving the
poultry grower $9,840 annually per poultry house. The payback period
for converting heating systems to biomass from heating oil and propane
is usually short, as has been the case in Vermont where school projects
predictably break even in 8-12 years. As an added benefit, the grower
would see improved flock health and productivity due to reduced in-
house air moisture associated with propane heat.
The Chairman. All right. Thank you, Dr. Sample.
Now it is my pleasure to once again introduce a constituent
of mine, a consulting forester and a friend from the
Pennsylvania 5th District, from Kane, Pennsylvania, Kenneth
Kane, who--I have always been an admirer of Ken's involvement
in the community, not just knowing the forest industry but 30
years as a school board member and involved in every good cause
that there is in that part of our Pennsylvania. So Ken, I am
pleased to recognize you for your testimony for 5 minutes, and
welcome to Washington.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH C. KANE, PRESIDENT,
GENERATIONS FORESTRY INC., KANE, PA; ON BEHALF OF ASSOCIATION
OF CONSULTING FORESTERS OF AMERICA
Mr. Kane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be
here. Members of the Committee, I am here today on behalf of
the Association of Consulting Foresters of America. Thank you
for the opportunity to appear before you today to offer the
consulting foresters' perspective on the National Forest
management and its impact on rural economies and communities.
The Association of Consulting Foresters offers services to
private landowners, forest management consulting services. We
manage in 45 states about 75 million acres. Essentially, the
Association of Consulting Foresters are the boots-on-the-ground
foresters for the private landowner. Our services are wide and
varied. It is a pleasure to offer a national perspective from
our association because we have members across the landscape.
The primary issues that we would like to address is, there
is pressure from local taxing entities on school districts,
counties and townships that are adjacent to National Forests.
There is a significant and growing problem caused by insects,
disease and fire coming from delayed management on the National
Forests, and response to salvage operations from natural
disasters such as wildfires and storms is slow and the
resulting change in forest composition reduces wildlife
habitat.
From a local perspective, I am going to share with you the
problems faced by a small community such as Kane on the
Allegheny Plateau. What the Allegheny Plateau is, is 16 million
acres of timber primarily forest type that is a unique forest
type, comprised mostly of cherry, ash, tulip poplar, 16 million
acres on the entire globe. That is a pretty unique ecosystem.
The small community of Kane was developed to develop those
resources, and you can see when they were developed in the
early part of the 20th century, the harvesting was quite
intense, and it was harvested by local barons such as the
Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company and Collins Pine, and they
used railroads to access the timber, and the harvesting, as you
can tell, was pretty intense. And those railroads today provide
recreational access, hiking trails, off-road vehicle trails and
different things, so there is quite an opportunity there.
The Weeks Act provided the Allegheny National Forest to be
established in 1923, and what you are seeing before you is what
the condition of the National Forest was in the area called
Little Arno in 1927. The next slide is 1928. That is the first
harvest on the ANF. The next 70 years through the series of
slides will show you the growth and development of that forest,
how different silvicultural treatments and just by leaving the
forest to grow over a period of years will create a very mature
and healthy forest system.
You will notice that in the slides from 1988 to 2008 the
change in the forest hasn't been as significant as the previous
60 years. That is because the forest is approaching maturity,
and that maturity causes a risk for blow-down, and the
productivity of the forest when it should be higher has
dropped, and from 1985 to 1994 the forest produced about 60
million feet of timber a year. We don't want to talk about
extraction. We would like to talk about acres treated, but we
have the volumes to talk about, so we have to stay with that
subject.
But since then it has tipped over, and when it should be
developed and managed for local communities to support our
schools and townships, it has tipped over, and the delayed
response has reduced the amount of revenue from that forest to
create a habitat, as you see in the next two slides, similar to
what it looked like when it was established. So management on
this forest and the value of this forest at one time provided
essentially more money than the entire Region 9 needed to
operate its entire budget came from the Allegheny.
So we have an opportunity as I hear concerns of sequester,
if we put the money to the Allegheny to truly do what could be
done there, we could stimulate the Federal budget to help
offset some of the Forest Service challenge to the future,
because by supporting the forest and sound management, which is
good science, it also supports the local communities. The one
thing I would ask as we talk about stewardship is if we could
consider putting some of that stewardship money back into those
local communities, put it back into the 25 percent fund,
because then we would stimulate local communities. I haven't
even addressed the diverse resources of oil and gas in our
region, which is also the bridge that we have to the future of
America's energy independence.
But I thank you for the privilege to be here, and on behalf
of the Association of Consulting Foresters and my new company,
it is a privilege. I welcome any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kane follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kenneth C. Kane, President, Generations Forestry,
Inc., Kane, PA; on Behalf of Association of Consulting Foresters of
America
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, on behalf
of all members of the Association of Consulting Foresters (ACF), thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you today and offer a
consulting forester's perspective on National Forest management and its
impacts on rural economies and communities.
ACF is the national association for consulting foresters whose
primary work is consulting to the public. Our members manage more than
seventy-five million acres of private forestland in 45 states.
I have been an Association of Consulting Foresters member in good
standing since 1989, and have been a practicing forest resource manager
since 1983. I am President of Generations Forestry, Inc., located in
Kane, Pennsylvania.
From a national perspective, many of our clients and other
landowners have significant problems when they own forests adjacent to
National Forests.
There is pressure from local taxing entities, School
Districts and County Governments to make up for their lost
share from National Forest timber sale proceeds,
There is a significant and growing problem caused by insects
and diseases coming from non-managed National Forests,
The response to salvage operations from natural disasters
such as wildfire and storms is slow; and
There are resulting changes in forest composition and
reduced wildlife habitat.
From a local perspective, I am going to present to you the problems
faced by my local community. Kane, Pennsylvania is a small, rural
community located in Northwestern Pennsylvania, on the Allegheny
Plateau, at the eastern edge of the Allegheny National Forest. The Town
of Kane and surrounding area was settled to develop the diverse natural
resources of the region. The vast timber resource was harvested
utilizing the access provided by railroads in the early twentieth
century.
The abundant amount of timber harvesting on the Allegheny Plateau
by the Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company, the Collins Pine Company
and other timber barons of the era created an environment for the
natural reproduction of a unique Allegheny hardwood forest. The
Allegheny hardwood forest type consists of black cherry, white ash and
tulip poplar, with sugar maple, red maple and some oak. This unique
forest type only exists on 16 million acres in the world.
During September 1923 the United States established the 500,000
acre Allegheny National Forest under policies established by the Weeks
Act of 1911. The Weeks Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to
purchase ``forested, cut-over or denuded lands'' for the purposes of
watershed protection and timber production.
In the seventy years following the establishment of the Allegheny
National Forest, many activities took place to promote the goals of the
Weeks Act. The forestry activities were successful to the point that
the Allegheny National Forest watershed supplies water to most of the
communities downstream and consistently produced over 60 million board
feet of timber from 1983-1995.
Since 1995 the timber harvest on the Allegheny National Forest has
declined to a low of less than 15 million board feet from 2000-2005.
The harvest level over the past 2 years has increased to 30 million
board feet.
The Collins Pine Company retained their land on the Allegheny
Plateau. Collins Pine obtained International Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) certification in 1995. The FSC third party certification assures
sustainability of the resource environmentally, socially and
economically through a series of international standards. Collins Pine
currently owns 120,000 acres and sustainably harvests the same volume
as the Allegheny National Forest on less than a quarter of the acreage.
The long-term impact of the lower harvest on the Allegheny National
Forest has created a significant biological and economic impact on the
region. The biological impact is a conversion of the unique Allegheny
hardwood forest type to a more common Northern hardwood timber type
that consists of tree species such as American beech, hard maple and
hemlocks, which contain less diversity of flora and fauna and are more
susceptible to invasive insect and disease attack. This conversion
typically occurs through major blowdown from wind events.
The economic impact of the lower harvest has led to a decline in
the local hardwood lumber industry. Since 1995 the hardwood industry in
the Allegheny National Forest region has declined over fifty percent.
In the Kane area alone nine sawmills have closed, costing over 100
jobs.
The reduced harvest has affected local townships and schools
through the loss of revenue of the 25% Fund, under which 25% of the
revenue from National Forest timber sales is returned to the state. The
revenue to the local townships and school districts has declined 75%.
This decline includes revenue provided through the Rural and Secure
Schools Act. As a School Director of the Kane area school district for
nearly thirty years, I have watched the Forest Service revenue decline
from over 6% of our total budget to less than 1% this year. With
increased mandates on public education, this impacts the quality of
education for our children. The Kane area school district was forced to
establish a National Forest allocation fund with money raised from
increased taxes on an already stressed rural economy to mitigate the
extreme impacts this has to our schools.
The challenge for the future is to prevent the continued biological
conversion and the economic decline in the Allegheny National Forest
region.
The wind event/blowdown experienced on the Allegheny National
Forest is also experienced in National Forests throughout the South. In
the West, the threat to under managed National Forests is catastrophic
fire.
In order to maintain a healthy relationship between rural
communities and National Forests, the National Forests should be
managed using sustainable methods. This will assure the long term
health of the National Forest, rural communities, the forest products
industry and the adjacent private lands.
We appreciate the Subcommittee's attention to this important issue.
This concludes my remarks and I would be happy to answer any questions
you may have.
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The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Kane.
Now I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin for the purpose
of an introduction.
Mr. Ribble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a real privilege
for me today to introduce a fellow Wisconsinite. Jim Schuessler
serves as the Executive Director of the Forest County Economic
Development Partnership, a public-private partnership in
northern Wisconsin that works to improve the standard of living
and quality of life for the citizens of Forest County. Jim
holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of
Wisconsin-Platteville. After receiving his degree, he spent 2
decades in television and ultimately served as Executive Vice
President of the Broadcast Group. After selling the group in
2002, Jim purchased a tourism-based business in northern
Wisconsin. He successfully operated that business until he
joined his current organization in 2011 to give back to his
community. With all due respect, Mr. Schuessler, you have been
giving back to your community for much longer than that, and I
appreciate that.
Mr. Schuessler. Thank you.
Mr. Ribble. Jim and his organization have done important
work for the people of northeastern Wisconsin. I am looking
forward to hearing his remarks and the perspective he will
provide. Jim, thanks for being with us today.
Mr. Schuessler. Thank you, Congressman Ribble.
The Chairman. Mr. Schuessler, we look forward to your
testimony here. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JAMES SCHUESSLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FOREST
COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP, CRANDON, WI
Mr. Schuessler. Chairman Thompson, thank you. Distinguished
Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Jim Schuessler and I
serve as Executive Director for Forest County Economic
Development Partnership. The stakeholders of FCEDP include the
City of Crandon, the Forest County Board of Supervisors, the
Forest County Potawatomi Community and Foundation, the Forest
County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Commission, the Sokaogon
Chippewa Community, and the Wabeno Chamber of Commerce. Our
mission is to foster an increased and diversified tax base and
improve standard of living and quality of life for all the
people of Forest County.
I know I am not the first person to appear in this place
and tell you all is not well in our National Forests. However,
let me relate from an economic perspective 120 year view in
about 5 minutes, the good, the bad and the opportunity.
After the cutover and failure of forests, then farms,
Forest County had a few choices. Number one, they could do
nothing. Number two, they could work with the Wisconsin
Conservation Commission reforester. Number three, Federal
forest. In November of 1927, the board voted 17 to 2 against
Federal forest. They received a lot of outside pressure, and
the board relented and opened the matter to a countywide
referendum. On March 14, 1928, Mr. L.A. Kneipp of the United
States Forest Service appeared in Crandon for a presentation to
the electorate. He promised a lot--jobs, low-cost material and
revenue sharing, a lot of other things too. Just days later,
the electorate voted by nearly a 3 to 1 margin and bet the farm
on the United States of America.
In the decades that followed, the United States Forest
Service delivered on all their premises. These people are
heroes. Citizens and industry thrived. Connors Leona Mill
became the number one producer of hardwood in the world. In the
1980s, the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest alone output 150
million board feet per year.
Then the bad: the lawsuits, the underfunding. Raw material
production declined sharply. As a result, a once thriving
economic cluster began to crumble. Tribal communities and towns
are getting creamed. An economic disaster has occurred in the
National Forest. Today, over 4,000 direct jobs in forest
products have been lost in the Chequamegon region alone.
Outmigration has cost the lost of future generations. All of
this is outlined in my exhibits.
The Leona School District located in a Norman Rockwell-type
town is on the brink of collapse, which will fuel a domino
effect over the entire region. Declining demand for forest
products? Hardly. Local industries could add additional shifts
if the raw material were available. As a matter of fact,
American imports of Canadian wood pulp and pulpwood have
increased 50 percent over the past 10 years. Exhibits H, I, and
J display the significantly high unemployment rate in the
counties of the Chequamegon vis-a-vis the rest of the state.
Landscape-level sustainable forestry must be restored
within the National Forest. In the Chequamegon alone, it is
conceivable $100 million could be added to the United States
Treasury over the next forest plan. In addition, another $30
million to local governments. Imagine the impact to our
economy.
Movement toward the allowable sale quantity will result in
over 4,000 jobs in the region of the Chequamegon. The harvest
levels would still be well below those of the 1980s. Four
thousand jobs is an auto plant, folks. I know Dr. Benishek is
chairing another subcommittee this morning, but somebody please
pass along to him that within the Ottawa, there is an
environmentally friendly auto plant ready to be unveiled there
as well.
Some of our National Forests are disaster areas. This is
not a slam to the current Chief. It is a crisis that has been
decades in the making. However, the United States Forest
Service desperately needs a crisis manager to support his
efforts. This crisis has clobbered the local economy and will
kill schools, and without a Hurricane Sandy type sense of
urgency and focus, it is going to happen. And while Secure
Rural Schools is appreciated as we emerge from this crisis, we
don't need social welfare. The jobs are there, the demand is
there. A hundred million to the Treasury. Somebody please
tell--Congressman Ribble, when you get back to the Budget
Committee, please let them know we have $100 million for them,
another $30 million to local government, thousands of jobs.
Remember the old question, if a tree falls in the woods,
does anybody hear it. We can really update that today. If
thousands of jobs are needlessly lost in the National Forest,
is anybody willing to listen and do something about it?
I look forward to your questions, and please know that
FCEDP is ready to partner and assist in repairing the
ecological and economic disaster by developing jobs and
restoring a beautiful, well-managed National Forest. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schuessler follows:]
Prepared Statement of James Schuessler, Executive Director, Forest
County Economic Development Partnership, Crandon, WI
Chairman Thompson and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on
Conservation, Energy, and Forestry, my name is James Schuessler. I
serve as Executive Director for the Forest County Economic Development
Partnership (FCEDP) in Forest County, Wisconsin. The stakeholders of
FCECP include the City of Crandon, Forest County Government, Forest
County Potawatomi Community and Foundation, The Forest County Chamber
of Commerce, Tourism Commission, The Sokaogon-Chippewa Community,
Wabeno Chamber of Commerce and four business sector representative
including Laona Machine, Laona State Bank, Wolf River Valley Seeds and
Northern Lakes Service, Inc., and Link CPA Service LLC. FCEDP is a
public private partnership and also includes the invited resources of
the Wabeno, Crandon and Laona School Districts, Forest County UW
Extension and Land Conservation, the Laona District of USFS, USDA
Blackwell Job Corp., the Town of Armstrong Creek, Nicolet Technical
College and the Crandon Public Library.
The mission of FCEDP is ``To foster an economic environment that
promotes an increased and diversified tax base, an improved standard of
living and quality of life for all the people of Forest County.'' As a
native of Northern Wisconsin I certainly embrace the beauty of our
land, cultural diversity, and traditions that have helped establish a
thriving economic cluster built around masterfully managed timberlands.
I know that I am not the first to appear in this place and let you
know that all is not well in our National Forests. What I will do that
is different from other testimony is share a story from a public,
private partnership point of view about the economic impact of the
Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest on our local economy. And, I will
offer what the immediate economic future portends, if unchecked, and
finally suggest some solutions.
Our local story begins after what is locally called the forest
cutover at the turn of the 20th Century. The idea locally for economic
prosperity was forests and then farms. This formula failed however due
to poor soils and harsh climate for agriculture production and the
farms failed leaving the land largely barren.
By the mid-1920 the discussion turned to reforestation of the
hundreds of thousands of acres in Forest County. The Wisconsin
Conservation Commission offered to work with the counties on re-
establishing forests on the cutover lands. Private companies owned by
the Connor and Goodman families acquired substantial tracts, in our
area, beginning the development of sustainable forest practices and
pioneering the practice of selective harvesting of northern hardwoods.
I must note that these family driven forests remained intact and
managed under selective harvesting, provided millions of board feet of
timber to support our economy, up until the late 1990's, when they too
began to be parceled and fragmented.
Back in 1927, the United States Forest Service offered to take
northern Wisconsin lands as part of a Federal Forest. After
consideration, the Forest County Board voted on November 15, 1927, by a
vote of 17-2, to keep the lands and work with the State Conservation
Commission.\1\
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\1\ Forest County Board Minutes, November 15, 1927.
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Immediately, voices were raised outside the county criticizing the
decision. An editorial in the Rhinelander Daily News condemned the
Forest County Government and demanded that they immediately ``get the
cutover lands back into their best use--forestry.'' \2\ Another from
the Antigo Journal urged the Forest County Board to reverse their
decision in part by saying ``Langlade County will join in when they are
asked, but they have not been contacted by the Forest Service.'' \3\ By
the way, Langlade County never was asked, and today their county owned
lands provide nearly $2 million annually to their county budget.
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\2\ Rhinelander Daily News, Editorial, November 27, 1927.
\3\ Antigo Journal, Editorial, November 24, 1927.
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Due to this outside pressure, the Forest County Board reviewed
their previous decision and after debate voted to turn the matter to
the electorate of the county in a referendum.
On March 14, 1928, Mr. L A Kneipp, employee of the United States
Forest Service, appeared in a packed Circuit Court Room in Crandon to
present his case as to why the lands should be turned over for the
Federal Forest Program. According to local printed news accounts, Mr.
Kneipp outlined the case for why the voters should choose the Federal
Forest. He stated that at present timber was being harvested four to
six times faster than it could grow. He stated that the primary purpose
of Federal Forests was to restore forests, put forestry on a business
basis, to carry on research in timber production, and to produce
timber. He went on to state that the United States promised the
following: \4\
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\4\ Forest County Republican ``Federal Forest Hearing Held at
Crandon Last Week,'' published Thursday, March 22, 1928. (Exhibit A)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Restoration
2. Plant trees where needed
3. Prevent fires
4. Practice selective cutting
5. Cover every acre with forest
6. Conserve and develop wildlife
7. Get the forest on a sustained-yield basis
8. Maintain stable wood-using industries
9. A supply of good lumber at a cheap price
10. 25 percent of the gross receipts to be used by the counties for
schools and roads
Just days later the voters of Forest County voted, by nearly a 3 to
1 margin, to turn the lands over to the United States for Federal
Forest purposes. Within the next 10 years, 396,500 Forest County acres
were turned over to the United States Government--54.3% of the county's
total land base.
To put it mildly, the citizens of Forest County ``bet the farm'' on
the promises made by Mr. Kneipp, as well as a future tied to the forest
product industry.
For decades, the United States Forest Service set out and delivered
upon every promise that they made back in March of 1928. The Civil
Conservation Corps rolled through northern Wisconsin forests helping
reforest and establish the infrastructure, some of which is still
producing timber today. This program operated successfully for decades,
developing tremendous resources, jobs, and valuable commodities for a
growing nation. The research done on the Argonne Experimental Forest,
located in Forest County, provided the basis for sustainable northern
hardwoods forest management practices still in use today among
industrial and other managed hardwood forests.
It is no accident that, through the success of the National Forest
program, a family owned sawmill, utilizing the forests of Forest County
became the largest hardwood sawmill in the world by the 1940's.
All told, a thriving economic cluster built around masterfully
managed timberlands was developed in places in and around National
Forests not limited to but including CNNF, Superior (MN) and Ottawa
(MI). At its peak, the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (CNNF)
produced 159 million board feet of timber in a single year.
The forest management practices in place within the CNNF from its
formation until the 1980's followed sustainable forestry practices and
mirrored forest policy as inspired by the March 1903 speech of Theodore
Roosevelt. Prosperity began to decline in the 1980's due largely to the
unintended consequences of uninformed groups that slowed down forest
management with lawsuits, all of which they eventually lost but many of
which have caused a dramatic devaluation of the standing timber.
According to employees of the USFS, funding for the timber sale program
began to decline, causing annual declines in the rate of forest
treatments within the National Forest. (Exhibit B) These unintended
consequences also caused a strain on industrial forest lands that have
been overharvested to make up for the dramatic decline of National
Forest timber stand management.
Currently, USFS timber sales have gone ``no bid'' as a result of
the declining quality of standing timber, sales that are too large for
small businesses, improper estimates, and onerous rules.
With the sharp decline in level of forest stand improvements in the
CNNF, over 4,000 direct jobs have been lost in and around the eleven
counties of the CNNF. (Exhibit C) Sawmills and processing plants have
closed. Others operate sporadically and a tremendous outmigration of
families has occurred in the past 20 years.
The Laona School District, ground zero for this tragedy, is on the
brink of collapse. (Exhibit D) Laona's soul was ``sold to the USFS'' in
1928, and only 17% of its entire land mass is taxable. When the CNNF
was operating at appropriate management levels, this mill town built
around Nicolet Hardwoods, Inc. and WD Flooring, LLC was running
multiple shifts and provided major employment to the region. Today, a
140 year legacy, including four generations of selective harvesting
with eight rotational selective harvests of family-owned company
timberlands appears to be at an end due to lack of raw material.
Monday, I drove through their lumber yard--which should at this point
of the season have been completely inaccessible due to the 2.5 million
board feet of raw material normally stockpiled by spring ``break-up''--
instead, there was only another 2 weeks of work. (Exhibit E) The plant
will likely close due to lack of hardwood saw-log and it appears that
employees will be laid off and out of work.
Today, the Laona School district has the 5th highest mill rate in
the state. Two years ago, the proud residents actually voted for a 3
year funding referendum to keep the school operating for 3 more years.
Taxes on a home in Laona is roughly double that of Wabeno, located
about 10 miles south. Laona can be considered one of our nations Norman
Rockwell towns, and because of its dependence on the National Forests
it is at ground zero for economic impact due to the decline of forest
stand improvements on National Forests.
In 2014, if voters in Laona reject a new referendum, the school
will likely close. That will trigger a ``domino effect.'' Wabeno will
likely be on the hook for the debt of their neighbor's school as they
will be asked to take on the students of the neighboring district and
this will drive Wabeno's mill rate through the ceiling.
Wabeno's low mill rate is largely fueled by waterfront homes in the
southern part of the district, south of the Forest county line, in
Oconto County. Oconto County voters will likely realign and move to a
neighboring White Lake or Suring School District. Wabeno's financial
structure will see the same issues faced by Laona and their financial
structure implodes. And who suffers? In the end it is the children and
families of the rural American Norman Rockwell Communities.
As an economic development practitioner I can tell you that there
is no recipe to solve this problem--lose your school, lose your town.
The grocery store and other small family owned business close. Health
care options diminish. Usually, the town is left with a c-store on the
highway, and remaining residents have to travel 10 miles for a dozen
fresh eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables, and, considering where people
like me hail from--a hunk of great Wisconsin cheese.
Shrinking demand for fiber? Hardly. All this is happening at a time
when imports of Canadian wood pulp and pulp wood have increased 50%
over the past 10 years. (Exhibit F)
At the time Forest County accepted the offer of Federal Forests,
other counties such as neighboring Marinette County declined their
offer. As a result, in the northern half of Wisconsin we have many
counties, void of National Forest, with very successful forest
management programs.
Like the USFS, these counties manage their lands for multiple uses
and abide by all regulatory guidelines. All Wisconsin counties that
manage their forests have fully-certified forests, standing up to very
stringent standards and practices. As a result, their timber is
generally more valuable.
Attached, is a comparison of Wisconsin's top eleven forest-managed
counties that do not have National Forest versus the performance of the
eleven county CNNF managed by the USFS; in essence, Wisconsin's own
National Forest versus the USFS' CNNF (Exhibit G)
I am aware that the declining level of forest stand improvements on
the National Forest are not limited to the Forest County or the CNNF,
but the local story is where I concentrated my attention for this
discussion. A similar impact has been felt across the eleven counties
of the CNNF. From 1990, when management was much more prevalent, to
2010, after the dramatic decline, unemployment grew disproportionately
in the eleven CNNF counties (Exhibit H) versus the top eleven counties
with managed forests that did not turn land over for Federal Forests.
(Exhibit I) In 2010, Wisconsin's overall unemployment rate stood at
8.5% quite close to the 8.8% of the eleven county managed-forest
counties in the north. The eleven counties of the CNNF were 16% higher
than the county managed-forest counties and 20% higher than the state
as a whole. (Exhibit J)
Even more startling is the loss of the future that the eleven
counties of the CNNF face. A comparison of 1990 Census to 2010 reveals
that these eleven counties have suffered double-digit declines with the
demographics of children (0-17), and the people aged 18-44, largely the
families who have children. (Exhibit K) Over this same period of time
the other 61 counties in Wisconsin grew in these two key demographics.
When the jobs decline, people tend to go elsewhere.
So where is the opportunity? It is in our National Forests. An
additional 60 million board feet in the CNNF alone would provide over
3,000 direct jobs, and according to North Central Wisconsin Work Force
Development, over 4,000 jobs total. This would still have the CNNF
below the Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ) outlined in the current Forest
Plan, and 20 million board feet below the annual delivery achieved in
the 1980's and early 1990's. Over 4,000 jobs--that is an
environmentally friendly automobile plant, folks. Representative
Benishek--I have good news for you. By my calculations, you have
another auto plant within the Ottawa National Forest adjacent to the
Chequamegon-Nicolet to our north waiting to be unveiled as well.
(Exhibit L)
But please remember, the value National Forest timber has already
declined dramatically due to decline of forest stand improvements and
regenerative treatments. Here is a photo, taken last Thursday, of what
was thought to be saw-log in the Ottawa that is until it was harvested.
(Exhibit M) The timber has over-matured, and is now worth about 90%
less than had it been harvested when it should have been about 20 years
ago, according to trained foresters. This contractor will lose money on
this contract. He has stated that his firm will no longer bid on USFS
projects.
This is another reason why USFS sales go ``no bid'', when it
rarely, if ever, occurs on county or private timber sales.
The upside is tremendous. Setting aside the auto plant in the
Ottawa for a moment, and just focusing on the one in the CNNF, the
benefit is remarkable. (Exhibit N)
In just one National Forest alone, the economic impact is
startling. (Exhibit O) How do we get this done? For one thing, we are
Americans, and armed with a, sort of Conservation Correction Corps of
USFS foresters, tribal forest professionals, and state and county
foresters we should quickly determine priorities, salvage, and begin
producing forest treatments on projects that are ``on the shelf'' with
completed National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) completed
forest stands.
Where will the product go? For one thing, processors (those not
already gone) that have been choked by skyrocketing raw material costs
will get some relief from reduced commodity prices. It is very likely
that we can keep a few more domestic paper mills, for example, from
closing if they know that the raw material prices they have been paying
will likely ease.
Just last month, Wausau Papers announced that they would be closing
their mill in Bemidji, Minnesota. One of the chief reasons cited for
the closure was increased production in Asia. Certainly manipulated
foreign currency and questionable foreign labor practices cause
problems for American industry. But considering the state of management
within the National Forests here in America, should we not get our own
house in order--for the sake of American jobs and American industry?
A wonderfully executed government program that produced a
tremendous economic cluster is being pulled under. The value of an
asset owned by the taxpayer is losing value and the skilled personnel
are available to fix this--now.
While I'm certain that the current Chief's years as a forester
serve him well in normal times, these are not normal times. Let me
introduce you to a few retired USFS employees that would help correct
the picture. The crisis created by lack of sustainable forest
management is crippling rural communities that believed the promises of
L.A. Kneipp and the United States Government he represented. Let us
keep true to the ideals that inspired the development of our National
Forests; people such as Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's charge to the Society of American Foresters is included in
this presentation. (Exhibit P)
Although this disaster has been at least 2 decades in the making,
it is in fact a Federal disaster. Call it Katrina or Sandy. At the
local level we are told that Congress is to blame and there is need for
more Federal money for timber sales. The most educated forester on
Earth is not necessarily a gifted crisis manager. I suggest that we
bring in a crisis manager that can get this fixed. As the successful
manager Lee Iacocca said--lead, follow or get out of the way. This is
not meant as political and is geared more toward personality, but I
wonder what Governor Christie of New Jersey or Governor Nixon of
Missouri would say to someone that said they needed more money when at
the same time maintaining they are not in business to make money?
``Secure Rural Schools'' financial assistance is appreciated to
keep our schools alive in the near term. But, we don't need social
welfare. The real fix is to recreate the local jobs and a revived
forest economy through effective forest management. Your action can
return the rural forest economy to sustainable and successful levels,
similar to the 1970's and 1980's.
Once again, thank you for allowing me to provide testimony and
comments as you consider National Forest Management and its Impacts on
Rural Economies and Communities. Laona, Forest County, northern
Wisconsin, and America can't wait.
To summarize, from a local economic development perspective and
from a national perspective, the formula for revitalizing the National
Forest Economies are. (A.) Declare the National Forests a Disaster
Area. (B.) Hire a crisis manager in each of the districts across the
Forests in the United States. (C.) Inventory lost production over the
past 20 years and salvage harvest and implement forest health
treatments on the backlog of NEPA approved forest land. (D.) Demand
USFS implementation of the current ASQ on all National Forests above
and beyond the salvage harvests and forest health treatments.
Ultimately this is no small matter at all. I am amazed and puzzled
that such a meaningful, profound and simple solution has surpassed the
great minds of the decision makers in the Department of the Interior
and the Department of Agriculture and our great bureaucracy. And
instead a small but dedicated group from an American apple pie and
lemonade town stands before you to a call for action. The
sustainability of tribal communities is on the line. With all due
respect ladies and gentlemen, enough is enough. We are tired of the
excuses. We are tired, angry, suffering and the regional economy has
been needlessly fractured.
So, simply put; implementation of this strategy across all National
Forests will pull local, regional and the national economies out of the
mire of the Wall Street and housing crush. And, the most amazing thing
of all! Every dollar invested in this strategy will return $3 to the
United States Treasury!
I look forward to your questions and the Forest County Economic
Development Partnership is ready to partner and assist you to make the
National Forests a thriving and vital national economic resource engine
once again. When you review my written testimony, consider that I am
speaking on what I know about the impact of one United States Forest
economy. And, on behalf of other forests, consider the impact of
honoring the commitment to salvaging the backlog of timber, providing
forest health treatments and fulfilling ASQ on all the National
Forests. May God bless this great country.
Exhibit A
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit B
Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest Sold Volume FY86-FY12, by Fiscal
Year
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit C
The decline of over 80,000,000 BF per year has resulted in significant
job loss in and around the eleven counties of the CNNF over the
past 2 decades
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit D
The decline in harvest, and fewer jobs is having an impact on local
school enrollment and funding
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit E
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit F
While timber harvesting declines on the National Forest, we send more
dollars to Canada . . .
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit G
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit H
While imports increase, unemployment levels have skyrocketed in the 11
CNNF counties
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit I
Unemployment remained much lower in the top 11 counties that manage
county timber without CNNF acreage
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit J
The unemployment rate within the 11 counties of CNNF exceeded that of
the state overall and the top 11 counties managing timberlands
without National Forest
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit K
Our future has been harmed by job loss and outmigration within CNNF
counties
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit L
Ottawa National Forest Harvest Volume FY87-FY11, by Fiscal Year
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit M
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit N
What is the annual opportunity in the CNNF?
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit O
What is the opportunity in the Northwoods?
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Exhibit P
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Schuessler. I am going to
recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Ribble, for 5
minutes of questioning.
Mr. Ribble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
flexibility this morning with what is turning out to be a very
hectic day for this Budget Committee Member as well as a Member
of the Agriculture Committee.
Mr. Schuessler, thank you again for coming. I want to thank
all the panel for spending some time. I do have a couple of
questions for both you and Mr. Kane this morning. I just to
want to read a quote from your written testimony: ``It is no
accident that through the success of the National Forest
program, a family-owned sawmill utilizing the forest of Forest
County became the largest hardwood sawmill in the world by the
1940s.''
Mr. Schuessler. That is correct.
Mr. Ribble. What has happened to that sawmill?
Mr. Schuessler. Well, it is a travesty, and there are still
people working there today, but if you take a look at Exhibit
E, I took a couple shots on Monday morning, and I apologize for
the darkness of it and the snow. We had snow Sunday night.
Mr. Ribble. It is Wisconsin.
Mr. Schuessler. And it is Wisconsin in March. We had snow,
and then of course, the time change kind of hit me there, so it
was a little bit early in the morning. But this is--the Connor
Mill has a 400 acre lot in the Town of Leona, right in the
center. You know, originally it was the company town. They
should have, by the time of breakup, about 2.5 million board
feet. Now, I am not a forester. Some of you guys that come from
that area can probably tell me, but I am told that is about 2,
maybe 3 weeks of work. Two and a half million board feet can't
be found anywhere. The product just isn't there. People are
going to be out of work. The layoffs have already started.
Mr. Ribble. The trees are there, aren't they?
Mr. Schuessler. Absolutely. They are tipping over.
Mr. Ribble. In your testimony, you also noted that the
decline in timber harvesting in Wisconsin has resulted in
roughly 4,000 job losses in the 11 National Forest counties. I
am interested in hearing about how you arrived at that figure.
Additionally, you noted that at its peak, Wisconsin National
Forests produced 159 million board feet of timber in a single
year. Do you believe we can ever accomplish that again?
Mr. Schuessler. I will take them in order. First of all, I
am blessed by being surrounded by skilled foresters and
silviculturists in my region. It is not my background. There
are a few people, a couple people, Dick Crowsey, who is a very
seasoned veteran and a retired United States Forest Service,
and a second person who was a retired United States Forest
Service person got together and really put together using
today's technology how many board feet equals a job, and they
came to the conclusion looking at the technology that exists
today and the things that we use out in the woods that about
20,000 board feet equals a job. So taking from that the fact
that we are down over 80 million board feet in the Chequamegon-
Nicolet National Forest, we have lost over 4,000 direct jobs.
Could you repeat the second question?
Mr. Ribble. Yes. The second question was regarding the 159
million board feet that was being harvested. I wanted to know
if you think we can ever get back to that.
Mr. Schuessler. I can't imagine, and I can tell you that
Forest Service employees can't imagine it. I was up in the
Washburn about a week ago meeting with the Regional Forester up
there, a very dedicated employee who is doing some great things
on stewardship that we would like to bring back to the east
side of the Chequamegon. I related to her, and her experience,
as I understand it, goes back to the 1980s, and when I related
to her the kind of harvesting levels that existed back then,
she couldn't even fathom it. So it has really become--it has
really moved outside the DNA. Allowable Sale Quantity, ASQ, is
something that is not looked at. It is just sort of this number
that is out there, and so it is going to require a remarkable
change in thinking to take folks back to those times.
Mr. Ribble. Certainly the demand is there, though, and I
can tell you, as someone who has spent my entire life in
construction, it troubles me greatly that I see so much
imported timber from Canada while we have foresters not working
in Wisconsin.
Mr. Schuessler. And skyrocketing prices.
Mr. Ribble. This is a problem. And Mr. Kane, thank you for
coming. I really enjoyed the photos of Pennsylvania. What a
beautiful place that you live, almost as beautiful as northern
Wisconsin. That is good to see.
In your testimony, ``There is a significant and growing
problems caused by insects and diseases coming from non-managed
National Forests.'' I am curious about the words, non-managed
National Forests: What do you mean by that?
Mr. Kane. Part of the National Forest System is wild areas,
scenic areas and natural areas. Just outside the community of
Kane is the Tionesta Scenic Area. It is a 500 acre area of old
growth consisting primarily of beech. The beech is decadent
because of the beech scale nectria complex, which is a whole
other story that I won't go into, but in 1991, it was
identified that a native insect, the elm span worm, population
was just growing out of proportion because of that beech
ecosystem created the perfect habitat for elm span worm
development. We pointed out to the Forest Service because it
was a natural area, they couldn't do anything about it. In
1992, it spread outside. It is kind of a ripple of a stone in a
smooth pond. It went outside that area, and the Forest Service
still was unable to do anything about it. In 1993, it was
larger and encompassed essentially the entire Allegheny
Plateau. We had to pull ten different organizations, consulting
forests to compete with each other daily. Five sawmills to
compete with each other daily formed a consortium. We sprayed
over 100,000 acres in 1994 at a cost of over a million dollars
for something that could have been stopped in 1992 for ten
percent of that investment.
Mr. Ribble. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Kane. That is the prime example.
Mr. Ribble.--could you yield another 30 seconds?
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Ribble. Thank you. I just want to follow up on that,
because the American people, if they were listening to this,
would be surprised by this. We have the Forest Service to
manage them. Are there regulations that are preventing them
from taking care of this or is it something outside stopping
them? Because it defies belief that they wouldn't want to stop
it.
Mr. Kane. Ironically, there are regulations. They can't
operate in the natural area. There are regulations that
prevented them from getting the bulls eye, but when it had
spread out, it was a natural insect with minimal experience
because it always collapsed, but because we provided the right
habitat at the right time, a natural insect became quite the
crisis. The ironic part, in 1994 the Forest Service also had a
spray program for the elm span.
Mr. Ribble. Thank you very much for your testimony today.
Thank you to the panel. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman, and I recognize Mr.
Walz, the Ranking Member, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your
testimony. It is very insightful and very helpful.
Dr. McKetta, I was especially interested in your work of
this linkage issue to regional communities and trying to
understand that, listening to what you say and what Mr.
Schuessler says, you had a quote, Dr. McKetta, ``economic power
of the national Forest Service is unintentional and inept in
some of the ways, and it was a monolithic entity.'' My
question, I guess, to the both of you is, Dr. McKetta, first,
do you anticipate with changes to the Forest Service as you
heard that we would return to the historical patterns and those
economics? Because in many of these communities, they are very
undiversified, if what I am hearing is correct, if the Forest
Service policies have decimated communities based on that, how
do we--is there a guarantee that if we change those rules that
we will go back to historical patterns?
Dr. McKetta. In fact, one of the hardest messages that I
have to give my clients is that the historical pattern is
something that we will never return to. Particularly if you
look in the western states, we have seen concentrations of
industry, a movement of labor away from the forests so that
what happens when the forest does need labor, it often has to
jump those communities. It has to jump for equipment and
infrastructure as well. The Forest Service has always had a
capability of measuring the impact of their actions. Although
they do not recognize their monopoly powers in these small
areas, they have modeling that does show the impacts. However,
we very rarely see that as a primary criterion in the forest
planning process. It is only recently that we have started to
see in the forest restoration activity, and my experience is
limited to the Northwest where we are starting to see
intentional connections of stewardship projects to particular
groups within the impact areas to mutually benefit from those
kinds of investments. In order to expand that, the Forest
Service could expand its activities a little bit but not to its
historical levels because it is now constrained by things that
didn't exist in 1980.
Mr. Walz. That data would be valuable to someone like Mr.
Schuessler, because I don't know if I am interpreting right. Is
it your contention, Mr. Schuessler, that the policies that you
described as a catastrophe that is happening with the Forest
Service, if they were doing things differently in your mind,
you would see a resurgence approaching historical economic
growth?
Mr. Schuessler. Absolutely. A great part of that economic
cluster that feeds that industry still exists. It just
deteriorates as years go by. So a lot of those people have gone
to the city, they have gone elsewhere, but really, their home
is back where they come from, and a lot of them would return if
the jobs were there.
Mr. Walz. Today if you had the magic wand, what three
things would you do?
Mr. Schuessler. I think the first thing I would do is hire
a crisis manager to come in and do an assessment of the
harvesting that could immediately take place. Remember,
harvesting is ultimately a regenerative treatment. We can't get
the undergrowth if we don't get that old stuff out of the way.
Mr. Walz. And you don't believe they are doing that?
Mr. Schuessler. It doesn't exist. I was in the Ottawa last
Thursday, again, not a forester, not a silviculturist, but what
I saw there, and I have it in one of my exhibits here, I took a
shot of row of logs that had been cut out of there. It is
supposed to be saw log. It is a junkyard. It is all overly
mature. I am told 20 years ago this would have been wonderful
saw log, and the problem is, some of these things, the pulping
mills, they are over 30 inches. They should have been kept as a
legacy tree because the pulping mills won't even take them. It
is literally junk out there.
Mr. Walz. What is your belief of why that doesn't happen?
Why hasn't it happened?
Mr. Schuessler. Well, for one thing, we are not sustainably
managing those forests fast enough. I think Dr. Benishek would
be livid if he saw what I saw last Thursday because it is in
his own backyard.
Mr. Walz. Do you think they are ignoring it or they don't
have the right data or they are choosing to make a decision
that is detrimental to the local community? What is your
assessment of why, with their expert opinion, they are not
doing that?
Mr. Schuessler. The Forest Service tells us that they are
under-funded for putting those regenerative treatments out
there, and certainly the lawsuits had a lot to do with it.
People had--these unintended consequences of these lawsuits
ended up slowing down these timber sales and the treatments
couldn't take place.
Mr. Walz. My final question. Dr. McKetta, you talked about
needing political will. What do you mean by that, the political
will?
Dr. McKetta. When I look at the potential versus the actual
restoration job, right now the example we have is from eastern
Oregon, about 1.4 percent of the forest is being treated. There
is difficulty matching the output of the Forest Service to the
people who would utilize it and finding the labor. If this was
expanded and you had some kind of a contracting structure which
would allow a simultaneous expansion of the private
infrastructure because nobody is going to invest in something
that is uncertain. You need a symbiotic relationship, as Dr.
Sample pointed out, in the planning process to look at the
Forest Service objectives and intents and the private sector
reactions to that so that they can be coordinated to joint
benefit.
Mr. Walz. Mr. Schuessler, is this what your crisis manager
would do? Is that what you envision them doing?
Mr. Schuessler. Absolutely.
Mr. Walz. Okay. Well, I thank you all for your testimony,
and I am grateful for you bringing your expertise to us.
Mr. Schuessler. Thank you.
The Chairman. All right. I thank the Ranking Member, and I
will proceed with my 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Kane, within your written testimony, one of the things
that really jumped out at me is when you said Collins Pine,
which owns 120,000 acres, in the same basic geographic area
where the Allegheny National Forest is located, that Collins
Pine sustainably harvests the same amount as the Allegheny
National Forest on \1/4\ of the acreage, and I was wondering if
you could explain that a little bit. How is that possible?
Mr. Kane. It is really interesting. I was actually went to
Collins Pine to get permission to use that testimony before
using it, and a little background of Collins Pine. Teddy
Collins was one of the original timber barons of the Allegheny
region, and he didn't sell his land to the National Forest. It
is a great story, but they called him Ten Percent Teddy, and
when the National Forest bought that land, they were paying 50
an acre, and Teddy Collins wanted 55 , and he by God wasn't
going to sell it. So his land, a lot of his land is contained
within the boundaries of the Allegheny, and in 1995 Collins
Pine Company obtained FSC certification. Those that aren't
familiar with it, it is an international certification to
assure that lands are managed sustainably both economically,
socially and environmentally, and their allowable cut and they
are currently harvesting on that land equal to what the
Allegheny National Forest is producing with a forestry staff of
nine people and it is because their forest--T.D. Collins didn't
overharvest his forest and the family is really unique. It is
interesting if you research them. They are great people, and
they are very much committed to sustainability, and they are
currently harvesting that because it is a mature resource, and
they are trying to balance their age classes. If you look at
the Allegheny National Forest in their 1985 plan, they had a
desired future forest condition. The 2005 plan is further away
from that desired future forest condition than what the 1985
plan was, and with the reduced harvest, every year they fall
farther and farther behind. That is why I use the slides,
hopefully that the picture would speak 1,000 words showing that
my last slide looked very similar to what the structure of the
forest was in 1927 because it is in need of management.
If we could fund the Allegheny adequately, use the
stewardship program because it appears that the unfounded
lawsuits against the Allegheny for their silvicultural
activities, they are completely unfounded. They have not been
significantly successful at all in their challenges to the
Allegheny. In fact, the Allegheny has prevailed in essentially
every lawsuit against the environmental challenge, and if they
could just use the money that is available and reinvest that
money into the Federal system, it could be extremely
sustainable and support the local economies through the 25
percent fund. It doesn't seem, from a boots-on-the-ground
forester, that complicated because we have to do it on private
ground every day, but that is the story of Collins Pine. Their
forest is mature and they are capitalizing on it today to
regenerate it in the future. There are other detailed
challenges there but the big, broad-brush approach, it is
working for them. It is sustainable, and they are being
monitored.
The Chairman. Very good. Thank you.
Dr. Sample, outside of the general reauthorization, are
there ways that we can improve upon stewardship contracting
activities on Forest Service and BLM lands?
Dr. Sample. I think there are, and not just on the western
lands that have been sort of a primary focus here but because
they are long-term contracts and because they span across a lot
of different kinds of activities from road maintenance to
streamside zone restoration. There are a lot of things that
small businesses that are typical in these rural communities
can do and they can plan their activities over the 5 year, 10
year life of that contract so that they can continue to invest
in capacity. Reauthorizing the Act that passed in 2003 would be
the way to do that because it spanned across the National
Forest System also included BLM lands, so I think that would be
what I would recommend, yes.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Schuessler, if Forest County had a chance to vote again
on its countywide referendum to turn over its forests to the
Federal Government, do you think they would do that again?
Mr. Schuessler. I don't believe that they would. I think it
would be a dramatically different outcome.
The Chairman. You pointed out in your testimony that there
were major issues such as declining quality of standing timber
costs, onerous rules. Can you discuss some of the rules that
are detrimental to the industry and how each may affect
different regions?
Mr. Schuessler. Well, if I understand you correctly, how is
the management of the National Forest impacting the other
regions, one thing I can outline for you, I did a chart, and it
is one of my exhibits there, is we had counties like your
gentleman that wouldn't sell to the Federal forest back in the
1920s. They made the wiser choice in the long run, and the
reason is, as the chart reveals--and that is why I really
believe that there is $100 million within the Chequamegon alone
to be had just to the Federal Treasury by managing at the
sustainable levels that those counties are currently doing. So
you take the 11 counties, the 11 top counties that don't have
National Forests and you put them head to head with the
Chequamegon-Nicolet, there are actually fewer acres in those
top 11 counties but it is about a 3 to 1 margin in return as
far as revenue coming out of those counties, and no one is
clear-cutting their forests unless it is a poplar stand or
aspen stand where that is the kind of regenerative treatment
that you do. This is sustainable management taking place.
And I guess the other thing I would add to that is, a
couple of the counties, for example, wood counties, they really
don't have the benefit of the northern hardwoods that we have
within the Chequamegon-Nicolet. If I had the three counties
that have a little bit of National Forest like Langlade and
Oconto to it, Oneida, it changes the number dramatically. It is
probably well in advance of $100 million using those because of
those species that exist within northern Wisconsin.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. McKetta, based on your studies, do you believe that the
Forest Service does an adequate job of accounting for its
economic impact on a community by its management decisions, and
if not, what do they need to consider?
Dr. McKetta. We use a different technique so that we get
different answers than they do, but they developed a very
useful system called IMPLAN that does the accounting. It is the
incorporation of that accounting into the planning process that
seems to where the breakdown is.
The Chairman. With IMPLAN, your testimony indicated that
that economic model is utilized in NEPA and NFMA planning
processes. You know, from your analysis, how are the IMPLAN
outputs used in decision making?
Dr. McKetta. If we look at what these generate, all of
these modeling processes give us a physical perturbation or a
biological perturbation and then we can tell you jobs and
income, and our system will tell you where the jobs and income.
IMPLAN does a mix but it doesn't tell you directly how to
increase that or decrease that. That is up to the planning
process itself.
One of the things that I have had to tell my clients
regularly is that jobs and income do not seem to sway the
resource allocation decision itself. There has been, in my
experience in the last year, two instances where it appears to
have changed, where the job and income effect seems to
influence the preferred alternative.
The Chairman. Well, thank you, and thank you to all four of
you on the second panel for your experience and your testimony,
coming today to help us, prepare us to make better decisions.
I now yield to the Ranking Member to make any closing
remarks he has.
Mr. Walz. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congratulations
on assuming this. You are the right person for this job, and I
am grateful. It is a good first hearing.
Thank you to all four of you. It is good stuff to think
about. You are a great resource for us. Please use our office
now as things come forward to make sure we are being contacted.
I would just highlight and give a thank you. I don't know
if the four of you noticed, but Chief Tidwell came and listened
to all of your testimony and stayed through this whole hearing.
I can tell you from being around here, that is an unusual and a
very appreciated gesture and it shows his concern. I think it
bodes well for the future on this. I am optimistic, as I said.
Again, this is a legacy that is the envy of the world. We get
things right. We can get it right again, and I am seeing it in
my state that it doesn't have to be an either/or. You can
manage these forests, you can have economic gain off those. We
can look to the future on biomass and value-added products, at
the same time keeping that legacy of outdoor usage. So thank
you all for being part of it. I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the Ranking Member, and once again, I
thank all the panelists. You know, the Chief put an emphasis on
the importance of collaboration, working together, and we have
a lot of expertise here just in this room, so I know the
Subcommittee is committed to continuing to look at forestry
issues, and we all share the same goals. So thank you so much
to everyone.
Under the rules of the Committee, the record of today's
hearing will remain open for 10 calendar days to receive
additional material and supplemental written responses from
witnesses to any question posed by a Member.
This hearing of the Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy,
and Forestry is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Submitted Letter of Phil Rigdon, President, Intertribal Timber Council
Hon. Glenn Thompson, Hon. Timothy J. Walz,
Chairman, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Conservation, Subcommittee on Conservation,
Energy, and Forestry, Energy, and Forestry,
House Committee on Agriculture, House Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.
Dear Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Walz:
The Intertribal Timber Council (ITC) hereby submits this statement
for the Subcommittee's hearing record of the Subcommittee's Hearing on
``National Forest Management and its Impacts on Rural Economies and
Communities,'' held Wednesday, March 13, 2013.
The ITC is a thirty-seven year old national association of Indian
tribes and Alaska Native organizations holding more than 90% of the 18
million acres of tribal forestland held in Federal trust, as well as
over four hundred thousand forest acres in Alaska. The ITC's purpose is
to advance the understanding and management of Native American forests
and natural resources. Along with other forestland owners, tribes and
Alaska Natives share a collective stake in the health, utilization and
sustainability of our nation's forests.
Our forests are an integral part of our homelands. We have cared
for them over countless generations, relying upon them for cultural,
spiritual, and physical sustenance, as well as providing a source for
governmental revenue and jobs for the local community. A number of
tribes have sawmill operations, which can be the last such facilities
across wide areas. The Federal Government also has fiduciary
obligations to protect and perpetuate the health and productivity of
tribal forest resources. Beyond the borders of our reservations,
federally reserved tribal rights and interests often apply to
neighboring public lands.
The inability of the Forest Service to manage National Forests has
severely impacted the economies and well being of forest-dependent
tribal communities. We have long expressed concern over administrative
paralysis that grips the Forest Service and prevents it from providing
the care required to maintain the health and productivity of the
forests. The inability to actively manage National Forests has created
conditions that severely threaten lands and resources held in trust for
Indians by the United States. Potential for catastrophic loss of life
and property resulting from disease, insect infestation, invasive
species, climate change and wildfire are great and growing. The
inability of the FS to harvest forest products has contributed to the
loss of management, harvesting, transportation and processing
infrastructure essential to our ability to generate income and
employment to care for our lands and communities. Ecological functions
are deteriorating, diminishing tribal opportunities to benefit from
tourism or development of enterprises that utilize non-traditional
forest products or produce renewable energy. Our ability to practice
our cultures, religions, and traditions, to protect water, fish,
wildlife, and plants so we may continue to exercise reserved rights and
to continue our lifeways by fishing, hunting, trapping, and gathering
foods and medicines is being adversely affected. Tribes share many of
the forest issues, concerns, and responsibilities that apply to other
forestland owners. The inability of Federal agencies to manage the
forests entrusted to their care poses potentially devastating
consequences for tribes, states, and other neighboring forestland
owners, and is prompting the tribes, like the states, to pursue
alternatives to address this growing problem.
On this occasion of the Subcommittee's hearing on the management of
National Forests and its impact on local economies, the ITC seeks to
provide the Subcommittee with a brief overview and update of tribal
perspectives on similar issues. These comments seek to introduce the
Subcommittee to ITC activities that are now still in process and are
pending final reports:
(1) A review of impediments to implementation of the Tribal Forest
Protection Act, which seeks to facilitate tribes performing
forest health projects on neighboring Federal public forests;
(2) The ITC Anchor Forest pilot project, which seeks transboundary
cooperative forest management to preserve forest health,
productivity and infrastructure; and
(3) Imminent completion of the third statutorily mandated report of
an Indian Forest Management Assessment Team (IFMAT-III). IFMAT-
III is an independent comprehensive decadal review of the
status of Indian trust forests and forestry, and is the only
such review of Federal forests.
(1) The Tribal Forest Protection Act
The Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA, P.L. 108-278) was enacted
after a series of devastating wildfires came off of Federal public
forestland onto Indian reservation land, burning thousands of acres of
tribal forests, destroying homes, disrupting vital ecological
functions, and trapping and killing reservation residents. Tribal lands
have close to three thousand miles of common boundary with National
Forests. The TFPA seeks to facilitate tribal efforts to carry out fuels
and forest health treatments on Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management lands that pose threats to tribal trust lands or reserved
rights. Tribes propose the projects, and while their acceptance is at
the discretion of the local US Forest Service or BLM, the TFPA intends
that the two agencies give the proposals special consideration.
Implementation, however, has been a disappointment. Only six TFPA
projects have been successfully implemented on Forest Service lands
since the TFPA was adopted in 2004. The consideration of proposals has
been extremely slow, often taking years, frustrating both the tribes
and the Forest Service, which, with its extensive common border with
tribal land, has received most of tribal TFPA proposals.
To identify impediments to the Act's success, the ITC, working in
collaboration with the Forest Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs, has
been conducting an investigation into the TFPA's implementation. The
final report is expected out in the next few weeks, and while not yet
final, it appears that points of difficulty include a lack of training
on the TFPA and Federal-Indian relationships, inadequate agency funding
for tribally proposed projects, frequent staffing turnover, and the
cost and legal hurdles posed by Federal administrative processes. It is
hoped the TFPA report and its findings and recommendations can provide
information helpful to improving the TFPA's effectiveness. Stewardship
Contracting is one of the tools available for TFPA projects, and the
TFPA provides limited authorities similar to the ``Good Neighbor''
authorities for Colorado and Utah and under consideration for expansion
to other western states.
(2) The ITC Anchor Forest Proposal
The ITC is undertaking a pilot project to explore the concept of
Anchor Forests as a means to try to maintain healthy working forests on
the landscape. Economic benefits from harvest of wood products are
essential to address forest health problems on Federal lands, sustain
stewardship practices on private, tribal, and state forests, defray
costs of management, and provide environmental services. Anchor Forests
are intended to provide a foundation to foster collaboration and
cooperation across ownership boundaries and among diverse interests.
For regional planning and development, Anchor Forests support the
capacity to mount and focus financial resources for investments in
infrastructure and ecological functions by identifying regional needs,
opportunities, and priorities.
Anchor forests are large, contiguous areas of land with four major
characteristics:
1. A reasonable expectation for sustainable wood commodity
production as a major management objective; and
2. Production levels sufficient to support economically viable
manufacturing, processing, and work force infrastructure within
accessible transportation; and
3. Long-term management plans, supported by inventory systems,
professional staff, and geographic information systems; and
4. Institutional and operational capacity for implementation.
The first two characteristics center on the relationship between
commercial activities and the ability to care for forests. Anchor
Forests are intended to be capable of sustaining production levels of
forest products at a scale necessary to maintain at least a minimal
level of competition ( 200 MMBF) within viable transportation distance
( 60 mile radius) of processing facilities. Because of long-term
commitments to stewardship on relatively large blocks of land, Indian
forests are prime candidates to be recognized Anchor Forests.
Participation in an Anchor Forest is voluntary.
The ITC initiated a pilot study to evaluate Anchor Forest prospects
with the assistance of the US Forest Service. This ITC/USFS Anchor
Forest Pilot Project in Washington State is expected to be completed in
late 2014, but we will be continually gathering additional information
on the Anchor Forest proposal while the Pilot Project is underway. The
on-going goal is to establish working Anchor Forests and evaluate both
their creation and operation. Anchor Forests are also being examined by
a group of independent forestry experts in the third decadal assessment
of the status of Indian forests and forestry, IFMAT-III.
(3) IFMAT-III
Section 3111 of the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act
(P.L. 101-630, 1990) requires that every 10 years the Secretary of the
Interior provide for an assessment of Indian trust timber resources and
its management, to be conducted by a team of independent experts. Each
report of an Indian Forest Management Assessment Team (IFMAT Report) is
to include examinations, with findings and recommendations, of eight
statutorily identified tasks, and is be delivered to the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs, the House Committee on Natural Resources,
Indian tribes and the Administration. The Interior Department has
contracted with the ITC for the assembly of the assessment teams and
delivery of the reports. The first IFMAT Report was completed and
delivered in November 1993, the second in November 2003. Congress held
oversight hearings on both reports. The third assessment has been
underway for more than a year and is expected to be completed this June
2013.
The IFMAT report is the only regularly scheduled independent review
required for any Federal timber land, and as such is unique and
valuable, particularly as the reports accrue over time. In addition to
its value to the tribes and the Federal trust management of Indian
forests, the report's discussion, findings and recommendations include
required comparisons to Federal public forests that could cast an
informative light on Federal public forest management.
As Congress considers Federal public forest policy, arrangements
that might be struck regarding the management or disposition of Forest
Service lands with states, other governments, or private parties,
including such proposals as ``good neighbor'' management authority,
leases of Federal public lands, Federal forest land ``trusts'', or any
form of Federal land title transfer, must fully recognize and respect
tribal interests and implications for tribal economies. Fiduciary
obligations to protect the health and productivity of lands and
resources held in trust for Indians by the United States must be
honored, as must duties to prevent adverse impacts on Tribal treaty
rights and other reserved rights and interests on Federal public land.
The ITC's testimony submitted last Congress to the House Natural
Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands for
its July 20, 2012 hearing on H.R. 6089, the Healthy Forest Management
Act of 2012, remains relevant today:
``The Intertribal Timber Council (ITC) is concerned over the
potential for H.R. 6089 to adversely impact tribal rights and
interests. While ITC shares concerns regarding the need to
undertake active management of lands under the jurisdiction of
the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, state
assumption of significant Federal administrative and
programmatic functions must be constrained to ensure that
management fully complies with requirements of Federal
statutes, regulations, judicial decrees, and fiduciary
responsibilities towards Indian tribes. Our concerns are multi-
faceted, including the need to preserve the opportunity for
tribes to initiate projects to protect trust properties under
the Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA, P.L. 108-278, 25 U.S.C.
3115a), protection of cultural and archeological sites, respect
for the exercise of religious freedoms and the conduct of
ceremonies, and protection and preservation of tribal treaty
and other reserved rights.''
Conclusion
The ITC urges the Subcommittee, perhaps in conjunction with the
Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental
Regulation or Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, to hold further
hearings on the comprehensive status of our nation's forests, concerns
regarding their economic and ecological viability, and potential
initiatives that are needed to sustain their health and productivity.
Such a hearing could take testimony from tribes, states, Federal
tribal and public forest land managers, academic experts, NGOs, and
private parties on numerous similar or overlapping interests:
All the parties' concerns about the declining health of
Federal public forests;
The Tribal Forest Protection Act, current Good Neighbor
Authority, Stewardship Contracting, and other management
alternatives;
The Anchor Forest Pilot Project, its similarities to, and
differences with, the Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration Program, and other Federal, state and private
collaborative forest management efforts,
Various land disposition ideas, wherein the idea of Federal
forest trusts for states could be compared and contrasted to
experience with the Federal trust for tribal forests, and
The IFMAT-III report, with its detailed examination of the
status and management of tribal forests held in Federal trust
and its comparisons with Federal public and private forests,
and other contemporary reports and evaluations on Federal
forest management.
The ITC is actively engaged in a variety of activities generally
parallel to those being explored by Federal agencies, states, NGOs, and
other parties. We appreciate the opportunity to inform the Subcommittee
of the ITC's undertakings, and hope our efforts will be of interest and
assistance to the Subcommittee as it considers current Federal public
forestland issues.
Sincerely,
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Phil Rigdon,
President.
______
Submitted Questions
Response from Thomas Tidwell, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture
Questions Submitted By Hon. Glenn Thompson, a Representative in
Congress from Pennsylvania
Question 1. In 2011, you indicated the Forest Service restored 3.7
million acres with various treatments across the National Forest
System. Can you provide the Subcommittee with 2012 numbers?
Answer. Just over 5 million acres were restored on NFS lands,
including watershed, fish and wildlife habitat restoration, range
habitat restoration; noxious weed treatment, reforestation, timber
harvest, and hazardous fuels reduction.
Question 2. Chief Tidwell, can you offer us a detailed breakdown of
the cost to do a timber sale? Can you explain the cost breakdown and if
you believe there are any ways to reduce this cost?
Answer. Typically, timber sale costs at the field level average
$100 per thousand board foot. This cost includes all costs associated
with NEPA (environmental analysis and consultation with other
Agencies); timber sale preparation work, including unit delineation,
marking and cruising; sale appraisal, package preparation, and sell;
and sale administration.
This cost, adjusted for inflation, has decreased by 28% since 1998
as we continue to explore ways to reduce these costs. In an effort to
further reduce these costs, the FS' Forest Management Service Center
formed a taskforce to review processes, regulations and policy and
develop a set of recommendations to reduce sale preparation costs and
improve efficiencies.
Question 3. Given ample opportunity, can you explain why USDA did
not inform the Committees of Jurisdiction that the Secure Rural Schools
program is subject to the sequester and that states would have to
return money that had been previously disbursed?
Answer. The Office of Management and Budget notified Congress of
the estimates of sequestrable and exempt budgetary resources as
required by the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012 on September 14,
2012. The sequestrable budget authority for the Secure Rural Schools,
Payments to States accounts are included in the Forest Service
Permanent Appropriations, Mandatory funds.
When it became clear that the sequester would apply, we notified
Governors and Congressional Committees of that fact and the steps
needed to implement the sequester.
Questions Submitted By Hon. Kurt Schrader, a Representative in Congress
from Oregon
Question 1. The Forest Service uses U.S. Green Building Council
(USGBC) LEED standards in the construction of many new buildings and
major renovations of existing buildings. Unfortunately, the LEED
system, the more widely used green building rating system,
discriminates against wood. As the lead agency in the Federal
Government with expertise in wood products and an understanding of the
connection between robust markets and healthy forests has the Forest
Service provided comments to the USGBC recommending they change their
LEED standard to provide due credit to wood as a recognized green
building material?
Answer. Yes. In a March 31, 2011 letter to Forest Service Leaders,
Chief Tidwell affirmed the Forest Service's commitment to encouraging
sustainable building construction and emphasized that it is the goal of
the Forest Service to increase our ability to support the use of
sustainably grown, domestically produced wood products, including wood
from the National Forests.
In May 2011, the Forest Service officially changed its policy to
include Green Globes and other third-party green building certification
systems in addition to LEED. Green Globes permits certified products
from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative
(SFI), American Tree Farm System (ATFS) and Canadian Standards
Association (CSA) to be counted towards green building certification.
The Forest Service's Southern Research Station currently plans to
attain Green Globes certification of a new office and training center
planned for Research Triangle Park, NC.
In December 2011, the Forest Products Laboratory published Science
Supporting the Economic and Environmental Benefits of Using Wood and
Wood Products in Green Building Construction. This report summarizes
the scientific findings that support the environmental and economic
benefits of using wood and wood products in green building
construction. It addresses a general lack of recognition that wood is a
renewable resource, helps mitigate climate change, promotes healthy
forests and is a green construction material. The report also:
Provides solutions to advance wood as a green building
material, including:
Scientific advancement in the area of life cycle
analysis
Development of new technologies for improved and
extended wood use
Outlines benefits in helping achieve USDA objectives,
including:
Creating domestic jobs
Bolstering the competitive position and long-term
economic stability of the wood industry
Reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil
Offers recommendations on how to accomplish:
Research and development--life cycle analysis
Technology transfer--carbon and green building
benefits of typical wood structures
Forest Service continues to preferentially select wood in building
construction projects while maintaining its commitment to green
building standards. The Agency has incorporated a significant amount of
LEED-certified wood past construction. New agency buildings currently
being planned will consider pursuing green building rating under GBI
Green Globes or other American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-
accredited third party certification systems.
Examples of prominent wood-use in Forest Service buildings
completed after 2011 include:
Camino Real Ranger Station, Carson National Forest, Penasco,
NM
An 8,500 square feet building that prominently features locally
milled wood products in the architectural design. Besides
reusing wood salvaged from demolition, the building
incorporated wood in framing, sheathing, doors and windows,
interior and exterior trim. Other wood products incorporated in
the building include i-joists, glulam, SIPS, lumber trusses,
locally milled columns, beams, ceilings and fixtures.
Wood Products Insect Laboratory, Starkville, MS
A $1.1 million 4,729 square feet project incorporating FSC-
certified framing lumber, casework, wall and ceiling panels as
well as 8\1/4\" R-33 SIPS panel with FSC-certified plywood skin
in the roof system. It is estimated that approximately 25% of
the building was constructed using wood products.
Corvallis Forest Science Laboratory and Siuslaw National
Forest HQ Office, Corvallis, OR
A $4.1 million 9,700 square feet project with wood exterior, wood
interior paneling, glulam and wood fixtures.
Angeles National Forest Supervisor Office, Arcadia, CA
A 24,500 square feet 2 story wood frame building with wood
exterior and wood trusses in its roof system.
All Forest Service building projects also incorporate green
building principles such as energy efficient, locally produced wood
products, recycling and reuse of building materials. As noted above,
the Research Triangle Park Forestry Science & Assessment Center, a $1.6
million 8,000 square feet facility planned for FY14 is being designed
to achieve Green Globes Certification (2 Globes) and feature extensive
use of wood instead of masonry. Approximately 45% of the building is
expected to be constructed of wood or wood products. The building
design process will also evaluate if cross laminated timbers (CLT) are
a viable option for constructing this facility.
Question 2. As you are aware, the 9th Circuit Court's decision
against the State of Oregon and Tillamook County with respect to forest
roads, if allowed to stand, would require Federal, state, tribal and
private landowners to secure point source permits under the Clean Water
Act for forest roads. Could you share your views on the impact on the
U.S. Forest Service--National Forest System--both from a cost and
forest health perspective, if this decision is allowed to stand?
Answer. On March 20, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the
Ninth Circuit Court's decision in Northwest Environmental Defense
Center v. Brown, 640 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir. 2011) (Decker v. Northwest
Environmental Defense Center (NEDC), No. 11-338, 568 U. S. (2013)). The
Court held that the Clean Water Act and its implementing regulations do
not require National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)
permits for stormwater discharges from logging roads into navigable
waters of the United States. In addition, on December 7, 2012, the
Environmental Protection Agency revised its Phase I stormwater
regulations to clarify that stormwater discharges from logging roads do
not constitute stormwater discharges associated with industrial
activity and that an NPDES permit is not required for these stormwater
discharges. With these two actions, stormwater discharges from logging
roads would not require NPDES permits.
Questions Submitted By Hon. Gloria Negrete McLeod, a Representative in
Congress from California
Question 1. I understand from my California Agricultural
Commissioners the U.S. Forest Service in every activity that is subject
to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process is very costly
and redundant. Can you tell me what the percentage is of NEPA analysis
and other environmental documentation costs compared to the actual on-
the-ground activities that improve forest health for California and the
nation?
Answer. We do not track NEPA analysis and other environmental
documentation costs compared to actual on-the-ground activities.
Generally, based on a 2007 study, the agency spends approximately
$365,000,000 a year on NEPA and related environmental analysis.
To accomplish more effective vegetation management, the Forest
Service is fostering a more efficient National Environmental Planning
Act (NEPA) process by focusing on improving agency policy, learning,
and technology. These NEPA process improvements will increase decision-
making efficiencies and public engagement, resulting in on-the-ground
restoration work getting done more quickly and across a larger
landscape. In addition to the Forest Planning rule, the agency has
initiated a NEPA learning networks project to learn from and share the
lessons of successful implementation of efficient NEPA analyses. The
goal of this effort is to maintain decision making transparency for the
public and ensure that the Agency's NEPA compliance is as efficient,
cost-effective, and up-to-date as possible. Specifically we are looking
at expanding the use of focused Environmental Assessments (EAs),
iterative Environmental Impact Statement documentation (EISs),
expanding categories of actions that may be excluded from documentation
in an Environmental Assessment (EA) or an Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS), and applying an adaptive management framework to NEPA.
Our landscape-scale NEPA projects will also increase efficiencies.
For example, our Mountain Pine Beetle Response Project on the Black
Hills National Forest is implementing a landscape-scale adaptive
approach for treating current and future pine beetle outbreaks. We are
also implementing the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) project
in the Southwest, as well as other landscape-scale forest restoration
projects such as the 5-Mile Bell project in Oregon. The Draft EIS for
the first 4FRI area covers about one million acres. All of our efforts
are aimed at becoming more proactive and efficient in protecting the
nation's natural resources, while providing jobs to the American
people.
Question 2. Can you tell me if this same NEPA process is used by
other resource agencies (Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Park
Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Army Corp of Engineers)? Are each of
these agencies completing their own NEPA, separately? In the current
year, Congress and the President provided the Department $14 million of
funds for the Watershed Rehabilitation Program that would be used to
protect lives and property, while also creating jobs and repairing the
nation's infrastructure. We understand that OMB has blocked the
distribution of the funding to NRCS.
Answer. Generally, the same NEPA process is used by other resource
agencies, with some variations. Each agency complies with NEPA
separately; however in cases where there are joint decisions to be
made, they cooperate to conduct one environmental analysis. In regards
to the Watershed Rehabilitation Program, your inquiry was forwarded to
Natural Resource Conservation Service for a response.
Question 3. I understand that in Lake County, Oregon the U.S.
Forest Service has joined with BLM to streamline the NEPA process for
multiple Federal agencies to conduct multiple activities. I
congratulate you for such endeavors. Can you tell me about other
activities in California and throughout the nation that the U.S. Forest
Service is engaged with that continue to streamline the NEPA processes?
Answer. The Forest Service is continuously improving the NEPA
process. Current efforts include technology applications to speed
public comment analysis, project file management, publishing
environmental documents to the internet, and managing mailing lists. We
have focused our NEPA training on key skills for managing the process,
including team management and decision making. We are also improving
our documentation in environmental assessments and environmental impact
statements (EIS). Recently, an EIS was prepared on the Black Hills
National Forest to make a decision on treating bark beetles on over
250,000 acres (3 to 6 times larger than typical EISs on the Black Hills
NF).