[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2015
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
KEN CALVERT, California, Chairman
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
TOM COLE, Oklahoma BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
David LesStrang, Darren Benjamin, Jason Gray,
Rachelle Schroeder, and Colin Vickery,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 7
Page
U.S. Forest Service FY 2015 Budget Oversight Hearing............. 1
National Park Service FY 2015 Budget Oversight Hearing........... 61
Fish and Wildlife Service FY 2015 Budget Oversight Hearing....... 109
Bureau of Land Management FY 2015 Budget Oversight Hearing....... 181
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement......................................... 233
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
87-847 WASHINGTON : 2014
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia NITA M. LOWEY, New York
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
TOM LATHAM, Iowa JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
KAY GRANGER, Texas JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho ED PASTOR, Arizona
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas SAM FARR, California
KEN CALVERT, California CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
TOM COLE, Oklahoma SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BARBARA LEE, California
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
TOM GRAVES, Georgia MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
KEVIN YODER, Kansas BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas TIM RYAN, Ohio
ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
William E. Smith, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2015
----------
Wednesday, April 2, 2014.
USDA FOREST SERVICE
WITNESS
THOMAS TIDWELL, CHIEF OF FOREST SERVICE
Opening Remarks of Chairman Calvert
Mr. Calvert. The Committee will come to order.
Chief Tidwell, I would like to welcome you to today's
hearing. Our hearing today will address the fiscal year 2015
budget priorities in the U.S. Forest Service.
As you know, I will start off with my home State of
California, which is suffering through a severe drought crisis
that threatens to bring us the worst fire season we have seen
in recent years, maybe ever. Already in the first quarter of
fiscal year 2014, California has experienced twelve large
wildland fires with suppression expenses totaling $205 million,
compared to the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 when
California only saw seven large wildland fires totaling $14
million.
When measuring the first quarter of fiscal year 2014
against the first quarter of fiscal year 2013, we have already
spent $191 million more on large wildland fires this fiscal
year. The fiscal year 2013 fire funding shortfall for the
Forest Service was $600 million, and the shortfall for the
Department of the Interior was $28.5 million, all of which
Congress repaid in fiscal year 2014. If the fires in California
are any indication of what is to come, I am concerned about
where we might be headed in terms of a fire funding shortfall
for fiscal year 2014.
I say all of this to highlight the need to fundamentally
change--and I am just saying this because Mr. Simpson is
sitting next to me--how we should fund wildland fires in the
future, and I appreciate the Administration's recognition of
the hard work done by Chairman Simpson here in the House, and
Senators Wyden and Crapo in the Senate, by including a similar
provision to their respective cap adjustment bills in the
budget request for fiscal year 2015. I look forward to working
with you this year to try to address that issue.
The Forest Service is certainly more than just wildland
fire, so I would like to take a moment to comment on the budget
request in general. Excluding the request of $954 million for
the wildland fire budget cap adjustment, the total Forest
Service request for fiscal year 2015 is $4.8 billion, a $726.4
million, or 13.3 percent, reduction from the fiscal year 2014
enacted level, including the $600 million in suppression
shortfall repayment. With suppression costs growing from
approximately 13 percent of the agency's total budget just 10
years ago to 47 percent through fiscal year 2014, and a total
budget that is shrinking, it appears as though the Forest
Service will be doing less forest management and restoration
than it should be.
I have concerns about the proposed reductions of $17.5
million in research and development, $4.5 million in urban and
community forestry, and $5.8 million in grazing management, to
name just a few. I do understand that the reduction in grazing
management is proposed to be offset with a new administrative
fee, estimated to generate approximately $5 million. The
grazing fee was proposed in fiscal year 2014 and Congress
denied the request. I am sure there are some members here that
probably would have plenty to say on this topic, so I will not
belabor the point, but suffice it to say, I cannot imagine the
outcome for this request would be different this year.
In closing, Chief Tidwell, I would like to express my
appreciation to your fine professional staff. Our Subcommittee
simply could not do its work without the folks sitting behind
you. Thanks to each of you for everything you do.
And with that, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from
Virginia, my friend, Mr. Moran, for any opening remarks that he
would like to make.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Moran
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Chairman, my friend from California.
I share the view of the Chairman on a number of points with
regard to the budget. I do think it is a mixed bag, although
there is no question but that you are doing a terrific job,
Chief Tidwell. It is nice to see Mr. Dixon. And you have got a
great staff. So any of our comments and concerns are not
personal reflection but it is a matter of the environment in
which we have to operate here.
I support the request for fire, and I know we are going to
discuss it at length here, but funding a portion of the fire
costs under the disaster budget cap, it will free up monetary
resources. I think it makes sense.
But a number of the programs that the Chairman mentioned, I
also think they are not a lot of money which they need not have
been cut, and I am not sure why they needed to be, Urban
Forestry, for example, Recreational Heritage, the Wilderness
program, you know, a cut of $2.6 million below last year, it is
not a lot of money but it comes on the heels of a series of
stagnant budgets. So it kind of sends the wrong signal. The
Forest Service is the national leader in providing a variety of
outdoor recreational experiences along with the Park Service
and it really forms the genesis on the National Wilderness
Preservation System. The Forest Service manages 440 wilderness
areas, 36 million acres, and yet the budget request would cut
Wilderness Management by 7 percent.
I have got a quote but I am going to hold off on the
quotes. The point is, the wilderness should not be viewed as an
afterthought but really needs to be front and center in the
agency's mission. I am concerned about the impact of the
message sent by their proposed cuts to forest and rangeland
research, which the Chairman referred to, and state and private
forestry. We understand the demands placed on the Forest
Service but cuts in research and stepping back from the
agency's national and even international leadership role on a
variety of forestry matters seems to be a little bit
shortsighted and detrimental not only to the forest environment
but to the Forest Service's long-term interests.
Now, with regard to grazing, it is kind of ironic that on
this side of the aisle we seem to find ourselves on the side of
the market, you know, let the market determine what is a
competitive rate, let's look at the way that private landowners
charge and let's get away from these government subsidies,
which I would have thought my good friends on the other side
would have found to be particularly troubling, and it seems
like that is what the Administration wants to do is get away
from these government subsidies and let the market determine
what the real costs of grazing on public or private land ought
to be. They ought to be more consistent, and they certainly are
not now.
But nevertheless, we will pursue that, and since we are in
the minority, we will lose it, but I do not think that you have
a very good point to be made with the budget in that regard. We
know these are challenging times for the Forest Service,
dealing with fires and their costs, and I am afraid the fire
costs are going to get ever larger as we clearly have more
extreme weather events that we have experienced recently, and
it is just going to get worse. The aftermath of the sequester
is not going away. You are still having to deal with it. The
people on this Subcommittee and I think really for the most
part on the entire full Committee want to restore the money
that was cut by the sequester. There are very few people on the
Appropriations Committee, at least, that did not think that the
sequester was an aberration and just simply wrong, a wrong way
to budget.
But we want you to be able to maintain your leadership role
in forestry management. We appreciate the leadership you are
providing and all of your staff and look forward to your
testimony and the Q&A to follow. Thank you.
Opening Remarks of Chief Tidwell
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman for his statement. I am
going to yield to Mr. Simpson. I can take his rotation after
Mr. Tidwell makes his opening statement.
FY 2015 BUDGET
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, once
again, it is a privilege to be here today with you to talk
about the fiscal year 2015 budget request, and once again, I
just want to thank you for the support that you have provided
us over the years.
Last year when I was up here testifying, a key part of my
testimony was to ask for your support for a couple of our key
authorities that were about to expire--stewardship contracting,
and the Good Neighbor Authority--so thank you. Thank you for
the good work to get the forestry title in the Farm Bill. Those
programs are going to continue to help us to be able to get the
work done, be able to create more jobs, and be more effective
in our management. So thank you for that.
This budget request, I think recognizes the opportunity,
and the responsibility that we have to do more to restore our
national forest and grasslands to make sure that they will
continue to provide that full mix of benefits: clean air, clean
water, wildlife habitat, recreational settings, commodity
production, jobs, and economic activity. Four hundred and fifty
thousand jobs are supported from the activities off our
national forest and grasslands. A hundred and seventy million
visitors every year enjoy these areas.
SUPPRESSION CAP ADJUSTMENT
As you mentioned, and I appreciate your recognition about
the proposed budget cap adjustment for fire suppression
funding. It will finally stop this disruptive practice of
having us shut down our operations almost every August,
transfer funds to pay for the fire suppression costs and then
just to have Congress repay those funds, usually within 3 or 6
months following that.
I want to thank Congressman Simpson for his leadership to
introduce the bill, Mr. Chairman and the majority of this
Subcommittee, I want to thank you for being cosponsors on this,
recognize that this is a problem that goes way beyond just
fire. It affects every single thing that we do. We have to
shift over $500 million out of our other programs over the
years into fire suppression as the 10-year average continues to
go up year after year. In just the last 3 years, we have had to
increase our fire suppression funding by $156 million. So with
a constrained budget, we have to make those shifts and it
impacts every program that we have. So thank you for the
recognition of a need to stop the transfer, and at the same
time, with the budget cap adjustment, as you have mentioned, it
does free up some constraint space for us to increase the
investment in Hazardous Fuels, to increase the investment in
restoring our national forests, and to increase the investment
in our Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration programs.
These are key programs that will allow us to address the
problems, reduce the threat of wildfires, reduce the threat to
communities, help restore our forests to make sure they
continue to provide the full mix of benefits. We will still
have adequate funding in preparedness to make sure that we
continue to suppress 98 percent of every fire during initial
attack.
This budget request also makes sure we can continue the
research that is so essential for us to be able to have the
science to understand what we need to do to restore these
forests, to deal with the invasive species, to be able to
address the effects of a changing climate. It also continues
our work with state and private programs to be able to support
private forests, to support urban forests that are so important
to this country.
Now is the time for us to increase the investment to help
restore these national forests, not only for the present
generation but for the next generation. The science is clear,
supported by results on the ground that we can reduce the
effects of fire, reduce the effects of insect and disease
outbreaks, but we need to be able to increase the investment. I
believe this budget request is a modest increase in those key
programs to allow us to be able to move forward but at the same
time be able to demonstrate the fiscal restraint that is so
necessary as we deal with deficit reduction in this country.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time to be here today, and
I look forward to answering your questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Mr. Calvert. Thank you for your statement, and I will now
recognize Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to go first so that we can start the Energy and
Water hearing with the Secretary at 10 o'clock.
WILDFIRE FUNDING
Let me ask you a couple of questions, Chief, about this
wildfire funding proposal. As you know, obviously I support it.
I have introduced a bill to do the same sort of thing. But what
I hear are concerns that allowing wildfire suppression to be
funded through a disaster cap adjustment would increase overall
discretionary spending. How do you respond to that?
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Congressman, it will not increase
discretionary spending.
Mr. Simpson. That is a good response. I like that.
Mr. Tidwell. Your proposal provides for the funding during
the year where the fires occur versus having Congress repay
that. The concept here is that within every budget there are
discretionary funds that are available for disasters, and for
this year I think it is close to $12 billion that is available.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has the
authority to use between $5 and $6 billion of that. There is
another $6 billion that is already available for disaster
relief. It is time for us to just recognize that certain
wildfires are a natural disaster, and yes, they occur every
year, but just like many of the other natural disasters,
whether a hurricane, tornados, floods, we have some of those
almost every year. It is time for us to recognize that. Your
proposal is that 70 percent of our suppression costs will be in
our discretionary budget. That will cover about 99 percent of
our fires. It is 1 percent of our fires that create 30 percent
of the costs. It is those large fires, usually around
communities, that really drive the cost of this. So your
proposal will not increase discretionary spending but it will
just stop that disruptive practice of us having to shut down
operations in August, put people out of work and then just to
have the money to pay back a few months later.
Mr. Simpson. Really what we are trying to do is change not
the amount we spent on fires--I would like to reduce the amount
we spend on fires by having less fires, but the reality is, we
are going to pay whatever it costs to fight these wildfires. We
are either going to do it through the way we have been doing it
with fire borrowing and then repaying those funds later on
after the season is over so you cannot go in and do hazardous
fuels reduction, even though we have paid back those accounts.
Really what we are talking about is a better way to manage the
account, not increase funding for wildfire fighting.
One of the other concerns that I have heard expressed is
that it will create less accountability within the Service on
wildfire fighting costs. How do you respond to that?
FIRE RISK MANAGEMENT
Mr. Tidwell. It will not. The accountability will stay the
same, and we are committed to doing our best job when it comes
to financial management, and our focus on risk management, to
be able to really factor in risk management into our decisions
has made a significant reduction by avoiding tactics that are
not successful. For instance, in fiscal year 2012 when we
looked at the change in our approach, our strategy on the fires
we had during fiscal year 2012, we estimated we saved $377
million of costs versus the way we approached fires a few years
ago by recognizing that under certain conditions going in there
and building that line that is just going to burn over the next
day and to recognize we need to fall back until we get to the
right landscape, the right set of fuels, the right conditions
so we can make a stand and hold it. Because of the science that
has been developed over the years, we can make better
decisions, and we are avoiding risk and avoiding some costs.
In addition to that, we will continue to do our reviews of
each large fire to be able to analyze those costs, and there is
still the incentive that as fire costs go up, that is still
going to have to come out of our discretionary budget. For
instance, if total fire costs go up $100 million, the 10-year
average goes up $100 million, in the past it would be $100
million that would have to come out of other programs. Well,
even under your proposal, there is still going to be $70
million, 70 percent of it, that is still going to have to come
out of other programs. So the incentives are still the same.
I just need to be able to do a better job to help people
recognize how the conditions have changed. We are doing a
better job fighting fires today than we ever have. We have
better technology. We are making better decisions. But you
cannot change the fact that our fire seasons are 60 to 70 days
longer than they used to be, and that is a combination of the
change in climate, the conditions we have on the landscape and
then also the millions of acres of wildland-urban interface.
Even in your State and definitely, Mr. Chairman, every place in
your State, whenever we get a fire, the first thing we have to
do is protect homes, keep the fire out of communities before we
can even think about suppressing that fire. That has
contributed to the costs. That is not going to change. I
understand why people want to live next to the national forest.
I want to live there too. But in combination of what we are
talking about here and then continuing to work with our States,
we can do a better job to reduce that threat, but it is just
essential that we stop this disruptive practice.
Mr. Simpson. Well, I need to thank you for the work that
you did up around Ketchum this last summer. It was amazing when
I went up there, the homes you saved. There is absolutely no
reason any of those homes are still standing today except for
the great work the Forest Service and hotshot crews from all
over the country that came in and did fantastic work.
But what everybody needs to understand is, if we budget
according to the request as 70 percent of the 10-year average
and we do not get the cap adjustment, we will be in worse shape
than we have been in the past, because all of a sudden you will
be borrowing a lot more because you will only be funded at 70
percent of the 10-year average. So the cap adjustment is
vitally important if we are going to budget this way.
AIRTANKERS
One last question if I could ask it, Mr. Chairman. In the
defense authorization bill last year, the Forest Service
acquired a number of C-130s. My understanding is that these
planes required retrofitting and work to be able to meet the
Forest Service needs. What is the status of those planes? Where
do you intend to base them? And what is your plan to maintain
those planes? I suspect this does not address the full need of
the Forest Service for planes. What is our standing there?
Mr. Tidwell. Okay. The status is that we are working
already with the Air Force to begin the process of retrofitting
those planes and then transferring them. It is going to take
probably close to 3 years before all seven of them are in
restoration. The rest will come on in another year or two. We
will contract out the maintenance and operation of these
aircraft where we have several different offers of facilities
that have the hangar space, et cetera, to be able to do the
maintenance of these planes, so we are in the process of making
that decision.
It will not be enough. Our large air tanker strategy
estimates between 18 and 28 planes that we need. Our budget
request in fiscal year 2015, we are asking for funding to be
able to have 25 large air tankers, and that will be a mix of
our legacy contracts, our next-generation aircraft, and even in
fiscal year 2015 we may still need to be able to contract with
Canada for use of some of their aircraft. We feel this is the
right number we need to have with the mix of aircraft that we
have, and so that is our plan. So these seven aircraft will be
very helpful. It will be part of the fleet but it will just be
part of it.
[The information follows:]
We expect one Forest Service owned and contractor operated
C-130 H aircraft to be operational in early FY 2015.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Moran.
SUPPRESSION CAP ADJUSTMENT
Mr. Moran. Mr. Calvert, before Mr. Simpson leaves, I do
want to put on the record, because I do not know whether it has
been reported on much but what he did in terms of the fire
budget showed real leadership. He really deserves a lot of
credit on that. It is also bipartisan and it gave an
opportunity for the Administration to work with the legislative
branch. That is probably why we will never read about it. It is
a real success. So nice going, Mike.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. Mr. Chairman, Ms. Pingree has a hearing at 10,
so I would like to defer to her for questions.
Mr. Calvert. Ms. Pingree, you are recognized.
FOREST INVENTORY AND ANALYSIS
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to
the Ranking Member, my colleague, for just giving me a minute.
I will not take up a lot of your time, but thank you so much
for the good work you do, and to my colleagues who I know are
diligent on these issues who have a lot of Forest Service land
and who have to deal with the devastating losses due to forest
fires, I appreciate some of the challenges that they face.
I come from the opposite end of the country, and in New
England, we do not have that much land managed by the Forest
Service but our forests are extremely important to us
economically in Maine. They have been just sort of the backbone
of our economic landscape for a very long time.
I am going to ask you just about one tiny little program
that we are concerned about. So the FIA, the Forest Inventory
and Analysis program, is critically important to us because of
the information it provides us, and right now we are obsessed
with the winter moth in Maine and the damage that it is doing
in coastal areas, the defoliation that started to occur, and
then the other places where people have observed the winter
moth and are just starting to see some of the effects. I know
that we are able to access some biological controls, and that
has been very useful to us, but we are concerned about what
will happen in the future, and particularly I am concerned
about the budget cuts in this area and whether we will be able
to continue to access assistance on this, so it is just one
tiny piece of a multitude of things that you do, but can you
comment on that and what concerns you have about how we will be
able to access that in the future.
Mr. Tidwell. Thank you for your question. First, with FIA,
the budget request will allow us to continue to be able to do
all the surveys in all the states in the lower 48 and
everywhere except interior Alaska. There is an increasing
concern, especially in the East, to accelerate the pace and
rereading the plots, and so we work very closely with the
states that are able to contribute, to be able to accelerate
that, and because of situations like with the winter moth, that
is a good example of the need to probably get in there and do
reread the plots a little more often than we currently do.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
The other key part of it is our research. We continue to
have species come in like the winter moth. It is essential that
we maintain our research to be able, ideally, to find a
control, whether it is hopefully a biological control that will
help slow that down, but then also to really understand these
species, how they move about and what can we do on the
landscape. Maine has incredible forests, and our role there is
to help support through our research and development, through
our state and private programs to work with the State to make
sure that we are providing the science that they need and not
only with control, biological controls, but also how we maybe
need to manage the species a little different. There are
different things we need to do silviculturally to address the
stresses, whether it is winter moth or the next invasive we
will have to deal with. This budget will maintain our research
and development.
It is also essential with the Opportunity, Growth, and
Security Initiative that is outside of our discretionary
budget, but it does provide, another $18 million for research
that is so essential for us to be able to expand our research
and not only to deal with invasives but also to make sure that
we are continuing to understand the effects of the changing
climate on our forests. I cannot stress how important it is.
Our forests, right now sequester 14 percent of the
CO2 that is emitted every year. The majority of that
is off of our private land forests. If we ever lost that
forested landscape, imagine another 14 percent of
CO2 in the air in any given day, so that is just one
of the benefits of our forests, and Maine does more than its
fair share. Thank you for the work there.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much for your answer, and I
will continue to stay in touch on that particular issue. Thank
you. And we will keep our forests working for the rest of New
England and the East Coast.
RIM FIRE
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Chief, August last year, as you know, we had a catastrophic
fire in California, the Rim Fire, which burned 256,000 acres
including 154,000 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest. I
understand that the burned area emergency response work to
address imminent hazards had been completed, and efforts to
accomplish NEPA for the salvage of hazard trees and burned
timber and restoration activities had begun.
I also understand that the Stanislaus National Forest has
formed two interdisciplinary teams. One team will produce an
environmental assessment for proposed hazard tree removal along
194 miles of high-use forest road, administrative and
recreational facilities, and areas adjacent to private
infrastructure. The second team will produce an environmental
impact statement regarding salvage and restoration. The
objective of that project is to implement actions designed to
reduce potential for future catastrophic fire by reducing the
fuel loading created by the Rim Fire including capturing the
perishable economic commodity value of the fire-killed trees
through timber salvage in support of that objective.
My question is, where is the Forest Service in the process
of producing the necessary environmental assessment and the
environmental impact statement?
Mr. Tidwell. Mr. Chairman, for the first phase on the
roadside, we will have our decision out in May, and I expect
that the forest will be starting to implement that contract
right after that. For the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
for the larger restoration work, that EIS will be completed in
August, and once again, I expect we will be able to move
forward to issue a contract for removal of that biomass and
doing that work within a few weeks after that.
The forest has done a great job working with the
collaborative that has been in place there. We have good
support from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to be
able to shorten the time frames that require the public comment
that have saved months in our process, and then we are in
position ready to use my authority so that as soon as a
decision is made, the contracts can be let and we will deal
with the objections while we are doing the work. So we are
doing everything we can to expedite this work.
Mr. Calvert. Approximately when do you think that salvage
operation will begin?
Mr. Tidwell. I expect the roadside salvage will start
probably in late May or early June. The rest of the work--the
decision will be out in August. They should be able to get the
contracts going by mid to late September.
AIRTANKERS
Mr. Calvert. Good. Another subject quickly. We talked about
this new technology, PCADs, and you discussed the limitations
you have with aircraft and trying to get aircraft online,
certainly the C-130s, in the timeline that we have to put them
onboard. But this PCAD technology of being able to air-drop
suppression on these fires directly and supposedly, once we
test this and make sure it works, allowing for immediate and
accurate response and being able to use an assortment of
aircraft in the inventory of the United States government,
potentially being able to borrow, say, a C-17 or a C-130
without having to accommodate for typical changes on the
aircraft that would have to be necessary in order to use it for
firefighting. So if in fact that works, I think it would help
us have a lot more potential for additional aircraft and
flexibility. So there could be some advantages. On paper, it is
sounding like a cost-efficient alternative to retrofitting in
fighting wildfires. So I would hope that the Forest Service
will continue to research this PCAD system, and I would ask, do
you think it is a viable option for use in fighting fires?
Mr. Tidwell. We looked at that technology back in 2011 and
had concerns about the accuracy of the retardant delivery and
then also the concern about potential safety from the
containers when they hit the ground. That has been a couple of
years ago. So now if the technology has advanced or addressed
some of the problems that we identified back in 2011, we would
be more than glad to be able to take another look at it. We are
always interested in using the latest technologies to improve
our effectiveness.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum--oh, excuse me, Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. Either way. Do you want to go?
Ms. McCollum. No, that is fine.
URBAN AND COMMUNITY FORESTRY
Mr. Moran. Chief, the Urban and Community Forest program
has--I know you are aware, 83 percent of all Americans live in
metropolitan areas, so their access to national forests is
pretty limited, and yet this Urban and Community Forest program
has been able to provide access to towns and cities across the
country to advance forest management, even though they are much
smaller forests we are talking about in many communities, and I
do think it provides more political support for the Forest
Service around the country than would otherwise be the case,
whether it be restricted to western and rural areas where
national forests predominate.
So that is why we question the cut for $4.3 million. A 16
percent cut is fairly significant one. Can you tell us what
activities are going to be cut as a result of that reduction in
the budget?
Mr. Tidwell. There is no reduction in our Urban Community
Forestry program. We have moved money that we have in the past
into the Landscape Scale Restoration or Redesign part of our
state and private programs. The concept there is to take
several of the state and private programs and put them together
so that the state foresters can do the same thing that we want
to do, which is look at larger areas together. So the Urban and
Community Forestry funding, the reduction that you indicated,
has been moved to that program. We increased Landscape Scale
Restoration by $9 million.
The communities will still need to compete for it but I am
confident that especially in our urban settings, because of
some additional advantages they have, they probably have the
competitive edge versus some of the states that have less
population. But that is our approach so that state foresters
can look at these larger landscapes together and have several
different funds come together versus having to pick this
program or this program.
COLLABORATIVE FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION
Mr. Moran. Thanks for explaining that for the record. This
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program is something
we are very pleased to see the authorization doubled, and I can
understand the $60 million request but just know that we are
very supportive of the program, however much you want to
request and use of it because it has been very successful in
terms of leveraging resources.
INTEGRATED RESOURCE RESTORATION
The Integrated Resource Restoration program, this past year
you are continuing a pilot program in three regions. Can you
share with us a little information on how well the pilot
programs are doing and compare it to the change in the way they
were operating prior to the IRR approach?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. In fact, we will be sharing with the
Committee shortly the independent review that we commissioned
last year to take a look at what is going on, how well this is
working, and what the review has found is that it has helped to
take the separate different programs, whether it is wildlife,
watersheds, fisheries, forest management, or road
decommissioning effort and bring those programs together to
increase more effective application. It has also reduced the
administrative burden of having to deal with multiple budget
line items, and we are increasing the integration, which helps
us to do a better job.
So the initial results are very positive, that this is a
better way. Also, this is something that we did a couple
decades ago when we had the authority to have majority of our
budget in one budget line item. It was my personal experience
at that time--I was a district ranger--that it was a lot easier
to be able to look at the landscape, determine what work needs
to be done and be able to do all of it together at the same
time versus lining up. We had this amount of forest management,
we had this amount of watershed, this amount of fisheries and
had to design different levels of projects. So the initial
results are very positive, and we appreciate the support to be
able to have this pilot and to continue this pilot. I think
this independent review--there is another phase that they need
to complete--and once that is done, I think it will be time for
us to really sit down and have the discussion about expanding
this across the board.
TRAVEL MANAGEMENT
Mr. Moran. Very good. Just one other question, if it is
okay, Mr. Chairman?
The budget justification on the success of the Legacy Roads
and Trails program where you decommission old timber roads that
are damaging forest resources you tied to the implementation of
these forest travel management plans. You got more than 300,000
miles of open roads in the national forest. It is six times as
large as the interstate highway system. Give us an update on
your success in implemented these travel management plans? And
that is the last question I have.
Mr. Tidwell. We completed 80 percent of the forest and
grasslands that completed the travel management plan, which
identifies the system of roads and motorized trails that we
need to maintain to provide access to do our management work
but then also for the public. So we still have another 20
percent.
Travel management is not about closing roads. It is about
identifying the transportation system that we need to be able
to manage forests and provide access. The forest Legacy Roads
and Trails that you are referring to, it provides the funding
to be able then to decommission the roads that are no longer
needed and to reduce the sedimentation that is occurring off of
these roads. As you pointed out, we have a larger road system
that we need, but at the same time, we need to be able to make
sure we have the right system in place, but for those roads
that are no longer needed or causing a lot of degradation, they
need to be dealt with. And so between the two, it helps us to
be able to work with the public to identify the system we need
and then to be able to move forward and decommission roads that
are no longer necessary.
Mr. Moran. Good. Well, that is what we want you to do:
identify the best roads and then close off those that are not
being used to preserve the forest. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Mr. Stewart.
BARK BEETLE
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, thank you for being here with us. Mr. Dixon, your
job has been easy so far today. We appreciate your being with
us as well. A couple comments if I could and then questions.
Chief, just as an aside, I used to be CEO of a company
calling the Shipley Group. We trained probably half of your
employees on environmental policy and NEPA policy. I am quite
familiar with the good work that the Forest Service does. Like
any agency, it is not perfect. There are some things that we
are concerned about and would like to see improvement. If I
could offer you a sincere compliment and the good experience
that we have. I noticed in your bio, you were the regional
forester in the northern region and you talked about
collaborative agreements, especially some community-based
collaborative agreements. We have some issues with endangered
species in the southern part of my district. I represent Utah,
and we wrap around west and go all the way down south,
particular with the prairie dog, and the commissioners down
there and other local leaders and some citizens tell me they
have very good response working with the Forest Service, that
they have had an actual collaboration. They are grateful for
that, as am I. I wish I could say the same thing of some of the
other agencies, BLM in particular, which has not been helpful,
and in fact, actually quite unhelpful in our efforts there, but
they do not feel that way about the Forest Service and so we
are grateful for that.
Harking back again in my own experience, I was an Air Force
pilot for a lot of years, and I flew helicopters for a while,
and I remember, I was stationed in Spokane and flying all over
the Northwest. We would do rescues, and you spend a lot of time
in the forest pulling people who had been injured or whatever,
and at the time I would notice a difference in the forest, and
some appeared just different. I did not know what it was, and I
know now that some of them were very healthy and some of them
were not, and that has been exaggerated in the years since, and
what I realize now is that many of the healthy forests were
state-managed and some of the unhealthy forests were federally-
managed. Again, going to my own district now, you go to
southern Utah and you look at some of those forests and you
just want to cry when you see what the bark beetle has done to
them, and it is frustrating, and frankly, to make the point
that has been made already, if we are worried about fire
management, then we have to consider the bark beetle and what
that has done to some of these forests. I mean, they are a
nuclear bomb waiting to go off, should lightning strike or
another source of fire. Help me understand what we can do about
that, what your intentions are on that.
Mr. Tidwell. Well, Congressman, first of all, thank you for
recognizing the good work that our folks are doing, and I also
thank you for all the training that you provided. I have
personally attended some of those courses myself. So thank you
for that.
To answer your question, it is what we have been focused on
here for about the last four years, to increase the restoration
of these forests. We recognize that there is 65 to 80 million
acres of our national forests that need some form of
restoration to restore their forest health, restore the
resiliency so they can withstand fires, insect, disease,
drought, et cetera. So that is what we have been working on the
last few years. We have made continued steady progress to
increase the number of acres that are treated each year, to
increase the outputs that are coming off of those lands.
Your recognition of collaboration has been the key. We used
to spend a lot of time in this country having a lot of
controversial debate, criticism about how forests should be
managed. Today in more and more places in this country, there
is agreement about what needs to be done, and it is through
these collaborative efforts that we have been able to expand
our work at the same time, where budgets have been flat and
what has happening to our staffing. Today, compared to 12 years
ago, we have 49 percent fewer foresters in the Forest Service.
All of our national forest system staff is down 35 percent, and
our folks are doing the same level of production as we were 10
years ago, and they do it through collaboration, improved
effectiveness using better job with National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) to reduce that, but I can tell you that I
think we have hit the max, and that is one of the reasons it is
so important about this budget request. It does ask for some
additional funding in these key program areas so that we can
continue to accelerate restoring these forests and that is what
we need to do. So thank you.
TIMBER SALVAGE
Mr. Stewart. We agree that the bark beetle is a concern in
the West particularly, I am sure.
A concern that is kind of tangential to that is that there
is salvable timber in many of these cases, and because of
interest groups who--and I have seen this again and again, that
they come in, they file suit. They know that they can delay
that activity for a number of years until that timber no longer
has any value. Do you share that concern and do you think we
can make some progress on that?
Mr. Tidwell. We are making progress. I go back to my time
when I was a regional forester in the northern region following
the fires in 2007, we were able to implement every one of our
salvage projects. We were sued on one, but by the time it was
addressed in court, we had completed the work.
The Chairman was talking about the large Rim Fire in
California, and the idea that we are going to be able to move
forward to decision to salvage that material less than a year
after the smoke left, it shows the difference in collaboration.
LAND MANAGEMENT PLANS
Mr. Stewart. I agree. That is great progress.
Mr. Chairman, if I could, just one more minute, and that is
a concern I have with forest management plans. Many of them are
outdated. Again, you see the same effort where groups will come
in in, I believe, a disruptive effort. They will sue. Many of
these NGOs, in my opinion, are using these as a vehicle for
raising money and raising their profile. Are we going to see
some progress, do you think, on implementing updated forest
management plans?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. We are moving forward already with our
new planning rule that will accelerate the process and do a
better job to require collaboration up front. We also have a
Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) committee that is helping
us to develop the directives, and I can tell you that group has
done an outstanding job, very diverse interests. All interests
are represented on that FACA committee but they have been able
to find ways to really bridge the gap between the differences
to come up with the recommendations that are going to help us
to have a better set of directives. The directives are
basically the how-to. The rule is the rule, and those
directives are essential, but we are already seeing that
progress is being made and in 2014 we will have 27 forests that
are under forest plan revision.
Mr. Stewart. Okay. Good. Thank you, Chief.
Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum.
INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
There is lots to talk about, but I am going to go back to
one of the topics that Mr. Moran was talking about in a second,
but first I want to talk about international forestry. It is no
surprise how I feel about the program, and I want to thank the
Chairman for hearing me out on this.
The international forestry protects American interests
abroad, and in fact, without it, I never would have voted for
the Peru trade agreement, and that was one of the reasons I
voted for it was to show on good faith that when you really sit
down and try to address environmental concerns and work it out
in a country partnership, we can have free and fair trade. So
that was critical, and as we have more and more trade
agreements, especially in Latin America, forestry projects are
going to be part of it.
The other thing that we do is, we export working with our
embassies the best soft power in the world. It is a win-win for
the world. It is a win-win in addressing climate change. It is
a win-win addressing deforestation. It is a win-win in
addressing water shortages which, which came first, the chicken
or the egg, on deforestation and what happens with water quite
often.
For every dollar we invest, we leverage $3 from other
federal agencies and for nonprofit organizations, and I have to
tell you, our capital is being the United States government. We
are here to work with you in partnership with the international
forestry. You cannot do much better than what perhaps the parks
or USGS does when they work internationally.
So Mr. Chairman, thank you for restoring the funds but here
we go again. So I am hearing that OMB has a problem with this,
I am prepared to talk to President Obama one on one but I just
want to let you know that I am going to work really hard to
maintain this program, and it is not about personalities in
here. I know you are making tough decisions and tough choices
working with the Administration, but if we let this program go,
we are not going to be able to pick up other future in trade
like mine possibly on a lot of these things, and we are going
to let something go that we are never going to be able to
reconstitute again but it is huge soft power and also speaks to
our working in partnership with climate change and forest
restoration. So a lot of the other things that we are doing
internationally, whether it is feed the future or whatever,
indirectly you play a role in it, so that is more of an
editorial comment, because your number is your number, and I am
not going to put you on the spot.
INVASIVE SPECIES
But I want to go back to this urban forestry and tie it in
with the invasive species. We have bark beetles and eventually
everything likes to come to Minnesota and eat our trees, and
when they do, they create unhealthy trees. They create fuel in
future. So one of the things that I would like to understand
better, there are things in the Ag budget that affect some of
the research and some of the work that you do, and I am
wondering if when budget time comes for where those places
intersect if you are having a conversation with Ag on it
because if you have done a cut and Ag has done a cut, then it
is a bigger cut than maybe people of the committee realize.
URBAN AND COMMUNITY FORESTRY
The other thing I wanted to talk about is, what is going on
with our urban forests right now. I understand you have this
pilot. I would like to see a breakdown on this pilot. Did you
work with the League of Cities or the National Council of State
Legislators or the Governors Association or other organizations
when you came up with this pilot.
Mr. Tidwell. I have been working with the State Foresters.
Ms. McCollum. You have been working with the State
Foresters? Okay. In all 50 states?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. Okay.
Mr. Tidwell. First of all, I appreciate your concern in
understanding the importance of our urban forests, and as you
mentioned, so many of our pests, the invasives, they often come
in through the ports. They get into urban forests and then they
spread through the forests of the country, and so that is why
it is so important for us to care for our urban forests, not
only to reduce infestations but at the same time we have over
100 million acres of urban forests in the country. They are
doing a good job to help clean the air, improve the quality of
life, increase the property values, et cetera. So there is a
long list of benefits from those forests.
We do work very closely with our other agencies in the
Department of Agriculture, and especially with the Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), who has the lead on
many of these species, these invasives, as far as basically
eradicating that. We provide the research for how to do things
and the technology, so we work very closely with them.
In the budget request, there are some areas that we have
had to reduce our program request just with the recognition of
deficit reduction that needs to be dealt with, and so there are
various programs that we have had to reduce but at the same
time we are trying to coordinate everything as well as we can
to make sure that the Federal government, and the Federal
agencies are working very closely together.
Your concern about the League of Cities is probably
something we need to do a better job to be able to reach out to
them to make sure that as we are looking at a pilot, that they
understand the benefits of that, and once again, it is a pilot.
It is something that based on our past experience, we think it
will work. We will provide you the crosswalk that you have
asked for, and I will be glad to do additional briefings about
just how this would play out and how the urban part of this
landscape restoration and redesign would work.
Ms. McCollum. So I would like to see a breakdown about how
much, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, other
urban areas, what they are really going to be looking at doing
because as you said, this stuff transfers through. I was just
talking to Ms. Pingree, and I said now I need to learn about
the winter moth soon to visit Minnesota. Why? Because of the
railcars that are going along the northern border, and that is
how the Asian ash borer really kind of took off. We found out
when we did some research on that, there were hotspots with
that. So I really want to see a breakdown about how this is
working.
And then the other thing about pilots, and I am all for
pilots, but this is really a lot of money for a pilot project,
so I would be curious how the pilots were selected too.
I would like to close with a comment. One is, when I was on
the agriculture environmental committee when I was in
Minnesota, we worked to establish a forestry council. I will
tell you, they are wonderful and it really opened up the eyes.
People really listened to each other. It really changed the
tone and the way timber sales and everything were conducted in
Minnesota. So they can work miracles, and if we need to put
more funding into doing that in some of the western states or
something, to launch that, I would be in favor of that. What
did you say, 49 percent reduction in foresters?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. Well, I have two foresters in my family. They
are both girls, my nieces, and they just changed the way the
University of Minnesota calls its forestry department because
people were not getting hired. There were not jobs there for
them. So I think we not only have a potential of seeing what
our forestry service is experiencing, our State forestry
services are experiencing with cuts but eventually there is
going to be a huge labor shortage because as people are
retiring out, we are not putting the graduates into the field,
and so that is something that we need to think about too if we
are really going to manage our lands.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Ms. Herrera Beutler.
TIMBER HARVEST
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chief Tidwell. I do not think I have seen you
since you came out and visited some of our forests. I really
appreciated that, and I appreciate the time you took to come
see some of the challenges.
Every time I sit through a Forest Service hearing, I get
excited and frustrated because I feel like we have got a
partial solution. Ms. McCollum was talking about the 49 percent
reduction in foresters. Part of the challenge is, we are not
harvesting anything. That is part of what they did to your
budget, right? We have talked about this. You know, I hear all
this talk about bark beetle infestation, disease and invasive
species or catastrophic wildfires, and yes, I think we can
definitely acknowledge there are more people moving into
certain areas, that climate is changing, it is evolving, but we
are also not actively managing our forests the way we used to,
and to not acknowledge that is a huge part of the problem.
You have made some progress on this. Mr. Stewart was
talking about the lawsuits, and I recognize they are a huge
piece of it. In the Northwest, we operate under the Northwest
Forest Plan, which means we are allowed to harvest about 62
million board feet per year out of the Gifford Pinchot. I do
not have this year's numbers. I think we got about 16 million
out of it, and we got sued for that. So the fact that we are
not going in and doing what we are supposed to do under the
current law means there is more fuel, and there is more
foliage. You were talking about CO2 emissions. When
a tree falls and then rots, it begins to let off methane, which
is 24 times more potent than CO2. So for us to go in
and harvest like what you are trying to do with the Rim Fire
and put things on a fast track, not break any rules, you can
follow all of the rules and the laws and NEPA and SEPA and so
on and so forth. The problem that we have is when you finally
get through all that, you have checked all the boxes, you have
dotted all the i's, and then someone says we are going to sue,
and then we settle. I think that is probably discouraging to
the morale of your foresters, probably to the folks who work on
these collaboratives, who have put all this effort and good
faith in, and we need a change. I recognize not all these
policy decisions are driven by you. The fact that OMB told
Committee staff last year that they do not believe the fuel
buildup is contributing to fires, and it goes on to name global
warming and expansion of timber communities as the main causes
of fires burning faster and hotter accurately displays some of
the challenges you are up against.
Having said all that, this is one of my number one most
important issues. I have so many blue-collar communities who
are just dying. The forests are dying. You can walk, like you
did, from a State forestland to a Federal forestland and it is
just night and day. So we are hurting the species, we are
hurting the forests and we are hurting the families that depend
on the forest. We need your help. So as you can imagine, timber
targets on Gifford Pinchot, I was not super happy about the
2014 targets that came out. They were put out before the
omnibus. Should we expect a change based on the omnibus? Are
you going to set that a little higher?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, Congresswoman, first of all, thank you
for taking the time to be with me and our staff and folks out
in the field. I think those are such productive times to be
able to have that type of discussion. You know, the Gifford
Pinchot is one of our better performing forests as far as being
able to get work done. Last year, with as tough a year as we
have had with sequester, they exceeded their target. For fiscal
year 2014, we estimate our targets based on the amount of
funding that we receive, and we have kind of a set amount,
costs X amount to produce 1,000 board feet off of every forest.
We know those are the costs. So we just do a quick analysis
based on X amount per 1,000 board feet, how much budget do we
receive. Then the forest will look at their program of work,
and it all depends on how things line up as to when decisions
can come out, but it is a very high-performing forest.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. When you say high performing, you mean
in terms of timber sales?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Compared to? I heard the exact
opposite, and we are not hitting anywhere near the 62 million
under the Clinton Forest Plan. Literally, I think we are under
10 million.
Mr. Tidwell. Five hundred million dollars less over 10
years, 49 percent staff in just foresters, 35 percent fewer
Forest Service employees doing the same amount of work as we
were doing 10, 12 years ago.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. So you are hitting the same target?
Mr. Tidwell. To me, that is extreme high performance. Our
employees are overtaxed. You see it in the employee viewpoint
survey. What I hear from our folks constantly is that you keep
asking us to do more with less.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
What I am talking about are timber harvests and the amounts.
Mr. Tidwell. They have exceeded their targets. Their
performance has continued to go up year after year.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. We have been harvesting more timber
year over year for the last 10 years?
Mr. Tidwell. Well.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. We have hit the 62 million board feet
that we were supposed to hit?
Mr. Tidwell. No, we are not funded for that.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Okay. That is what I am getting at.
That brings in more funds, and that means that the work your
folks are doing is not wasted work. I mean, they have to be
frustrated when they work with the collaboratives, they do
amazing work on the ground with my folks. I know it. But when
they get sued, and then their work is for naught, I would
assume that morale is pretty low.
Mr. Tidwell. There is a high level of frustration with our
employees because of the need to do more work. I have led out
on that to identify how much work needs to be done. You see it
in our forests. There is no question about that. But I will
tell you, they are doing a tremendous job with the resources
that they have. On that forest, there is less litigation there
than in many other places because of the collaborative work
that they are doing there and to be able to implement projects.
So when I talk about a high-performing unit, it is about what
they are actually getting done with the resources that they
have.
When we were out there on the ground that time, Ted
Stubblefield, the previous forest supervisor, was there, and in
the time he was there they were able to do a lot more work. But
the thing that Ted shared with all of us, he said there is no
way I can manage this forest with the budget that I have. These
have been the consequences. I understand the reductions that we
have had to make. I understand the deficit reductions. So we
are doing everything we can to do that. But I think we have to
come to the point to realize there is only so much that can get
done with the staffing that we have.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Absolutely, which is I why I encourage
you to utilize one way to bring money into the budget, which is
to selectively harvest some of the timber, which will reduce
the forest fire budget, reduce the invasive species because you
are going to--you are heading off the problems at the pass. In
Region 6, one of the challenges we are seeing is some forests
are getting more than others because you make those decisions
here. One of the things we talked about, and Ted supported, is
doing some sort of a demonstration project that allowed you to
harvest in an area and return some of the funds to that area
for restoration work.
I recognize you have less funds. I mean, if you look at the
Forest Service budget over the last 25 years, it has been
straight down, but that straight down correlates with the
amount of actual harvest you do in the forest, which is the
purpose or was the purpose of the Forest Service.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. I am not saying that your people do
not do good work. I am saying we need to work together to make
sure that some of these missions are fulfilled, and under
current law, under the Clinton Forest Plan, hitting some of
those timber targets.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chairman, on this point, if the
gentlewoman would yield, I am trying to understand----
Mr. Calvert. If the gentlelady would yield?
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Yes.
TIMBER SALES
Ms. McCollum. I am trying to understand some of the budget
correlations, so Mr. Tidwell, when you sell out, you are not
making--a large enough profit where you can reinvest and rehire
more staff on timber sales, are you, because of the way it is
charged out and what happens in the budget? Are you even
breaking even on the timber sales?
Mr. Tidwell. It would depend on a sale but we have never,
ever been in the business to make money. We are there to manage
the national forests for how the public wants those managed
under multiple use, and so when we do a timber sale and there
are revenues that are generated through stewardship
contracting, we are able to use those receipts to be able to
get more work done, create more jobs. Twenty-five percent of
the receipts go to the Treasury for Secure Rural Schools. There
is a certain portion that if it is under a timber sale
contract, the money will go into the Knutson-Vandenberg plan or
the Bush Disposal plan to be able to do some restoration work
through that.
But at especially today's prices, we are still in a very
depressed market, and I think nationally, our base rates are
$57 a thousand. That is like it was back in the 1970s. So these
sales, and on your forest, it is bringing a little more than
that. It is probably closer to maybe 80 because of the quality
of the material, and the road system that is in place, it is
more efficient. This needs to be about the work that needs to
be done on the forests. I think that the majority of the
controversy that we have dealt with when it comes to forest
management has been driven by, when someone thinks that we are
managing the national forests for individual profit versus what
is the best thing for society versus what is the best thing for
the land, that is when we run into trouble.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. I understand that. I am not saying
commercially harvest our forest. I am not saying undo the
Clinton Forest Plan. I am not saying break current law. I am
not going there at all. What you just said is true. If we are
able to harvest some more of that timber, which is healthy for
the species, it is healthy for the trees, it is healthy for us,
we want to recreate there because we are not afraid of the--I
mean, it is a win-win-win, and my dying communities who can
help manage these things, the schools that are reliant on them,
I mean, it boggles my mind that we have a challenge with this
piece. We are not talking about commercially harvesting the
forest. Nobody is advocating that. I am talking about
protecting our federal forests. I do not want a burn to come
through and wipe out what is part of our heritage in the
Northwest.
So regenerating some of that revenue is not for commercial
profit. It is so that you can hire more foresters who can do
more work on the forest. I am not saying we are going to use
that money to go, I do not know, build a monument to ourselves.
I want it to go back into the forest. I want us to take care of
the forest.
So with that, I think my point is made. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Mr. Moran.
FOREST SERVICE MISSION
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have any
further questions, but I wanted to point out that--well,
actually, I do have one other question. While harvesting is
obviously an integral part of forest management, just for the
record, the Forest Service was actually initially established
to protect clean sources of water. That was the original
mission because the haphazard timber process was blocking
streams and so on and the people downriver were not getting
clean water. Is that not accurate in terms of the original
mission of the Forest Service, to protect the sources of clean
water in downriver communities?
Mr. Tidwell. Originally back in 1905, it was to provide
clean, abundant flows of water and a sustainable flow of timber
off the land.
URBAN AND COMMUNITY FORESTRY
Mr. Moran. Thank you. And just one other thing I wanted to
underscore, Mr. Chairman. You know, granted, we have very
different constituencies, and I have no forests in my district,
but we have people who are desperate to be able to get out into
open space, so that is why we continue to underscore this urban
and community forestry. You say that the reason for the cut is
that you have more money in landscape-scale restoration but
there is no word in that LSR budget about using any of those
funds in urban and metropolitan areas. So again, there is
reason for us to be concerned. We take it on your assurance
that that is the intent but I have a suspicion that it is going
to be real tough to get that money put into metropolitan areas.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Tidwell
for his extraordinary leadership. He comes from the ranks of
the Forest Service, and he has done a great job, and Mr. Dixon,
who did not have an opportunity to show all the stuff he knows
today also serves all of us very well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you. If there are no other questions, I
will be closing up.
Ms. McCollum, do you have any other comments or questions?
LANDSCAPE SCALE RESTORATION
Ms. McCollum. Just that I look forward to seeing a
breakdown in the pilots on this new landscape program as well
as we are going to look at the Ag budget for research on
insects and then compare it. I think we need to do a melding of
that and seeing if we need to watch what is going on in the Ag
budget in order to make the money that they have work
effectively.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Calvert. Duly noted.
SUPPRESSION CAP ADJUSTMENT
Well, Chief, I want to thank you for coming. Obviously some
passions in the West are hot as fire, and certainly in
California, certainly in the States of Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, many of the states, Utah, where these forests are
located. There has been a lot of change in the last 20, 25
years when I first came here, but I know you are doing the best
with the resources you have, and I look forward as we move
through this process, I am hopeful that Mr. Simpson's
legislation is going to pass because under the budget rules,
you are probably aware, that we are subject to a point of
order. I would encourage you to talk to Mr. Ryan and to Ms.
Murray, the respective chairs of the Budget Committees in the
House and the Senate, about the need to get a change in how we
budget for wildfire.
I have some other questions regarding overhead costs and
program costs and things like that that I will submit for the
record and allow you to get back to work.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 2015 BUDGET REQUEST
WITNESSES
JONATHAN JARVIS, DIRECTOR
BRUCE SHEAFFER, COMPTROLLER
Opening Remarks of Chairman Calvert
Mr. Calvert. The Committee will come to order. Ranking
Member Moran is stuck probably on the bridge. I live here on
the Hill so I do not have that problem, but he will be here
shortly.
Mr. Simpson. Some of us cannot afford the Hill.
Mr. Calvert. Okay. Moving on.
Director Jarvis, I want to thank you and your colleagues
for being with us today to discuss the important work of the
National Park Service and your priorities for fiscal year 2015.
It is nice to see our friends, Bruce Sheaffer, and a member of
our Subcommittee family, Grace Stephens, with you today.
As you know, our Subcommittee worked very hard to restore
funding to a number of critical areas within the Park Service
budget in the enacted fiscal year 2014 appropriations bill. We
were particularly focused on reversing some of the detrimental
effects of sequestration on the operations accounts. I am
pleased that we were ultimately able to restore funding to
fiscal year 2012 levels. We fully intend to follow the regular
order process this year and have a funding bill enacted for
fiscal year 2015.
Overall, the proposed funding level in your fiscal year
2015 budget request is $2.6 billion, which is $55 million above
the fiscal year 14 enacted level. The largest increase, about
$40 million in discretionary funding, is proposed for efforts
relating to the Centennial of the National Park Service. We
look forward to hearing in some detail the Service's plans for
celebrating its 100th anniversary and the role Park Service
partners and the private sector will play in this effort. One
proposal related to the Centennial worth noting is the revival
of the Bush-era Centennial Challenge, a concept which proposes
to leverage $10 million in federal dollars with private sector
dollars through a one-to-one matching of funds.
Ironically, the largest funding increases proposed for the
Park Service, well over $1 billion, through proposed changes in
mandatory programs outside of the jurisdiction of this
Committee. It appears that the vast majority of the
Administration's request to address the deferred maintenance
backlog and to fund a larger piece of the Centennial requires
legislation by the authorizing committees of jurisdiction, not
the Appropriations Committee.
Another issue addressed in the budget request is the
authority the Park Service uses under the Federal Lands
Recreation Enhancement Act--FLREA--to levy entrance fees. This
authority, which is set to expire at the end of this calendar
year, is critical to providing revenue to our national parks.
It is also important to the Forest Service and other Department
of the Interior land management bureaus. We hope you will shed
some light today on the importance of this authority to your
overall mission, and make a strong case for why the authority
should be extended.
Like any number of my colleagues on the Committee, I look
forward to seeing the remaining scaffolding on the Washington
Monument come down in the coming weeks and having this famous
landmark reopen to the public. This subcommittee is very proud
to have played a role in providing $7.5 million of the $15
million required to repair the damage from the earthquake
several years ago with the remaining funds provided by
philanthropist David Rubenstein. Members of the Subcommittee
and our staff look forward to visiting the Washington Monument
when it reopens in mid-May.
Mr. Calvert. Director Jarvis, we look forward to hearing
from you on these and other issues but first, I will yield to
my friend, Mr. Moran, but I don't know if Betty wants to make a
few comments.
Ms. McCollum. Yes.
Mr. Calvert. I recognize Ms. McCollum.
Opening Remarks of Ms. McCollum
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We are very pleased to have you here today. I am glad that
the Chairman brought up sequestration because I want to take a
second and thank all the people who work in the Park Service
but especially those who had direct contact. I was up at
Voyageurs when sequestration was going on, and the way that the
Park Service handled it, the comments that were made in
International Falls and other places as they were afraid things
weren't going to go well for them. The Park Service is to be
commended for just doing everything that they could to continue
to make sure that visitors had good experiences keeping some of
the facilities open for the boaters when they came in at
Voyageurs. I am sure you did that in other parks as well to the
best of your ability. So I just want to thank you and all the
federal employees but the Park Service employees that I
interacted with too.
I am very excited about hearing more about the Centennial.
I had the honor and the privilege of being at Gettysburg,
having family that fought with the Pennsylvania Regiment but
representing the Minnesota Regiment. When I was out there, the
work that you did on moving staff around at Gettysburg because
of a high visitor turnout.
So thank you and all the people who work in the Park
Service for all the flexibility that you have shown this
committee and our Nation during the sequestration shutdown, and
I share the Chair's optimistic view that we will not go back
there again.
Mr. Calvert. From your lips to God's ear.
My family was on the opposite side in Gettysburg, but we
were all there.
Ms. McCollum. I hope we did not get any of you.
Mr. Calvert. With that, I am happy to recognize the
Director.
Opening Remarks of Director Jarvis
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee, and thanks for this opportunity to appear before
you for the 2015 budget request for the National Park Service.
I would like to summarize my testimony and submit the entire
statement for the record.
First, I would really like to express my deep gratitude for
your support for the work we do, being stewards of the Nation's
treasured resources. We look forward to working with you, and
particularly as we lead up to the Centennial in 2016 and really
the beginning of our second century of stewardship and public
engagement.
The roots of the National Park Service lie in the parks'
majestic, often isolated national wonders and in places that
exemplify our cultural heritage, but our scope now extends to
places really difficult to imagine 100 years ago, into urban
centers and rural landscapes, deep within oceans and across
night skies. The 100th anniversary will draw the attention of
the Nation and the world, and we must be prepared to welcome
new and returning visitors excited to learn, explore and be
inspired by the national parks.
In partnership with the National Park Foundation, our
official nonprofit partner, we have embarked on a campaign to
increase the public awareness of the opportunity presented by
these extraordinary natural and cultural resources.
The highlight of the 2015 request is the Centennial
Initiative, which includes a $40 million increase in
discretionary funding and an investment in the national park
system that includes $4 million to engage a new generation
through the 21st Century Conservation Service Corps, $2 million
to provide opportunities for increased volunteerism, $16
million to invest in the rehab of high-priority assets such as
visitor use facilities, historic structures and trails, and $8
million to hire seasonal employees to support visitor
experience. Seasonals are really the face of the national parks
to our visitors. They provide ranger talks and guided hikes.
They operate visitor centers, maintain trails, keep visitors,
employees and resources safe. The remaining $10 million will
reinvigorate, as you indicated, the successful Centennial
Challenge program where partners match federal dollars one to
one to leverage our ability to protect resources and tell
America's stories.
In addition to the discretionary request, the Centennial
Initiative includes $400 million annually in mandatory funding
including $100 million for the Centennial Challenge, $200
million for the Second Century Infrastructure Investment to
address deferred maintenance and $100 million in a multiagency
competitive Centennial Land Management Investment Fund.
Separately, the Administration's 2015 Opportunity, Growth, and
Security Initiative includes $100 million for the Second
Century Infrastructure Investment and $100 million for the
Centennial Land Management Investment Fund.
Overall, the budget would restore 1,700, or 20 percent, of
the high-priority park assets to good condition, create
thousands of jobs, provide more than 10,000 work and training
opportunities to young people, and engage more than 265,000
volunteers in support of public lands.
The results of a new economic report highlight the value of
investing in the national parks. In 2012, the parks received
more than 282 million visits. Visitor spending generated more
than $26 billion in output, which supported more than 243,000
jobs. Every dollar invested by taxpayers in the national park
system returns $10 to the U.S. economy.
The operations request also includes a $2 million increase
for seasonals to support visitor services at new parks like
Cesar Chavez National Monument and new responsibilities like
the new visitor center and museum at Fort Davis National
Historic Site.
The request includes a $1 million increase for line item
construction to address the most critical health and safety
improvements. The Administration again proposes a reduction in
the National Heritage Area program, which supports the
directive in the 2010 Interior Appropriations Act for
established heritage areas to become more self-sufficient.
The budget includes an increase of $6 million for federal
land acquisition projects to acquire more than 4,400 high-
priority acres in authorized parks.
The request also includes a $192 million mandatory proposal
for NPS land acquisition and recreation grants for the LWCF
including $115 million for federal land acquisition projects,
$52 million for state conservation, and $25 million for UPARR,
the Urban Park Recreation and Recovery program.
The remainder of the 2015 request is largely flat from 2014
plus fixed costs.
As we prepare for our second century, the National Park
Service must recommit to exemplary stewardship and public
engagement for our national parks. We must promote the
contributions of the national parks and our community
assistance programs to create jobs, strengthen local
communities and support ecosystem services. We must
strategically integrate our mission across parks and programs
and use their collective power to leverage resources and expand
our contributions to society.
Mr. Chairman, thank you. That concludes my statement. I
will be pleased to answer any questions.
[The statement of Jonathan Jarvis follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman. In the interest of
allowing Chairman Simpson to start his Energy and Water
Committee, I am going to recognize him for the first round of
questions.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairman, and I appreciate that
courtesy from you.
I appreciated your testimony. I appreciated our
conversation the other day. Just for the record, what is the
first unit of the national parks?
Mr. Jarvis. Yellowstone.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I just like to throw that out there
for everyone to know.
Mr. Jarvis. There is some debate between California and----
NATIONAL MALL RESTORATION
Mr. Simpson. I know, but that was a State thing. That is
okay. Every time I go to Yellowstone, I say man, this is the
most unique and beautiful park, and I go to Glacier and say no,
this one is, and then I go to Yosemite and say no, this one is.
They are beautiful places, and you have a great responsibility
trusted with these jewels of America, so I appreciate the job
that you do. I am concerned. I spoke with you the other day
about the backlog in maintenance that we have to do. About half
of that is in roads and in other systems that need to be
addressed, and it is something that we need to start looking
at.
This is not so much a question but a statement that I hope
is heard beyond the walls of this room. We are putting hundreds
of millions of dollars into fixing up America's front yard.
That is the National Mall. We are replanting the grass. We are
actually putting in sprinkler systems. Imagine that. Things
that we can actually maintain. A large complaint I hear from
people from Idaho that come out here and see the Chamber of
Commerce pictures of the Mall and then walk down it, or have in
the past, and come into my office and say gee, why do you guys
not maintain that thing? You have crabgrass going all the way
down the Mall and it is, you know, rock hard.
We are putting money into saving that. There are no
sacrifice zones on the National Mall. We love the National Mall
to death, unfortunately. There are a lot of activities, and
everybody wants to do them on the National Mall. We can't
overuse it. We have to be responsible for it, and while there
are a lot of activities that I support that are important and
that people love, we have to take care of this place. I am not
going to be a part of spending millions and millions of dollars
to restore this only to see it sacrificed 20 years from now
knowing that we have not achieved what we are trying to
achieve. So I want to work with the Chairman and Mr. Moran to
try to solve the challenges that we have with other
organizations that want to use the Mall, because historically
they have done it. We all know who we are talking about, and it
is not just the Smithsonian. There are a lot of other
organizations that use the Mall too. We have to be more
thoughtful in how we preserve that Mall because it would be a
shame not to protect the investment that we put on there, and
as I said, there are going to be no sacrifice zones on the
Mall.
So I appreciate all the work you do. I do not really have a
question for you except make sure that Yellowstone remains the
number one premier park, because there is a sliver of it that
goes through Idaho.
Mr. Cole. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Simpson. Sure.
Mr. Cole. I sit on the Smithsonian board. If you will work
our appropriation, we are going to work with you on the Mall.
Mr. Simpson. Okay.
Mr. Moran. If the gentleman would yield, I could not agree
with him more for what it is worth, and in fact, we had a
conversation almost identical yesterday afternoon. You are
absolutely right, as far as I am concerned, and we are not
going to spend $30 million on that grass, for example, and then
have it all killed for a one-time activity. So you are right
on, and I appreciate you making that point, Mr. Simpson. And we
like Yellowstone too but there are lots of other parks too.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Calvert. I will put in a little thing for Yosemite too.
It is a good park.
Mr. Moran, you are recognized.
LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND COMPETITIVE GRANTS
Mr. Moran. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
While you ought to have one of the best jobs in government,
it certainly was not last year during the shutdown, Director
Jarvis, and I know you underwent some real tough times, but the
parks were a symbol of the government but it was a symbol that
people had taken for granted, and when they were shut down,
they thought holy smokes, well, we can't have this, and I think
it underscored how much the American people love their national
parks. It also underscored how important the work of the
National Park Service is in maintaining them.
Mr. Simpson raised the same issue, and I am going to be
more specific. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, I think we
are going to have to, Mr. Chairman, side with the Park Service
in terms of the protection of this investment we have made in
America's front lawn, if you will, and let you know that you
are going to have our support in terms of making the tough
decisions in terms of where they ought to be located, but we
are not going to create the sacrificial areas on the Mall, not
with how important it is and how much of an investment we made
to make it presentable.
Let me ask you about the competitive grant program within
the Land and Water Conservation program. Have you developed the
grant criteria at all, and when do you expect that to start?
Because I really do think having a competitive grant proposal
is going to get more communities involved in land and water
conservation.
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you for that question, and we really
appreciate this Committee's support with this concept around
having a component of the Land and Water Conservation Fund as a
competitive grant program. It is something we have been wanting
to have because we feel that an investment, particularly in the
urban landscapes, is going to reap great benefits to
communities, and by establishing a set of criteria by which it
is an open competition amongst all States and communities
across the Nation, this is a perfect example. We have been
working for about a year to develop criteria. We have been
working with the State park systems, the NRPA and the State
liaison officers around these kind of criteria as well, and our
hope is to have grants out the door by this summer. We will be
glad to come back and brief any of the Committee about the
criteria that we have developed. It is very close to release.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION FUND COMPETITIVE GRANTS
Mr. Moran. Good. I am glad to hear that.
We also have another competitive grant program that is
targeted at underrepresented communities on the National
Register of Historic Places. You requested $3 million last
year, but now this year you are only requesting half a million.
I doubt the need has changed. Do you want to just explain why
that kind of measly little sum? I have a suspicion.
Mr. Jarvis. No, the need certainly has not changed. As we
have testified in the past, if you look at the National
Register, which is over 70,000 sites across the Nation that are
owned privately and publicly, they really in total represent
only less than 10 percent of minorities and women in this
country, so we feel an investment is incredibly important to
draw these out. We have a number of initiatives in this area
that will complement this $500,000 in working with the States
that are independent of this. We have launched an American
Latino Initiative, we have launched an Asian American-Pacific
Islander Initiative, and we have launched a Women's Initiative
in the last year or so to identify sites around the Nation.
With this grant funding we can seed the actual development of
the proposals through the State historic preservation officers
to get these to roll out, so that is our goal, and we have a
group already that we have developed. For instance, for the
National Historic Landmarks program, we have the murals of
Diego Rivera in Detroit, which are fantastic, a story of the
auto industry, that were painted by American Latino artists. So
that is the concept that we are trying to do here.
NEW UNITS, ANTIQUITIES ACT
Mr. Moran. Well, you did not really answer the question why
you are only asking for half a million, but we can reach our
own conclusions.
Just one last thing. You added some new units to the
National Park Service. Fort Monroe, Cesar Chavez, Harriet
Tubman, you mentioned those. I wanted to say that what I know
about the Fort Monroe designation as a national monument under
the Antiquities Act, boy, that worked well because it got the
State involved, it got the localities involved, it got the
private sector and leveraged a lot of money. It was really a
terrific example of collaboration and protecting national
treasures with everyone having a role. I wanted to thank you
for your kind role of spearheading that, and I assume it
occurred with the other two units that I am less familiar. Is
there anything you want to say about the national monuments
designation?
Mr. Jarvis. Well, we did have the opportunity to use the
President's power under the Antiquities Act to designate Fort
Monroe, Harriet Tubman, Charles Young, Cesar Chavez and First
State National Monuments, all adding to the National Park
Service's responsibilities, but we very carefully crafted them
in such a manner to not take on large operational costs. Fort
Monroe is a perfect example of a partnership park with the
redevelopment authority and the Commonwealth of Virginia, where
we narrowed on what we wanted and felt that this was sort of
the perfect example to tell the story of Fort Monroe, the
contraband decision and the book-ins and the beginning and end
of slavery. Also, these sites are intentional in that they
represent, much like the national register program, the story
of all Americans, and obviously Harriet Tubman, who led the
Underground Railroad and network to freedom, and Colonel
Charles Young, the leader of the Buffalo Soldiers, Cesar
Chavez, the American farm workers movement, all of these are
incredibly important stories and the Antiquities Act allowed us
to capture just a little piece of that and make them a part of
the system.
Mr. Moran. Good for you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
NATIONAL MALL CONCESSIONS
Mr. Calvert. Thank you. Since we were talking about the
National Mall, I think I will just continue on that for a
second and then get back to my original questions.
One of the ideas that is being discussed for additional
non-federal revenue is for our parks to review and make changes
to the concession operations at the national parks, and as you
know, the trust for the National Mall is a nonprofit providing
support for the future of the National Mall, has evaluated
current concession operations on the Mall and I understand is
working closely with you and the Park Service to increase
revenues, improve the quality of the visitor experience and
providing additional options for food, guests, restrooms,
facilities that are needed in the Mall, and the trust proposes
to increase the revenue from these concessions and invest that
revenue into long-term improvements and continuing maintenance
of the Mall, and I think that is what Mr. Simpson was referring
to. If you maintain the Mall all year long, 365 days a year, a
lot of the problems that we have experienced in the past would
not be experienced in the future.
So I guess the question is, with the present status of the
ongoing dialog with the trust over concession services on the
Mall, do you expect to come to a timely agreement in the
future, and how much annual revenue is being brought in by
concessions on the National Park and how do you believe an
agreement with a trust will affect future concessions?
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you for that question. Absolutely, we are
pleased to have a partnership with the Trust for the National
Mall, who brings both initially their philanthropic support to
our work on the National Mall. We completed a management plan
for the Mall just a year or so ago that really directs us to
reinvest in all kinds of components, and you have seen some of
it already, and thanks to this Committee, the sea wall at the
Jefferson Memorial, the reflecting pool at the Lincoln
Memorial, really making these far more sustainable. The next
major project besides repairing each of the panels on America's
front lawn is Constitution Gardens. It is an area that really
has never been sort of developed in a way that it can be the
kind of urban park that it really deserves here on the National
Mall, including the potential for a really nice restaurant.
There was always the concept of a restaurant at Constitution
Gardens.
So the concept with working with the Trust is to create a
revenue stream for them that would be reinvested directly into
the Mall. We have other models of that around the system, and
so this would be an opportunity where you have a combination of
both philanthropy and a leverage opportunity out of revenues. I
do not know exactly what the current revenues are out of the
Mall because it is a combination contract. The current
concession contract has everything from the marinas to things
on the George Washington Parkway, so we are in the process of
working to sort of break that up and then create an opportunity
for a revenue stream out of the Mall operations that would be
turned back. It is an old contract, and we are working with the
Trust. We are working with the authorizers because it would
take some change to make that happen.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE FUNDING AND OPERATIONS
Mr. Calvert. As we discussed recently, getting a fiscal
year 2014 appropriations bill completed has made a big
difference in the National Park Service. One of our goals, our
Subcommittee's goals, in which we were ultimately successful
was to reverse the detrimental effects of sequestration and
restore funding for your operation accounts to the fiscal year
2012 levels, as I mentioned in my opening statement. What are
the practical effects in terms of staffing, park maintenance,
overall visitor experience of restoring that funding to the
2012 level?
Mr. Jarvis. Well, thank you for doing that. Sequestration
is a particularly difficult challenge for the National Park
Service, so having worked for the Park Service for almost 40
years and having been a park superintendent, I know exactly
what that feels like. A typical park, if they have managed
their funding provided by the Congress well, might have
somewhere between 85 to 90 percent, somewhere in that
neighborhood, fixed costs on an annual basis. That is salary,
utilities, fleet, fuel, all of those components, that sort of
money that is going to go out the door to run basic operations.
So you might have 10 percent, and some parks have less than 5
percent of what we would call discretionary funds on an annual
basis, and that is your seasonal workforce. Your entire
seasonal workforce comes out of that discretionary money, and
that is the frontline rangers that are there to meet and greet
the public, to provide search and rescue, to do firefighting,
all of that, because the permanent work staff tends to be much
more of a skeleton crew.
So that seasonal workforce was hammered by the 5 percent
across the board because, in the Congressional budget
justification, every park is a line in the budget. So I do not
have the discretion to take 5 percent out of one account. It
hit every park in the system at 5 percent whether it was
Whitman Mission or Yellowstone, and they had to absorb that. So
you saw reductions in hours of operation, you saw a significant
reduction in the seasonal workforce, our ability to host
programs, evening walks and talks, all of the kind of stuff
that is sort of bread and butter to the national park system.
So restoring that, and in the 2015 budget, restoring fixed
costs, the fixed cost increase, which is $16 million, in this
budget is an incredible reestablishment of our ability to do
basic operations in the parks.
Mr. Calvert. Ms. McCollum.
CENTENNIAL OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to follow on the reduced budget a little bit and the
effect on seasonal employees. When I spoke with some of the
seasonal employees, especially at Voyageurs, a lot of them are
also firefighters that are used by the Forest Service. It is a
precarious income that they are living on to begin with, and
the other thing that became abundantly clear is, many of these
seasonal workers eventually hope when openings become available
in the Park Service that they will be able to get them so they
would gain some experience and some knowledge. So if you could
elaborate a little more on why it is important we get the right
balance of seasonal workers?
The other thing is, and I have not been to as many parks as
I am going to get to, but all politics being local, I spend a
little more time in Indian Run and on the St. Croix. So on the
St. Croix Scenic River National Park, we have, I think, only
one law enforcement officer for a whole stretch of park, which
just gets inundated in the summer with people. I know that they
are very concerned about bathroom facilities for people to use,
and we have people that are pulling houseboats and boats up and
camping in areas that they should not be.
Now, if this is happening here, I know it is happening in
other places. I know it is not my park superintendent's choice
and I know it is not your choice and other park
superintendents. So I am very excited about what we are doing
for the Centennial. With some of the Centennial improvement
projects, do you think you are going to be able to
significantly knock down some of the backlog?
Mr. Jarvis. I will start with the seasonal question first.
We typically hire when we are more or less fully funded,
somewhere around 9,000 seasonals a year, and that has declined
over the recent years, and this budget will restore about half
of that decline but not fully. The seasonals, they are our farm
team for future employees in the park system, and many of our
seasonals work multiple seasons for us, and over time gain
significant skills, firefighting being one of those, and they
get dispatched when there is a large fire. We work interagency
on fire response and fire suppression, and we will get a call
if there is a big fire in the West like the Rim Fire last year,
and we will get a request for fire crews and line officers and
the like throughout, and we draw from our seasonal workforce,
absolutely. This country fights its fires with the land
management employees and from BIA as well, and it is really
important to have them, and to have them skilled and have them
trained through multiple years of experience as well.
Law enforcement as well. As we gear up for our summer
operations and we get hundreds of millions of visitors coming
to our national parks, our law enforcement staff and rangers
are incredibly important to provide safety, rescue. Our rangers
do not just do law enforcement. They do emergency medical, they
do firefighting, they do structural fire, all of those things.
It is a little different than your typical urban law
enforcement in most cities.
The second component here is that we do have a request in
the budget for maintenance backlog at $16 million. On the
mandatory side, this is where the real bulk of the requests
exist for maintenance backlog to take on these challenges of
new restoratives or repair of our existing responsibilities. I
think if you look in total at the request, the full request,
which counting the mandatory and the component that is in the
Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative, it is over $600
million. That is a bigger figure of what the real need of the
National Park Service is to address its backlog, to take on all
these issues.
Mr. Moran. But you did not ask for that money?
Mr. Jarvis. It is in here but it is not on the
discretionary side.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chairman, I have a little time left.
I want to talk about the international relationship that
you have with international parks. The more I delve into some
of the work that U.S. Fish and Wildlife does, the Park Service
does, USGS does, and when I am traveling in Africa and in Latin
America with some of our embassies, you are kind of the anchor.
The embassy staff is rotating in and out. You are there. You
are providing, soft power as well as some real expertise in
some of these developing nations and protecting some of their
natural resources, and in Africa in how to set up an economic
engine of tourism. Could you tell me what missed opportunities
we are having? Because I am very concerned about, when people
start attacking your small travel budget, that means you are
not bringing, people out in the field. Could you maybe
elaborate a little more about if you had just a little more
money or if there is any cuts, what it would impact on the
international park program, which is very, very small but I
think plays a very significant role in our national soft power
influence.
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you for that question. The total
International Affairs Office of the National Park Service is
three employees, so we have three positions that provide
services at the request of the State Department. We are
frequently requested by the State Department to provide what
they call soft diplomacy around the world and helping countries
protect their history and their sites of conservation. The Park
Service is the world-recognized leader in that, and we have
provided consultation to Angkor Wat in Cambodia or to the
fantastic park system in Costa Rica, and we are currently
providing assistance to Colombia, Cambodia, South Korea, parts
of Africa and others, but we do it on a shoestring, frankly.
Generally they pay our travel for us to come and provide
assistance, and we draw from our field staff. We have great
expertise in the concessions and business opportunities because
most countries do not have the kind of appropriated funding
that we have in the United States for our national park system.
Their park systems often struggle so part of it is basic
training for their employees and for the business side of their
opportunities as well. But we host hundreds if not--well, I
would not say thousands but hundreds and hundreds of
delegations that come to the United States every year to see
how we ran our national park system, from China, from all over
the world.
We carry on with a very small operation but do provide
great service and great representation for the country.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Mr. Stewart.
DEVELOPMENT NEAR NATIONAL PARKS
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jarvis, thanks for being here today. Thank you for your
many years of service, and thanks for coming in and speaking
with us.
You may not remember, we sparred a little bit last fall
when we had a hearing on another committee that I used to sit
on dealing with sequestration, which by the way, I think all of
us would like to avoid another government shutdown, which was
the primary focus of this, or at least that hearing, and we
were exploring some of the implications on national parks and
how many of us felt like that maybe it was a way to minimize
the impacts on the American people because of the shutdown, and
harkening back to that, again, I think you and I share goals
there. We would like to avoid shutdown if possible. We would
like to have more access to these national parks in the event
of that, and I am sure you would agree with that.
I am from Utah. If you love to play outside, as I do--I
love to climb, I love to hike, ski--I mean, there is no better
place than my State. That is why I chose to live there,
frankly. We have five national parks, six national forests,
seven national monuments--some of them are huge--you know, a
number of national recreation areas, historic sites, et cetera.
You and I share a love for those types of things, and we
appreciate your efforts to do that.
A comment which leads me to kind of a broad question I
would appreciate your input on. About a year ago, I had kind of
an interesting experience in my office. We received two pieces
of correspondence in the same day from actually the same
organization, the National Parks Conservation Association, and
one of them was one of their newsletters where they were proud
of the fact that they had stopped some oil and gas development
that were within proximity to one of the national parks in my
district, not very close. Honestly, I think some of these
groups feel like if you can see development from the park, that
is intrusive, but heavens, in the West, on a clear day you can
see 120 miles sometimes, and on the same day we received this
newsletter with them so proud that they had stopped this
development, they also approached me and asked me to increasing
funding for the national parks, which led to an interesting
conversation within our office regarding the apparent irony
there.
What I would like to ask you is, do you have ideas or do
you have a philosophy where we can bring these two what seem to
be competing interests and have some coalition around some
goals that both would be served? You know, I think in some
cases they consider again the proximity around these national
parks as being de facto national parks. You cannot have any
development at all there, whether it is in energy extraction or
many other types of development as well. Share with us your
thoughts on that, will you please, and how we can maybe reduce
the conflict and have some community involvement and other team
building on that?
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you for that question, and I think it is
a great point. By the way, I just saw Utah's Mighty Five
advertisement for the five national parks in Utah, and I was in
Salt Lake last week and met with your State tourism director,
and she indicated that Mighty Five tourism has been very
effective and obviously a fantastic resource in Utah.
I think we have today the analytical tools through
geographic information systems, Google mapping and others to
strike the right balance about where energy development occurs
as it relates to national parks. If you stand at the Island in
the Sky at Canyonlands and you look across the Canyonlands, not
all of that land is protected, right? Some of it is in the
park, and some of it is in BLM and available for development. I
think there is a public expectation, though, when they stand at
that point, that incredibly awe-inspiring spot or if they are
out in Arches and they are standing in one of the delicate
arches that the viewshed is not totally compromised. There can
be some things going on in there. What we have today is, I
think, the analytical ability to look across that, and that is
one of the things, the MLP, that is going on in Utah, the
multiple leasing plan, that we are working directly with BLM to
say if you are going to develop oil and gas in this particular
area, there are ways to site and develop that minimize its
impact visually for the park, and part of it is height of the
structure, some of it is color, some of it is location, some of
it is using geographic relief to tuck it behind a hillside,
those kinds of things. So I think that is the model that we are
looking for. It is not avoidance completely but it is how you
do it.
Mr. Stewart. Yes, and of course, some people would not
agree with you in the sense that any impediment on that view
shed at all is unacceptable, and like I say, literally you can
see hundreds of miles and, you know, the irony is, in another
location we have a windmill farm, which I support, by the way,
370 or so of these wind turbines. Heavens, you can see those
things forever.
Mr. Jarvis. They are tall.
Mr. Stewart. They are very tall, and there are, like I say,
hundreds of them, and there is a much greater footprint by
something like than there is with a little bit of oil and gas
development. I am not saying they have to be one or the other,
I am saying they are not incompatible, and we would appreciate
your support and others in finding a solution, because I think
there is a way we can find a solution that most people would
agree with.
Mr. Jarvis. And I assure you that not in the public eye but
in the hallways and meeting rooms of the Department of the
Interior, this is what we do almost every day. There are
meetings with the Bureau of Land Management, also with OMB
about offshore wind, this Administration has been pursuing all
of the above so there is a lot of oil and gas and a lot of
renewables, and we are at the table working with them with how
we do both in terms of siting and minimize--because, there is a
public expectation at these sites. You are right that you can
see hundreds of miles, and distance does matter in terms of
that viewshed, and I think we are working to achieve both.
Mr. Stewart. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree.
ACADIA NATIONAL PARK CONCESSIONS
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you much for being here with us today, and I want to
let you know how much I appreciate the great work you are doing
and the vision you have incorporated into looking forward to
the Centennial and engaging as many people as possible and
understanding our national parks and upgrading them to be
ready. I am very excited about all that you are doing, and I
apologize that like so many of my colleagues, I have another
meeting to rush off to and I will not be able to stay for all
of your conversation with us today but I will submit a couple
of things for the record, and I have had a chance to be updated
with your staff about a variety of things.
Just two quick things I will throw out there. I know we
have mentioned this before but I just want to put it on the
record, on the issue of the concessioners representing Acadia
National Park in my State who is going through a concession
change this year, and there was certainly a lot of controversy
around that and deep concerns about people in the local
community about making this change. I understand and have had
the opportunity to converse about this with you and some of
your staff, and I do appreciate how important it is for the
park service to upgrade their concession contracts to have the
best possible value for our visitors and to yield the greatest
return. The one concern that came up over and over in leaving a
locally based concessioner for one that was not based in our
state with deep concerns about loss of jobs, sales of local
products, whether people will have similar relationships in
very historic sites that we feel very protective of, having
loved our park for almost 100 years.
So the only thing I want to have on the record as I have
suggested to you when the opportunity comes up to review how we
choose concessioners, that there might be some thought given to
the significance of adding, you know, points or however it is
looked at for continuity of quality or commitment to a variety
of local products because of people's great interest in being
able to buy local products or work with other local vendors,
and seeing if that could be incorporated into future decision
making. I totally respect, you know, again, the importance of
having high-quality concessioners and the work that you are all
doing to make sure that is done well, but I do not even need
you to comment. I wanted to let you know that I am going to
keep thinking about that, and I know our very vocal four-person
delegation in the State of Maine is probably thinking about it
all the time too, so I am not the only one.
NATIONAL REGISTER DIGITIZATION
Just a kind of another small maybe somewhat obscure point
is, the Historic Preservation Fund impact on digitalization.
Again, I will submit a little bit more information on this but
Maine has 1,581 listings on the Register of Historic Places, 14
national natural landmarks and 43 national historic landmarks.
Just last week, some of the Tribes in our State--we have four--
received an award from the Tribal Historic Preservation Offices
to help them preserve the stories of the Penobscot,
Passamaquoddy and Micmacs. So much wonderful work has been done
in our State using the Historic Preservation Fund and being
able to digitize particularly photographs. The city of Portland
recently did that and gave people an opportunity basically to
open up a computer and visit the city back in 1924 and see the
history of all that is gone on. I hope many of those same
things can be done with this tribal grant. I know you are
talking a lot about the celebration of the 100th year
anniversary and, you know, how well you are using that in parks
like Acadia, which is also going to celebrate at the same time,
and what an important landmark that is.
But I just want to point out that it is the 50th
anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act, and I
want to--while that may be obscure, it does touch a lot of
people in a lot of ways. It allows us to preserve our history
and gives people yet another way to come in contact with a
tremendous amount of great work that you do.
So if you could give me a couple of thoughts on work with
that, and it doesn't seem to be an area where there is
sufficient funding or there is a funding focus, and I hate to
have that disappear when we think about, you know, America's
parks being the big places out West that we go visit even
though the places out East are equally as fun.
Mr. Jarvis. Great question, and thank you for it, because I
agree with you 100 percent. We are slowly pecking away at
digitizing the records of the National Register. We have never
been adequately funded on that but we basically have, one of
those things from Raiders of the Lost Ark with a warehouse full
of paper files of the National Register, which makes them
unavailable to the American public. It is one of our Centennial
projects, and it is also a project that we are seeking
philanthropic funds for. We think it is actually a project that
we can find some donors to help us complete the digitization of
the National Register. If we were able to do that, you could
actually do a GPS Google Map reference and you could actually
design thematic tourism around specific types of theme sites,
whether they are Native American, civil rights, women's rights,
any of those kinds of things, and line them up and people can
actually tour and see these incredible pieces of American
history. Right now it is not available. They are all in paper
files. So this is a great project. We will continue to peck
away at it with our existing preparations but we do think it is
a viable philanthropic project as well.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Well, thanks for your interest, and
thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you. Amazon or Google would just be
perfect for that, would they not?
Mr. Cole, you are recognized.
SUPPRESSION FUNDING PROPOSAL
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Director, good to see you again. I want to focus on a
couple of areas that we had an opportunity to discuss but I
think it would be helpful for the Committee.
First, we touched a little bit on the problem of wildfires,
but I want to look at it from a budgetary standpoint because it
really impacts our budget. Mr. Simpson, of course, has
legislation to help try and get a handle on that. The
Administration has a proposal. They are actually quite similar.
Can you tell us what the impact of wildfires is on your budget?
Mr. Jarvis. It can be significant. The suppression costs
are going up every year for a variety of reasons, you know,
more development in the wildland-urban interface, the WUI
lands, as we call them. There are more and more homes in those
areas, which require a higher degree of suppression activities
as well, plus the fires are burning more intensely and we are
seeing fires even this year that look like summer fires in the
Los Angeles area as well.
What happens is that fire suppression costs have to be
absorbed and our accounts get swept frequently, so you have
funds that you are intending to use for construction or
operations that are sitting in an account and they need it. It
just gets gathered up and it is gone into fire suppression
responsibilities. So it really does curtail our ability to
complete projects, to have sort of basic operations that are
very unstable from an operational standpoint, but we have this
routine that we do. We know our seasonality of our operations
and, the public flows through the parks, and we line up a set
of projects to complete, whether it is accessibility or
construction or repair, rehab, and these things just get swept
up as a result of the current model for funding of fire. So the
proposal both with the Administration and from Mr. Simpson
would help resolve that with going to the 70/30 kind of split.
Bruce, do you have any details that you want to add to that?
Mr. Sheaffer. You actually stated it very well. It has had
in years past a direct effect not just in the borrowing but
actually in one fiscal year resulted in a cut to our operating
programs in order to come up with the shortfall. We have
demonstrated that the current model simply does not work and is
not the way, frankly from our perspective, emergencies can and
should be handled, and it is the not the way that we know of
any other major issue like this being handled. So this is a
wonderful proposal from our perspective, and we hope very much
that--and I know that should it not be adopted, it is going to
have a rather significant impact on our request for 2015.
Mr. Cole. I suspect frankly if it ever got to the Floor, I
do not have any doubt it would pass with overwhelming
bipartisan support, and that is something our colleagues on the
authorizing committee need to consider. I bet every member on
this Committee could tell you of some instance where they lost
something that was important in the National Park Service or
somebody was involved in that is under your jurisdiction, Mr.
Chairman. I know in one case we lost a visitors center
because--and it was legitimate. There were fires out in the
West and the money needed to be deferred. We never got it back,
and it just disappeared, and that happens frequently, and I do
not know how we can expect any of you to budget or, frankly,
this Subcommittee to be able to think through consistently what
to do until we get this structural fix, so I just want to use
this opportunity to encourage in a bipartisan sense that the
Administration and the Congress work together to resolve this
issue so you guys can have some certainty in your budgeting and
we can have some certainly on our side of the table.
Mr. Calvert. Will the gentleman yield on that?
Mr. Cole. I will certainly yield.
Mr. Calvert. And I would encourage you and I would
encourage Chief Tidwell to talk to the Budget Committee folks
on how we move forward on this. Both Mr. Cole and I serve on
the Budget Committee. There is a difference of opinion between
OMB and CBO of whether or not this is affecting the
discretionary account. So we need to deal with that.
Those of us in the West believe that--as you know, 99
percent of fires are put out within the budget. It is the 1
percent of fires that are catastrophic. And most of us in the
West have to experience this, and we believe that massive
wildfires are as catastrophic as an earthquake or a hurricane
or any other natural phenomenon. So we have a little educating
to do.
With that, I yield back to the gentleman. Did the
gentleman----
Mr. Moran. Thank you.
My only question is actually how is the Budget Committee
considering the proposal?
Mr. Calvert. Well, we marked the budget up last night. We
had some discussions about it. It was not addressed as an
amendment yesterday. But I think there is a consensus growing
that this has to be dealt with, and it cannot be dealt with as
we have been budgeting in the past. You can't manage these
accounts responsibly if we continue to react to this problem,
so we need to deal with it.
Mr. Moran. I do note that the gentleman is correct. There
is bipartisan support for it. So, it should not be a partisan
issue. Thank you.
TRIBAL PARTNERSHIPS
Mr. Cole. One additional question, one other area if I may,
Mr. Chairman. I want to be specific but I want you to be
general in your answer. I know we have a developing partnership
on a national recreation area between the National Park Service
and the Chickasaw Nation, which I think is a very good thing as
they have demonstrated--that park was originally, the core of
it was actually donated to the Federal Government by the Tribe
to preserve it during a really difficult time in their history
during the Dawes Commission when they were having their lands
essentially taken away from them and individually divided up.
They did not want this to fall into private hands. They wanted
a government of some kind to protect it because the springs
were sacred sites, and then the Federal Government has built
this wonderful facility. I will not compare it to Yellowstone
to offend the chairman but in our neck of the woods it is an
awfully nice place and a very important area, and the Tribe in
the county in which most of it sits is actually invested a
quarter of a billion dollars in a variety of facilities around
it, everything from a cultural center to a restored hotel to a
conference center and retreat that really make it work with the
park at the head of the core.
So number one, I wanted to see how that relationship was
developing, and number two, if you would give us your thoughts
going forward because I know you have a number of these kind of
things, and again, sometimes Tribes have the ability to come to
the table with considerable resources and help as is the case
with Chickasaw. Sometimes they do not, but it is still very
important for them to have the opportunity to manage lands that
were historically theirs and work in partnership, so if you
could educate us and give us a little bit of idea of what you
may need in the way of resources and/or authority.
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you. I think that the relationship at
Chickasaw is improving and headed in the right direction with a
lot of encouragement from our office and from the regional
office that here is a fantastic partner with thousands of years
of association with these lands and a deep sort of core
stewardship values. That is, for me, across the United States
in our national parks, the Native Americans in so many ways
share this long view of these lands both from their historical
perspective but also in the way they think about the future as
well, and we have been encouraging increased deepening
relationships with Tribes about joint stewardship. We mentioned
to you the other day, we have a project in the south unit of
the Badlands in terms of returning those lands to the Tribe and
establishing the first tribal national park in the country.
This has been done in other parts of the world, and we think
this is a great idea here in the United States as well.
So this is something that I am highly interested in through
my years of experience in working with Tribes, and I think this
is a great opportunity to partner. Obviously there is a wide
variety of tribal capacity out there. Canyon De Chelly is a
unit of the national park system that is inside the Navajo
Indian Reservation and has been a great partnership over the
years where essentially they operate with our advice; and then
there are other places where we are just beginning to build the
capacity for the Tribes to actually do management. One of the
areas we are working specifically in the Yellowstone system is
to build tribal capacity to manage bison. We have excess bison
coming out of the Yellowstone system and we want to build the
tribal capacity to be able to take those and manage their own
herds as well because they are so important culturally and to
the Tribes, so that is another area that we are working on.
Mr. Cole. Just for the record, Mr. Chairman, I will end
with this. It is a wonderful two-way street in the sense that I
think the Tribes do bring a lot, as you say, with their
historic associations quite often and an immensity of knowledge
that really nobody else has, but at the same time, these
endeavors in a managerial sense allow them to develop an
enormous amount of human capacity themselves which then they
can use for other things. There is nothing like the opportunity
to manage frankly large enterprises, which these quite often
are, and which frankly these populations often do not get that
opportunity and it creates--I have seen this happen in health
care--it actually creates a human capital inside the tribe and
allows them to sometimes divert that capital into other areas,
and they can do something commercial. Again, they have trained
people that are inside their tribal unit that have both
credibility and authority. So it is a wonderful process. When
it happened, it was an unintended byproduct in health care
where Tribes had contracted that found all of a sudden they had
a lot of people that were now joint venturing and running their
own health care and have been for 35 years. Those people have
then moved into commercial activities for us. They held out
budgets, they held out funding. They know about capital
requirements. They understand long-term planning. And so it has
become a really tremendous asset. I think this could happen to
other Tribes too that are again are starved, not just physical
or financial capital but literally do not have the human
capital that they could develop. It is not unlike the
discussion that Ms. McCollum had with you on international
parks. That exchange, that knowledge goes back and pays real
dividends to the tribes. So I would really encourage you to
continue down this line and expand it where you can. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Ms. Herrera Beutler.
PEARSON AIR MUSEUM, VANCOUVER NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Director
Jarvis. I would be remiss if I did not mention the Pearson Air
Museum at Fort Vancouver. As you both know, I have been really
critical of the Park Service and how it handled this. I had
hoped a lot of heartache could be avoided but I really would
like to applaud you both and the Park Service. I feel like you
and your staff in recent meetings with my office and throughout
this process have really moved to the middle to find a
solution, and I am grateful for your willingness to do that. It
was a good-faith move, like I said, to come to the middle to
find a compromise. So it is my sincere hope that the Park
Service and the trust can come to a resolution on this and we
can move forward and the community can move forward.
RIM FIRE
One of the things that had come up in a meeting, was fire
suppression and managing resources. It will continue to be a
hot topic, and I was really impressed with--so we talked about
the Pacific Rim Fire yesterday here when we were talking with
the Chief Forester and how you all were really able to protect
the park--because of your practices and your management to
really mitigate the impact on the actual park so the area
around burned but the park actually did really well, and I was
hoping you could speak to why that happened just a little bit.
Mr. Jarvis. Well, for a long time, many decades, the
National Park Service has been investing in managing for fire,
recognizing that fire is part of our system, and you can only--
if you just put it out over and over and over again, you are
just postponing the inevitable, and so these fire-dependent
systems like in the Sierras have to burn at some point or else
they have to have significant fuel reduction, and the
combination of that is incredibly important to us. And so in
Yosemite in particular, Sequoia and others where we have some
of our most critical assets and in Yosemite you have the Hetch
Hetchy Reservoir, which is a critical water infrastructure for
the city of San Francisco and then the giant sequoias and the
old-growth forests, you really cannot just wait until fire
comes. So we have been actively managing the watershed in lock
units for a significant amount of time, both in terms of where
there is development using wildland-urban interface funds to do
fuel reduction, do removal of ladder fuels and pile burning,
and then within the larger landscape using prescribed fire
burning when we want it to burn, not necessarily when lightning
strikes.
And as a result, you can significantly see this. I have
seen all of the maps both pre and post in terms of the Rim Fire
and how it moved through the forest and on lands. We were able
to go up to the Tioga Road and backburn down to the fire and it
resulted in really no significant impact within the park. It
burned much more in a mosaic. We did not lose any of our old-
growth big trees at all as a result of that fire, and the
watershed for Hetch Hetchy Reservoir was also protected and it
did not result in any significant impact to the water quality
going into it, and that water is not treated. That water is not
filtered, so what would go into that water was pretty important
to the city, and again, that was protected, so that was the
result.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. That is great. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. Would the gentleman mind explaining what does it
mean to burn in a mosaic? I have asked everyone here, and they
do not know.
Mr. Jarvis. What it means is that, if you have a very heavy
fuel load in any forest, western or eastern, essentially the
fire will just burn through and burn everything, but if you
have a mixed fuel load so you have some open space, you have
some areas that we would call a shaded fuel break so that the
fuels on the ground have been removed through repeated
prescribed fire, the fire will actually go around the fire, go
around those areas, not burn through, and burn on the other
side. And so what you wind up with is essentially a patchwork
afterwards. Instead of the whole ecosystem burned completely,
you wind up with a patchwork, and as a result, trees that
persist in the patchwork are new seed sources. Wildlife
persists within those. And the ecosystem essentially remains
intact, and that is the way fires would have burned 150 years
ago, but essentially because of suppression and because we have
not had the funding to get in and do the kind of pre-work that
is necessary, pre-suppression work, we now have forests
throughout the country that are going to have sand replacing
fires and will not burn in a mosaic.
FEDERAL LANDS RECREATION ENHANCEMENT ACT (FLREA) EXPIRATION
Mr. Calvert. On that issue also, I mean, certainly
harvesting in the national forests in the past, which has been
obviously stopped to some degree in certain areas, also has an
effect because as you point out, you remove those trees one way
or the other. Either we are going to do it, or God is going to
do it at some point in time. And if they do it responsibly, you
have a good effect on a healthy forest.
Okay. One other question, and we have a defense hearing too
that we need to go to, but the Park Service has authority to
levy entrance fees under the Federal Lands Recreation
Enhancement Act, FLREA. As you know, it expires at the end of
this calendar year. Your 2015 budget request seeks to have the
authority extended by one year. We know that that authority,
which is also important to the Forest Service and other land
management bureaus, is critical to providing revenue to the
national parks and maintenance facilities. Are you working with
the authorizing committees of jurisdiction on a long-term
extension of this current authority, and if so, what is the
status of those efforts, and what are the ramifications of
FLREA is allowed to expire at the end of the year.
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you, Chairman. The fee program is
incredibly important to the National Park Service for a variety
of reasons. We collect about $175 million annually. That is
entrance fees and campground, what we call recreation fees,
campground fees and the like, and that money is retained in the
park system. Eighty percent is retained at the collecting park.
And then we have a variety of parks that are not allowed to
collect for a variety of reasons. Great Smoky Mountains, for
instance, is prohibited from collecting entrance fees. So we
have what we call our 20 percent parks, and those are the parks
that do not collect fees, so 20 percent of the fee program goes
to the non-collecting parks.
We specifically use the fee program principally for
maintenance backlog, significant reinvestment into our
facilities. Also, very high interest in accessibility,
providing full accessibility across the system as well. So our
fee program is incredibly important. We show the public your
fee dollars at work, and we have always had a very positive
response to the investment that we use with our fee program as
well.
A couple things about the expiration of the FLREA
authority. One would be an inability at all to collect fees. I
mean, that is the base authority upon which we can collect
fees. So if we lose complete authority, if the law expires, the
second piece is 12 months prior to its expiration we can no
longer sell the annual pass. So it is really important because
the annual pass would be worth 12 months of getting into the
parks. And so beginning of January of this coming year, if we
do not have reauthorization of FLREA, then we will not be able
to sell the America the Beautiful pass and that serves BLM, the
National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the
Forest Service as well.
PAYMENTS TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS NEAR YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
Mr. Calvert. Certainly, we are going to work with you, I
would suggest that if you meet with the authorizing committees
and move that along, not that we do not do things outside of
the appropriations process from time to time.
There is another question I want to submit for you to
answer for the record. We have a number of questions to be
submitted. But one of my colleagues, Montana's Congressman,
Steve Daines, brought my attention to the issue of three school
districts in Montana that are near Yellowstone National Park
were notified by the Department of the Interior they are
required to repay millions of dollars in federal payments due
to an oversight by current and past administrations, apparently
overpayments issued to the school since 1977, since PILT was
first enacted, so we will submit that question to you and a
number of questions where we can get an answer for the record,
and there will be some additional questions.
Thank you for coming here today. I am sorry there are
hearings going on everywhere. We are all going in various
directions. But we thank you for your time and for your
service. Have a good day.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE FISCAL YEAR 2015 BUDGET REQUEST
WITNESSES
DAN ASHE, DIRECTOR
CHRIS NOLIN, BUDGET OFFICER
Opening Remarks of Chairman Calvert
Mr. Calvert. Good afternoon and welcome to the
Subcommittee's hearing on the President's fiscal year 2015
budget for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I am pleased to
welcome Dan Ashe, Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service;
and Chris Nolin, the Service's budget officer.
The President's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal for Fish
and Wildlife Service is roughly $1.5 billion in current
appropriations, which is $49 million, or 3.4 percent above
fiscal year 2014-enacted level. In any budget climate, that is
a healthy increase and Director Ashe deserves credit for
pushing it through the Department and OMB.
However, because of the Subcommittee's competing priorities
outside the Department of the Interior, because of our
bipartisan commitment to correcting disparities in Indian
country and because this Subcommittee is viewed as the funding
backstop for other must-do programs such as PILT and Wildland
Fire, we view the Fish and Wildlife Service budget through a
different lens than does the Department or OMB, and that is why
I look forward to your testimony today and to working with you
in the days ahead to enact a reasonable though likely smaller
budget that better balances what appears to be competing
administration and congressional priorities.
By far, the most pressing Fish and Wildlife Service issues
in the district and in the State I represent, and I suspect a
few other States at this table, have long centered around the
Endangered Species Act regulation. In my view, the ESA is long
overdue to be updated. Its single-species policies ignore the
latest principles of ecosystem science and its inflexibilities
regarding the allocation of scarce resources are dangerous at a
time when society is coming to terms with major changes in the
weather and climate. It is my sincere hope that proponents of
the status quo will come to the table and work with Congress to
update and improve and reauthorize the Endangered Species Act.
In the meantime, the Subcommittee must address the question
of whether and how to continue to invest in implementing
current ESA policy. Many of my colleagues and I still feel that
the 2011 settlement agreements were a raw deal. The pace of ESA
listings has clearly accelerated despite modest yet annual
budget cuts since 2010 and it is further evidence that ESA
listing activities are limited more by politics than by budget.
It is an issue that this Subcommittee will be considering
closely for fiscal year 2015, particularly in light of the
service proposal to restructure its ESA budget.
In my opinion, the Service should put far more effort in
prevention and recovery rather than new listings. This is why
the proposed $8 million cut to the State and Tribal Wildlife
Grant Program is troubling. This program partners with states,
tribes, and territories to conserve species so that the ESA
listings are unnecessary. In the coming weeks, the Subcommittee
will be looking for offsetting cuts to restore this funding,
along with considering whether or how to focus the program on
the candidate species named in the 2011 settlement agreement.
The Service's very public announcement that prevention and
recovery shall be the National Fish Hatchery System's highest
priorities, while recreational fishing shall be its lowest, has
caused quite a stir. In addition to the $3.6 billion economic
benefit that the hatchery system provides, a return, as I
understand, of $26 for every $1 invested, many would argue that
recreational fishing is one of the best ways to help America's
youth develop a love of the outdoors. In light of the
Secretary's proposed Youth Initiative in fiscal year 2015, the
Subcommittee will ensure that recreational fishing will
continue to be a priority.
Again, though I would like to give Director Ashe his due
credit, setting priorities guarantees controversy, which is why
agencies frequently publish strategic plans so watered down
that everything, and therefore nothing, is a priority. Though,
what I would like to know is this: Why not set similar
priorities for the rest of Fish and Wildlife Service? I think
many Republicans would agree that preventing, recovering, and
delisting species ought to be a higher priority. If the Service
is going to try to hold the National Fish Hatchery System to
that standard, why not hold the rest of the Fish and Wildlife
Service to the same standard? It is a question that I know that
the subcommittee will be considering in the coming days as it
weighs its options in responding to the 2011 court settlements
and the wave of ESA listings already underway.
In closing, I would just like to thank you, Director Ashe,
for sending Ms. Jackie Kilroy up here on detail, once again
confirming that the Subcommittee's finest detailees are
supplied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I wonder where
that came from.
Mr. Calvert. I am pleased to now yield to our distinguished
ranking member, Mr. Moran, who is not here. How about Betty
McCollum though?
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chair, I am just realizing online I can
get my fishing license but I am going to give you my full
attention. You convinced me I have got to get my fishing
license updated.
Mr. Calvert. That is right.
Ms. McCollum. I am with you.
Mr. Calvert. You fish without a license, you are in
trouble. With that, Ms. McCollum, do you have any comments you
want to make?
Ms. McCollum. No, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Calvert. Okay. With that, I am pleased to invite
Director Ashe to give his oral statement.
Opening Remarks of Director Ashe
Mr. Ashe. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
Members of the Subcommittee.
Today, we are at a key crossroad facing difficult and
important decisions as we prepare, very soon really, to hand
over stewardship of this planet to our children. So, as always,
I will be pleased to answer your questions about the details in
our budget and the way that we set priorities across the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. But I will use my remarks to
hopefully give it a little bit of context.
Today, the context of our work in the conservation field is
too often and really too aptly described using the word
``crisis.'' The California drought is an example of a crisis
for natural systems as well as for the millions of people who
rely on them for water and economic security. To help find
solutions, our people are working in crisis mode. Nights and
weekends are indistinguishable from workdays to them.
Our budget includes a $1.1 million increase to support the
Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a piece of a long-term solution,
but today we are all hands on deck working on the California
drought. So even work as important as the BDCP yields to the
urgency of this drought crisis.
And, Mr. Chairman, I believe you will see that our budget
proposes additional field capacity that will help us deal with
the urgent, but hopefully not neglect the important. Combined
with booming energy and agriculture, economies are fueling
unprecedented conversion of wetlands and grasslands in the
prairie potholes which produce \2/3\ of the continent's
waterfowl.
Great partners like Ducks Unlimited are calling this ``the
crisis on the prairies'' but the effects will go far beyond the
crisis. Waterfowl hunters spend annually about $2 billion, and
the difference between liberal and restrictive hunting season
will literally mean the difference of hundreds of millions of
dollars for local economies and small businesses.
We need to get ahead of this crisis curve now, today, and
our budget proposes an increase in the price of the Duck Stamp,
which all members of the conservation community support. Land
and Water Conservation Fund projects for key refuge
acquisitions in the Dakota grasslands and other places and
funds for partners for Fish and Wildlife and the North American
Wetlands Conservation Act are all key elements in addressing
this crisis.
Whether it is cheatgrass across the West or white nose
syndrome in bats, chytrid fungus in amphibians, quagga mussels
in Lake Mead and Lake Tahoe, Burmese pythons in the Everglades,
or Asian carp in the Ohio and Mississippi River systems and
knocking at the door of the Great Lakes, invasive species are a
scourge which present us with crisis after crisis. We need to
get ahead and beyond this cycle. We need better science. We
need more effective prevention. But in the meantime, we need to
face these crises, and our budget contains important new
funding to do this.
Wildlife poaching and trafficking is a global-scale crisis
imperiling iconic wildlife and national security. African
elephant and rhino poaching is an epidemic and syndicated
trafficking is decimating these iconic species. The United
States' leadership is central and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is the tip of our Nation's spear in this effort. Our
budget contains a $3 million increase to deal with this crisis.
And the litany goes on. We are seeing an emerging climate
crisis. Scientists believe we are living amid the world's sixth
great extinction crisis. Many people see crisis in an American
population that is increasingly urban and increasingly
disconnected from the outdoors.
Our budget contains funding for new science that will give
us better understanding, and support better partnerships and
sound decisions. It emphasizes capacities to support endangered
species recovery, cooperative conservation, regulatory
certainty, and expand our abilities to work with States,
industry, agriculture, and other partners. I think as we
demonstrated recently in our listing decision on the lesser
prairie-chicken, it increases our efforts to engage America's
young people, including an exciting new Urban Refuge
Initiative.
Mr. Chairman, we work amid many crises but I believe I have
given you a budget that allows us to face the urgency of crisis
but also be optimistic that we are addressing what is
important. And so I just want to thank you for your work on
behalf of the American people, for the support that we have
always felt from this subcommittee. I know you face difficult
choices and I stand ready to answer your questions and help in
any way that I can.
[The statement of Dan Ashe follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman for his statement. I am
going to recognize Mr. Simpson.
INVASIVE SPECIES
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I really do
appreciate those courtesies and I will try to return them when
he has a hearing when he is in the Energy and Water Committee.
It is a difficult time when we have so many hearings at the
same time trying to get them through.
But I have got to tell you, you brought up a very important
issue. I know it is important to me, it is important to
Representative McCollum and I think every member on this
committee, and that is invasive species. And one of the
problems that we have had looking at that whole area is what do
we spend on invasive species? There is no line item for
invasive species, and there are organizations that are trying
to develop some legislation because their theory is or what
they tell you is that about 80 percent of the money gets spent
somewhere besides on the ground actually fighting invasive
species. I do not know if that is true or not because there is
no way to account for it. So we need to work together to come
up with a plan so that we know what we are doing to attack
these invasive species.
And I have got to tell you in all honesty I am not going to
the Everglades to get rid of them pythons. They scare the hell
out of me.
Mr. Calvert. I am not afraid of snakes but I am afraid of
those things.
IVORY BAN
Mr. Simpson. Yes, those are big babies.
A couple of questions. One you could probably anticipate,
one maybe not. Let me ask the one that you will not anticipate
to start with. Recently, you signed a director's order on
ivory----
Mr. Ashe. Yes.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. And have announced that three new
regulations regarding ivory will be unveiled soon. It is my
understanding that the United States has banned commercial
importation of ivory for decades, so what we are talking about
here is not restricting illegal commerce and endangered species
but banning anyone from selling an item that contains any
amount of ivory, including firearms, jewelry, musical
instruments, and a myriad of other objects. All of us here at
this table are opposed to poaching and want to protect African
and Asian elephants. That is why it is hard to understand why
Fish and Wildlife Service is going to ban all domestic ivory
from future sales, ivory that might have been legal at the time
when it was used. Would it not be better to use the
appropriated dollars to go after the poachers and stopping the
illicit trade in ivory?
Mr. Ashe. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. We are going to use the
appropriated dollars to go after poachers, to work on demand
reduction both here in the United States and in other countries
to build our relationships worldwide, to do better law
enforcement, to help our partners do better law enforcement,
and to achieve better prosecution of traffickers globally. And
so our priority will be to find the people that are trafficking
in these products and find them and prosecute them and to stop
the killing on the ground by supporting community-based efforts
in range state countries.
What we have to recognize is the U.S. is one of the world's
largest markets for ivory, and so what has happened is we have
a situation where legal trade in ivory is a smokescreen for
illegal trade in ivory and you cannot distinguish ivory that is
pre-Act from ivory that is not pre-Act. And so we have
extensive trade. We cannot control it. You cannot distinguish
between these commodities.
Things that are more than 100 years old and have immense
value as an antique have a provenance. That is relatively easy
to track and they will be exempt, but the kind of what I would
call day-to-day commerce, if we are going to control this, it
simply has to stop. And it is important for the U.S. to be a
leader, because when we sit across the table with the Chinese
Government on this issue, they look at us and they say we are
allowing trade the same as you are allowing trade.
Mr. Simpson. Well, I appreciate that and I know what you
are trying to do. I am concerned about making things illegal or
valueless that had value when they were originally purchased
and people have maintained them and held them for that purpose,
and now we make them essentially valueless by this. So it is a
concern that I have and I want to work with you on that.
Mr. Ashe. We will propose regulations probably in June.
Mr. Simpson. Okay.
Mr. Ashe. We will be proposing regulations for comment so
we will be taking comments on that.
Mr. Simpson. I did notice when I was in Alexandria that we
are going through some of the Homeland Security ports and they
were taking some of these containers through the x-rays and
stuff and we were trying to detect whether there was, you know,
nuclear material and that kind of stuff in there, what they
found mostly was ivory.
Mr. Ashe. Right. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. It is a big problem around this country.
The second question that you will understand I was going to
ask about sage grouse.
Mr. Ashe. Right.
GREATER SAGE-GROUSE
Mr. Simpson. Where are we with sage grouse? We are rapidly
approaching the September 2015 deadline to determine whether it
warrants listing or not. I think we are all trying to prevent
sage grouse listing by making sure that we protect habitat and
so forth. What is the status of the Idaho-proposed State
management plan? And I am hearing reports of the State that the
local Fish and Wildlife officials and BLM officials agree that
the State has put together a good plan, and I do not want to
see a good agreement on the ground messed up when it gets back
to Washington, D.C. Can you tell me where, we stand on that?
And that kind of leads to my next question so you can answer
them both at the same time.
States like Idaho put a lot of work into developing viable
management plans. When this process began, then-Secretary
Salazar welcomed the States to the table early on in the
process and asserted that the State had a significant role to
play in preventing the ESA listing. Unfortunately, they now
feel that DOI and Fish and Wildlife Service have moved the
goalposts and cut them out of the process. They have worked
hard on state management plans that they now feel relegated to
the public comment period instead of being treated like
partners in the process. This is an issue that Governor Otter
and I brought up when we met with you and Secretary Jewell and
others about this issue last fall.
Mr. Ashe. I would say on greater sage grouse in general,
the effort that is ongoing is substantive; it is impressive in
its scope and the degree of commitment. We have 10 of the 11
range States working on comprehensive state-based plans for
sage grouse. We have the BLM and the Forest Service, which
control 50 percent of the habitat, working to revise 98
resource management plans.
We have the NRCS that has built a greater sage grouse
initiative and has put nearly $200 million on the ground to
assist private landowners. So we really have an unprecedented
scale of effort ongoing with the greater sage grouse. I am
encouraged by that effort and it is important that the effort
continue.
I would say with regard to the Idaho plan, we are happy
with the Idaho plan and I think BLM gave special status to the
Idaho plan. It is the only State that they gave the status of
co-preferred alternative in their land management planning
process. I think the Idaho plan is good. As we told the
governor, I believe that they need to take one more step, which
is to address private lands in the State plan. Their plan at
this point looks at the State and Federal lands and it has to
go that additional step. We are working with Idaho hand-in-
glove.
On the criticism that we have cut them out of the process,
I really do not understand that at all. I think we are working
through and with the Western Governors Association. Secretary
Salazar established the Sage Grouse Task Force. The governor of
Wyoming and governor of Colorado are co-chairs. I attend every
meeting. They meet every 2 months. Neil Kornze, Bureau of Land
Management Principal Deputy Director, attends every meeting.
The Forest Service is represented. The NRCS is represented. We
are all at the table and have a robust dialogue and back-and-
forth at those meetings. And so I believe they are integrally
involved. They are at the table and completely engaged. I would
say there are items on which we do not agree, but we have a
process to work that out.
I would make one point about fire, which is an important
issue before this committee. In the President's proposal to
deal with the balance between suppression and prevention,
prevention is going to be extremely important in addressing the
sage grouse issue. The principal threat to sage grouse in the
Great Basin region is fire. Being able to not be completely
consumed by suppression but having the ability to focus on
prevention and restoration and rehabilitation is a key aspect
of addressing the threat to sage grouse in the Great Basin.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum.
LACEY ACT
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
The two questions I am going to ask are kind of
interconnected oddly enough, wildlife trafficking and invasive
species, because I want you to talk about different sections of
the Lacey Act. How long it has been since the Congress has
worked to improve and enhance the Lacey Act to the challenges
that we face today?
But to Mr. Simpson, Gabon, Kenya have destroyed their ivory
piles. France is very proud that it was the first in Europe,
although the royal family is going through everything that they
have looking at what they are going to destroy, some things
that they might just preserve out of sight for a while. Hong
Kong is destroying ivory, Belgium is also, so the United States
is only one of the countries to do it.
Attitudes are shifting in China in part because of what we
have done. Chinese athletes are speaking out and speaking up
about it in social media and starting to transform and change
that. But China is the biggest looker-away about what is coming
into their country. Some of the activities in Africa like
roadwork and airports are good things they are trying to do.
But after the Chinese have done those projects,
environmentalists and zoologists will tell you there is not an
animal left in sight. They come in with boxcars, which are
repacked. No one looks at them again and out they go to the
port. As you said, then some of them unfortunately are landing
up in the U.S.
Ms. McCollum. So could you maybe kind of fill us in a
little bit about, what the wildlife trafficking picture looks
like? The President put more money into this initiative, what
U.S. Fish and Wildlife's role is in it. I know there are other
government agencies that you will be working with on this, too.
And then, the python that are out in the Everglades, one of
the reasons why they are indigenous and one of the reasons why
they are here is because they were allowed to be sold as pets.
There has been other problems with other releases in other
countries, let alone deal with the pests that come in, whether
it is, gypsy moth or some of the other things that we are
dealing with that come in that were not brought in
intentionally.
So the Lacey Act is kind of there to do a couple of
different things. One, it is to enforce penalties for illegal
trade of animals and plants. But as we move towards a more
interconnected world, if we were writing that today, what might
be some of the things that, we would be looking at that we
should be working with you to improve the Act?
Mr. Ashe. Thank you. On trafficking, the most important
thing to emphasize is the President's recent Executive Order.
We now have an all-of-government approach here. I think as we
move ahead, and as you and I spoke about the other day, we are
being joined by the State Department and the Justice Department
and the Treasury Department and the Defense Department. So the
ability to apply an all-of-government approach to this
trafficking crisis is key for us. I think that is important
going forward.
With regard to the Lacey Act, it was written in 1900 when
trade moved principally by steam locomotive. Today, products
move rapidly around the globe on a 24-hour cycle. I think if we
were writing the Lacey Act today, it would be much more geared
to an approval process for products to come in, much more like
we do with agricultural plants and pests that, may not come in
unless you have approval. We have a lot of things in trade and
probably what we are relegated to at this point is trying to
control them.
This committee and all the appropriation committees have an
interest in dealing with this because once invasive species are
established, we have the burden of control, which is expensive,
as opposed to saying we are not going to let something come in.
I think if we were rewriting the Lacey Act, things that are not
in trade today should not come into the country unless we have
reviewed them and made a determination that they are not
invasive. Exotic is one thing; invasive is another.
Invasiveness is a relatively easy thing to measure and we have
established protocols to do that. I think that would be the
most important aspect if we were writing the law today.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chair, I think it would also save this
committee a lot of money to put towards other things, so maybe
we need to talk to the Policy Committee and get them to take a
look at it. And I look forward to learning more from the staff.
You are concerned about hatcheries. They are a big
investment in Minnesota. I even paid $5 extra for a walleye
stamp to, improve walleye hatchery and habitats. So thank you,
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Calvert. You are doing your share.
Next, Ms. Herrera Beutler.
NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
And I know whether or not listing things is probably going
to continue to be a topic of discussion on this committee, I
actually wanted to talk about something that is already listed,
the wonderful, amazing northern spotted owl.
Mr. Ashe. I have heard of that.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. I am sure you have, as have I since I
was like 7.
There seems to be a growing understanding that managing an
entire ecosystem for one species is not as effective as we
could be. In fact, what we are finding out of the experience of
the last 20 years of policy is that it can actually be very
damaging to other species. As you know in the last 20 years,
specifically with regard to the northern spotted owl, we have
seen reductions in early seral forests and the species that
live in them, a decline in elk and deer population, a decline
in more than 40 bird species in the forests, a decline in the
spotted owl itself, which is what we are trying to protect, and
a major decline in the jobs and the families that rely on
healthy forests and forest and timber activities.
So I know you understand all of this, and what I would like
to hear from you, is Fish and Wildlife working with other land
management agencies to address this because I have heard
positive things about it from several of the folks that you
work with, whether it is Forest Service, whether it is BLM, but
address an ecosystem-wide approach versus a single-species
approach.
Mr. Ashe. Our emphasis, and it is reflected in our recently
revised recovery plan for the northern spotted owl, is
ecological forestry. It is our firm belief that healthy forests
are good for spotted owls and that we can manage the forests
and need to manage the forests. In the short run that can
involve take of listed species, not only the spotted owl but
potentially others.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Are you talking about the barred owl?
Mr. Ashe. No, we are taking them, too. I am talking about
salmon or marbled murrelet or other species that are listed and
share some of the same habitat. Forest management is necessary
to make a healthier habitat in the long run. Last year Tom
Tidwell, the Chief of Forest Service, Neil Kornze from the BLM
and I went up to the northwest. We met with all of our joint
employees in Oregon, Washington, California, and we delivered
that message, that we need to be working together to better
define and implement this notion of ecological forestry. We are
building pilot projects there. We need to manage forests. We
need to look to the future, not manage the present. We cannot
manage to a static environment. It will not work even if we
wanted it to. We need to think at an ecological scale and we
need to build recovery plans and forest management plans that
do that. I think in the end that is good for the owl, it is
good for the local economy, and it is going to be good for the
economy.
NORTHWEST FOREST PLAN
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Absolutely. I would agree. So with
regard to the Northwest Forest Plan and the amount of timber
that is supposed to be selectively harvested, you do not see a
problem in there?
Mr. Ashe. Well, we have always been a supporter of the
Northwest Forest Plan and we have been writing biological
opinions under the Endangered Species Act to support
implementation of the forest plan.
And there are many other factors. There is the National
Forest Management Act, there is FLPMA for the BLM and there are
other laws that come into play that often are challenging as
well.
From the standpoint of the Fish and Wildlife Service, we
believe we can make this concept of ecological forestry work
and we are writing biological opinions today that reflect that
and provide the take coverage for both Forest Service and BLM
to implement ecological forestry.
Ms. Herrera Beutler. Okay. Good.
With that, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you. Ms. Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being here today----
Mr. Ashe. Yes.
Ms. Pingree [continuing]. And for your good work.
I will start with one question. Before I do, I want to
thank you, thank the Fish and Wildlife Service for their
continued work with the Army Corps of Engineers throughout the
Camp Ellis project, which is in the town of Saco, Maine, that I
represent. The Service has been working with the Army Corps to
make sure that the project benefits the endangered species, as
well as the community, and I am looking forward to amenable
solutions being found for the project to go ahead and move
forward. But I have talked to the department. I know you guys
are right in the middle of that and I appreciate your attention
to that.
NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE BUDGET
I want to talk a little bit about the wildlife refuge
budgets. As I am sure you know, there are 10 wildlife refuges
in Maine, including the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge
which protects valuable salt marshes and estuaries for
migratory birds along 50 miles of coastline just in my
district, which is only about half the coast of Maine.
As we learned from Hurricane Sandy, severe weather events
can have a devastating effect on our refuges. We were able to
provide supplemental funding of $68.2 million to make repairs
to 25 national wildlife refuges and three national fish
hatcheries from Florida to Maine as a result of Sandy and the
money, but the underlying budget does not seem to have the
capacity in the future to absorb such drastic events. As I read
it, the fiscal year 2015 budget for refuges is $476 million.
This is only $4 million above fiscal year 2014. I know we are
not supposed to complain when anything goes above, but can you
tell me a little bit more about the program needs that you will
try to address with the increase, particularly given the
incredible problems you have been facing due to extreme weather
events, sea level rise, coastal impacts of storms and
hurricanes, all of which we are witnessing and deeply concerned
about on the coast of Maine and most of New England?
Mr. Ashe. Thank you. In one of my former capacities with
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I had the honor to be Chief
of the National Wildlife Refuge System, so the refuge system
certainly is near and dear to my heart. I have been to almost
all of the refuges in Maine, they are spectacular.
I would say for point number one that we have only a small
increase in this proposed budget and that will principally go
toward youth and youth engagement and law enforcement, a small
increase for law enforcement. Thanks to the subcommittee and
Congress, in the fiscal year 2014 bill we got a $20 million
increase for refuges, very generous in today's context. Thank
you for that because it has allowed us to begin to think about
filling key vacancies in the refuge system.
This is generally, not enough. Refuges by and large
represent great opportunity.
Mr. Chairman, you were speaking of the importance of
recreation and fisheries. Hatcheries are an issue where we have
put substantial investment and we have been successful in
getting the Corps of Engineers and the TVA to step up and admit
their responsibility to fund those mitigation hatcheries. I
think we have alleviated a burden from us and from you in doing
that. We are going to continue to operate those hatcheries
because we believe that is important.
In the context of refuges, we have extraordinary
opportunity to host increased visitation within the refuge
system for hunting and fishing and wildlife observation and
what we call wildlife-dependent recreation. I think if I saw
one big deficit in our capacity, it is the capacity to do more,
to engage young people, to engage the American people, to get
them outside and get them engaged in these great traditional
pastimes.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you. I would like to congratulate Mr.
Moran, who is not here, for getting credit for the fiscal year
2014 refuge budget. He was very insistent and we made sure that
that occurred, so----
Mr. Ashe. Thank you.
DELTA SMELT
Mr. Calvert [continuing]. Giving credit where credit is
due.
I want to bring up the delta smelt. I am sure that is a
shock to you. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently
upheld the 2008 biological opinion by U.S. Fish and Wildlife
that concluded that the Central Valley and the State Water
Project, which provides water for more than 20 million people
and 7 million acres of agriculture, jeopardized the continued
existence of the delta smelt and its habitat. The court
acknowledged the enormous practical implications of its
decisions, but it was prohibited by the Endangered Species Act
from making such fine unitarian calculations to balance the
smelt's interests against the interests of the citizens of
California. Resolution of that question, the court said, falls
to Congress, the agencies to which Congress has delegated
authority in the State of California.
This is the question. While we wrestle with solutions, what
flexibilities, especially now because we are going into summer,
that you are afforded under the authorities in order to provide
water for more than 20 million people in California and
hundreds of millions elsewhere who depend on California's
produce while at the same time meeting your ESA mandate to
prevent the extinction of the delta smelt? How are your
flexibilities limited by the resources at your disposal?
Mr. Ashe. I think one way, Mr. Chairman, that demonstrates
that vividly is this year for the first time because of funding
from the Bureau of Reclamation, we are doing much finer-grained
monitoring, we are actually doing real-time monitoring of delta
smelt. We have been able to provide guidance to the Bureau and
the State Water Project on a 24-hour basis, knowing where delta
smelt are and that they are away from the pumps. I think that
underscores the importance of our ability to access scientific
information and the best science that the day can offer us. We
can make much finer-grained operational decisions when we have
that kind of information.
Mr. Calvert. For the record, anecdotally, about a year ago,
December a year ago, the pumps were operating at less than the
optimum level and there was some controversy on how many delta
smelt would be lost if they operated it at a higher level, and
around 800,000 acre-feet of water was let to go out under the
Golden Gate Bridge, which we wish we had right now. I was told
later that less than 50 smelt were threatened under that
pumping regime. Can you enlighten us on that?
Mr. Ashe. When people talk about smelt and the pumps, the
smelt that are taken at the pumps are an index. The adult take
was limited to 110 smelt in our biological opinion for this
year. That is a metric. So if you see 110 taken, actually many
more have been taken. That is kind of an index to tell you
about the level.
Mr. Calvert. Well, as you can imagine, to the farmers and
to the people in California, when they hear the number less
than 50 delta smelt and 800,000 acre-feet----
Mr. Ashe. Right.
Mr. Calvert [continuing]. Being lost----
Mr. Ashe. I hear you.
Mr. Calvert [continuing]. When 800,000 acre-feet--by the
way, that is how much water we have stored in Southern
California, which will get us another year-and-a-half. It is
Diamond Valley Reservoir and a few other reservoirs.
Mr. Ashe. I think----
Mr. Calvert. That is a lot of water.
Mr. Ashe. It is and I would say I think again our people
have been doing extraordinary work hand-in-glove with the
Bureau of Reclamation and with the State on the current drought
and crisis. I would point out that there have been no pumping
restrictions this year because of delta smelt.
Mr. Calvert. Now, when you say there are no pumping
restrictions, you mean they are pumping to their legal
authority under the 2008 biological opinion, is that not right?
Mr. Ashe. No, we have not had to impose any restrictions at
all on pumping because the State restrictions for water quality
purposes have been much more restrictive than our biological
opinion. There have been no ESA, no delta smelt restrictions on
pumping at all this year.
Mr. Calvert. Well, I see Mr. Valadao came in. I am sure he
will probably have some other questions regarding that issue in
the Central Valley.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: IMPROVEMENT
Before I go to Mr. Serrano, I wanted to ask another
question on ESA single-species approach. And obviously we have
learned a lot in the last few decades about ecosystem science.
And in 2010 former Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett
wrote specifically about such weakness when it was applied to
the Bay Delta. In your opinion should Congress and the
Administration take up the issue of updating, improving, and
reauthorizing the Endangered Species Act?
Mr. Ashe. It is almost a philosophical question. Yes, they
should. My fear is that in this environment it is very
difficult to do that because taking up a law like the
Endangered Species Act requires building consensus around
objectives and I am not certain that there is consensus around
objectives. But I do believe that it is appropriate for
Congress. The law was last reauthorized in 1990. I believe it
is appropriate for the Congress to look at a law as
consequential as the Endangered Species Act.
Mr. Calvert. I suspect there would be a movement to do some
incremental improvements.
Mr. Ashe. There can be some incremental improvements and,
again, I would extend on behalf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service our willingness to work with the committee on a
bipartisan basis to find those opportunities. I think we could
find some opportunities to make incremental improvements.
Mr. Calvert. Okay. Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
being here with us today.
Mr. Ashe. Thank you, sir.
STATE AND TRIBAL WILDLIFE GRANTS
Mr. Serrano. As a supporter of the State and Tribal
Wildlife Grants, I was troubled by the reductions in these
accounts. In your budget documents, you state that State and
Tribal Wildlife Grants will be reduced by roughly $8.7 million
to address ``higher priorities.'' And then the document
continues to explain that the cuts will weaken the States'
ability to respond to species' needs and to address the needs
of non-game species. I am quite troubled to see this cut and
frankly find the explanation a little confusing. I would expect
to see an explanation as to why this does not weaken the
States' abilities to respond to needs and what the higher
priorities are.
As a supporter of these important grants, which have such a
large effect on the States and Territories, I would be
interested in hearing how this justification should make me
comfortable that this program is not being cut just for the
sake of saving money by making a cut. Can you explain how,
then, the cuts will affect the program?
Mr. Ashe. Thank you, Mr. Serrano.
I would say, first, that State fish and wildlife agencies
are our most important partner.
Mr. Serrano. Right.
Mr. Ashe [continuing]. So I offer you no argument. The cut
in the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants does weaken the
capacity of the States', important capacity, and it should not
make you comfortable at all and it does not make me
comfortable. I said to the Chairman and the Committee earlier
that I have presented you a budget that deals with crisis and
hopefully allows us to work on things that are important. I
think this is one area that is troubling in that regard because
it is important that our State partners have this capacity, but
we only had so much to work with. It does weaken our State
partners in an important way and it should not make you
comfortable. It does not make me comfortable.
Mr. Calvert. If the gentleman would yield, I will be happy
to work with you to help restore some of that funding.
Mr. Serrano. I would be glad to. It is always good to
include the minority party in enlarging the amount of money.
URBAN ENGAGEMENT
I wanted to commend your efforts to engage and work with
urban communities. I appreciate your efforts to engage urban
youth and expose communities. I appreciate these efforts
exposing them to the wonders of nature.
I wanted to draw your attention to an effort that might be
of use to your more strictly scientific mission. Your
colleagues in the Forest Service have an innovative partnership
with New York City Parks and Recreation which they jointly
operate, an Urban Field Station in New York City. They focus on
the science and research that they can carry out in an urban
environment. Their collaboration at that field station along
with other scientists and associated groups who joined them has
proven extremely valuable to our city and its natural
environment. It seems to me that the value of these
interdepartmental and intergovernmental efforts is magnified in
the current budgetary climate.
I wonder if you have been approached to join their efforts
at the Urban Field Station? If not, would you consider joining
or perhaps opening your own outpost in urban areas built on
this successful model?
Mr. Ashe. I do not know if we have been invited but I will
find out. I would like to come see you because what you are
talking about is synonymous with our Urban Refuge Initiative
and it sounds exciting. I think the opportunity to connect with
a new generation of Americans, a diverse generation of
Americans and really reach into urban audiences is an important
part of making conservation relevant to the future of America.
I would love to talk to you about that.
Mr. Serrano. Right. Mr. Chairman, something I said last
year and I will repeat it again is that if there has been a
change in how we look at things in this country, I think it has
been in the urban areas where growing up that was never an
issue. The environment was never an issue. You know, the
biggest environmental issue was how much black smoke was coming
out of chimneys, you know.
And now you have people working on rivers, creating
waterways, you know, asking for Federal, State, and local help
to be able to have a boat on a river in the Bronx, for
instance, to bring wildlife back to parks, and so on. And so it
is a whole different generation that understands that this is
part of city life as much as it is part of country life.
Mr. Ashe. Those of us who have been in the conservation
community for a long time, are interested in wild lands and
wildlife, but we are learning more and more that there are
great opportunities to connect people in the urban environment.
I think about, just a month or so ago, all the interest in the
snowy owl that took up residence here in the District of
Columbia. There is great opportunity----
Mr. Serrano. Right.
Mr. Ashe [continuing]. To engage people about wildlife in
the urban environment and it is an opportunity for us as a
community of professionals to bring that to the urban
environment.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. We are looking forward to doing a field trip
to the Bronx to see Jose the beaver, maybe about the same time
the Dodgers are playing the New York Yankees.
Mr. Serrano. I would say the beaver is having a better
season than they are.
Mr. Calvert. That is probably true.
Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon,
Director.
Mr. Ashe. Good afternoon.
ASIAN CARP
Mr. Joyce. You mentioned in your testimony the need to
limit the Asian carp in major watersheds. I am afraid if the
Asian carp make their way into Lake Erie or any of the Great
Lakes it would be not only detrimental to the region but it
would greatly impact all the fish in the Great Lakes. As they
say at home, it is game, set, match. Can you address the
specifics of the Service's plans to limit Asian carp from
moving towards the Great Lakes? What is the status of where
carp currently are? And what have you learned in the past year
on what is working and what is not as far as keeping them in
their current locations?
Mr. Ashe. Wow. You are beyond my competence here. I would
say that we are learning more and more about Asian carp every
day. They literally are at the doorstep of the Great Lakes. The
Fish and Wildlife Service, with the help of the subcommittee,
has in recent past developed this technique of monitoring eDNA
so we do not have to actually go out and find the fish. We can
look for traces of their DNA in the water and learn more about
where they are moving and where they may be without actually
finding an adult or juvenile fish. So kind of pushing the
scientific envelope is an important arena for us and an
important role for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
I am working with the Corps of Engineers to evaluate the
effectiveness of the electronic barriers and analyze the
feasibility and the desirability of maybe a more permanent
solution, working with our State counterparts on a response so
that should we find fish in the Great Lakes, we are prepared to
respond and move quickly to suppress them, much along the lines
of a wildfire so that we are prepared and we know what to do
and who has responsibility for doing what in the event of an
outbreak within the Great Lakes. I think all of the above are
the things we are doing and the things we need to do more of
and get better at if we are going to keep them out of the Great
Lakes.
Also, knowing Ms. McCollum's interest, we cannot limit our
activities to the Great Lakes. We need to look into the Ohio
River, into the Mississippi River basin to make sure we are
also limiting the spread of Asian carp in those areas as well.
In terms of the details that you are asking about, our
expert on this is our Deputy Regional Director in Minneapolis,
Charlie Wooley. Charlie is down here frequently, and I would
like him to come in and see you and give you a presentation on
where we are and what we can do with these additional funds and
make sure that aligns with your understanding of what we need
to do.
Leadership by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is going
to be essential and I think we have been a leader and we have
worked with our State partners very closely and we need to
continue to do that.
Mr. Joyce. I am glad you brought that up because part of
that as my second question. Has there been any update in the
science used to determine exactly how close the Asian carp are
to entering the Great Lakes? And knowing that you are using the
eDNA now that has been found in streams and rivers close to
Lake Michigan, do you have any information on how credible that
is?
Mr. Ashe. We are learning about the credibility of eDNA.
There have been some criticisms of its use, and so, again, I
cannot give you a precise update of that. I would like to be
able to do that but there have been criticisms about it. But
like any new tool, we have to learn how to use it. I think it
is promising. The committee gave us some new resources just two
years ago and we are trying to put those into practice and then
learn how to use them, and determine when we get information,
what does that mean?
I think what I would like to do is get our experts down
here to give you a kind of up-to-the-minute update on where we
stand and where we need to go. I would just underscore again
the importance that we have the ability to build these
scientific tools, learn from them, improve them, and get the
next generation out there so we are making the best use of any
flexibility that we have or that other agencies have to deal
with those challenges.
Mr. Joyce. I certainly appreciate that, sir. And one thing
that would be worthwhile for us is that the Army Corps of
Engineers came up with eight different plans that they had for
stopping Asian Carp, one of them being nothing, which means
there are really seven plans. We need to get focused on one
plan because we cannot continue on the path of not doing
anything. And once the carp are there, again, it is game, set,
match.
Mr. Ashe. We are in agreement about the potentially
devastating impact that Asian carp could have on the
recreational fisheries in the Great Lakes. Again, we are
working hand-in-glove on native lake trout restoration and
control of lamprey. We are putting hundreds of millions of
dollars into the restoration and maintenance of these great
fisheries and they could be put at risk.
Mr. Joyce. I must commend you because you have done a
tremendous job. When people talk about how they are going to
create jobs, it is by creating new agencies. We do not need any
more agencies. And we create jobs because of the things that
you are doing. Just tourism alone in the Great Lakes is a
tremendous industry for us. And I was just wondering if you had
any position at all about fishing Asian carp into extinction?
Mr. Ashe. Well, we joke about that. One thing that we seem
to have done very well, especially in the past is over-fish.
The thing about Asian carp is can you create a market for them?
Once you create a market, can you not have it then become a
resource that people want to manage? I think there has been
some interest and some exploration in how to do that, but what
we would have to do is really work probably with the
Agriculture Department or Economic Development Administration
or others to put in place the processing and shipment
facilities that would be necessary to do that. There are people
actively exploring those ideas and possibilities, and that
could be part of a solution.
Mr. Joyce. I look forward to working on a solution with
you. And if I have any time left, Mr. Chairman, I am yielding
it back.
Mr. Calvert. You do. Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ashe, it is good
to see you again, sir.
Mr. Ashe. Good to see you, too.
Mr. Stewart. We had a conversation in my office sometime
ago and I am going to continue that if we could.
Mr. Ashe. Yes.
UTAH PRAIRIE DOG
Mr. Stewart. I apologize, Mr. Chairman, for being late. We
actually did a markup and passed a bill in the Legislative
Affairs, which I am told was the earliest that they have done
that in generations, so it was nice to be a part of that. And
we look forward to doing the same thing here, insisting and
actually passing legislation out of the Appropriations. Will
that not be fun?
For the record and to review, Mr. Ashe, because I know that
you have thousands of issues, and I am going to go out on a
limb and speculate that though I am late, I am not the first
nor only person that once to talk about ESA issues. And we have
some substantial concerns there in my district.
We have the Utah prairie dog, which has been listed on the
endangered species since the creation of the Act in 1973. There
are three recovery areas for the species. All of them are in my
district. And here is what happens essentially and then I am
going to tie my question to something you said, Mr. Chairman,
earlier in your comment.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources goes out every
spring and they count the number of these prairie dogs. They
count them on both public and on private land. But then fish
and wildlife only considers the number of these prairie dogs
that live on public lands. Well, these prairie dogs, the
lovable little things that they are, they are not dumb and they
like to live where people like to live. They live where there
is water, where there is cover, where there is protection from
raptors, where there is, you know, irrigation in fields and all
the things that the rest of us enjoy. They do not like sitting
on rocks out in the middle of the desert.
And so most of these prairie dogs have migrated to private
lands and yet they are not being considered in the official
count as to whether it would be appropriate to delist them,
whether we have been able to protect the species to the point
where we could.
And so a few weeks ago I submitted a bill, the Endangered
Species Improvement Act, which would just require--which seems
so commonsensical to me; I cannot imagine this being
controversial and I have been on a number of media programs and
other venues to talk about this. I say how can someone disagree
with this? If you are trying to measure the health of a
species, if you are trying to protect that species, as we all
want to do--none of us want to drive a species into
extinction--but how could we not have this commonsense approach
of actually counting and knowing how many of them there are,
not differentiating between there is a certain number on public
lands and a certain number on private lands?
And I am wondering your response, Mr. Ashe, to that. Would
you support us in that effort and does that not seem to make
sense that we would count all the species before we would set
policies and in some cases economically destructive policies
and very prohibitive policies based on a number which may not
be accurate?
Mr. Ashe. I would agree that we need to count and we need
to have a commonsense approach to how we set a recovery
objective.
Mr. Stewart. I am just going to stop you there. Thank you,
sir.
Mr. Ashe. I would just make one point that you and I talked
about a year ago I think almost now, that we can do better. I
think we have been working together and I think we need help on
both sides of the street. And hopefully we can get more support
from the local areas in Utah.
I think the difference on public and private land is that
when we make a delisting decision, it is one thing to say that
we have X number of these critters out there. What we have to
be able to show is that they will stay there, and in order to
delist, we have to be able to show that they are secure. What
we have not been able to do in Utah is show that if we delist,
that these prairie dogs will be secure. I think we can get
there but we need cooperation. And I know you have been helping
us and so hopefully we will see a path forward.
Mr. Stewart. I appreciate that. In our relationship I sense
that you want to help us with this, that you do want to take a
commonsense approach.
And by the way, sir, I understand that it is not enough to
just go count, that we have to be confident, as you said, that
they can sustain themselves. Of course, we want to do that as
well but the starting place has to be, it seems to me, knowing
how many there are.
Mr. Ashe. Absolutely. To come back to our budget, I think
in our budget the increases that we have requested for our
endangered species program, the bulk of those increases are in
the portion of our program that supports recovery, that
supports cooperative conservation, that supports the kind of
scientific investigation that we will need to deal with these
types of issues, delisting. So we are asking for a small
increase in our listing program and the bulk of the increases
are in the portion of our budget that supports recovery,
delisting, and cooperative conservation.
Mr. Stewart. Well, we appreciate that.
And, Mr. Chairman, the policies have to be driven by the
reality, and the reality cannot be established if we do not
know how many there are through a fair accounting. Then based
on that we can put together plans to assure that the species
survives.
I will end with this. One of the concerns that I have with
this, and it is consistent because we see it so often, and that
is it drives a wedge between citizens and the Federal
Government when they see policies that they just say this does
not make any sense. It has in some cases very real economic
consequences for them. Both of us would like to see that
reduced rather than exaggerated and this would be a step
towards trying to do that, so thank you, sir.
Mr. Ashe. Thank you.
Mr. Stewart. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Valadao.
CALIFORNIA DROUGHT
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You are correct; I do
want to talk about water.
Director Ashe, California is facing one of the worst
droughts in recorded history. Farmers are fallowing fields and
many of my constituents will be losing their jobs due to lack
of water availability.
Currently, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is experiencing
what could be the last significant storm flows of the season.
The pumps that deliver water south to my constituents have a
total physical capacity of nearly 30,000 acre-feet per day. It
is my understanding that the current factors limiting pumping
are the biological opinions issued by your agency and the
National Marine Fisheries Service. What is the total amount
being pumped under the current biological opinions?
Mr. Ashe. The amount that can be pumped under the current
biological opinion is at -5,000 acre-feet per day on a 14-day
average. So we can go above that, below that, but on a 14-day
average it has to be -5,000 acre-feet.
Mr. Valadao. Can you explain that, please, -5,000? So that
means we have to send water back up to the Delta----
Mr. Ashe. When they pump out of the Delta it makes----
Mr. Valadao. You are talking about the reverse flows?
Mr. Ashe. It flows backwards so it is a negative flow in
the river that we measure.
Mr. Valadao. The question I am asking is, exactly what can
be pumped through those pumps when water is going through the
pipelines? What amount of water are we allowed to pump today?
What are we pumping today as far as acre-feet that are exported
south of the Delta?
Mr. Ashe. I do not know. I can get that answer for you.
Mr. Valadao. What we are being told it is 10,000 acre-feet
per day. About \1/3\ of the potential of the pumps is what is
being pumped today.
Mr. Ashe. They do not pump to the full potential of the
pumps and they have not under any circumstance in recent
memory.
The delta smelt biological opinion is not what is limiting
the pumping today.
Mr. Valadao. So what is?
Mr. Ashe. The limiting factor on the pumps has been the
restrictions that have been put in place by the California
Water Resources Board for health and safety.
Mr. Chairman, you asked me before about single-species
management. We find when we are managing for something like the
delta smelt we are managing salinity levels as water moves back
and forth in the Bay Delta ecosystem. The same thing is
important for people because for those municipalities, pumping
saltwater does not really help them----
Mr. Valadao. How much sewage is dumped in the Delta every
day?
Mr. Ashe. Excuse me.
Mr. Valadao. How much sewage is dumped in the Delta every
day?
Mr. Ashe. I do not know.
Mr. Valadao. It is about 380 million gallons a day. When
people talk about their concerns for the environment and
keeping the water clean, I guess maybe not dumping sewage would
be a great start.
But I will go onto the next question. Despite the fact that
pumping operations have killed absolutely no delta smelt this
season and less than 450 of the combined nearly 27,000 salmon
and steel head allowed under the biological opinions, on
Tuesday, my constituents were forced to send nearly 41,000
acre-feet of precious water to the Pacific Ocean. That is
enough water for 82,000 families for a year and almost 14,000
acres of crops in just one day. That is just one day.
Last week, I joined Chairman Calvert and other members of
the San Joaquin Valley Delegation and Senator Feinstein in
sending your boss, the Secretary of the Interior, and the
Commerce Secretary a letter urging them to use all their power
to pump the maximum amount of water from this week's storms. Is
less than \1/3\ of the pumps' potential the best they can do?
Do you consider 10,000 acre-feet of water per day to be the
maximum amount of water? Can you tell us here today
specifically what damage to fish would be if 50 percent of the
water flowing to the Delta was pumped?
Mr. Ashe. Congressman, we have to operate within a legal
construct. We have a biological opinion which contains----
Mr. Valadao. Do the biological opinions affect the pumping
levels?
Mr. Ashe. When you asked me about pumping to the full
extent of the capacity of the pumps, it is not supportable
under the biological opinion. So even if we wanted to do that,
we would be sued and we would lose because our biological
opinion outlines the conditions under which the pumps can
operate and avoid jeopardy to the species.
Mr. Valadao. So the biological opinions do have an impact
on pumping?
Mr. Ashe. Well, they do have an impact on pumping. They
have not had an impact on pumping to date in the context of
this year's operation to the project. There have been no delta
smelt pumping restrictions in place.
Mr. Valadao. But the State Water Resources Control Board is
concerned with the environment so they restrict the pumping for
the salinity levels?
Mr. Ashe. Correct.
Mr. Valadao. All right. I will have another round in a
minute.
Mr. Ashe. I think you are asking a question about the
desire to take advantage of recent rainfall events and to
harvest water associated with these recent rainfall events by
pumping at very large levels, and that would be restricted
potentially by the biological opinion.
Mr. Calvert. I will come back to you.
Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. You are being
missed over in Defense, you should know.
Well, nice to see you, Mr. Ashe.
Mr. Ashe. Nice to see you, Mr. Moran.
GRAY WOLVES
Mr. Moran. I want to ask you about the gray wolves. The
Fish and Wildlife Service's own peer-review panel released its
report on the proposed delisting of gray wolves in the lower 48
States and it found that the proposal does not represent the
best available science. And I never supported the delisting in
Montana and Idaho and Wyoming and, you know, it seems to me
this report supports that view, which was controversial, and we
did not put up a big fight last year because I was not really
sure whether we were being too purist about it. But it seems to
me that this peer-reviewed report should raise some major
question.
I know it seems like, it is a bunch of tree huggers and
teddy bear huggers or whatever, but the wolves are an important
element in the ecological balance. In Yellowstone, for example,
we found that the population or trout in streams was
substantially enhanced when the wolves were introduced because
it balanced the deer and elk population, which meant that you
had more growth of willows and vegetation over streams so that
the trout had cool places in which to spawn. It is amazing that
the ecology that returned to balance when the wolves were
reintroduced.
And it just seems to me that while the grazers get blamed,
perhaps appropriately so, for the ones who want to get rid of
the wolves. In large part, it seems to be these big game
hunters who do not want competition for elk and so on.
But I have a real concern about the direction in which we
are going. So, I would like you to respond, if you would, Mr.
Ashe. Understand, we are still friends.
Mr. Ashe. We are.
Mr. Moran. It is just you need to know I am concerned about
this particular policy.
Mr. Ashe. You have asked an important question. I would
first point out we completely agree on the importance of
wolves, and wolf recovery has been a tremendous success. Our
colleagues in the Park Service and the Bureau of Land
Management and the Forest Service are providing the great
spaces where these wolves have their real strongholds. We also
had support from some great partners in the conservation
community. It is a great success.
Part of that is being faithful to the agreements made when
we started that exercise with the States of Idaho, Wyoming and
Montana. We told them that what constitutes success is at least
100 wolves, at least 10 breeding pairs per State. That was the
deal. I believe that the Fish and Wildlife Service needs to
hold up its part of the bargain. The reality is we do not have
300 wolves and 30 breeding pairs in those three States; we have
1,700 wolves and 78 breeding pairs. So we have been successful.
Mr. Moran. In those three states?
Mr. Ashe. Yes, in those three states. We are many, many
fold above our recovery objectives and our State partners, I
can pick nits with maybe Idaho about how they are managing
wolves, but wolves in Idaho are roughly at the same place they
were when we delisted them. The State of Wyoming has been an
exceptional partner. Last year, they set a quota, a very
conservative quota. When they hit that quota, they shut the
hunting season down. This year we see the wolf population has
increased in Wyoming. Their populations are increasing in
Washington State and Oregon despite the delisting of those
wolves. At the population level, I think the wolves are doing
quite well actually.
Like I said, I could pick nits with my State colleagues. It
is not my job anymore. We delisted them. They belong to those
States. I have to depend upon them to be responsible managers
and I think they are for the most part.
The peer review, the science you mentioned, peer review is
a part of science. When I was a grad student, when I presented
my research and did my first draft, it did not go over so well.
Critical review is a part of the scientific process. We laid
out our proposal. We got critical review. Right now we are in
the process of assimilating that critical review and trying to
decide how to go forward. However we decide to move forward, we
will do it in view of that critical review and that will be an
important part of our record.
On the issue you may have mentioned with hunters, I am a
lifelong hunter. I do believe that some of the rhetoric on the
extreme wing of the hunting community has been problematic. I
have said that to some of my friends in this community. In the
mainstream, hunters continue to be one of the best and most
reliable sources of support for conservation, including
predator conservation. I will admit to the criticism; it is
fair criticism. In the main, they are an essential constituency
and partner.
ECOLOGICAL SERVICES RESTRUCTURING
Mr. Moran. Mr. Chairman, I just had one other question if
you do not mind. I am confused by this major restructuring of
the Ecological Services Account. I mean if it is giving you
more latitude to carry out your mission, that is fine, but we
kind of like to have some idea of what you are doing with the
money. And it is pretty hard to figure out what you are doing
with the money and a whole bunch of different line items. Can
you give us a little more clarification what you mean in your
budget request? You are putting the largest amount in general
program activities, which does not give us a lot of insight.
Mr. Ashe. I will commit to providing the committee with
whatever information it desires, and I think we have been
responsive in the past and we will continue to be. The
reorganization that we have done is to align our program
structure with our field structure. In the field we have
refuges, we have law enforcement, we have fisheries, we have
migratory birds, and we have Ecological Services. We have
aligned our budget structure so that our national budget
structure reflects our field structure. We are trying to
constrain the number of accounts that a field manager has to
deal with, so they are not managing dozens of accounts; they
are managing to a smaller number of accounts. That allows us to
have a smaller staff in Washington, D.C. We have been
downsizing our national staff.
I think we are providing more flexibility to our field
managers. We are downsizing our Washington and regional
structures. That is what we are trying to accomplish. On the
accountability end, we owe you accountability and I will make
the commitment to provide you whatever information you need.
Mr. Moran. You can understand when most of the money is put
into general program activities why our reaction would be what
the heck does that mean? I mean what do you do with general
program activities? That does not really tell us much about
anything in terms of the way it is being used.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
VALLEY ELDERBERRY LONGHORN BEETLE
For the record, we have a beetle up in northern California,
elderberry beetle, that is going through the process of
delisting and some of the Members from that area asked me to
ask you to see how that recovery plan is coming. Apparently,
they are very close and of course they are very anxious up
there. They have put a lot of work into recovery plans and to
make sure that the beetle is delisted. They believe that they
have done a good job. And so if you could get back to us on the
record on that, I would appreciate it.
[The information follows:]
Valley Elderberry Longhorn Beetle
The Service, in partnership with a variety of stakeholders,
continues to implement recovery actions for the valley elderberry
longhorn beetle to conserve the species and its habitat. The Service is
also working with partners in the scientific community to develop and
implement survey protocols for the valley elderberry longhorn beetle
that will provide important information on the distribution and
conservation status of the species. The Service will utilize the best
scientific and commercial information available to prepare a final
determination regarding the status of the species to be published in
the Federal Register later this year.
GREATER SAGE-GROUSE: CONSERVATION
And of course you cannot leave here without us talking
about the sage grouse and this is a big deal in a number of
states, especially Nevada, and we are hearing from both bodies,
both at the House and the Senate, and I do not want to find out
later that the Fish and Wildlife Service could have done more
in fiscal year 2015 to conserve the species so the listing is
unnecessary. And so that is what we really want to do. It is
really what we want to accomplish here because some people
believe this could have worse consequences to the economy than
the spotted owl.
How much does the Service propose to spend in fiscal year
2015 to conserve sage grouse and put that for the record? We
would like to please have that itemized, the budget, by state
and activity, and that would include invasive species removal,
Candidate Conservation Agreements, et cetera.
Mr. Ashe. All right. We would be happy to do that. We are
spending a considerable amount.
Mr. Calvert. And if you can get that to us for the record,
that would be great. And how soon can we expect a decision by
the Service as whether or not to list the species?
Mr. Ashe. We are obligated to make a decision that it is
either not warranted or to propose it for listing, and that
would be in September of 2015.
Mr. Calvert. Does that mean you are not going to list it
before September 2015?
Mr. Ashe. No, sir, we will not.
Mr. Calvert. You will not list it before September 2015?
Mr. Ashe. Correct. Now, in September of 2015 we will either
say it is not warranted for listing or we will propose it for
listing, and then it would be another year before we would
actually list it.
Mr. Calvert. If it is necessary.
Mr. Ashe. If it is necessary, right.
Mr. Calvert. Okay. And with that, we have to go vote but I
am going to turn it over to Mr. Valadao because I know he is
anxious to ask a couple more questions. And we will have some
questions we will have submitted to you for the record.
And with that, Mr. Valadao, any final comments?
BAY DELTA CONSERVATION PLAN BIOLOGICAL OPINION
Mr. Valadao. Just another quick question, and yes, water
again.
Recently, a judge found that the government violated the
NEPA process when issuing Delta bio ops. It is my understanding
that although the bio ops will remain in place, the NEPA
process will have to be completed on the existing bio ops.
Undertaking the NEPA process will likely uncover new data and
science not available when the 2008/2009 bio ops were
originally issued. Does the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
intend to use the newly available science to issue new bio ops
governing Delta operations? It seems that taking new
information into account is imperative to ensuring we are
managing the Delta with the best science available.
Mr. Ashe. It is my understanding that the NEPA issue is not
a Fish and Wildlife Service issue; it is a Bureau of
Reclamation issue. But with regard to the best available
science, I think what we are working on in the long run is a
joint biological opinion between the National Marine Fisheries
Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the Bay Delta
Conservation Plan. I think what is important for us is to
develop the science and the field capacity to support the long-
term solution. In the short-run, we are managing around a 2008
biological opinion and we are doing the absolute best we can do
and we are mining all of the flexibility that we can mine from
that 2008 biological opinion.
Mr. Valadao. All right. And just one other question. What
other stressors upon fish abundance, aside from water exports,
has your agency identified? I know you said salinity earlier.
What are you doing to address those stressors?
Mr. Ashe. I will have to respond to that for the record.
You mentioned pollution in general. Chlorine, effluent
controls, water temperature, salinity, all of these are factors
that have relevance for the conservation of a fish like the
delta smelt that is kind of hanging on the brink of extinction.
We work in the context of all of those, but the major factor
influencing the survival of the fish is the pumping, which
influences the habitat quality and the ability of the fish to
spawn successfully. That is the crux of the issue: does the
fish have the habitat conditions that allow it to spawn
successfully?
Mr. Valadao. What about the largemouth or the bass
population?
Mr. Ashe. Well, sure, yes, predators are always an issue.
Predator management is important and predators can be a
significant stressor on a species that is on the brink of
extinction.
Mr. Valadao. Is anything being done with the bass? I know
that is not a native species to the Delta? It was introduced
for recreation.
Mr. Ashe. I am not proposing that. I do not think bass has
been identified as the limiting factor for the delta smelt. The
limiting factor clearly is the availability of habitat to
support the reproductive lifecycle of the fish.
Mr. Valadao. And just out of curiosity, is some of that
water being held back in reservoirs and released in a timely
manner just to prevent the salinity levels from getting too
high? Because there are timed releases, right?
Mr. Ashe. The bureau has been trying to store water, and in
fact, a priority of the California Water Resources Board has
been to try to store water to prepare, for next year.
Mr. Valadao. Prepare for what next year?
Mr. Ashe. To meet the health and safety needs. Again, the
California Water Resources Board has put a priority on meeting
the kind of health and safety----
Mr. Valadao. But just to be clear, what you mean by that is
you are going to release water to keep the salinity levels at
bay?
Mr. Ashe. I think health and safety, again, is a California
Water Resources Board issue and so I am not really the expert
on that. I think on health and safety, the California Water
Resources Board is thinking about municipal uses but also some
environmental considerations.
Mr. Valadao. Well, I was just asking you personally. I mean
we are speaking on a personal level I guess now.
Mr. Ashe. Are we now?
Mr. Valadao. What happened before the reservoirs were built
and those timed releases were not possible? Before humans ever
showed up?
Mr. Ashe. In the world before we ever showed up, there were
complexes of wetlands that stored water as it came off of the
Sierra Nevadas, and those are largely gone now. We now have
systems that are human-controlled. In essence those reservoirs
are providing the same function that wetlands provided in a
pre-human context to store flows.
Mr. Valadao. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Calvert. Mr. Valadao, if you have some additional
questions you would like to have asked for the record, we will
be happy to submit them for written answer. And I have some
questions about the National Fish Hatchery System, which I will
make for the record, but heck, let's do some hatcheries for
delta smelt while we are at it. Let's do that. I think it might
be helpful. But we do have a serious question.
I want to thank you, Mr. Ashe----
Mr. Ashe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert [continuing]. For coming out here today,
Director Ashe, Ms. Nolin. And we are adjourned.
Mr. Ashe. Thank you, sir.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
WITNESS
NEIL KORNZE, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Opening Remarks of Chairman Calvert
Mr. Calvert. The Committee will come to order.
Good morning, and welcome to the Subcommittee's hearing on
the President's fiscal year 2015 budget for the Bureau of Land
Management. I am pleased to welcome Neil Kornze, Principal
Deputy Director and the President's nominee for the next
Director.
The President's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal for the
BLM is roughly $1.06 billion in discretionary appropriations,
which is $13.5 million, or 1.3 percent below the fiscal year
2014 enacted level. The most notable changes to the budget
agreed upon for fiscal year 2014 include the following, in my
opinion.
The proposal includes a $4 million cut to the Rangeland
Management program and new fees to shift a portion of the
grazing permit administration costs to ranchers--same as last
year. The large backlog of grazing permit applications has been
a concern of this Subcommittee for some time now, as have fair
costs to the taxpayer. While I am willing to engage in a
discussion of what is fair, I fail to see how this proposal
will improve the backlog situation and speed up the permitting
process. Most successful proposals offer win-win solutions,
which this one still does not appear to be.
The budget proposes a nearly $3 million increase for the
Feral Horse and Burro program to implement reforms recommended
by the National Academy of Sciences. There is little
disagreement that the current policy is unsustainable. While I
wholeheartedly agree with the National Academy's finding that
population estimates must be more scientifically sound, I am
skeptical that a chemical sterilization solution can be found
that is environmentally safe and more cost-effective than a
spaying and neutering policy like we have for feral pets.
The budget proposes $15 million for the Greater Sage Grouse
Initiative. The BLM manages the most sage-grouse habitat in the
Nation. So if the Fish and Wildlife Service decides to list the
species, the question every western State will be asking is
whether BLM did enough to prevent a listing. I do not want to
find out 2 years from now that the BLM could have done more if
they had the resources. So I am keenly interested in putting
forth the most aggressive and responsible cross-cutting budget
for sage-grouse conservation as possible for fiscal year 2015.
While some are predicting the consequences of a sage-grouse
listing to be far worse than those of the spotted owl, there is
little disagreement that a sage-grouse listing will have
profound negative impacts on America's ability to be energy-
independent. Energy independence is a goal that many of us here
share along with an all-of-the-above strategy in order to get
there and stay there. We all get that renewable energy is the
only long-term sustainable energy solution but we disagree on
the length of the term and its consequences. BLM's fiscal year
2015 Energy and Minerals budget proposes to stimulate renewable
energy production while ensuring that existing non-renewable
energy production is clean and accountable. Naturally, this
Subcommittee will continue to support both efforts as it did in
fiscal year 2014.
What concerns me, though, is the proposal to shift $38
million in costs to non-renewable energy producers while doing
nothing to reduce permitting delays and to stimulate
production. As with grazing fees, for the third straight year,
this does not appear to be a win-win proposal.
Last but not least are proposals to establish a public
lands foundation, and to improve maps of BLM lands. I support
both efforts in concept, and I look forward to working with you
in the days ahead on these and other details of BLM's fiscal
year 2015 budget.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Moran
Mr. Calvert. I am happy now to yield to the distinguished
ranking member, Mr. Moran, for his opening remarks. Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. Well, I thank the distinguished Chairman, and
Mr. Kornze, good to see you again. When you were before the
Subcommittee a year ago, you were heading the BLM as Principal
Deputy Director but you had been nominated for the Director
position, which happened in November, and yet the Senate just
cannot seem to operate in a responsible, let alone efficient
manner, with these nominations. I am terribly sorry that you
are doing all the work and yet you do not get the title. Be
that as it may, we cannot fix the Senate. There are a lot of
things we would like to do with regard to the Senate.
This is a particularly constrained budget for the BLM. In
fact, it constitutes an overall decrease from last year's
appropriation to carry out your multiple-use activities that
would be allocated under this budget. About $4.50 for each acre
that the BLM manages for the entire year is what it comes out
to, and yet those very same lands that you are provided $4.50
to manage generate $4.6 billion in revenue for the U.S.
Treasury. We grant you that it is very much a multiple-use
agency but it seems to me your primary job should be to protect
the national resources of our public lands for today's
taxpayers and citizens and for the future.
Now, I know that public lands are not producing enough oil
and gas, and in fact, some suggest that production has
decreased under the current Administration, but the facts do
speak otherwise. Oil and gas production on public lands has
actually increased by more than 30 percent from the level that
it was in the years of the Bush Administration.
And I also would hope that this could be the year that we
finally institute an inspection fee for oil and gas operations
on public lands. In fiscal year 2012, the Subcommittee was
instrumental in instituting an inspection fee for offshore oil
and gas operations. I do not understand why we cannot ask the
oil and gas industry, who profit so handsomely from the
extraction of oil and gas from public lands to pay a reasonable
inspection fee to ensure safe and efficient operations. And I
do not think that they would particularly care. It is a
miniscule expense to them, but it would mean a great deal in
terms of BLM's ability to manage those lands.
Now, along with other land management agencies, you are
tasked with a vast array of natural and historic resources. I
do want to share with my good friends a quote from Teddy
Roosevelt, a terrific Republican President. He said, and I am
quoting, ``Of all the questions that come before this Nation
short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great
war, there is none which compares in importance with the great
central task of leaving this land an even better land for our
descendants than it is for us.'' It is pretty obvious he was
not talking about exploiting the public land but rather
conserving it for the future generations.
Now, Mr. Kornze, you and the employees of the BLM obviously
have your work cut out for you. I will have some questions
about grazing fees and so on. It seems strange that this side
would be the one suggesting that we let the market operate on
these things, but we thank you for your testimony and look
forward to a good, vigorous exchange of questions and answers.
Thank you.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Welcome, Mr. Kornze, and you are recognized for your
opening statement.
Opening Statement of Principal Deputy Director Neil Kornze
Mr. Kornze. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the
President's fiscal year 2015 budget request for the Bureau of
Land Management.
The BLM is responsible for managing over 245 million acres
of public land, which covers about 10 percent of the Nation. We
also manage roughly a third of the Nation's minerals. The
breadth of the agency's mission is astounding. We are proud to
be engaged in critical and often very difficult natural-
resource issues all across the country.
It is worth noting that so much of what we do is made
possible through cooperative efforts with local and State
governments and through the support we receive from friends'
groups and other dedicated partners.
The President's 2015 budget request for the BLM provides
strategic funding for our highest priorities. Our focus areas
include oil and gas permitting, fish and wildlife conservation,
recreation, renewable energy development and many others. These
efforts help keep our national economy moving and are among the
many programs we operate in order to fulfill the organization's
multiple-use and sustained-yield mission.
We at the BLM are proud that the lands we manage and that
the programs we operate contribute over $100 billion to the
U.S. economy each year. Furthermore, we are one of the only
federal agencies that return substantial revenues to the U.S.
Treasury far in excess of our annual appropriations.
Now, with my remaining time, I would like to highlight key
areas in our budget that are particularly important to the
agency's success in 2015 and beyond.
First is the BLM Foundation. The President's budget calls
for the authorization of a Congressionally chartered BLM
Foundation. This entity would operate similarly to the National
Park Foundation or the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
and would provide the public with new ways to get involved with
and support the issues that they are passionate about, whether
that be wild horses and burros, national conservation lands,
restoration projects or other efforts.
Second is the inspection and enforcement fee system, which
has been well described by both gentlemen. Today, the BLM
oversees over 100,000 wells on public lands, and we have a
responsibility for inspection and enforcement at every one of
these sites. So, in an effort to be more agile and more able to
respond to industry needs, we are seeking a transition to a fee
system. This would parallel the fee system that was
successfully put in place and has operated very well for
offshore oil and gas programs. We have a well-established need
identified by GAO and others to improve our performance in this
area in terms of inspection and enforcement, and we need your
help to accomplish that.
Third is wild horses and burros. If we are going to
sustainably manage wild horses and burros, we have to do at
least two things. We have to slow population growth, and we
have to find good homes for the families that are already off
the range. We have requested an increase in overall funding for
the program, and we hope that you will support our efforts to
expand research into long-lasting fertility control methods and
the implementation of National Academy of Sciences'
recommendations.
Fourth, is a geospatial mapping system. We at the BLM have
an obligation to provide good, easy-to-access information to
the public, and a solid online mapping system would be the
foundation of making a major step forward in that program.
Think of something akin to Google Earth or Google Maps. With
this capability, we will be able to look at challenges across a
broad landscape and better understand what the public, industry
and our many partners need and have envisioned for the
landscapes that we manage.
Fifth is sage-grouse conservation. We are in the midst of
an unprecedented planning effort to provide certainty to the
Fish and Wildlife Service. The sage-grouse and sage-grouse
habitat will be conserved in a meaningful way. We are working
through this effort with numerous State and local partners, and
this Committee has provided excellent support in recent budgets
for this program, and we appreciate your continued attention.
There is a lot at stake.
We appreciate your support of these five key initiatives as
well as our larger budget. By making smart investments in these
areas, we are confident that we can make a positive and
meaningful difference in the management of our Nation's natural
resources.
We appreciate the strong support that the BLM receives from
this Committee, and I look forward to your questions and your
feedback.
[The statement of Neil Kornze follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Mr. Calvert. Thank you for your opening statement. I will
begin the questioning.
HYDRAULIC FRACTURING REGULATIONS AND PERMITTING DELAYS
We understand the Department intends to issue final
regulations on hydraulic fracturing this year. There are a
number of concerns about these rules including States already
regulating hydraulic fracturing, but one of the major concerns
is further delays in permitting. According to a GAO report
issued last fall, the average time to receive a drilling permit
on federal land is now 229 days, substantially beyond the 30-
day requirement. In many cases, it can take up to a year to
issue a BLM permit. The effects of delays in leasing and
permitting has resulted in declining rather than increasing
production on federal lands as producers take their business
instead to State and private property.
The question: with the country's need for natural gas and
now the international situation obviously, can we afford to
have even more production delays due to a new hydraulic
fracturing rule?
Mr. Kornze. Chairman, I appreciate the question. When it
comes to permitting, I think we have an excellent story to tell
at the Bureau of Land Management. Three years ago it took us
300 days on average to process a drilling permit. Two years
ago, we took that down to 225 days. Last year, we took it under
200 days, so we are definitely headed in the right direction.
We have knocked about a third of the time off that process. We
are also in the process of launching an online drilling permit
system, which we will be moving into a few field offices for
pilot testing later this year. Our hope is that we will be able
to continue to bring down times because of the effort when it
comes to drilling permits and having that move successfully is
making sure that we have accountability on all sides. We need
to do a better job at the BLM. We also, frankly, need better
applications from the industry. Very often they come in
incomplete, and so a lot of that time on the clock is sending
files back and forth. So by having an online system, we can
alert folks immediately if there are deficiencies and hopefully
take a lot of the time out of the total process.
We have a few offices that have already initiated pilots on
their own. One is Carlsbad, New Mexico, and we are proud to see
that they have drilling permit times down to about 70 days. We
do not know if we will be able to accomplish that same number
across the system but we certainly think there are efficiencies
to be had.
In terms of overall production, I am proud to tell you that
oil production is up roughly 30 percent during the course of
this Administration. That is something we are very proud of. In
hydraulic fracturing, we are intending to get that rule out
later this year if possible. We received 1.3 million comments
and we are sorting through that, but we are very closely
coordinating with the States. Actually, just a few weeks ago,
we had the second major meeting with State representatives from
oil and gas permitting organizations and from State governors'
offices to talk about how we can best align State regulations,
which have their own variations with the BLM programs. The BLM
draft that is currently out there envisions a meet-or-exceed
standard so that if a State's program is better or more
restrictive than what BLM has called for, then the State
program would be sufficient. Additionally, there is a variance
process so that if the spirit of what the BLM is seeking to
accomplish is done by State regulation, we could also wave our
specific regulations.
And additionally, when it comes to inspection and
enforcement on onshore, we have an overall desire to be more
efficient. So we are also engaged in a conversation about
having a regular and consistent relationship with the States so
if you have State inspectors out looking at wells and we happen
to have one isolated well, then the State could take care of it
for us, and likewise, if we are 4 hours in the other direction
and there is one lone State well, we could take care of it for
them. So overall, we are looking at coordination and taking it
very seriously when it comes to State partnership.
OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION
Mr. Calvert. What would you say on the rate of permitting
in the United States on BLM property? Has it increased over the
last 5 years or declined?
Mr. Kornze. We are receiving--I cannot give you actual
numbers but we are receiving roughly about 5,000 APDs a year.
It is somewhat consistent.
Mr. Calvert. That has been consistent over the last 5 years
or so?
Mr. Kornze. Roughly, yes.
Mr. Calvert. And so most of the production that you are
saying has increased in the last number of years have been on
wells that you permitted in the last 5 years?
Mr. Kornze. We have seen increased production on BLM and
tribal lands.
Mr. Calvert. Using a lot of existing wells that would
increase productivity because of hydraulic fracking technology
on existing wells that have been changed over from old
technology to new technology or are these new wells that have
been developed in the last 5 years?
Mr. Kornze. We are seeing about 3,000 new wells brought on
public lands each year, so a lot of that is driven by high-flow
new wells, but I do imagine there are a number of wells that
are going back and being refracked, which are contributing as
well.
Mr. Calvert. And approximately how many wells are there in
total on BLM property?
Mr. Kornze. A hundred thousand.
Mr. Calvert. One hundred thousand wells? And what are you
doing--you mentioned the number of wells, the production
increases on those wells. Are you going out and trying to
develop more business on federal land as far as development of
oil and gas production?
Mr. Kornze. Well, the development is driven largely by the
market and by industry interest, so last year, for instance, we
put almost 6 million acres on the table for lease. Only 20
percent of that was leased by industry. So we are trying to
provide a robust amount of opportunity. So on the leasing side,
we are doing very well, and on the drilling permit side, there
are nearly 7,000 permits in industry hands right now that are
available for drilling tomorrow.
OIL AND GAS REVENUE
Mr. Calvert. And you mentioned that obviously the rate of
return on your department relative to other departments--what
do you have, an approximately $1 billion budget and you have $4
billion in revenue. What percentage of that revenue is due to
oil and gas?
Mr. Kornze. I believe it is in the threes, so I think our
overall revenue is nearly $5 billion for energy and minerals,
and approximately $4 billion of that is oil and gas.
[Clerk's note.--BLM submitted the following correction to
the Subcommittee. Overall revenue is nearly $4 billion for
energy and minerals, and approximately $3 billion of that is
oil and gas.]
Mr. Calvert. So obviously a substantial majority of that
revenue is oil and gas?
Mr. Kornze. Yes.
Mr. Calvert. Okay. Mr. Moran.
GRAZING FEES
Mr. Moran. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
I did want to underscore what Director Kornze just pointed
out, that the oil and gas industry is sitting on 7,000 approved
permits to drill. They are just not using them. I can
understand the push to get BLM to permit, but on the other
hand, that is a lot of permits that have been approved and are
not being used.
I want to get into this grazing-fee issue because my good
friends on the other side are probably going to get into it
from a different perspective. Last month, the federal grazing
fee for this year was set at the minimum allowable level of
$1.35 per animal unit month for the seventh consecutive year.
Western States charge substantially more to graze cattle on
State lands. The last time that the GAO looked at the federal
grazing fee just 8 years ago, they found it covered less than
one-sixth of the cost to administer the grazing program. So it
has got to be even less than that now. So here we are providing
this deep federal taxpayer subsidy for grazing on federal
lands. I wonder if instead of proposing a dollar surcharge per
animal unit month that we should tie the grazing fee to what is
actually charged in the States themselves. The States determine
what a reasonable fee is. Why could we not use that as a
marker? Have you considered that?
Mr. Kornze. Congress, a number of years ago, almost a
generation ago, set the standards for how the grazing fee is
calculated. So part of that is beef prices, part of it is the
cost to run a cattle operation, and part of it relates to
private land costs, but it is all pegged to a standard cost
that was set in the 1960s. So it is the system we operate
under, and if Congress would like to dig into that further, we
would be happy to provide any information we can.
Mr. Moran. Well, that is certainly a diplomatic answer.
That is a thing that we set back in the 1960s before these guys
were born. I am being complimentary. It is certainly before you
were born, Betty.
The fact is, this is a deep subsidy. Can you just share
with us if you were to use the fees that States themselves
charge, let alone private landowners, would that not be a
substantially higher figure?
Mr. Kornze. That would be a higher figure. My sense is that
States charge anywhere from $4 to $12, in many cases, depending
on the quality of the land and some places like Texas have
much, much higher grazing fees on State land.
Mr. Moran. Like what would Texas charge? Do you have any
idea?
Mr. Kornze. I do not have the exact number but I think it
is around $50.
WILD HORSE AND BURRO LONG-TERM PLAN
Mr. Moran. About $50 per animal unit month, and we are
charging a buck 35. Okay. Some of my Texas friends that rail
and rail about taxpayer subsidies I would hope would be aware
of that.
Let's ask about this Wild Horse and Burro program too, but
I do not want to get into all the details of it. I know we have
got problems with implementing the regulations that were made
regarding expanded research and population. It has a long and
troubled history. We have got a lot of horses and burros, and
it is difficult to provide humane treatment when you have got
major droughts particularly, and they just cannot find enough
food in the wild. But can you share with us what your long-term
plan is to humanely deal with wild horses and burros on BLM
land?
Mr. Kornze. I appreciate that question. This is one of the
more difficult programs that we operate, and it is a unique
program in that usually when it comes to animals, if they are
in danger or threatened, they belong to the Fish and Wildlife
Service. If they are not, they belong to the States. Wild
horses are the only species under the purview of the Bureau of
Land Management.
So in terms of long term, we need sustainability in this
program, and to get there, as highlighted in my opening
statement, we have to figure out a long-term way to bring
population growth down because every 3\1/2\ years, wild horse
and burro populations left alone will double. So horses on the
range are rapidly multiplying, which puts pressure on grazing,
puts pressure on wildlife, and puts pressure on rangeland
health.
On the other side, we need to make sure that we have good
homes and that we have an adoption system that works and we
have a long-term program. So one of my goals for the Bureau is
that later this year we will put out a concept for a long-term
sustainability effort on this program in addition to a response
in the National Academy of Sciences' report. What we want to
focus on may be a generational long-term goal. In order to get
a good, clinically focused drug which we are attempting to
develop with some trials we want to support this year, may take
5 or 10 years to even get in place to be used broadly. So the
tools we have are very limited but I am hopeful that we will be
able to lay out a plan that could be followed for many, many
years.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Kornze.
Mr. Chairman, I have other questions. I think we will
probably have a second round, and I want to give other members
a chance to ask questions. Thank you very much.
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Cole.
OIL AND GAS REGULATION ON TRIBAL LAND
Mr. Cole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good to have you here. I appreciate the job that you do. It
is a difficult job.
There are two areas I want to probe. One of them is horses
a little bit. But let me start with a question related partly
to fracking but also to how you look at some of the lands you
manage. Do you consider Indian lands the same as public lands?
Mr. Kornze. Not at all, sir.
Mr. Cole. Then why do we have the same regulatory regime
for one as we do for the other, and what kind of role are you
pursuing to allow tribal governments to manage their own
resources?
Mr. Kornze. This is an important question, and I appreciate
you raising it. They are statutorily different and we treat
them differently in terms of recognition. The sovereignty of
Tribes is very important to us as a Federal Government and also
the Bureau of Land Management, and we work hard on those
relationships. They are very important to us.
When it comes to hydraulic fracturing regulation or other
oil and gas regulation, it has been laid out by Congress that
the Secretary of the Interior has the regulation of oil and gas
activities on tribal lands as a trust responsibility. She has
delegated that to the Bureau of Land Management, and
essentially the reason for having similar standards is if a
standard for oil and gas development in terms of safety and
responsible development makes sense for federal land, you would
not want a lower standard for tribal land.
Mr. Cole. I am not talking about a lower standard. What if
a Tribe disagrees with the BLM--you know, we have legitimate
differences now. State governments obviously regulate
differently, I would argue more efficiently, quite frankly, and
much more quickly as a role than the BLM does in this area, and
if the Tribe wanted to pursue that, I can see having a regime
for saying there has got to be a certain set of standards but
again, if it is their land, it is not federal land. Why would
you have that authority as opposed to them?
Mr. Kornze. Well, speaking on the hydraulic fracturing
rule, the same meet-or-exceed or variance concepts would apply
with Tribes that we could work out those relationships in terms
of regulating those activities.
Mr. Cole. Do we have a process underway to do that? Because
I can tell you, I get a lot of folks coming by my office from a
variety of Tribes that are sitting on energy resources, and
they compare again what they think is an appropriate regulatory
statute with what exists or the speed that is happening in
private land immediately adjacent to their reservation, they
see how much quicker the development is under a State regime,
and they either want the control themselves or they want the
ability to compact with States to allow the State to implement
that regulatory regime, and right now they do not have any of
that and it is a real frustration to them.
Mr. Kornze. Yes. There are certainly complexities in
developing oil and gas, for instance, on tribal land that are
not faced on public land, and the public-land process is
complicated enough. So I am certainly sympathetic to what you
are laying out, and I know Congress has attempted to tackle
this a few times.
Mr. Cole. Do you think the Tribes are sophisticated
enough--and again, I recognize I think probably more than most
the variety of levels of sophistication that Tribes have an
administrative capability but do you see this as something
inherently that they are capable of doing for themselves?
Mr. Kornze. Simple answer is in places where they have a
system in place, absolutely.
WILD HORSE AND BURRO MANAGEMENT
Mr. Cole. Let me shift quickly to the wild-horse question
and just for the record, in Oklahoma we have, I think, 21,000
horses that are either from the West--they are not our horses.
They are there. They are being housed there. Fortunately, you
are paying for them because it is about 6 bucks a head, $5 to
$6 a head every day to feed them, and by the way, I visited a
couple facilities in Oklahoma. They are terrific. People would
echo your testimony of the challenge that they are facing in
terms of just managing the sheer numbers because these are
animals that have no natural predators and they are bigger,
faster and tougher than anything else out there.
I must tell you, I am very dubious after talking to folks
that the adoption program is ever going to work. It is a noble
program, and I think you ought to continue it, but if you look
at the numbers, it is just not even close--this idea that we
are going to be able to find a home for all these animals is a
fanciful notion. There are just not enough homes out there. And
in the areas where you have the horses now, you actually see
declining adoption rates, simply because the horses saturated
that area. People that wanted a horse got them, and they are
very expensive to maintain. It is not something you can do--and
I laud your efforts. I think again this is something I know you
take seriously and the department is working on, and some of
the experiments you talked about are actually taking place in
Oklahoma in terms of trying to find a means to effectively have
mass birth control for horses, but at the end of the day, are
there some specific things you can do to manage the size of
these herds other than that? Because as you said, this is years
away. And again, we manage all kinds of animals, in the United
States. I know this is a very sensitive issue on horse
slaughter, but again, this is not an endangered species. This
is a species that is multiplying faster than we can sustain it.
So are there tools that we could give you that would be helpful
in that regard?
Mr. Kornze. I appreciate the open-ended question. We
definitely appreciated your visit to Pauls Valley to look at
some of our facilities.
Mr. Cole. Which, again, were first rate. I was really
impressed with your people.
Mr. Kornze. I was out there myself last year after the
tornadoes came through to see our two offices, and I was
impressed by what I saw, and I learned a lot in terms of
Oklahoma and Kansas. They are really sort of the back end of
the program in terms of when horses were removed from the
western range. They usually end up in long-term holding
facilities or beautiful, beautiful ranches in Oklahoma.
In terms of tools, we do need more tools, and if I can sort
of keep a bookmark on this, I would love to come back to you in
a month or two.
Mr. Cole. I would really appreciate it if you would,
because people are very well intentioned here and I understand
it and sympathize with it, but we have got a problem, and the
kind of solutions so far that we have allowed you to do are not
adequate for the kind of problem we have asked you to manage.
So I think it is something that we as a Committee and as a
Congress need to have a really candid discussion about, and
your guidance and participation and suggestions would be
extremely welcomed--I do not have any predetermined outcome
here. I just look at the numbers and I look at what we are
trying to grapple with here, and again, I understand the
motivation of people that do not want to do anything in terms
of population management, to use a benign term for a difficult
problem. But I do not know what else to do right now, and
again, I am willing to invest in these longer-term solutions
but I do not think that is going to solve your problem in the
short turn, and it eats up a lot of your budget. This is
something that is extraordinarily expensive, and if you look at
the expense curve, it is just simply going up.
So again, please, I take your offer seriously and would
love to have some suggestions, options, alternatives as to
things you think would be useful for you to have, tools that
would allow you to deal with this.
Mr. Kornze. Great. I will take you up on that for sure.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you, and I just commented in the opening
statement, we spay and neuter cats and dogs, so we ought to be,
looking at horses and burros the same way.
Ms. McCollum.
OIL AND GAS FLARING
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to pass two
pictures, and they are courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory. I
want to talk about oil flaring for a minute. On the lands that
you manage, you do not allow flaring. Is that correct? The gas
has to be captured, it is just not allowed to be burnt off?
Mr. Kornze. In many cases actually it is flared.
Ms. McCollum. So in the picture you are looking at----
Mr. Moran. It is flared?
Ms. McCollum. In the picture you are looking at, it is a
great photo of the Great Lakes, Mr. Joyce, at night. It is a
picture of Minneapolis-St. Paul, which is the area that I
represent, and the Bakken oil fields. You can see that they are
lighting up as bright as and at times brighter than
Minneapolis-St. Paul because the gas is just flared off. It is
not captured at all because it is not profitable right now. So
my question is, what are we doing to be good stewards of
capturing the gas as well as the oil because just letting this
flare off increases global warming? It is taking a treasured
resource and just letting it literally go up in smoke. So can
you explain to me what we could, should or are not doing when
it comes to flaring?
Mr. Kornze. You bet. This is an excellent question.
Ms. McCollum. And by the way, the Bakken is private land
but I just use that to illustrate what concentrated flaring
looks like and we could have this on public land as well.
Mr. Kornze. And I think that picture is fascinating in
terms of a recent trend in oil and gas development in this
country. Related to venting, flaring, the Bureau of Land
Management is starting a broad public conversation right now
about what we should be looking at. Our regulations on this
were put in place January 1, 1980, and they need a fresh look.
And so we have engaged with the western States recently in a
meeting in Denver just a few weeks ago, talking to Colorado,
North Dakota and other States that are hoping to move on this
issue. Colorado has put in some standards, and they are the
first State to really step forward with industry and other
partners to draw a bit of a line in the sand about what their
expectations are, and so we are going to be looking at our own
authorities and what is possible. Groups like the University of
Texas and the Environmental Defense Fund and others are helping
to bring data forward about where we can make the biggest
difference. There are some great studies that have come out
recently that are pinpointing where further effort in this
area, whether it is valves or tanks, can make a difference. So
we are focused on that, and we are hoping to develop a draft
rule for potential regulation.
Ms. McCollum. I certainly hope so, and this is something I
am going to follow. Whether you are pro-fracking, anti-
fracking, whether you are pro-more drilling for oil or anti-
drilling for oil. I think we can all agree, letting natural gas
just be burned off is something that future generations, will
look back and say what were you folks thinking when energy is
going to become scarcer as generations go on. And then also
with the contribution that leads to global warming.
BAKKEN REGION
I just want to talk about what is happening, especially in
the Bakken region. This oil needs to get to market. I will tell
you, when people say we are not producing more energy and more
oil, I have a place where you can watch from St. Paul the oil
cars. I can give you before and after from a couple years ago
that are going through. A lot of these oil cars, these rail
cars, are going through metropolitan areas and cities are
grappling with what to do with it, but you also have these oil
cars going through public areas. The railroads are trying to--I
am not being heavy on the railroads. I mean, this just kind of
took everybody by surprise. So you are going through tribal
lands, you are going through public lands. What kind of
relationship do you have with the rail companies, and
especially with tribal areas when they are going through
because there have been mishaps with these oil cars. Who is
responsible for cleanup, evacuation plans and reporting on our
public lands and our partnership with our tribal brothers and
sisters?
Mr. Kornze. So rail transport would usually be outside of
our purview but if we were called in for assistance with a
cleanup or something like that, we would certainly provide any
expertise that we have. But on your point, I do think the rail
side of the question is somewhat fascinating. I saw a chart
recently showing over the last 3 years the number of oil rail
transport facilities that have been developed. There used to be
literally a handful 3 years ago, and now there are probably
around 100. So it is a fast growing part of the industry.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chair, I have a question on another
topic, and I will save that for another round, but I think it
pays to be proactive and to be prepared. I know the rail
companies want to be prepared on this. Metropolitan
municipalities are looking at what to do. I think we should
also kind of have an action plan put in place for public lands
as well as. Your work with the tribal areas where these oil
cars are going through because for them to have the resources
and to know how to, first responders and all that. What should
happen? I think it is a shared responsibility between the oil
producers, the rail companies, and I think we have a role in it
as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Kornze, thank you for being here. We enjoyed speaking
with you yesterday. I am going to refer to that very quickly.
Before I get to the heart of my questions, I would like to
respond to some of the things that have been said by other
members. To Ms. McCollum, there is a real simple answer for the
rail car issue, and that is build a pipeline, which many of us
have been advocating for a long time.
Ms. McCollum. This is not the Keystone pipeline.
Mr. Stewart. I understand it is not, but I am just saying,
in many case, that is the answer. It is a much safer, much more
environmentally friendly way to transport oil in a pipeline
rather than rail. If you are concerned about global warming, it
is a much preferred and as I said, much safer option.
ANIMAL UNIT MONTH (AUM) RATES
And to the earlier conversations about AUM and the price of
those, I just have to respond again from my own experience. I
was a farmer and rancher. My wife was as well. I represent
areas where there are vast swaths of BLM land that are leased
out to ranchers, and to compare Utah with the West is not
comparing apples and oranges, it is comparing apples and
alligators because the West and vast parts of my district are
desert, and the market rate for that probably is about $1.50.
It is not $50 like Texas, which have these beautiful green
pastures. This is desert land. By the way, you know, those
folks are not making a lot of money. If you increase their AUM
rates to $50, what would be the outcome? They would be driven
completely out of business. These are hardworking, in most
cases not rich families, to describe them graciously. They make
far less than your average Congressman, for example, and again,
$1.50 or whatever that might be may be the market rate for
those desert leases.
SAGE-GROUSE
I am going to come back to that, if I could, and tie that
in with something we have talked about a couple times here now,
and that is with the burros and the horses, which we talked
about yesterday. I appreciated our meeting, and I thought it
was helpful, and in that, I felt like there were some areas
that you and I could agree on and we do agree on, and hopefully
we could work together, and I look forward to working with you
on some of those things.
I have to say, though, that in general I left that meeting,
or actually you left the meeting because it was at my office. I
was a little bit discouraged about some things, and I realize
that we do see the world differently in some meaningful ways,
and I will mention one just quickly and I will not ask you to
respond to it here because I do not think there is time, but
one of them was, for example, Utah's efforts and what many of
us are trying to do, and that is to avoid the listing of the
Greater Sage-Grouse on the endangered species list, you
indicated that, you know, you were not at this point satisfied
with Utah's plan, and I thought initially interpreting your
remarks as if they had been, you know, maybe remiss or not
diligent in doing that, and as we talked, I realized it was not
that, it was just that you felt like they had not enough of a
regulatory approach to this, that their plan implemented more
voluntary efforts, and I am comfortable with that because I
trust the people in my State. We want to protect the species.
None of us want to see a species extinct but I felt like your
approach was much more regulatory oriented than mine would be.
Is that true? Is that a fair synopsis of our different
approaches to this?
Mr. Kornze. I think I would recharacterize it a little bit
in terms of when it comes to sage-grouse, the BLM is not the
decider in terms of whether or not we go far enough. It is the
Fish and Wildlife Service. And so what I was sharing was the
BLM has been working to preserve and bring back sage-grouse
habitat all across the West for quite a while. We presented a
lot of this to the Fish and Wildlife Service and their response
was, just to summarize it into a few words, ``that is great,''
but that is not going to make the difference when it comes to a
listing decision because the Fish and Wildlife Service, from my
understanding, they have to look at regulatory certainty.
And so my comment was more based around the idea that if we
are a family of States and agencies approaching this problem,
then we need to figure out what the measuring stick is and try
to accomplish whatever that measurement is together. I want to
make sure that we are all headed in the same direction.
WILD HORSE AND BURRO MANAGEMENT
Mr. Stewart. And again, I would like to pursue that
conversation with you maybe after or in another setting.
Let me come back to the horses if I could, and recognizing
that my time may be short, you indicated in your testimony it
may be 5 to 10 years to get a plan in place. Right now, I will
not ask you this question because I know you know the answer.
Right now there is something like 50,000 feral horses and
burros in the West under BLM control. Is that about right?
Mr. Kornze. Ballpark, yes.
Mr. Stewart. Recognizing we do not go out and count them
every day.
And legislatively, they are hoping for something less than
half of that, 26,500. That is kind of what we consider an
appropriate number in the West. Again, would you agree with
that?
Mr. Kornze. That is the management level.
Mr. Stewart. The management level we are seeking. We are
nearly double that. Well, CRS estimates that these herds have
the potential of doubling every 3 years, and if we have a 5- to
10-year window before we have these other, you know, some of
the contraceptive plans in place, and we may be dealing with a
huge number of horses here.
Now, if I could, I will end with this. This is a letter
that I suppose hundreds of my constituents have received, who
are farmers and ranchers out there trying to make a living, and
I would like to read just part of it. This is from the BLM
office in my district: ``As you are aware, all or a portion of
your livestock grazing allotment occurs on one of nine wild
horse management areas.'' And then they go on to explain, you
know, what that is and why that is regulated. But they say,
``In order to manage the public land resources for healthy
rangelands, we would appreciate and encourage you to evaluate
your livestock operation and review your options and make
adjustments so that livestock numbers can keep your use within
these habitat areas below 50 percent.''
Now, that is a scary thing for a rancher, to be directed by
the BLM to say you have got to find ways to reduce your
allotment by 50 percent, and the reason being is because you
are in a horse management area when the horses are exploding in
number. It is a real concern for me, as it is for many of them.
I know it is a concern for you as well, and I am just pleading
with you, a 10-year plan before we begin to use contraceptives,
which will allow maybe double or triple the number of horses
now is not a viable plan. I think we have got to be more
aggressive. We have got to come up with something that brings
some relief to these folks.
Mr. Kornze. Thank you, Congressman, and I did appreciate
the chance for us to talk through some tough issues yesterday.
Your district is overwhelmingly public land, and I appreciate
that things like wild horses and sage-grouse have an outsized
impact on you and your constituents, and we want to give them
the attention that they fully deserve.
In terms of a plan, I think one can come together in the
coming months, but because of the FDA and others, it may take a
while to get a drug in place that is workable. I think there
are some other solutions we can bring to bear but we may need
Congressional help. So if I could also keep that same bookmark
that I have with Congressman Cole and come visit with you and
the Chairman and the Ranking Member in a few months and talk
through these issues in a little bit more detail, that would be
excellent.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you.
Mr. Calvert. Again, a comment. I think we ought to look at
some money in the bill this year for spaying and neutering
horses and burros. That will help resolve the issue.
Mr. Stewart. Yes, we would certainly support that. Thank
you.
Mr. Calvert. Mr. Joyce.
HYDRAULIC FRACTURING
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Kornze. I want to follow up on some of
the questions that our Chairman had started with. On the
eastern side of Ohio, we have Congressman Johnson, Congressman
Tiberi and myself representing an area with the Marcellus shale
development. Hopefully it will continue and maybe even boom,
which would be fantastic for us.
But I know how states, Pennsylvania and Ohio, have worked
hard to develop sound and environmentally protective rules for
hydraulic fracturing. State rules have evolved as technology
has evolved, and the states do the permitting and also enforce
the rules. If we have federal rules on hydraulic fracturing,
can you tell me how this is all going to be worked out with the
rules already set in place by these States? Will producers now
be subject to both State and federal rules, or will the federal
rules override the States, and do you believe the States have a
better perspective in issuing rules for their own geography and
terrain than a uniform rule from federal agencies? I am just
concerned that these rules may cause serious confusion in
States and the developers.
Mr. Kornze. So if a developer was working on public assets,
whether just minerals or surface property, the way it operates
today, there would be no change to hydraulic fracturing. The
developer would have to look at both sides and would have to
basically meet the higher standard. And so that is the way that
oil and gas works today and that is the way it will work in the
future. I do not think that will be a surprise to any operators
out there.
Mr. Joyce. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Neil, welcome to
the Committee and it is good to see you again. I hope the
Senate actually decides to act on your nomination at some point
in time, but as the Ranking Member said, we have tried to
improve the Senate a number of times. We keep sending people
over there, but they seem to get lost. No, I am just kidding.
Before I ask you what I want to ask you about, which you
might guess, is sage-grouse, I have to respond to some of the
comments that have already been made, and I want my good
Ranking Member friend to know that I agree with your opening
statement and TR's statement. I would also point out that there
is a difference between use and abuse. TR never suggested that
we do not use our public lands. And some of the best people
trying to manage our public lands are the ranchers and other
people that are out using them because that is how they make a
living. So they try to--that is where the term ``multiple use''
comes from, which we like in the West.
WOLVES
The other thing, and this has nothing to do with you, Neil,
so you can just listen to this part. I understand yesterday
after I left--and I am sorry I had to leave yesterday because
we had to start another hearing in Energy and Water, but I
understand the debate about wolves came up and the delisting of
wolves. I would have liked to have been here for that debate,
and what I would like to do, and if maybe the Chairman would
allow us to do it, I will bring you a great big picture that we
will frame and put on the back wall, and it is of the 200 sheep
that were killed one night, the five dogs and a horse that were
killed one night by wolves in Idaho. I will not have the
picture of the 40 that were killed the two nights before that
from the same sheeper. You have to remember, these wolves were
reintroduced as a non-essential experimental population. Idaho,
Montana and Wyoming have complied with what the requirements
were when they were reintroduced, and it has now gone over to
State management. Anybody who believed that we were actually
going to reintroduce wolves into this environment and that they
were not going to explode in numbers and that we were not going
to have to manage them like we do other species was living in a
fantasy world. That is why the Fish and Wildlife Service looked
at all the plans that we put in place and said you know what?
They have done and exceeded what we asked them to do, and that
is why we delisted them in Idaho and Montana, particularly, and
then later Wyoming.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with you. Sorry about that.
Although they do come on your land.
You know, one of the other things I will say, just
comparing the prices of what we charge for an AUM on public
lands versus what the State charges is not a really good
comparison. I find it interesting that when I talk to most
ranchers that have allotments on both public lands and State
lands, even though they are paying more on State lands, they
would rather have the State land allotment than they would the
public land allotment, the BLM allotment, because of the
difficulties of dealing with the Federal Government, and I am
not saying it is Neil's responsibility, but all of the issues
that surround being on public lands makes it much more
expensive. So you have to look at all of the factors that go
into determining what you charge for an AUM. Does it need to be
looked at again? I have no problem looking at it and seeing
what the fair rate is and such, but it should be done in a
holistic manner rather than just comparing prices.
SAGE-GROUSE MANAGEMENT
So anyway, let me ask you about sage-grouse. What is the
biggest threat to sage-grouse habitat?
Mr. Kornze. It depends on where you are. So if you look at
the broad range of sage-grouse across 11 different States and
if you look at the west side, which is basically the great
basin, it is fire and invasives and conversion to grasslands,
and then on the east side, it is fragmentation.
Mr. Simpson. Which gets us to the point. We did not do too
much better in terms of wildfire management, and we can do a
lot better in terms of invasive species. One of our problems we
have had is that we do not know in this Federal Government how
much money we spend on invasive species. We really do not. We
have tried to figure that out, and there is a bill being
proposed or thought about--I do not know what stage it is in
right now--about trying to coordinate what we do spend on
invasive species and make sure it gets on the ground. Some
people have said 80 percent of what we spend in the Federal
Government on invasive species never makes it to the ground. I
do not know if that is true or not because we cannot find out
what we spend.
So I would hope you would work with us and the other
federal agencies, whether it is the Forest Service or others,
to try to develop an invasive species plan to address some of
these issues. Where do we stand with State management plans?
How many management plans have you approved? And of course, I
am obviously interested in the State of Idaho's management
plan, and how do you respond to what I hear from those people
involved, whether it is a governor or other ranchers and people
that are involved in developing the State management plan, that
while they were going to be active participants in developing a
management plan to start with, they now feel relegated to just
being public witnesses more or less, and they want to be active
players in development of the State management plan. What are
your thoughts on that?
And finally, is the $15 million you propose in your budget
for sage-grouse management that you have done in similar years
past, is that enough to actually address this issue so that we
can--I think what we all want is not to list sage-grouse.
Mr. Kornze. All right. A lot to cover there. I will try to
do it quickly. In short form, we are all working with the Fish
and Wildlife Service to figure out how high the bar is. In
Idaho, I am proud to tell you that every week our team and BLM
sits down with the State and the Fish and Wildlife Service and
we work through discussions and conversation about what a final
plan could look like for the management of public lands in
Idaho related to sage-grouse.
SAGE-GROUSE COORDINATION
Mr. Simpson. Along that same line, if I could ask you that
the BLM and Forest Service and others sit down with the State
people in Idaho. Are the D.C. BLM people coordinating with the
State people? Because sometimes we hear, you know, Fish and
Wildlife and BLM in Idaho agree with the State people or they
come to some agreement, and it gets lost when it comes to
Washington. What is the coordination between D.C. and the
States?
Mr. Kornze. So there is coordination but I think in the
Idaho context, it is important to explain that there is the
Fish and Wildlife Service, which is sort of the judge and jury
on this issue. They offered a letter to the State of Wyoming
that said your plan is golden, and that was a plan not just for
public lands but also for private lands, so we are all sort of
tiering in and connecting to that plan. In Idaho, the State got
a letter saying we think the concepts you put forward for the
BLM EIS are laudable and there are some parts of that stand
above but they did not bless the Idaho approach fully, the
State's approach.
So what we did is, we co-identified--we do not do this very
often but we picked two preferred alternatives, both the one
that we had developed with all of our partners including the
State and then the State's alternative. So right now we are
trying to mesh those into a plan that will work and that will
meet the standards that the Fish and Wildlife Service has put
out there. And so we coordinate that on the west side of the
sage-grouse range, on the east side, and then with the D.C.
operation as well.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Mr. Valadao.
MONTEREY SHALE DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Kornze, please describe the department's resource goals
and objectives with respect to development of the Monterey
shale resources that are likely to be found on BLM lands in
California. The existing goal for energy development and
resources management plan of BLM's Hollister, California,
district balances resource conservation and ecosystem health
with the production of commodities and with public use of land
from a policy standpoint. In view of the language BLM uses to
describe its multiple-use mission in the discussions of the
Federal Land Policy and Land Management Act on the agency
website, does the department plan to achieve this balance in a
manner that allows development of the Monterey shale as one of
BLM's multiple-use goals?
Mr. Kornze. I appreciate the question. The Monterey shale
is somewhat of a fascinating corner of what we manage in that
it is the source rock for many of the large oil and gas plays
that have historically been seen in California, and some people
think it is one of the largest oil and gas plays anywhere in
the world. There is also thought that it might be one of the
more fractured geologic formations that has ever been
approached in terms of oil and gas, and so I think that may be
part of the reason why we have not seen vast exploitation of
the resources to date.
We are undertaking sort of a fresh look at some of our
planning efforts in California right now to make sure that we
have a good, legally defensible foundation to move ahead should
those resources turn out to be economically viable, and so we
are working through that. It may take us a year or two but I
think we are headed in the right direction.
Mr. Calvert. I think we should probably call it Fresno
shale rather than Monterey. We would probably shave about 3
years off the permitting process.
Mr. Calvert. Because of the vote and because of another
hearing we are going to here at 11 o'clock, I will adjourn and
ask that members submit any remaining questions and comments
for the record.
I am going to call you Director to give you good luck,
Neil.
So with that, we are adjourned.
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Friday, April 4, 2014.
BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY MANAGEMENT AND BUREAU OF SAFETY AND
ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT
WITNESSES
TOMMY BEAUDREAU, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY MANAGEMENT
BRIAN SALERNO, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT
Opening Remarks of Chairman Calvert
Mr. Calvert. Good morning, and welcome to the fiscal year
2015 budget hearing for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management,
and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the two
agencies charged with management, safety, and environmental
protection of energy produced on the Outer Continental Shelf.
Energy is the backbone of the United States economy, and
reliable domestic sources of energy are vital for our economic
growth and homeland security. We depend on your efforts to help
produce domestic energy and domestic jobs in a responsible way,
and the revenue from oil and gas production is a substantial
boost to the United States Treasury. We also depend on your
efforts now more than ever, as energy costs continue to rise.
And, given this Administration's clear approach to restrict
production from other energy sectors, namely the coal industry,
without cheap, reliable energy, businesses that operate in the
United States will look elsewhere, and we cannot afford that.
Unfortunately, production in the Gulf is still 20 percent
below levels prior to the Administration's moratorium to deep
water drilling in the Gulf. Some companies have invested
billions of dollars in the Arctic, with nothing to show for
their efforts. Unfortunately, despite good intentions,
production has yet to expand in the Arctic. Thankfully, the
future for increased production in the Gulf does look bright,
or at least the projections for the Gulf are quite positive.
Nonetheless, companies are operating in a new regulatory
climate, with more stringent safety standards, and additional
requirements for cleanup plans. While we all agree that it is
important to get it right, certainly uncertainty created by
indecisiveness, or bureaucratic overreach, will inevitably
raise energy costs and extend drilling periods. I look forward
to working with you to ensure that we do get it right so that
we are responsibly recovering more of our resources, reducing
our energy costs, and ensuring a proper return on our
investments.
Also, we have had many conversations about staffing needs
since your agencies were established in 2011. We recognize both
the Bureaus' difficulty filling many positions, due to
competition from the oil and gas industry. We also recognize
the needs of an aging workforce, and for the need to keep up
with attrition, so we included the authority needed to pay
higher salaries for certain positions in the omnibus. With that
said, I do have some questions about the requested increase in
personnel for BSEE. After four years in a row of significant
increased hiring, we want to know where both Bureaus are in
terms of staffing, and what they are going to do in the long
term.
I am pleased now to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Moran,
for his opening remarks.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Moran
Mr. Moran. Thanks very much, Chairman Calvert, and I
welcome Director Beaudreau and Director Salerno, and thank you
for your service in taking on an enormously challenging
responsibility.
On April 20 we will mark the fourth anniversary of the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. The explosion, the fire,
the resulting oil spill resulted in lives lost, the environment
severely damaged, and people and businesses far beyond the oil
and gas industry being adversely affected. We learned a
terrible lesson as a Nation from that tragedy about the over-
reliance on technology, the complacency of operations, and the
laxity of regulation. Out of the Deepwater Horizon disaster,
the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety
and Environmental Enforcement were created to address the
severe and systemic shortcomings in the government's regulation
of what is a high risk enterprise. I appreciate the changes
that have been made in both of your agencies to protect the
public and the environment.
In January of 2011 the National Commission on the BP
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill issued its report and
recommendations. It was a ringing indictment of the oil and gas
industry, and the regulators that oversaw it. The Commission
provided Congress, the executive branch, and the oil and gas
industry with a whole host of recommendations to address the
sheer serious shortcomings identified with OCS operations and
regulations. I do commend the Department of the Interior for
moving quickly to address these serious shortcomings, and
instituting a new safety and environmentally protective
culture.
Unfortunately, while this Subcommittee took a leadership
role in approving the establishment of these two agencies, as
well as providing the fiscal resources for the Department of
the Interior's reorganization of its OCS management functions,
the Congress as a whole has not made a single fix to the
legislative shortcomings identified in the Commission's report.
And so now it is nearly four years after the disaster, and we
cannot help but be concerned that with the Macondo Well capped,
and the public spotlight turned off, the urgency to address the
problems the disaster exposed has waned, and will continue to.
As Martin Luther King always said, it is always right to do
what is right, and I do think it is right to follow through
with those recommendations that we have been presented with. We
should not lose sight of that enormous, chaotic catastrophe
that occurred just a few years ago. And so, Director Beaudreau
and Director Salerno, I am hopeful that we will be able to
provide you with the fiscal tools that you need to ensure that
safety and protection of the environment are the highest
priorities in drilling operations on the Outer Continental
Shelf. And with that, we thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you. Director Beaudreau and Director
Salerno, thank you for being here today to testify. Please
share with us your thoughts regarding the proposed budget for
fiscal year 2015. First Mr. Beaudreau.
Opening Remarks of Director Tommy Beaudreau
Mr. Beaudreau. Thank you very much, Chairman Calvert,
Ranking Member Moran, Members of the Subcommittee. I am pleased
to appear before you today to discuss the President's fiscal
year 2015 budget request for the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, or BOEM. This will be my final appearance before
the Subcommittee as the Director of BOEM. At the end of this
month I will be transitioning into another position at the
Interior Department.
Mr. Calvert. Would you like to share that position with us
for the----
Mr. Beaudreau. I will be the Chief of Staff for Secretary
Jewell.
Mr. Calvert. So you will be the one we will be calling
quite often?
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes.
Mr. Calvert. Good. I just wanted to make that for the
record.
Mr. Beaudreau. More to talk about, but obviously an open
door too. I joined the Interior Department in June 2010, in the
midst of the Gulf spill. My charge from the President, and then
Secretary Salazar, was to help reform offshore energy
development by raising safety and environmental standards for
offshore drilling, and by strengthening, and raising, and
restoring the public's confidence in Federal oversight of that
activity, which is central to the Nation's energy portfolio,
but also carries significant risk to worker safety and the
environment.
Key to those reforms was the reorganization of the former
Minerals Management Service, and the establishment of these two
still relatively new agencies, BOEM, and the Bureau of Safety
and Environmental Enforcement, led by Director Salerno, whom I
am proud to join this morning. As we approach the fourth
anniversary of that terrible spill, and discuss the budgets of
these two agencies born of our reforms, I would like to take a
moment to remind ourselves of how important these agencies are.
We established BOEM and BSEE to separate out the multitude
of responsibilities that, at that time, all resided in MMS,
and, in doing so, provide higher priority and management focus
on the discreet and important missions of each Bureau. Also key
to the oversight reforms was ensuring that each of these
agencies receive sufficient and proper resources, which MMS
lacked. Congressman Moran in particular knows that history.
This Subcommittee, in helping provide BOEM and BSEE with proper
resources, has been a big part of the answer, and I thank you
all for that.
A little bit about BOEM, and its identity, and
responsibilities. BOEM is responsible for management and
development of the Nation's offshore energy and mineral
resources in a balanced way that promotes diligent and
environmentally responsible development. BOEM's mission
includes overseeing offshore oil and gas leasing and plan
reviews, resource evaluation, standing up offshore renewable
energy, conducting thorough NEPA analyses, ocean science and
environmental studies, and ensuring that the American people
receive a fair return for offshore resources. The Bureau is
committed to applying the best available science to decision-
making, using research and rigorous analysis to support smart
decisions about developing the Nation's offshore, conventional,
and renewable energy resources. For a relatively small agency,
we have a tremendous breadth and diversity of subject matter
expertise. I will tell you that our people are some of the best
in the business. I am tremendously proud to work with them, and
this budget, while modest and mindful of the tight fiscal
constraints facing all of government, is designed to provide
them with the resources and tools necessary to do their jobs,
and do them the right way.
I am pleased to report we have been effective. Since BOEM
was founded in October 2011, our offshore oil and gas lease
sales have garnered well over $4 billion for the American
people. We completed the current five year offshore oil and gas
leasing program for 2012 through 2017, which makes available
areas containing more than 75 percent of the Nation's estimated
undiscovered, but technically recoverable, conventional energy
resources, but also does so in a manner that is tailored to
each region's specific conditions and environment.
And, as reflected in our budget request, we already are
beginning work on the 2017 through 2022 plan. Last year we held
the first two commercial competitive offshore wind lease sales
in U.S. history, and more of these renewable energy auctions
are on the way, offshore Maryland, Massachusetts, and New
Jersey, as well as other States. BOEM's marine minerals program
has been a key player in providing OCS sand resources in
support of beach restoration and resiliency projects, including
helping coastal States recover from Hurricane Sandy. Our
environmental studies program is a leading contributor to
advancing our scientific understanding of marine and coastal
ecosystems and environments, with ongoing work across many
areas, including marine mammals, birds, marine hydrokinetic sea
ice, air quality, and evaluating long term and cumulative
impact, all with an emphasis on collaboration and partnership.
These are the priorities and values reflected in the 2015
budget proposal. Again, I am grateful for this Subcommittee's
support, and I look forward to discussing the budget proposal,
and also answering your questions. Thank you.
[The statement of Tommy Beaudreau follows:]
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Mr. Calvert. Thank you for your testimony. Next, Director
Salerno.
Opening Remarks of Director Brian Salerno
Mr. Salerno. Good morning, Chairman Calvert, Ranking Member
Moran, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you and discuss the President's
fiscal year 2015 request for the Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement. Under the Administration's ``all of
the above'' energy strategy, the Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement works to promote safety, protect the
environment, and to conserve energy resources on the U.S. Outer
Continental Shelf. Since its establishment 2\1/2\ years ago,
the Bureau has worked diligently to earn the confidence of the
American people in our conduct of oversight activities.
The Bureau's 2015 request is $204.6 million. This includes
$81 million in direct appropriations, plus $123.6 million in
offsetting collections. In total, this budget will provide the
resources that we need to continue to fulfill our full set of
mission responsibilities, and to pursue organizational
enhancements which will contribute towards greater efficiency
and effectiveness. The budget proposes a net increase of two
million over the fiscal year 2014 enacted level. Of note, this
includes a program increase of $905,000 to support enhanced
review of emerging technologies.
Funding in the budget will also be used to recruit expert
engineers and scientists to support the development of sound
scientific and technical information, as well as the timely and
thorough review of permits. As Director, I am focused on
enhancing our ability to assess and manage risk. I am also
committed to strengthening our workforce, and preparing for the
future. Accordingly, our 2015 budget will enable us to continue
enforcing compliance with Federal regulations, while at the
same time lead the effort to establish a meaningful safety
culture within the offshore oil and gas industry, including a
focus on risk management.
We will increase our capacity to analyze and share data
gained through enhanced incident investigations, routine
reporting requirements, as well as through a near-miss
reporting system which is now under development, and through
the expanded use of real-time monitoring. We will refine our
methodologies for evaluating emerging technologies, and for
keeping pace with a very dynamic and very innovative industry,
and we will invest in human capital so that we attract and
retain the best available support for our mission
responsibilities.
The 2015 budget request will ensure we have the means to
properly oversee the ongoing expansion in domestic energy
activity from the Nation's offshore resources, while supporting
the safety of the offshore workforce, and protection of the
marine environment. I thank the Committee for inviting me here
today, and I look forward to your questions.
[The statement of Brian Salerno follows:]
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BUREAU STAFFING
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman for his statement. As I
noted in my opening statement, we focused on ensuring, and you
both spent some time discussing that, proper staffing at both
BOEM and BSEE since the reorganization, in order to meet the
large demand for timely leasing and permitting. Director
Beaudreau, your budget asks for no additional personnel from
your current level, I believe it is 551, so it appears that
BOEM has met its goal for hiring engineers? I understand you
have some challenges remaining as far as an aging workforce,
but does that mean you are fully staffed up, and you have met
your hiring goals?
Mr. Beaudreau. The current configuration for the Bureau, in
terms of our personnel needs, and how we validated those, we
are comfortable it provides us with the manpower necessary to
perform our missions. We have a real-time challenge, as people
retire or move on, back-filling those positions, so at any
moment in time we are not necessarily fully complimented. But,
that said, under our budget, and the current configuration, we
believe we have the right amount of resources, in terms of FTE,
to fulfill our broad responsibilities.
Mr. Calvert. You have the right mix of talent, the right
type of people to do the job properly?
Mr. Beaudreau. Correct. And I will just say, and you
mentioned it at the outset, the Committee's work on providing
us with hiring authority for some of these positions that are
extremely competitive, particularly at times like this of high
oil prices, as we compete with the industry for the same
petroleum engineers and geologists, has been extremely helpful,
and we do appreciate your leadership on that. In fact, and I am
sure Bureau of Land Management Principal Deputy Director Neil
Kornze talked about it this morning, it is part of that type of
reform that, on the onshore, BLM is looking to implement as
well.
Mr. Calvert. Director Salerno, your budget requests an
additional 51 full time equivalents, for a total of 869
personnel. Where are you at with respect to your hiring goals,
and what are your metrics of a success?
Mr. Salerno. We continue to attract and hire new employees,
but I will tell you that the competition from the industry from
a salary basis is extremely challenging for us. Last year, in
2013, we hired 178 new employees. 116 of these were in critical
fields, such as scientific capabilities, inspectors, and
engineers.
But out of that 178, the net gain was only about 94,
because as new people come in, many of our people, who are very
good, very talented people, are offered opportunities to work
in the industry at substantially higher pay rates. So that is
an ongoing challenge for us. We are appealing to other
motivations, patriotism, and the desire to serve the public.
There are many people who are attracted to that, and we are
very grateful for that, but for some people it is not enough to
offset the very, very attractive salaries from the industry. It
is an ongoing challenge for us. We continue to recruit from a
variety of sources, from colleges, from the industry itself,
and from the military, to get the right mix.
Mr. Calvert. Have you used the additional inspection piece
from the 2012 Omnibus to help you accommodate that----
Mr. Salerno. We----
Mr. Calvert [continuing]. Hiring issue?
Mr. Salerno. We have used the special salary rates that
Congress has provided, and, echoing Director Beaudreau, we are
very grateful for that. That is enormously helpful. Without
that, we would be in a far worse position.
SUBMERSIBLE
Mr. Calvert. I guess this question would be for you. I just
saw on the news that a submersible went down in the Gulf, down
where the oil spill occurred, to get to the bottom, a deep
water submersible. Is there any initial response from that
submersible, any news?
Mr. Salerno. I do not have any late breaking news on that,
sir, but we can certainly follow up.
Mr. Calvert. Just kind of curious. It went down this week,
I understand, so I was just curious if anything occurred from
that. Okay. Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. Thanks very much, Chairman. Both of you have
done a fine job in resurrecting respect and credibility for
this mission, and I really admire both of you. And
congratulations, Mr. Beaudreau, for being bumped up to run the
whole Department. Clearly the Secretary got a lot of good
feedback from your work.
Mr. Beaudreau. It is like winning a pie eating contest and
getting a pie.
GULF OF MEXICO OFFSHORE DRILLING
Mr. Moran. Yeah. I like that. That is a great expression. I
will use that sometime. I would like to know whether drilling
is increasing, decreasing, or staying level in the Gulf of
Mexico, Director Beaudreau.
Mr. Beaudreau. The trend we have seen, in terms of
exploration drilling, as well as development, has been that the
activity is increasing. There are more rigs working today in
the Gulf of Mexico than prior to the spill. Director Salerno
can amplify this, but the companies that I speak with, when we
talk strategically about where you are going, three, four, five
years down the road talk about acquiring additional rigs,
including new builds, and moving additional rigs into the Gulf
of Mexico. It is still a world class basin. It is incredibly
mature, in terms of infrastructure, including emergency
response capacity, and it is still one of the most profitable
places in the world to work offshore.
OFFSHORE LEASES
Mr. Moran. Um-hum. Well, let me ask, Director Salerno, how
many leases are there in the Outer Continental Shelf where only
the minimum is being done to retain the lease interest?
Mr. Salerno. The underlying philosophy in our regulations,
and what we enforce, is use it or lose it. There are defined
lease terms, which are set by BOEM.
Mr. Moran. Yeah.
Mr. Salerno. We manage that within BSEE to make sure
activity is conducted on those leases, and that the companies
are not sitting on them indefinitely. There is an expectation
that they will produce from those lands, and if they fail to do
so, they stand to lose that lease.
Mr. Moran. Do you have any estimate of the number of acres
that are leased, versus those in production?
Mr. Salerno. I do not have that by acreage at the moment,
sir, but I am sure, together with BOEM----
Mr. Moran. I think that----
Mr. Salerno [continuing]. We can provide that.
ATLANTIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
Mr. Moran [continuing]. Might be useful to know. I
obviously have a particular interest in seismic testing in the
Atlantic, and I understand that you have completed the EIS.
When do you expect seismic testing in the Atlantic to begin?
And I would like to know what safeguards are being planned to
be put in place, particularly with regard to impact on
shipping, on tourism, and on military operations.
Mr. Beaudreau. Thank you for that question. We recently
published the final programmatic EIS relating to G and G
activity in the mid and south Atlantic. That EIS really is a
set of alternative suites of mitigation to mitigate the types
of impact you described, Congressman Moran, including Chimera
closures in certain places because of well migrations, or
turtle nesting, including requiring operators, seismic
operators, seismic contractors, to utilize emerging
technologies, like passive acoustic monitoring, which currently
exist, and is employed to avoid conflicts, and to shut down
where there may be conflicts.
In terms of when activity may begin, the programmatic EIS
is out for comment now. A ROD will be issued that will select
among the alternatives. Our preferred alternative is the most
protective set of mitigation measures. We currently have
pending applications from G and G contractors to conduct those
surveys, and it is possible, depending on what the contractor
wants to do, that the first survey could be as early as later
this year.
OIL SPILL LIABILITY CAP
Mr. Moran. And it will take into consideration interference
with naval operations, I am sure. Just one other question, Mr.
Chair. The oil spill liability cap, you have proposed raising
it from $75 to $134 million. That is the largest you could do
without Federal legislation. It is the first increase since
passage of the Oil Pollution Act back in 1990, a quarter
century ago. I understand that opposition has surfaced, of
course, from the industry, and that the cap adjustment may be
delayed. When do you expect that cap adjustment to be
implemented on spill liability?
Mr. Beaudreau. We have done everything we could, from an
administrative standpoint, to adjust the liability cap. It is
essentially an inflation adjustment, but since the adjustment
has not been made since 1990, and actually the statute requires
that it be adjusted periodically every three years, we had some
catch-up to do. And so that accounts for the adjustment from 75
to 134 million. We did get requests for additional time to
comment on that adjustment, and because we want to hear from
everybody about it, we accommodated those requests. We will
consider the comments we receive, of course, but assuming we
move forward on the track that we feel we are statutorily
obligated to continue on, we will finalize that rule, and the
new cap will be in place this year.
Mr. Moran. Okay, good. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Thank the gentleman. Mr. Simpson.
DIRECTOR TOMMY BEAUDREAU PROMOTION TO CHIEF OF STAFF
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and thank you for being here. Like
I said, I do not know if that is a step up or what, becoming
Chief of Staff with the Secretary. That is going to be a
challenging job.
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. I hate to see somebody with a name like
Beaudreau leave the oil industry and go to the main offices. I
mean, that name was made for the industry that you are in, is
it not? Every time Billy Tauzin had a joke, and he had a lot of
them, his members will remember, there was always a Beaudreau
in there somewhere. Congratulations.
Mr. Beaudreau. Usually involves, like, an outhouse----
Mr. Simpson. Yes.
Mr. Beaudreau. Familiar with those.
Mr. Calvert. None of the jokes you can repeat.
BUREAU STAFFING
Mr. Simpson. I was going to say, I was not going to talk
about them. But anyway, congratulations, and we look forward to
working with you in your new capacity. Following up on what the
Chairman asked, how many unfilled positions do you currently
have today?
Mr. Beaudreau. I can get you the specific number. It
changes on a daily basis, depending on retirements, and
attrition, and that sort of thing. But we are, speaking for
BOEM, we are at an equilibrium, I believe, in terms of our
staffing. We are obviously trying to recruit, make sure we are
fully complimented, but that is evolving every day.
Mr. Simpson. How long does it take to fill a position, on
average?
Mr. Beaudreau. It can take months and months, and that is,
honestly----
Mr. Simpson. Is that because of competition with the
private sector?
Mr. Beaudreau. In part, but also we have given a lot of
focused attention to trying to streamline and accelerate the
bureaucratic process of on-boarding personnel, and that has
been a major part of what we have been trying to do with the
Interior Department, and our agency's HR offices, to try----
Mr. Simpson. Federal hiring policy sometimes makes it much
more difficult than the private sector to actually hire
somebody----
Mr. Beaudreau. And you get very far along in the process
with a good person, they are waiting around, and they get
poached.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah.
Mr. Beaudreau. And that is a very frustrating thing to
experience.
Mr. Simpson. Okay. Same questions for BSEE.
Mr. Salerno. Sir, as far as the delta, I would echo
Director Beaudreau's comment that on a daily basis it changes.
Certainly with the 51 plus up, those are vacant, and those are
ones that we are actively seeking to fill. We can get you more
detailed information. And as far as on-boarding, same comment.
It is more challenging bringing people into the Federal system,
regardless of department or agency. There are just rules that
we have to comply with that are time consuming. And that is
often a challenge we have to manage.
OFFSHORE PERMITTING
Mr. Simpson. Okay. One of the other reasons that we split
the MMS--is that what it was? Minerals Management Service,
yeah, why we split that into BOEM, and BSEE, was not only to
split the management from the enforcement sort of agencies, it
was also to kind of concentrate on the fact that we had
companies who were complaining that they never got a permit
done. The permitting process took an extraordinarily long time,
with permits kicked back and forth, and ping-ponged back and
forth between the Bureau, and between the agency and stuff. How
is the timing of permits now? Are we bringing down that timing
that it takes to actually get a permit?
Mr. Salerno. We have. In fact, I have some numbers here. In
2011, it took 71 days, on average. Now, there are a whole
variety of permits, so this is an average. In 2013 that was
brought down to 59 days, on average. We are looking at further
improvements in the permitting system, automating it----
Mr. Simpson. Yeah.
Mr. Salerno [continuing]. Which we believe will help
correct some of the problems with incomplete submissions. If
there is an automated process, almost like Turbo Tax, people
can see where elements need to be inserted so that a submission
is complete from the outset. We feel as we progress in this
investment in our IT technology, that we can further refine the
process.
The numbers are coming down. It is a different process than
prior to Deepwater Horizon spill. More is required of the
applicant. Our review process is more stringent. But even with
those added features, the time is being reduced.
Mr. Simpson. Well, that is good to hear, because one of the
things I heard repeatedly when this debate was going on, when
we first did this, from companies was that they are willing to
pay more in fees and stuff. What we want to see as a result
from that, and their complaint was, we would submit something,
and the government would send it back, saying, you need to fix
this, or you need to address this that you have not done. And
then they would do that, send it back, and say, by the way, you
need to do this one also. You know, a more complete analysis
was what they were looking for, so that they could move on. And
it is extremely expensive to get these permits and stuff too,
and time consuming, in companies, employees, and so forth and
so on. So I appreciate the fact that that is coming down.
GULF OF MEXICO ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP
Just one last question. And I know you are not in charge of
this, but what is the cleanup going like in the Gulf since the
Deepwater Horizon spill? You know, we heard when this happened,
a tragic environmental disaster that we all recognize. But you
heard things like, jeez, the Gulf will never be the same, we
destroyed it forever, and, you know, all that kind of stuff.
How is the recovery of that spill going down there?
Mr. Salerno. Well, it is an ongoing effort. There is still
a cadre of people that conduct monitoring of beaches and marsh
areas to look for long term effects, and also to respond in the
event of any discovered oil. Typically it is very hard tar ball
type oil, if it is discovered at all. There are a number of
scientific activities, and studies being conducted, throughout
the Federal Government, not necessarily within Interior, but
certainly by NOAA, EPA, and others, to look at long term
effects of things like dispersant use. We are very interested
in the outcomes of those things, because they are response
tools that are included in many companies' response plans, and
we have the role in approving their response plans.
Ongoing activity, I think, just as in the Exxon-Valdez
case, these things take a long time to ultimately resolve
before the environment fully recovers, but a lot of progress
has been made. I certainly keep in touch with my former Coast
Guard colleagues on that front. They still maintain the Federal
on-scene coordinator role, and are actively managing all
aspects of the spill, and the lingering effects of that.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and thanks for being here today.
Mr. Calvert. Thank the gentleman. Ms. McCollum.
ALASKAN TRIBES
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to start out
my question by reading a resolution, and I ask my colleagues'
forgiveness, because I do not want to mispronounce the name of
this Tribe, and have it mispronounced by all of us in future
references to them. The Shishmaref, I am probably not even
close. They are in Alaska, but I think you will know who I am
talking about as I read this. And I am reading their resolution
3-09.
``Whereas Alaska's indigenous people are inextricably
linked to the land and sea, depending upon the natural world
for our food security, community, and well-being, and cultural
identity, whereas the Arctic Ocean and surrounding ecosystems
have sustained the indigenous peoples for thousands of years,
whereas the Arctic Ocean has been recognized, through science
and traditional knowledge, as one of the most biologically
important places on Earth, whereas the Arctic Ocean is home to
whales, seals, walrus, and other migratory animals that many
Alaskan Tribes depend on for their food security, whereas many
animals and fish that Tribes across Alaska depend upon for
their food security migrate to and from the Arctic each year,
whereas many Tribes along the Arctic Coast continue to share
trade, traditional foods from the Arctic Ocean with other
indigenous communities, whereas food security is a basic human
right, and recognized by the United Nations, and affirmed by
the United States in the international covenant of civil and
political rights, whereas climate change is causing severe
coastal erosion, loss of sea ice, ocean acidification, and
changes to the migratory animals we depend on for our food
security, whereas a loss of sea ice and other impacts from
climate change are having an impact on our ability to hunt and
provide for our families, whereas increased shipping vessels
and traffic through Arctic waterways threatened with the
threats of offshore drilling and exploration puts additional
impacts on the ocean and coastal communities, whereas the
United States Government and other Arctic nations are moving
forward with plans to make further development in the Arctic
Ocean, whereas Alaska's indigenous Tribes must stand together
and support addition for the Arctic that protects our way of
life and puts our people first, whereas Tribes must be in the
forefront of planning for the future or the Arctic ecosystem,
whereas traditional knowledge and wisdom of the elders passed
down through generations is invaluable for understanding the
Arctic ecosystem and best management, therefore, now be
resolved that a comprehensive and scientifically proven
mitigation and monitoring plan must be developed to provide
oversight for Arctic industry activities that could impact our
food security, way of life, and health of our peoples.'' It
concludes with, ``Be it resolved that the United States must
consult and engage in a process with Tribes to determine the
appropriate deferral areas and other protective measures for
the important cultural, biological, and subsistence use of the
areas of the Arctic Ocean ecosystem to ensure our food
security, cultural identity, and protect our way of life.'' And
it was voted on May 14 of 2013 at the village.
I bring this up because our office has had an opportunity
to engage with these folks. I am not saying that you do not
talk or speak with them, but it is clearly not in a way that
they feel is a partnership, engaging, or respectful. Some of
the activity that is impacting them is out of your control. It
is clearly climate change. They are seeing species that they
have never seen before, birds, fish, that are totally unusual
to their way of life. They are losing land mass at a great
length, and now when they see the drilling, perceived drilling.
They are very, very concerned about just losing their culture,
their way of life, their land, everything altogether.
This document that I have from you, it is the budget
justification for 2015, and on page 76 over to 77, at the
bottom. You talked about the assessments of the Alaska region.
Now, I think my friends here, my colleagues, would all say
that, when it comes to NEPA and some of those other things, I
am rock solid. I am there. So this in no way is, dismisses the
importance I place on NEPA. But it is the last two lines of
that paragraph, where you even acknowledge Alaskan natives in
the integration of traditional knowledge, interpretive
documents and decision-making.
Certainly the devotion that is given to NEPA under the
environment, should not our brothers and sisters, the
Aborigines, the first Alaskans, come first? Could you please
explain to me and the Committee your process from beginning to
end on how you engage Alaska native villages, and what you
could, or will be doing better in the future?
Mr. Beaudreau. I would actually like to do that. I am an
Alaskan myself. I grew up in Alaska. My father moved our family
to Alaska in 1979, when he got a job working on the North
Slope. Part of the most important and gratifying aspect of my
job over the last almost four years has been the opportunity to
reconnect with my home State across these issues. I spend a lot
of time personally on the North Slope. I was on the North Slope
in February just a few weeks ago, meeting with the Native
Village of Nuiqsut. I met with Johnson, who was a
representative from the Village of Shishmaref, the folks you
met with last week, to talk about all of these issues. Let me
put it this way. I take, and we all do, extremely seriously our
relationships with the people of the North Slope, and the
Native Villages. We have developed relationships over the past
several years that I think are much different than perhaps
historically they were. I think we are understood to be
extremely respectful, engaged, and concerned about the changing
situation on the North Slope.
Everything you described and read from the resolution, in
terms of climate change, is true, and I have seen it first-
hand. Part of what is happening with receding sea ice is not
only polar conditions warming to the point where you have
receding sea ice, it also affects the permafrost. And then you
have these compounding wave effects where coastal communities
are literally being washed into the sea. And that is part of
the situation in Shishmaref today.
And so, when folks there talk about climate change, they
are on the point of the spear with it. They see it every day.
It is literally changing the way their communities work. And it
also affects subsistence hunting. On the North Slope today,
more than 60 percent of the caloric intake in these villages is
still from subsistence hunting and fishing. And so when folks
like the villagers in Shishmaref tell you the ocean is our
garden, that is true. That is where they literally go for food.
And so I take that with me, and I know Brian does too, into
these jobs every day. We have a high level of concern for the
people on the North Slope, for protecting their way of life,
and for working with them through our decision-making process.
When you referred to the reference on traditional knowledge
in that report, that was not a throw-away line. That is an
extremely important part of our information collection system,
in terms of evaluating where potential leasing may be
appropriate, and where it is not appropriate. We do a lot of
scientific studies to get Western science data around these
issues, but I found it, personally, extremely valuable to go to
a hunter and say, where do you go to find walrus? Where do you
have to go to find whale today? And it is different than it was
when their fathers were hunting. They have to go a lot farther
out. That carries risks in and of itself.
And so that is a long way of saying we are completely
committed to working with indigenous people wherever our
programs are relevant, but especially in Alaska, and I
personally take that extremely seriously.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Beaudreau, I do not doubt your sincerity
for a second, I truly do not. I do not doubt for a second that
you have elevated this up, as you said, higher than before, but
if we do not have a formalized process, if we do not have
something that is written on paper that is implemented, there
is very little security. There is very little opportunity to
build on a more trustful relationship. So if the Bureau of Land
Management is doing something next to a county, city, or even a
tribal area on the lower 48, there is much more of a formal
process involved in here than what I have been able to tangibly
pick up with those native Alaskans in the North Slope.
I would look to you to come up with a formal, respectful
guidance procedure or policy that we can work on together with
this Committee, and with the Alaskan natives in that area, so
that there is consistency. They are citizens of America, the
same as the citizens around in the Bakken Oil area, and they
are having challenges being heard, although that is not public,
it is private land.
So I look forward to working with whoever is going to be
taking your place. Mr. Chair, thank you very much for your
indulgence of the time. This is a very important issue.
Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Joyce.
NATIONAL OCEAN POLICY
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman Calvert. Gentlemen, good
morning, still. In the fiscal year 2014 Omnibus, it included a
60-day deadline to report back to this Committee on all
expenditures to date on National Ocean Policy implementation,
as well as funding for your fiscal year 2015 request. Since
that deadline passed on March 17 of this year, when will you
submit the requested information, and how much funding is in
your fiscal year 2015 request for the National Ocean Policy?
Mr. Beaudreau. I will look into the specific response. I
know we have provided responses to requesters in the past about
specific expenditures related to NOP. I know we went through
that exercise recently. And so, if there is miscommunication,
or it has not gotten to you yet, I will clear that up. The
bottom line answer, with respect to the amount of our budget
devoted to NOP, is, other than a small number of personnel who
part of their job description is to attend meetings with
regional councils, we do not have any line items specifically
devoted to NOP.
That said, big picture part of what National Ocean Policy
is meant to be is stakeholder engagement across the entire
spectrum of stakeholders, including industry, local community,
and the States. That is endemic to what BOEM does as part of
our planning process. You see it with conventional energy, as
well as with renewable energy. And so, while we do not have any
line items devoted specifically to expenditures on NOP, our
entire process is about engagement with that whole range of
stakeholders.
Mr. Joyce. What is your view of NOP? Do you feel that some
of the authority granted to the Secretary of Interior under the
OCS Lands Act is potentially undermined by a marine spatial
plan that each regional planning body must create?
Mr. Beaudreau. No, I do not see it that way. I see, again,
good stakeholder driver processes and engagement to make sure
that the entire range of concerns--take offshore wind as an
example. That entire process is about talking to wind
developers on the one hand, folks who are interested in the
commercial prospects, but the fishermen who may be impacted,
the military uses that may be impacted, concerns with sister
agencies about endangered species, the whole host of
stakeholders, try to, in a smart and up front way, reconcile
all those issues. That is, if done properly, what the Secretary
is supposed to be doing under OCSLA. And so I do not feel that
NOP in any way erodes our authority. If done right, it is
completely complimentary with the way we should be doing
business.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Calvert. Mr. Moran, any additional questions?
GULF FISH STUDY
Mr. Moran. Yes, thank you, Chairman Calvert. I was just
told that they found that in the Gulf young fish have their
breathing and heart systems compromised, so they do not expect
them to live as long. Have you seen any of that? There was an
article in the Washington Post in that regard.
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, I believe you are referring to a recent
study completed by NOAA that looked at impacts on tuna
populations, and the potential effect of the spill on those
species. And I believe that was the finding, that it affected
cardiovascular systems in those species in a way that is still
under study, on terms of what the total impacts were. But that
study was undertaken as part of the Natural Resource Damage
Assessment process, under NRDA.
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE BP DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL AND OFFSHORE
DRILLING
Mr. Moran. Interesting. What is the status of the
implementation of the safety of environmental recommendations
that were made by the BP Oil Spill Commission? Mr. Salerno.
Mr. Salerno. Yes, Congressman. There were quite a few
recommendations, as you know. I think the Commission
specifically made 33 recommendations to BSEE, to the Bureau of
Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or its predecessor
organizations, MMS, or BOEMRE. Of those, about 25 of them have
been addressed, or are being addressed through ongoing
initiatives, such as rulemakings. One example would be a
rulemaking now under development for blowout preventers, which
would enhance the requirements for that very vital piece of
equipment.
Many of the remaining ones that we have not addressed were
addressed in a different way. For example, there was a
recommendation that we adopt a safety case approach, similar to
what is being done in Norway. We are following a somewhat
different track. We think we are covering essentially the same
ground, with very good results. We have taken some
recommendations, and acted upon them, but maybe not
specifically in the way the authors intended, but in the spirit
of what they intended.
Overall, there were about 15 different studies performed
after Deepwater Horizon. The Oil Spill Commission was very
prominent, but there was also one with the National Academy of
Engineers. Again, it is a whole host of them. And, in
aggregate, about 200 recommendations that are directly
applicable to my organization, and roughly I would say \3/4\ of
them are either being acted upon, or addressed in some way.
When you get that many recommendations, they are not all
consistent, so you kind of have to sift through them and get
the intent behind it.
But it is very much an active effort on our part to take
all of those recommendations that make the most sense and yield
the greatest effect to bring those to conclusion.
Mr. Moran. Well, we have a responsibility for oversight,
and it is going to be important to understand to what extent,
and how many of the recommendations actually were fully
implemented in Federal policy. And I trust you are absolutely
determined to do that.
Mr. Salerno. Yes, sir.
BP OIL SPILL SETTLEMENTS FOR DAMAGES
Mr. Moran. I have obviously been critical of BP for some of
the laxity, and the expedient decisions that were made. This is
not a question I really expect you to answer with any
precision, but it does seem to me that, in the wake of the oil
spill disaster, there have been an awful lot of folks who have
jumped on the bandwagon and tried to get settlements for
damages that are kind of spurious. It seems as though BP
actually has a point to be made in some of these organizations
and individuals that are claiming damages that are very
questionable. Do you have any observations, either of you, on
that?
Mr. Beaudreau. No.
Mr. Moran. Yeah, I kind of suspected.
Mr. Beaudreau. That is okay.
Mr. Moran. Yeah.
Mr. Beaudreau. I do not want to wade into territory----
Mr. Moran. Yeah, I know.
Mr. Beaudreau. Right.
Mr. Moran. Yeah.
Ms. McCollum. Good job.
ARCTIC OCEAN
Mr. Moran. Yeah. Okay. Well, I did not expect any different
answers. Yeah, I, you know, Ms. McCollum has referenced Alaska.
We are concerned, obviously, about the Arctic Ocean
particularly. Do you look at the Arctic Ocean in a kind of
particularly sensitive way due to the fragile environment up
there? I trust the answer is yes, but that is the last question
I would have. Is there a uniqueness about the Arctic Ocean, and
its vulnerability, given all of the resources that are claimed
to be there?
Mr. Beaudreau. You are absolutely right, and Representative
McCollum is right about that as well. When I described in my
opening statement a region specific approach to leasing, that
is what I was referring to. You look at the Gulf of Mexico,
very mature, very well developed, a lot more resources, a
broader approach to leasing may be appropriate there. For
offshore Alaska, what we have described in the Five Year Plan
is a totally different model that flips that on its head, and
is actually more similar to what we do with siting of renewable
energy, where we look at what the resource potential is.
Because there is significant resource potential, especially
in the Chuckchi Sea, we look at what we know about well
migration patterns, subsistence fishing, including
incorporating traditional knowledge, and try to de-conflict all
of that and, we have a much more targeted and focused area that
we would even consider for leasing. And it is really an
entirely different model.
Mr. Moran. Very well put. Thank you very much. Thank you
both, and, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate----
Mr. Calvert. I have been to Alaska a number of times, and
of course, I served for many years on the Resources Committee,
and went to Alaska when Don Young, ran a codel up on the North
Slope, and spent some time in Barrow, and we met with a lot of
Native groups up there, and in the years on the Committee, met
with many folks, discussing those issues. And I find, as many
issues with Native Americans, there is a diversity of opinion.
Mr. Beaudreau. Yes, that is true.
Mr. Calvert. And----
Mr. Beaudreau. Not monolithic.
Mr. Calvert. It is not monolithic. But I would say, just
for the record, most of the Natives in that area believe that
they have been worked with, with the oil exploration companies.
Is that a reasonable statement to make, that they have
discussed this in detail with them?
Mr. Beaudreau. I agree with how you described it. These are
not monolithic communities. They are small towns, and in any
small town, there are a lot of dynamics going on. And they are
very sophisticated people, who have a range of views. One
viewpoint that I hear quite often when I am up there is, if oil
and gas activity is going to go forward, what is in it for us?
Mr. Calvert. Yeah.
Mr. Beaudreau. What does that mean for us? Both in terms of
impact, but also in terms of potential economic benefits. And,
in my mind, that is a very compelling question.
Mr. Calvert. As you know, the late Ted Stevens spent a lot
of time up there, and a lot of resources in those communities,
had directed to those communities, a lot of jobs with the
Native populations in that region. And many of the folks in
that area participate in the revenue that is generated in that
area, I just wanted to bring that up.
DECOMMISSIONING OFFSHORE PLATFORMS
And in the issue of the Gulf, we have got a lot of old rigs
out there. One of these days, somebody is going to run into one
of those things. How many rigs are in the Gulf right now that
have been abandoned?
Mr. Salerno. I do not have the exact number that are
abandoned. What I have are total number of rigs. It is about
2,600 platforms, fixed facilities, that are out there. There
are probably a number of additional ones that are not producing
right now. And when they cease to produce, there is an
obligation, under the law, that they be removed. That is
something that is within the purview of my agency, and we work
with the companies to see that happens in a reasonable
timeframe.
Mr. Calvert. How many applications are out there for
decommissioning right now?
Mr. Salerno. I will have to get back to you.
Mr. Calvert. Is it in the thousands?
Mr. Salerno. I will get that number for you.
Mr. Calvert. Well, that is what I hear. Maybe that is----
Mr. Salerno. No----
Mr. Calvert [continuing]. Total, but does that seem----
Mr. Salerno. There----
Mr. Calvert [continuing]. That might be close to correct?
Mr. Salerno. It may be close. The number of rigs, even just
a year or two ago, was substantially higher out in the Gulf. A
number of them have been removed. Some have been converted into
reefs. We have a rigs to reefs program.
RIGS-TO-REEFS PROGRAM
Mr. Calvert. And that is actually my next question. It can
be a win-win. One is that they have an obligation to remove the
rig, but they do not have to remove the whole rig down to the
sea bed. They could potentially cut that, and use that for
artificial reefs to help the fish population.
Mr. Salerno. That is correct. There are criteria for doing
this in an environmentally sound way. It is done in conjunction
with the States. But often the States and local communities,
like fishermen, really want those artificial reefs because an
ecosystem has been built around them, and they want to preserve
that. We have found ways to do that and accommodate it. And
this was an issue a few years ago, and I think we have found a
path forward that has worked quite well in the last year or so.
We are going to continue with that.
Mr. Calvert. Okay. Any additional questions? Yes.
SHELL OIL KULLUK
Ms. McCollum. This is kind of current news, Shell Oil
Kulluk, am I saying that right?
Mr. Beaudreau. Kulluk.
Ms. McCollum. Kulluk.
Mr. Beaudreau. Right.
Ms. McCollum. Are you French-Canadian? They were teasing
you about being Louisianan. Yeah. Not all Beaudreaus are South.
So thank you for helping with the pronunciation. Anyway, it was
stranded off the coast of the Kodiak Island on December 31,
2012. The rig became stranded as a result of being towed into
the Alaskan Arctic to Washington State repairs. So there are
many questions as to why Shell decided to move the rig from
Alaska to Washington during bad weather.
Now, tax law has been one of the big speculations that have
been out there in order to make sure that Shell received as
much profit as possible. So yesterday the Coast Guard released
a report stating inadequate assessment and management of risk
was the biggest reason for the grounding. So what is the
Bureau's takeaway from this report to work to ensure that there
are adequate safety measures before towing like this takes
place again? Who is paying for the Coast Guard, the involvement
in that, and everything else?Were taxpayers on the hook, or
were funds able to be recovered since 2012 on this grounding?
Mr. Salerno. First of all, let me say, we are going through
the report from the Coast Guard. I have looked at it
personally. I think they have done an excellent job, and I am a
former Coast Guard officer, so I am a little bit biased, in
characterizing the elements that went into that casualty. What
they have found, in great detail, is an absence of adequate
risk management, on the part of Shell, and its contractors, in
particular Chouest, their assessment of the environmental
conditions, the selection of towing equipment, the vessels that
were used, the fact there was only a single towing vessel going
through the Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, that time of year
without any redundancy. It is very difficult to re-make a tow
in those extreme conditions once the tow line is broken.
All of those things are included in the report, and I think
it does an excellent job of characterizing the absence of
preparation, for operations that time of year. It is very
consistent with a report that was done over a year ago, led by
the Department of the Interior, both with other agency
involvement. Secretary Salazar at that time commissioned a 60-
day review. He wanted to understand what went wrong in the
aftermath of that event. And it found something that I think is
entirely consistent with the Coast Guard's review, and that is
different operating elements of Shell's organization were not
very well synchronized. It was a classic left hand not knowing
what the right hand was doing. They had spent a lot of time and
effort focusing on the drilling activity. They really did not
spend a lot of time integrating the maritime activity and the
marine transportation related activity, so overall risk
management suffered.
Now, as a result, the 60-day report required that, for
future operations, Shell, and any operator, would be required
to develop an integrated operations plan. And that is what we
have communicated to Shell. They were actively working on that,
until they decided not to go forward this year. But that
requirement remains, that, if they choose to go back, we want
an integrated operations plan, that needs to be audited by an
external entity. We will go over this with a fine-tooth comb
because we do not want a repeat of that lack of internal
coordination within their organization that contributed to this
event.
We work very closely with other Federal agencies on
anything in the Arctic, in particular with the Coast Guard, but
there are a whole host of them. There is an inter-agency
working group, and it is all of the alphabet soup of government
that has a stake in Alaska. We watch this very, very closely.
But we learned from that event. Shell learned from that, we
learned from it, the Coast Guard has learned from it, and that
has our attention and our focus.
Ms. McCollum. Were there any indirect or direct costs to
taxpayers that have not been recovered?
Mr. Beaudreau. I do not know the answer to that question,
but we will look into it.
Ms. McCollum. Because it seems to me that they should pay
for their own mistake, their mess, their hurry-up to get
something moved to their advantage. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Calvert. Any further questions? I believe we will
probably have some questions for the record that we will submit
to both of you, but thank you for attending this hearing. We
are adjourned.
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