[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

HEARING TO REVIEW THE NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM: SUPPORTING FOREST HEALTH
AND
CONFRONTING THE WILDFIRE CRISIS

=======================================================================

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTRY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION
__________

MAY 16, 2023
__________

Serial No. 118-11

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
agriculture.house.gov
__________

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

53-810 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE

GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania, Chairman

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DAVID SCOTT, Georgia, Ranking
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia, Vice Minority Member
Chairman JIM COSTA, California
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina
DOUG LaMALFA, California ABIGAIL DAVIS SPANBERGER, Virginia
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi SHONTEL M. BROWN, Ohio
DON BACON, Nebraska SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
MIKE BOST, Illinois ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
DUSTY JOHNSON, South Dakota YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
TRACEY MANN, Kansas MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ,
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa Washington
MARY E. MILLER, Illinois DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina,
BARRY MOORE, Alabama Vice Ranking Minority Member
KAT CAMMACK, Florida JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota NIKKI BUDZINSKI, Illinois
JOHN W. ROSE, Tennessee ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
RONNY JACKSON, Texas GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
MARCUS J. MOLINARO, New York JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
MONICA De La CRUZ, Texas JONATHAN L. JACKSON, Illinois
NICHOLAS A. LANGWORTHY, New York GREG CASAR, Texas
JOHN S. DUARTE, California CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
MARK ALFORD, Missouri ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
DERRICK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin DARREN SOTO, Florida
LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER, Oregon SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
MAX L. MILLER, Ohio

______

Parish Braden, Staff Director

Anne Simmons, Minority Staff Director

______

Subcommittee on Forestry

DOUG LaMALFA, California, Chairman

TRENT KELLY, Mississippi ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon, Ranking
BARRY MOORE, Alabama Minority Member
JOHN S. DUARTE, California MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ,
LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER, Oregon Washington
GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine

(ii)
C O N T E N T S

----------
Page
LaMalfa, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from California,
opening statement.............................................. 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Salinas, Hon. Andrea, a Representative in Congress from Oregon,
opening statement.............................................. 4
Thompson, Hon. Glenn, a Representative in Congress from
Pennsylvania, opening statement................................ 12
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Vasquez, Hon. Gabe, a Representative in Congress from New Mexico,
submitted letter............................................... 41

Witness

Moore, Randy, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D.C................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Supplementary material....................................... 41
Submitted questions.......................................... 44

HEARING TO REVIEW THE NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM: SUPPORTING FOREST HEALTH
AND
CONFRONTING THE WILDFIRE CRISIS

----------

TUESDAY, MAY 16, 2023

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Forestry,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:16 a.m., in
Room 1300 of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Doug
LaMalfa [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives LaMalfa, Kelly, Moore,
Duarte, Chavez-DeRemer, Thompson (ex officio), Salinas, Perez,
Vasquez, and Pingree.
Staff present: Adele Borne, John Busovsky, Kristin Sleeper,
Wick Dudley, Erin Wilson, John Konya, Kate Fink, Michael Stein,
and Dana Sandman.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DOUG LaMALFA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA

The Chairman. The Committee will come to order. Welcome,
and thank you for joining today's hearing entitled, Hearing To
Review the National Forest System: Supporting Forest Health and
Confronting the Wildfire Crisis. So after brief opening
remarks, Members will receive testimony from our witness today,
and then the hearing will be open to questions for our panel.
So, with that, good morning. Welcome to today's Forestry
Subcommittee hearing. As the title reflects, today's hearing
will examine how this Committee and Congress can better support
the health of our forests and ongoing efforts to address the
wildfire crisis. Make no mistake, our forests and rural
communities continue to face an unprecedented forest health and
wildfire crisis. This is an emergency that we must immediately
tackle on multiple fronts.
The Forest Service plays the important role of managing our
forests for ecological health, ensuring a reliable supply of
domestically produced timber, and supporting rural prosperity.
For decades, and particularly in the West, we have continued to
see a decline in forest health on tens of millions of acres,
and catastrophic wildfire on an unprecedented scale. Over the
past 5 years alone we have witnessed some of the most
destructive fires on record. As these fires become larger and
more intense, more communities are impacted every day.
The statistics are clear. In 2015, 2017, 2020, we saw more
than 10 million acres burn per year. Six of the seven largest
wildfires we have seen in California, my home state, have
occurred in 2020 and 2021, including two large fires that
burned approximately 1 million acres each, both in my
Congressional district. The August Complex Fire in 2020 burned
more than 1 million acres, and the Dixie Fire of 2021 burned
960,000 acres. In 2018, we had the Camp Fire, which destroyed
the Town of Paradise, took the lives of 85 people. And as a
side note, the good people of my district provided me with this
special gavel made with salvage wood from the Camp Fire, so I
am grateful to be able to wield this in their honor as we do
the good work that this Committee needs to make sure this sort
of thing doesn't continue to keep happening.
This truly is an urgent crisis. We need to act now. We must
dramatically increase active management and speed up the pace
and scale--an often-used term in this Committee in these
conversations about forestry--of forest restoration on tens of
millions of acres of Federal and non-Federal land. This
includes activities such as prescribed fires, cross-boundary
fuel breaks, logging activities--yes, we will say that word,
logging--to thin overstocked stands, the use of fire retardant,
and expedited salvage logging and burned area rehabilitation
after a fire.
Congress has provided the Forest Service with significant
new funding to support the agency's 10 year wildfire plan.
While funding is clearly needed to log and properly manage
millions of acres at high risk of wildfire, I also believe that
funding alone won't be enough to protect our forests and
communities long-term. The agency will continue to be
challenged by the regulatory hurdles that it has long faced.
This includes lengthy processes under NEPA. Frivolous
litigation only delays critical management activities. It also
includes the latest legal challenge from extreme activists to
curb the use of fire retardant, which we have discussed, which
is an essential tool for firefighters to use and to slow the
spread of wildfire.
Looking ahead to the next farm bill, the 2014 and 2018
reauthorizations provided the Forest Service with a variety of
tools intended to help the agency better manage and incentivize
more public-private partnerships, grow new markets for forest
products, and help rural communities thrive. This includes
expanding existing authorities such as Good Neighbor and
stewardship contracting to leverage more partnerships that will
increase landscape-scale restoration projects. It also includes
expanded use of categorical exclusions, such as for insect and
disease treatments, to help move along commonsense forest
management activities with known beneficial outcomes.
The 2018 Farm Bill contained a research and development
program to help encourage new markets and infrastructure for
forest products, and advance tall wood building construction in
the United States. We must also encourage the construction of
new sawmills, and other forest product infrastructure, to
ensure the long-term viability of these partners. We need to
have long-term commitments so they will build them. The last
farm bill also expanded the Landscape Scale Restoration Program
on cross-boundary restoration, and authorized new tools for
hazardous fuels on bordering non-Federal lands. This Committee
must build on the good work that we have accomplished over the
past two reauthorizations, and again use this year's new farm
bill to ramp up even more active forest management and
restoration along the National Forest System. We should also
encourage the Forest Service to use every tool in its toolbox,
including new authorities provided in the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Act (Pub. L. 117-58), specifically, increased
use of the fuel break categorical exclusion and the bill's
emergency authority.
Summer is soon upon us. We have already seen fires start,
and the Forest Service continues to select additional sites for
restoration projects. As this year's wildfire season ramps up,
and as we consider reforms for the upcoming farm bill
reauthorization, today's hearing is indeed timely. So we are
pleased to welcome Chief Randy Moore of the U.S. Forest
Service. Chief, we look forward to your testimony, and a robust
conversation on the variety of issues--how did that robust get
in there? I hate that word--a productive conversation on the
variety of issues facing the Forest Service and our rural and
forested communities. We also look forward to working with you
on identifying ways that this Committee can best support the
urgent work that we need the Forest Service to accomplish to
lessen the risk of catastrophic wildfire.
[The prepared statement of Mr. LaMalfa follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Doug LaMalfa, a Representative in Congress
from California
Good morning and welcome to today's Forestry Subcommittee hearing
titled, Hearing To Review the National Forest System: Supporting Forest
Health and Confronting the Wildfire Crisis.
As the title reflects, today's hearing will examine how this
Committee and Congress can better support the health of our forests and
ongoing efforts to address the wildfire crisis. Make no mistake, our
forests and rural communities continue to face an unprecedented forest
health and wildfire crisis. This is an emergency that we must
immediately tackle on multiple fronts.
The Forest Service plays the important role of managing our forests
for ecological health, ensuring a reliable supply of domestic timber,
and supporting rural prosperity. For decades and particularly in the
West, we have continued to see a decline in forest health on tens of
millions of acres and catastrophic wildfire on an unprecedented scale.
Over the past 5 years alone, we've witnessed some of the most
destructive fires on record. As these fires become larger and more
intense, more communities are impacted every day.
The statistics are clear. In 2015, 2017 and 2020, we saw more than
10 million acres burn per year. Six of the seven largest wildfires
we've seen in California occurred in 2020 and 2021, which includes two
fires that burned approximately 1 million acres each, both in my
district.
The August Complex Fire in 2020 burned more than 1 million acres;
and the Dixie Fire of 2021 burned 960,000 acres. In 2018, we had the
Camp Fire which destroyed the Town of Paradise, California and took the
lives of 85 people. This truly is an urgent crisis and we need to act
now.
We must dramatically increase active management and speed up the
pace and scale of forest restoration on tens of millions of acres of
Federal and non-Federal land. This includes activities such as
prescribed fires, cross-boundary fuel breaks, logging activities to
thin overstocked stands, the use of fire retardant, and expedited
salvage logging and burned area rehabilitation.
Congress has provided the Forest Service with significant new
funding to support the agency's 10 year wildfire plan. While funding is
clearly needed to log and properly manage millions of acres at high
risk of wildfire, I also believe that funding alone won't be enough to
protect our forests and communities. The agency will continue to be
challenged by the regulatory hurdles that it has long faced. This
includes lengthy processes under NEPA and frivolous litigation that
only delays critical management activities. It also includes the latest
legal challenge from extreme activists to curb the use of fire
retardant, an essential tool firefighters use to slow the spread of
wildfire.
Looking ahead to the next farm bill, the 2014 and 2018
reauthorizations provided the Forest Service with a variety of tools
intended to help the agency better manage, incentivize more public-
private partnerships, grow new markets for forest products, and help
rural communities thrive.
This includes expanding existing authorities such as Good Neighbor
and stewardship contracting to leverage more partnerships that will
increase landscape-scale restoration projects. It also includes
expanded use of categorical exclusions (CE), such as for insect and
disease treatments, to help move along commonsense forest management
activities with known beneficial outcomes.
The 2018 Farm Bill contained a research and development program to
help encourage new markets and infrastructure for forest products and
advance tall wood building construction in the United States. We must
also encourage the construction of new sawmills and other forest
product infrastructure to ensure the long-term viability of these
partners. The last farm bill also expanded the Landscape Scale
Restoration program on cross-boundary restoration and authorized new
tools for hazardous fuels on bordering non-Federal lands.
This Committee must build on the good work that we accomplished
over the past two reauthorizations and again use the farm bill to ramp
up active forest management and restoration across the National Forest
System. We should also encourage the Forest Service to use every tool
in its toolbox, including new authorities provided in the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Specifically, this
includes increased use of the fuel break categorical exclusion and the
bill's emergency authority.
Summer is here, we've already seen fire starts and the Forest
Service continues to select additional sites for restoration projects.
As this year's wildfire season ramps up and as we consider reforms for
the upcoming farm bill reauthorization, today's hearing is timely.
I am pleased to welcome Chief Randy Moore of the U.S. Forest
Service. Chief, we look forward to your testimony and a robust
conversation on the variety of issues facing the Forest Service and our
rural and forested communities. We also look forward to working with
you on identifying ways that this Committee can best support the urgent
work that we need the Forest Service to accomplish to lessen the risk
of catastrophic wildfire.
With that, I recognize Ranking Member Salinas for her opening
statement.

The Chairman. With that, I recognize my colleague, Ranking
Member Salinas, for her opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANDREA SALINAS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM OREGON

Ms. Salinas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity
to hear from Chief Moore about the state of our National Forest
System, and to discuss what is and isn't working in the
forestry provisions of the 2018 Farm Bill, the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (Pub.
L. 117-169). Forest health is a critical concern for
communities around my home State of Oregon and the nation.
Public and private forests alike provide critical support to
our rural economies, as Mr. LaMalfa just stated. Moreover,
healthy forests help mitigate climate change and foster
resilience against wildfires and other climate-induced natural
disasters.
One point that I continue to hear from forestry
stakeholders back in my district is that the farm bill
programs, and whether they are voluntary conservation
incentives to tree disease research, they all play an important
role in rural prosperity. So I look forward to hearing from our
witness about program successes, as well as programs that need
to be revamped in this year's farm bill to improve our forest
health, our communities, and our climate. Thank you for being
here, Chief Moore, and I look forward to your testimony.
The Chairman. Well, thank you, Ranking Member Salinas. Very
economical on time there. I don't see our Chairman or Ranking
Member, so I would request any other Members of the Committee
that would, submit their opening statements for the record so
the witness may begin his testimony, and so that there is ample
time for questions during today's hearing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thompson follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Glenn Thompson, a Representative in Congress
from Pennsylvania
Thank you, Chairman LaMalfa and Ranking Member Salinas.
I appreciate today's hearing and the opportunity to discuss issues
before the Forest Service and the farm bill's forestry title.
For many forested and rural communities, our National Forests are
critically important for supporting jobs, providing a sustainable
supply of timber, and promoting forest health.
Over the past few farm bills, this Committee has provided the
Forest Service with new tools and authorities intended to allow the
agency to better manage. For example, we expanded the Good Neighbor and
stewardship contracting authorities, and provided the insect and
disease treatment authority.
We've also used the forestry title to encourage new markets through
initiatives like the Wood Innovation Grant program and providing
incentives to build with wood.
Along with the restoration work and fuels reduction projects that
are underway and urgently needed, another priority should be to
increase timber harvesting and get closer to our allowable sale
quantity across the National Forest System. Doing so will have the dual
benefit of supporting forest health and rural economies.
As we move forward with this farm bill cycle, I am hopeful that we
can further build on the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills forestry titles.
Chief Moore, thank you for being here today. We look forward to
your testimony and engaging in a robust conversation on these important
issues. I yield back.

The Chairman. So, as I mentioned earlier, our witness
today, and we are grateful to have him here, is Mr. Randy
Moore, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. Thank you for joining us today, sir, and we
will be pleased to receive your testimony. You know the gig, we
have 5 minutes, but we won't be too tough on that. The timer
will count down, you know the deal. Chief Moore, please begin
when you are ready.

STATEMENT OF RANDY MOORE, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST SERVICE, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. Moore. Great. Chairman LaMalfa, Ranking Member Salinas,
and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity
to testify before this Committee. During my 40+ years of
Federal service, I have worked in many locations across the
country, from North Dakota to Colorado, Kansas, North Dakota,
Missouri, and I have also led the Forest Service in the Eastern
Region, located in Wisconsin, as well as the Pacific Southwest
Region, located in California. I have witnessed tremendous
change over the years, including many authorities that Congress
has added through the forestry title programs in the farm bill
over the past 20 years. Each new farm bill has equipped us with
essential tools that have enabled us to tackle resource
challenges, strengthen work with communities and partners, and
equitably serve all people of America. This Committee's work on
the next farm bill is central to making forests and grasslands
more resilient to our communities, making them safer in the
face of increasing threats from catastrophic wildfires,
drought, and epidemics on forest insects and disease.
I want to be clear that reducing the threat of wildfire
across landscapes is a top priority for our agency. Through the
wildfire crisis strategy we have ramped up to treat the right
places at the right scale using an all-hands, all-lands
approach. Recent investments by Congress gives us a once in a
lifetime opportunity to take bold and strategic action. We are
working to do just that, to put every dollar to good use. This
past January we announced investments of $930 million in 21
high-risk landscapes in the West. This work benefits roughly
200 communities, it reduces risk to infrastructure, and it
improves forests. Our wildfire crisis strategy is also guiding
significant investments beyond the initial landscapes, such as
community wildfire defense grants across 22 states, using about
$200 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We are
grateful to Congress for providing the resources to seed our
initial work.
Sustained execution, however, will depend on continued
Federal investment coupled with funding and capacity from our
partners. Tools in the farm bill play a pivotal role in
reducing wildfire threats and promoting resilience. Families
and individuals own most of America's forests, so we need
management options that remove barriers and promote shared
stewardship, as well as cross-boundary work. The farm bill is
uniquely suited to do that. Through the Landscape Scale
Restoration Program, we work with states to assist private
landowners in achieving conservation goals. It ensures private
lands remain as forests. Through Wood Innovation Grants, we are
accelerating new markets for wood products and wood energy.
Cross-laminated timber is one of these innovations, which is
exemplified by the tallest building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
which currently stands at 25 stories.
The farm bill also supports collaborative forest landscape
restoration projects. They expand science-based collaborative
work, and leverage partner dollars. This work has reduced the
fire risk of more than 4.6 million acres. It will continue to
help communities like those in northern California, who had
recently invested $3 million in the Western Climate Mountains
Forest and the Fire Resiliency Project.
Thank you for the Good Neighbor Authority. We have reached
380 agreements across 38 states, and we have tripled the timber
volume under GNA since 2018. This tool strengthened ties and
worked with states, Tribes, and counties. We access expertise
and capacity for treating larger landscapes. For example, we
have 26 active GNA agreements with Oregon Department of
Forestry that have resulted in completion of 20,000 acres of
non-commercial fuel reduction, thinning work, as well as
wildlife habitat improvements.
We are working hard to leverage available authorities and
funding. Obviously, there is much more to do, especially with
so much at stake. Your work on the next farm bill underpins our
efforts to improve forest conditions and reduce threats to
vulnerable communities and infrastructure. We look forward to
working with you, and I want to say thank you, and I welcome
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]

Prepared Statement of Randy Moore, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
Chairman LaMalfa, Ranking Member Salinas, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to review how the farm bill
supports forest health and aids our efforts to confront the wildfire
crisis. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service greatly
appreciates the valuable programs that Congress has authorized over the
past 5 decades through the farm bill to support our mission and help us
confront both long-standing and emerging threats to the nation's
forests and grasslands. USDA looks forward to our work with the
Subcommittee to ensure the Forest Service has the tools and flexibility
it needs to address the wildfire crisis, as well as successfully
implement the full breadth of the Agency's mission.
Along with the tools and investments Congress enacted in the 2018
Consolidated Appropriations Act, the bipartisan Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),
the Forest Service is using farm bill authorities to confront the
wildfire crisis, create new markets and technology for wood products,
and restore forest health and resiliency through partnerships and
collaboration across landscapes.
Today, I will share recent developments in implementing our
Wildfire Crisis Strategy and highlight accomplishments in our use of
six areas of authority from the 2018 Farm Bill that are particularly
important in addressing the wildfire crisis: (1) the reauthorized
Insect and Disease treatment authority (Section 603, Healthy Forests
Restoration Act), (2) the expanded Good Neighbor Authority, (3) the new
Tribal forestry demonstration project, (4) the Collaborative Forest
Landscape Restoration Program, (5) the Wood Innovation grant programs,
and (6) the Landscape Scale Restoration Program.
Climate change, wildfire and other natural disturbances do not
respect land management boundaries; therefore, we need policies and
management approaches--like those included in previous farm bills--that
remove barriers and allow for shared stewardship and cross-boundary
management. Throughout the 2018 Farm Bill, there are many authorities
and provisions that assist the Forest Service in accomplishing our
priority work across boundaries, particularly ecological restoration,
support to communities, vital voluntary conservation efforts, and
reducing hazardous fuels. Many of these provisions support our overall
emphasis in USDA to work with private forest landowners and ranchers in
looking for ways to foster new and better markets for them and continue
to keep those producers on the land. In keeping with the Biden-Harris
Administration's commitment to rebuild and strengthen the middle class
from ``the bottom up and the middle out,'' we're looking for ways in
which we can encourage and increase the number of revenue streams
available to private forest landowners and producers in forested
communities so that they can benefit, not only from the sale of timber,
crops, and livestock, but also be incentivized to conserve critical
resources and invest in climate smart agriculture and forestry
practices to sustain resilient, healthy forests and grasslands.
Together, our work with all the innovative farm bill provisions
demonstrates our commitment to shared stewardship of the nation's
forests and grasslands, while strengthening relationships with Tribes,
states, and local communities.
The Wildfire Crisis Strategy
In Forest Service, we are entering our second year of carrying out
our 10 year strategy for confronting the wildfire crisis in the West.
Our Wildfire Crisis Strategy aims to increase science-based fuels
treatments by up to four times previous treatment levels, especially in
those areas most at risk. Fuels treatments by the Forest Service,
together with partners, have made a difference over the years. However,
the scale of treatments is outmatched by the rapid increase in the
scale and severity of wildfires as climate change accelerates. This
strategy calls for treating up to 20 million additional acres of
National Forest System (NFS) lands over the coming decade, and working
with partners, including colleagues at the U.S. Department of the
Interior, to treat up to 30 million additional acres on adjoining lands
of multiple ownerships, while building a long-term maintenance plan.
The intent for these treatments is to reduce the wildfire risk to
communities, critical infrastructure, municipal water sources, and
natural resources, and to restore and maintain fire-adapted landscapes
so they are more resilient.
Within IIJA, Congress provided a $1.4 billion down payment that
greatly assists in putting our Wildfire Crisis Strategy into action
with investments on ten landscapes in eight western states (Arizona,
California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, and
Washington). Through work across the country, including on these
landscapes, we completed treatments on 3.2 million acres nationally in
2022. We also accomplished these treatments in 118 of the 250 high-
priority fire sheds identified in the Wildfire Crisis Strategy. This
work was accomplished despite numerous barriers including internal
staffing capacity, lack of markets for small-diameter wood, and high
post-fire workloads from previous seasons. The work on these acres
directly reduced risk to communities, infrastructure, and critical
watersheds.
IRA funding provides the Forest Service an additional $1.8 billion
for hazardous fuels funding in the wildland-urban interface. With IRA
funding, we recently selected 11 additional landscapes for treatment in
seven western states (Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah,
and Washington). Combined with the initial investment landscapes, our
actions will span 134 of the 250 high-risk fire sheds in the western
U.S., with the investment we announced in January 2023 of $930 million
on 21 landscapes. These investments will help reduce the risk of
wildfire to at-risk communities, Tribal lands, critical infrastructure,
utility corridors, and public water sources. We listened to our
partners, the public we serve, Tribes and many others regarding what
mattered most to them, where opportunity is, and where challenges
remain. Their feedback and our experience on these landscapes helped us
identify both challenges to implementation and enabling conditions for
future success. This work will mitigate risks to approximately 200
communities within these landscapes. The Wildfire Crisis Strategy
builds on current work and leverages Congressional authorities such as
those from the 2018 Farm Bill highlighted below, as well as other
authorities such as stewardship contracting which has proven invaluable
in our work. The Wildfire Crisis Strategy is also guiding significant
investments beyond these initial landscapes. For example, in its first
round of funding, USDA is investing $197 million from IIJA funding in
Community Wildfire Defense Grants for 100 projects benefiting 22 states
and seven Tribes. This initial round of investments will assist
communities in developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans, and fund
immediate actions to lower the risk of wildfire on non-Federal land
where a Community Wildfire Protection Plan is already in place. Taken
together, these actions and investments under the Wildfire Crisis
Strategy will strengthen partnerships and support our work to mitigate
wildfire risk and restore forest health and resiliency over the next
decade.
The Forest Service is very grateful to Congress for providing the
resources through the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act and the
Inflation Reduction Act to seed our initial work and put the Wildfire
Crisis Strategy in motion. It is important to note that fully executing
the strategy to treat 50 million acres will take continued Federal
investment, coupled with funding and capacity delivered from states and
all of our partners in this work. I look forward to continuing this
important discussion with this panel and others.
2014 and 2018 Farm Bill Implementation Highlights
Insect and Disease Provisions
The 2014 Farm Bill's Insect and Disease provisions (Section 8204)
set requirements for designating affected NFS lands, enabling
streamlined environmental review procedures to expedite projects that
reduce the risk and extent of, or increase the resilience to, insect or
disease infestations. Approximately 77.5 million acres across NFS lands
have been designated under Section 8204 as already experiencing, or at
risk of experiencing, insect and disease infestations. We work with
state forestry agencies to survey almost 500 million acres across the
nation each year to understand where infestations are occurring. We
have the partnerships to work across boundaries--on NFS; Tribal; state
and private lands; as well as other Federal lands.
Through amendments to the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act
(HFRA), the 2014 Farm Bill also categorically excluded from the
requirements of NEPA certain insect and disease projects that meet
certain stringent criteria, including an acreage limitation, and are
located within the designated treatment areas.
The 2018 Farm Bill, through amendment to HFRA, established an
additional categorical exclusion for projects that reduce hazardous
fuels to be carried out in the designated treatment areas and that also
meet other specific criteria and acreage limitations (Section 8407). As
of March 1, 2023, the Forest Service has signed decisions for, or is in
the process of analyzing, 287 projects encompassing approximately
565,000 acres in 35 states using these categorical exclusions. Using
the farm bill amendments to HFRA Section 602(d), as of March 1, 2023,
the Forest Service has expedited the NEPA process, with signed
decisions or analysis underway, on 26 projects involving an EIS or an
EA, encompassing over 1.5 million acres in 11 states. Additionally, the
2018 Farm Bill extended authorization of the categorical exclusion from
HFRA Section 605 for wildfire resilience. As of March 1, 2023, the
Forest Service has signed decisions for, or is in the process of
analyzing, 79 projects encompassing approximately 125,000 acres in 34
states using the wildfire resilience categorical exclusion. Taken
together, projects carried out under all these authorities help improve
forest health while also reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire to
people, communities, utility corridors, water sources, and other
natural resources.
Good Neighbor Authority
The Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) allows the Forest Service to work
with states, Tribes, and counties to perform treatments across larger
landscapes through partnerships. In 2014, this authority allowed the
Forest Service to enter into cooperative agreements or contracts with
states and Puerto Rico to perform authorized restoration services by
our partners on Federal lands. The 2018 Farm Bill expanded this
valuable authority to Tribes and counties and allows states to maintain
revenues generated from the sale of National Forest System timber for
future GNA activities (Section 8624). As of March 1, 2023, the Forest
Service has completed 380 GNA agreements in 38 states to accomplish a
variety of restoration work. Timber volume awarded under GNA agreements
tripled from 2018 to 2022, and we completed over 178,000 acres of
restoration-based activities through GNA agreements in 2022.
Our GNA agreements are predominately with state agencies, but also
include 16 Tribal agreements and 15 agreements with counties as of
March 1, 2023. In our Southern Region alone, for example, we have GNA
agreements with one or more of the state agencies in each state and
these have assisted greatly in restoring and improving forest health on
thousands of acres affected by Southern Pine Beetle infestation and
other natural disasters. Under a Good Neighbor Agreement with the
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, we will work to integrate cultural
and traditional ecological knowledge with silviculture and fire
management on the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests in North
Carolina. In the Pacific Northwest Region, the Washington Department of
Natural Resources used GNA with us to replace a perched culvert with a
bridge, allowing restoration of critical upstream salmon habitat on the
Olympic National Forest and improving public access. GNA authority is
extremely beneficial because it improves the Agency's access to state,
Tribal, and county expertise and capacity to accomplish restoration and
hazardous fuels reduction work across larger landscapes. This authority
also supports working and learning with our partners so we can apply
collective knowledge broadly on public lands.
Tribal Forestry
USDA is responsible for managing millions of acres of Federal lands
and waters that contain cultural and natural resources of significance
and value to Tribes, including sacred religious sites, burial sites,
wildlife resources, and sources of Indigenous foods and medicines. The
2018 Farm Bill authorized a new Tribal forestry demonstration project
for Tribes to propose projects on NFS lands that border or are adjacent
to Tribal lands using the Indian Self-Determination and Education
Assistance Act. This new Forest Service authority allows the agency to
enter contracts and agreements with Indian Tribes to protect the Tribal
lands and resources from threats such as fire, insects, and disease
while being informed by Tribal values and knowledge. The demonstration
authority pertains exclusively to the Tribal Forest Protection Act of
2004 (TFPA). As of January 2023, agreements using this authority have
been executed with Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation,
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Pueblo of Acoma, Pueblo of Jemez, The
Tulalip Tribes, Kalispel Tribe, San Carlos Apache Tribe, Yakama Nation,
Mechoopda Indian Tribe, Pueblo of Santa Clara, and the Cow Creek Band
of Umpqua Tribe of Indians. These agreements are implementing
vegetation management projects to protect Tribal assets and reduce
hazardous fuels in critical and cultural landscapes while strengthening
our government-to-government relationships with Tribal nations to
achieve shared stewardship and co-stewardship objectives.
In one noteworthy example, the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of
Indians and the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon signed one of the
largest of all Forest Service TFPA proposals, and the largest Forest
Service self-determination agreement to date, to reduce fuels in
strategically important areas of NFS lands that border Tribal lands,
the wildland-urban interface, and private property. This collaborative
work will simultaneously reduce fuel concentrations enough to enable
firefighters to use treatment areas as potential control lines in the
event of future wildfires and reduce the severity and intensity of fire
in the treated areas.
The IIJA authorizes the Forest Service to fund and implement
projects using GNA and TFPA. As of March 1, 2023, we have received 17
TFPA proposals exceeding $8.7 million for FY23 with a projected $25
million in subsequent years. This is a demonstrated commitment to
invest in collaborations and co-stewardship as articulated in Joint
Secretarial Order 3403, Fulfilling the Trust Responsibility to Indian
Tribes in the Stewardship of Federal Lands and Waters.
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
The 2018 Farm Bill reauthorized and increased the authorization for
appropriations for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Program (CFLRP) (Section 8629). Through the CFLRP, we can accomplish
critical collaborative, science-based ecosystem restoration of priority
forest landscapes. These projects produce significant outcomes on the
landscape, including reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire,
eradicating invasive plants, restoring stream habitat, and
accomplishing vital forest vegetation work through planting, seeding,
and natural regeneration. Since the program inception in 2009 through
Fiscal Year 2022, the Forest Service has funded 31 CFLRP landscapes
nationwide, with fifteen such landscapes currently receiving funding.
These projects have advanced treatment on over 4.6 million acres to
reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, with treatments prioritized
in high-risk areas. CLFRP projects have improved habitat for over 70
species of animals and plants and have enhanced over 1,800 miles of
stream habitat. In addition, CFLRP has significant economic benefits in
rural communities, supporting an average of nearly 5,000 jobs per year
and a total of $2.5 billion in total local labor income to date,
including youth engagement and job training opportunities.
Wood Innovations
The Timber Innovation Act from the 2018 Farm Bill aims to encourage
research on innovative wood building materials in addition to codifying
the existing Wood Innovation Grant Program and establishing a new grant
program, the Community Wood Grant Program. The research component of
the Act is delivered through the Forest Products Lab which is part of
the Forest Service Research & Development Deputy Area. The Wood
Innovations staff within the State, Private, and Tribal Deputy Area
supports technical and financial assistance for innovative use of wood.
Through implementation of the farm bill authority, the Forest
Products Lab partners and collaborates with the wood products industry,
conservation organizations and universities to analyze the safety of
tall wood building materials and to increase the use of Mass timber in
buildings. The Lab also produces analyses covering all the stages of
the life cycle of wood-based products and uses. Over the last 3 years,
the Lab provided technical and financial investments for analyses to
support the use of mass timber in multi-story structures located in
high seismic zones. The Forest Products Lab also supports
implementation of the Wood Innovations Act through agreements with
universities to conduct research on innovative wood products for
building construction. The Forest Products Lab currently has 78
agreements with 36 Universities and organizations.
The Wood Innovation Grant program and the Community Wood Grant
Program support Forest Service efforts to build innovative markets for
wood products and wood energy that support rural economies with more
jobs and income. The financial support provided by these programs help
create additional and more robust markets and processing capacity for
sustainable forest management and hazardous fuels reduction.
The Wood Innovation Grant Program (Section 8643) allows the Forest
Service to award grants to individuals, public or private entities, or
state, local or Tribal governments for the purpose of advancing the use
of innovative wood products. The program stimulates and expands
sustainable wood products and wood energy markets, with a focus on mass
timber, tall wood buildings, renewable wood energy, and technological
development that supports fuel reduction and sustainable forest
management.
The Community Wood Grant Program (Section 8644) supports facility
expansion or new equipment for thermal wood energy (wood-to-heat)
projects and innovative wood products manufacturing. In Fiscal Year
2022, the Forest Service awarded over $32 million in grants for 99
projects using these two authorities. In January 2023, we announced a
Funding Opportunity for these programs, offering $41 million to spark
innovation and create new markets for wood products and renewable wood
energy. In total, 316 proposals were received, further demonstrating
the need to support and build markets and manufacturing capacity. This
was made possible in part by the IIJA and the IRA.
The farm bill has catalyzed U.S. growth in mass timber
construction, supporting forest management and creating jobs. Twelve
new mass timber plants have been constructed across the U.S. and over
1,600 buildings utilizing mass timber construction have been built, are
under construction, or are in the design phase. For example, Vaagen
Timbers in Colville, Washington, produces cross-laminated timber from
forest restoration on the Colville National Forest and employs over 40
people. Building with wood is beneficial to our environment as it
replaces traditional building materials that can take significant
energy and air emissions to manufacture. It's commonsense but worth
underscoring that trees keep much of the carbon that they store over
their lifetime when they're milled into long-lived wood products.
Through the Community Wood Grant Program, we have supported 22
projects for wood energy facilities to produce heat or combined heat
and power, as of March 1, 2023. Located in a range of facilities
including schools, businesses, manufacturing, and government, these
projects use over 136,000 green tons of wood residues and chips
annually. This supports renewable energy goals, economic development,
and cost-effective heating. One project benefitting from a wood energy
grant in Truckee, California, produces electricity through a biomass
energy system for 14 municipal buildings, using hazardous fuels
material removed from high wildfire risk areas. An additional 12
projects were funded that supported innovative wood products technology
for manufacturing facilities.
Landscape Scale Restoration Program
Authorized in the 2018 Farm Bill, the Landscape Scale Restoration
Program is a competitive grant program that promotes collaborative,
science-based restoration of priority forest landscapes and furthers
priorities identified in a science-based restoration strategy, such as
a State Forest Action Plan. The Forest Service delivers the program
through our long-standing partnerships with State Forestry agencies,
Tribes, conservation organizations and other partners to deliver
conservation projects on non-Federal land.
From 2018-2022 the Forest Service awarded 255 competitive grants to
support projects to 46 states, and five Territories. $62,000,000 in
Federal funding leveraged approximately $71,000,000 in additional
partner support. Funded projects reflect local forest conditions and
state and regional priorities. In the western United States, many of
the Landscape Scale Restoration projects reduce wildfire risk and
restore priority watersheds. In the Northeast and Midwest, projects
protect water quality and mitigate invasive species that threaten
forest ecosystem health, wildlife, climate resilience, and economic
value of forests. In the South, wildlife habitat protection to conserve
threatened and endangered species is an important priority to ensure
continued economic productivity of rural working lands.
In FY 2023, the Landscape Scale Restoration Program issued its
first Request for Proposals for Federally Recognized Tribes and Alaska
Native Corporations to restore priority forest landscapes on Tribal
land, including Tribal trust land. By working across landownerships,
including on Tribal Forest land, the Landscape Scale Restoration
program is an important tool to restore resilience to the nation's
forests.
More recently, with support from IRA funding, the Forest Service is
standing up new programs which leverage the flexible Landscape Scale
Restoration authorities given to us by Congress in 2018, but which
represent a new and exciting body of work. We are in the process of
developing these new programs to provide incentives to Tribes and non-
industrial private forest landowners to implement climate smart
forestry practices that improve forest resilience and reduce barriers
for underserved landowners and family forest owners to participate in
carbon markets and other emerging market opportunities to keep working
lands working. As we deliver these programs, we will also leverage the
Forest Stewardship Program to provide needed technical assistance to
individual landowners. These forestry experts will provide management
advice and assistance to help landowners, on a voluntary basis,
implement practices and access emerging market opportunities, including
carbon markets. The Forest Stewardship Program is a partnership between
the Forest Service and state forestry agencies to assist private forest
landowners who are responsible for the stewardship of 300 million acres
of forests (nearly 40 percent of the nation's forests).
Congressionally Authorized Land Conveyances
I am pleased to report the completion of all three NFS land
conveyances authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill:

Section 8627, Kisatchie National Forest parcel in Louisiana
to Collins Camp Properties;

Section 8631, Okhissa Lake parcel on the Homochitto National
Forest in Mississippi to Scenic Rivers Development Alliance for
rural economic development; and

Section 8707, parcel to Dolores County, Colorado for the
West Fork Fire Station.
Conclusion
We recognize that this Subcommittee and others expend significant
effort to draft, negotiate, and pass a new farm bill every 5 years. We
appreciate your efforts and look forward to providing input as you
frame and develop the 2023 Farm Bill.

The Chairman. Thank you, Chief Moore. I appreciate that. I
see our full Committee Chairman, Mr. Thompson, has joined us
here. Would you like to incorporate a statement or questions up
front at this moment, sir?

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GLENN THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. Thompson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate
that. Thanks to the Chairman, Ranking Member, and to the Chief.
Chief, it is good to see you. Thank you for being here. It is
much appreciated.
I appreciate today's hearing, and the opportunity to
discuss the issues before the Forest Service as we work at
preparing the farm bill's forestry title. Now, for many
forested and rural communities, our National Forests are
critically important for supporting jobs, providing a
sustainable supply of timber, promoting forest health, and
quite frankly, backfilling where we no longer have property
tax, in support of our municipalities, our school districts,
our counties, and because of those public lands.
Now, over the past few farm bills, this Committee has
provided the Forest Service with new tools and authorities
intended to allow the agency to better manage. We did that
specifically in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills. For example, we
expanded the Good Neighbor and stewardship contracting
authorities, and provided the insect and disease treatment
authority. Other categorical exemptions: more landscape
approach. And we have also used the forestry title to encourage
new markets through initiatives like the Wood Innovation Grant
Program and providing incentives to build with wood.
Along with the restoration work and fuels reduction
projects that are underway and urgently needed, another
priority should be to increase timber harvesting and get closer
to our allowable sale quantity across the National Forest
System, that sustainable growth rate. Doing so would have the
dual benefit of supporting forest health and, quite frankly,
economic health in those surrounding communities. As we move
forward with this farm bill cycle, I am hopeful we can further
build on the success of the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills forestry
titles. Chief, I look forward to hearing from you what
additional tools that the members and the employees of the
Forest Service need to be able to do their job.
Chief, how are we doing overall, in terms of and on the
national scope within the Forest System of green stick
harvesting towards that overall sustainable growth rate, and
are there some forests that you can point to that would be best
that are doing well, that we may be able to look at their best
practices of why they are able to get closer to where we need
them to be for both forest health, and, quite frankly, economic
health within those communities?
Mr. Moore. Yes. Congressman, thank you. First of all, to be
able to explain the whole timber program, and--I have 2
minutes, it may take 15, but I will try to abbreviate it in 2
minutes. But in general, we have a number of forests across the
U.S. that are really maximizing their opportunities to use the
tools to provide a timber supply. Keep in mind, though, it is
about more than just providing commercial timber. It is about
creating health and resiliency in our landscape, which requires
us to look at removing some of those hazardous fuels that are
not commercial grade timber.
One of the things that we are really trying to push to
complement the existing infrastructure is wood innovations, and
we have invested quite of bit of money looking at wood
innovations to utilize the type of material that we have out
there that is serving as ladder fuels for these fires. It is
cross-laminated timber, and the innovation behind it is about
biochar, it is about biofuels, it is about non-cellulosic
material. It is the type of material that you can put into
concrete to strengthen the concrete. And I think the more that
we diversify the current infrastructure, the better able we
will be to remove that material off of a forest and create
economic opportunities.
Mr. Thompson. So, if I may, because I am running out of
time here, if you wouldn't mind following up in writing, in
terms of the whole question about how well we are doing towards
that sustainable growth rate as an overall system, and then my
follow-up question would be--I know that you all are doing
great things, I follow closely our Forest Service lab
professionals, they do a great job. The question I have,
though, is it seems like we have been in a whole talking
pattern about that, and that is only going to work when we can
get it to commercialization. When we get that--all the great
things you talked about, and probably more that we can talk
about in the future--when we get that to commercialization,
then we actually have a vehicle to improve forest health.\1\
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\1\ Editor's note: the information referred to is located on p. 41.
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And, quite frankly, we need to concurrently work on
economic health of those communities. That was the promise that
our predecessors made when we took that land out of the
private-sector to form the National Forests. So, Chief, thank
you for being here today. Mr. Chairman, I apologize. My time
has expired.
The Chairman. No apologies needed, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to now recognize Ranking Member Salinas for 5 minutes.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chief Moore, as you
noted, climate change is exacerbating the wildfire crisis that
the nation is facing. Wildfire seasons are expected to become
longer, and fires to become more frequent, more extensive, and
more severe. In Oregon wildfire risks are growing. We saw that
with the Bootleg Fire last year, and even the wetter and more
populous region west of the Cascades, which includes my
district, it is likely to see a significant increase in
wildfire activity. So to better prepare for and respond to the
wildfire crisis, we need to expand our forestry workforce.
Chief Moore, can you talk a bit about the role of the
civilian conservation centers in training foresters and
firefighters, and outline what more can be done to support job
training, and how we get more young people into the hiring
pipeline?
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Congresswoman. The Civilian
Conservation Corps is a great tool to bring young citizens into
this firefighting community, and we also have other
opportunities with our Job Corps centers, training them to
become wildland firefighters, as well as serving in other roles
within the agency. We just recently looked at hiring 100
additional forestry trainee-type professionals. We have
programs in place where we provide college tuition, in some
cases, for some of our young people to have a chance to go to
college and pursue a career in natural resource management. So,
we have a number of programs that are available that we are
beginning to pursue, and now more so than what we have in the
past, because over the last 20 years we have been losing
resource professionals in the organization, based on the
conditions on the ground with fires, but also just the whole
budget situation.
So, with the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, as well
as IRA, we have been building capacity within the agency, and
we are looking at a lot of different avenues to bring in young
people into the organization, particularly resource management.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you. And, Chief Moore, in your
testimony, you highlighted several agency programs that have a
proven track record of furthering reforestation efforts,
reducing wildfire risk, and improving forest health, and this
includes, as you mentioned, the Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration Program, which has funded several projects in my
home State of Oregon. Can you talk a bit about how these Forest
Service programs also support the economic stability of our
rural communities?
Mr. Moore. Yes. The collaborative projects have been a real
boon to a lot of small rural communities. And if I look at what
we currently have on deck, we have about 30 large-scale
projects across 15 states. And when I look at what they have
been able to do, they have been able to significantly decrease
the potential for fire across the landscapes. These projects
are available to states, Tribes, as well as local communities.
And in terms of investments, and the different approaches we
are taking to landscape-scale restoration, we have selected 31
landscapes across 15 states, and 17 of those landscapes are in
11 states, and they are currently receiving funding in our FY23
bill.
In short, there is a lot of great value in leveraging with
our partners. In fact, when we look at the amount that is
invested in our collaborative projects, for every dollar that
the Forest Service invests in those collaborative projects, it
returns about $1.81. So, it has proven to be a really great
value, in terms of leveraging Federal dollars with the local
communities.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you. Now I just want to talk next-gen
forestry technologies and innovation.
Mr. Moore. Yes.
Ms. Salinas. Chief Moore, can you provide us an overview of
the new tools and technologies used to support reforestation
activities, and is there more that can be done using drones,
geospatial, and remote sensing technology to support the work
of the Forest Service?
Mr. Moore. Yes, Congresswoman, there is always more to be
done. We are jumping into the technological phase fairly
rapidly. We have trained well over 100 certified pilots for
drones. We are looking at the application of drones for
prescribed burning, for natural resource management. We are
looking at the use of satellite data, combined with our FIA
data to--the Forest Inventory Analysis data to do ground--of
what we think we see from this--from the air. We are moving
into the technological age.
One other example I would share with you is--I believe it
is in California, where, instead of using our lookout towers,
we have put a set of cameras across the landscape to spot smoke
or fires as they happen. So, we are pursuing technology in a
much bigger way. We know that we have much more to do, much
more to learn, but that is an area that we see a huge advantage
for us in the future.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you, and I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Salinas. I will recognize Mr.
Kelly from Mississippi for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chief Moore, how can we
work together to prioritize and advance the use of wood, like
mass timber, at scale in the marketplace? What more do we need
to do to use mass timber in rural communities to build
affordable housing, schools, hospitals, and other critical
infrastructure?
Mr. Moore. Yes. Congressman, I think what we have to do is
further refine the research around cross-laminated timber. Even
though cross-laminated timber has a great future ahead of us,
we have not refined the research to the degree that we need to
be using small diameter, low-value material. Right now, we are
using it in a bigger way, but we are using commercial grade
timber in cross-laminated timber. The key to cross-laminated
timber in this country is to be able to refine the research in
a way that it can use low-value, small-diameter material,
because that is what we have in abundance. And so that is our
focus. We are working with the university systems, we are
working with corporate scientists, as well as the Federal
scientists, to look at continuing to work in that arena. It is
very promising, though.
Right now, we have about 1,600 buildings that are built
with cross-laminated timber. We have another 12 new facilities
coming online. And so, while it is showing a lot of promise, we
want to take that whole research down to use a different type
of materials, because I think you will see a huge boom once we
are able to refine the research in that way.
Mr. Kelly. And I have been on this Committee for 8 years,
and on this Subcommittee all of those, or at least most of
those. One of the things that concerns me most is our inability
to manage the timber in our forests, especially out West. We
don't do controlled burns, we don't have the manpower, and
then--and a lot of times that is for climate protection, is the
reason we don't do controlled burns--and then we get these
massive wildfires that create much more pollution and climate
problems than if we had done the controlled burns. What are we
doing to make sure that we are doing the controlled burns, and
that we are managing our forests, especially out West,
properly?
Mr. Moore. So, Congressman, after last year's fire in
Hermit's Peak, I called a 90 day pause in our prescribed
burning, and that was to give us an opportunity to really look
at how we are using that program. And we also brought a lot of
our technical specialists from down south, Mississippi
included, to look at how the South is maintaining the ecosystem
that they have established through prescribed burning, or
controlled burning. And so what we are doing is taking lessons
learned in the South, and seeing how they might apply in the
West. And now what we are looking to do is bring all of that
together. I am going to be releasing a report here fairly soon
looking at some changes in our prescribed fire, particularly
out West.
We can't talk about our success in prescribed burning
because when one fire gets away, you have seen the damage that
it can do. Because I could sit here and tell you that
prescribed burning goes the way it should go 99.84 percent of
the time, but that .16 percent when it gets away, we have lots
of examples of the damage that it can do, and it is because of
the condition of our landscapes. And that is why the
conversation needs to be around vegetation removal in a much
bigger way, but also looking at the innovation that is needed
to utilize the type of vegetation that we have on our
landscapes, because it is burning down communities, it is
creating carbon in our environment, and it just--nothing is
good about it.
Mr. Kelly. And finally, my last question is--we gave you
$10 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and
Inflation Reduction Act, and we are having a problem both
recruiting and retaining employees. How can we best manage this
money, or what can we do in Congress to make sure that we have
the great Forestry Service employees who are both there, and
who are experienced, and who are capable of carrying out. What
authorities do you need from Congress to help you with this?
Mr. Moore. Well, I think we have to first identify the type
of employees that we are talking about. If we are talking about
firefighters, I think we have a lot going on now of how we can
recruit that. The challenge that I am having, as Chief of the
Forest Service, is this: We have things in place on a temporary
basis for firefighters, but what it doesn't recognize, and this
applies mostly in the South and the East, is that we have what
we call reserve firefighters who fight fires. In fact, we
have----
Mr. Kelly. And if I can, I only got 17 seconds, I would
just say that everything you do to the left of a fire is--pays
off ten times in dividends to what we do on the right side in
firefighting. And I only have 8 seconds, Chief, but thank you,
and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Now, we will now recognize the
lady from Washington, Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez, please.
Ms. Perez. And thank you, Mr. LaMalfa. And thank you, Chief
Moore, for being here this morning. I would like to start by
highlighting the challenges resource-heavy counties face as
they work to support their communities with limited income
streams. Skamania County, in the southeast corner of my
district, is 80 percent National Forest Service land, which
represents a significant part of Gifford Pinchot National
Forest. Counties like mine often feel like we have to come to
the Federal Government with our hands out to make ends meet,
and I want to talk about ways to work towards economic
independence.
Secure Rural Schools has been a critical program, but it
does not provide consistent income levels. One idea I have
heard addressing this is community forests. Productive land
from the Gifford Pinchot would be managed by the county, with
supervision and continued ownership by the Forest Service.
However, the income benefits would flow to the county, with a
small percentage going to the Forest Service as a management
fee. So, Chief Moore, I would love to hear your thoughts on
this proposal, and any comments you have about how counties can
partner with the Forest Service to find more sustainable income
levels.
Mr. Moore. Congresswoman, I think that is the challenge,
that you have laid out here, how do we continue to collaborate
to find ways forward? If I look at GNA as an example, the Good
Neighbor Authority, right now we are making a lot of great
progress with states. We are not making the same level of
progress with counties and Tribes. Part of the reason, I
believe, is because the counties and the Tribes can't retain
the receipts the same as states, so I think if that is one of
the changes that takes place, I think you will see much more--a
much greater use of GNA authorities across our country.
In terms of where do we go from here, I think the
collaborations have identified a number of things for us, and
one of the things that is identified for us is that together
that--we are better together than we are separate, and that we
need to continue to work toward this goal of doing landscape
treatments out on our forests. And basically not just the
forests, but just the landscapes in general, of all
jurisdictions and ownerships.
Ms. Perez. Thank you, Chief Moore. One thing I hear a lot
about, and building on the questions from my colleague,
Representative Kelly, are the challenges faced by the Forest
Service employees in finding housing.
Mr. Moore. Yes.
Ms. Perez. The Cowlitz Valley Ranger District, located in
the Gifford, my staff has heard stories about seasonal
employees who are living out of their cars due to the lack of
affordable housing. I know the Forest Service supplies some
housing, but it tends to be insufficient. The area surrounding
the Gifford Pinchot is rural, and also lacks a sufficient
affordable housing stock. All this means that many ranger
districts are unable to attract or retain staff.
In addition, there are already many who already live in
these understaffed ranger districts who are willing, but
unable, to gain employment with the Forest Service due to the
challenges navigating U.S.A. Jobs' application process. Getting
a resume through electronic filters and into the hands of a
real person is a very difficult process, and we have all heard
about folks who know how to game the algorithm to advance their
resume through these electronic systems. So, constituents often
ask if local hiring preferences, much like existing hiring
preferences for veterans, could help reduce Forest Service
staff turnover, help build community trust, and reduce staffing
shortages.
My first question is what can the Forest Service do with
regard to housing to reduce turnover, and my second question is
what can the Forest Service do to simplify the application
process for residents of the ranger district seeking employment
with the agency?
Mr. Moore. So let me start by saying anytime we have an
employee sleeping in their car, it is an embarrassment, so I
will start there. I think the housing issue is much bigger than
the Forest Service. I think this is a problem in our
communities. If there are no available housing, there is
nothing for our firefighters to stay in. Where there is
available housing, are they affordable? And so that is the
other issue. It is not just availability, but it is
affordability. These are community problems, not just Forest
Service, and I think that we need to bring all of our
communities together to figure out solutions, because we are
there for a service, and that is to protect the communities.
But the communities also have to work with us to find those
doable solutions.
So that is where we are, in terms of housing. We also have
the issue of mental health. Our firefighters are working now--
instead of fire seasons it is fire years, and as such, they are
always gone from home because they serve this country. They go
all across--wherever there is a fire, they are there, so there
is very little time for their families, and after a while, it
wears.
Ms. Perez. And, excuse me, in our last few seconds here, I
would love to extend an offer to have you come out and visit
Skamania County or my district, come out for of our timber
carnivals. It will be a good time, I guarantee it.
Mr. Moore. I would love to. Thank you for the invitation.
The Chairman. Does the gentlelady yield back?
Ms. Perez. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Okay. Thank you. Boy, great points on the
SRS, and the ability to keep that going. It is a battle every
year, and on the housing side, when you see an L.A. Times
article where they are debating whether, a town like
Greenville, in my district, for example, should that be
rebuilt?
Ms. Perez. Yes.
The Chairman. But why do we keep building these towns back
up? These used to be where the people lived that got the
resources that we all use, whether it is a mining town, a
timber town, or an ag town, for that matter. So I guess the
question is do we want to have these products, and do we want
to have people take care of them. Thank you. Now I will
recognize Mr. Moore from Alabama.
Mr. Moore of Alabama. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
your robust leadership on this Committee, and I want to thank
Chief Moore for being here today as well. Chief, in Alabama the
vast majority of our forests are privately owned, working
lands, actually, and so--I think that in my Second District
alone 4.4 million acres of private forestland, and we support
21,000 jobs, and $7.9 million a year in payroll. So, trees are
a big business in our district.
But according to the extension service in Alabama, more
trees are taken due to disease and pests than are actually
harvested for profit. So, Chief, can you expand on efforts of
the Forest Service to collaborate with the private forest
owners to manage pests and disease, please, sir?
Mr. Moore. Yes. If I look specifically in your district,
with the brown spot needle blight, that is a problem down
there. We have a lot of data on that blight, and we are working
with the university system, as well as our earth scientists,
trying to find solutions to that. But we do have extensive
data, and that is a good place to start, and we are working
with state partners down there to find solutions that are
doable. So that is where we are with the blight.
In terms of disease and insects, throughout the years we
have had problems with disease and insects, and we are
beginning to see that we need to treat this the same as we do
wildfires, at that landscape level, because disease and insect
don't respect jurisdictional boundaries like we do. And in
order to do that, we need to partner with our state partners,
our local leaders in these local communities, as well as the
Tribes, looking at solutions on how we address these issues.
Depending on where you are across the country, there are
different things that contribute to the conditions that we are
in, and so, if I was to look at Mississippi itself, that is
different than, say, looking at Michigan, the Emerald Ash Borer
being a problem there, and it is different than looking out
West, on some of the pine beetle issues there. I think every
part of the country has similar problems, but the bottom line
is that this is a problem for all of us. Our scientists are
working diligently with the research, and our state and private
partners are working diligently with state and local partners
and trying to address that in a way that is acceptable.
Mr. Moore of Alabama. Chief, I am going to change gears on
you, but as fire season looms on the horizon, the Forest
Service is being sued by extreme environmentalists over this
fire retardant. It is a critical tool for fire suppression and
for control. Do you agree that fire retardant is a critical
tool, and what must we do to keep it in the arsenal to protect
lives and property, and how are you working with the EPA to
work through this issue with them this year?
Mr. Moore. So, Congressman, fire retardant is a critical
safety tool, not only for our firefighters, but for these
communities that are experiencing these wildfires. What we are
currently trying to do is work with the EPA on acquiring a
Clean Water Act permit so that, depending on which way the
conversation goes, that we are going to be trying to cover our
bases. The other thing that is maybe not widely recognized is
that we have a number of states that also will be requiring
permits under the Clean Water Act. And so we may be required to
get permits from the states, as well as from EPA.
Mr. Moore of Alabama. How far along are we in the process,
Chief? I know that sometimes these permits and the EPA can drag
out. Do you feel like you are making success? Are you making
any kind of headway with them?
Mr. Moore. Yes, I believe that we are making success with
EPA. I suspect, though, it will probably take another 2 or 3
years to get that done. But--and that doesn't include what we
might be required to do with certain states--or different
states.
Mr. Moore of Alabama. So what do you do in the meantime? If
you are waiting to get----
Mr. Moore. Well, we are going to continue to use retardant
until we are ordered not----
Mr. Moore of Alabama. Until you get a ruling?
Mr. Moore. If we are ordered not to. I don't know if it
will come to that, but we are going to use it until we are told
not to.
Mr. Moore of Alabama. And I think you should. What are the
options if you can't use it? What do you do, Chief?
Mr. Moore. Well, we don't have an option other than water.
Mr. Moore of Alabama. All right. Thank you. I appreciate
your time. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Moore, for that robust line of
questioning. Remember the size of the gavel we got here. The
islander from Maine, Ms. Pingree, is up next, 5 minutes.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and we do
have trees on islands in Maine. We have trees everywhere in
Maine. We are the most forested state in the nation, so we care
deeply about this topic, and I appreciate having this hearing
today. Thank you very much, Chief, for being with us. I get the
chance to see you both here and in the Appropriations
Committee, so--always happy to hear about the work that you are
doing.
And I have been really pleased to hear some of my
colleagues talk about the markets for wood, and some of the
innovative wood products that I know the Forest Service is very
engaged in supporting. In our state we are now just about to
open a new facility that will create wood fiber insulation
products for the home, and that is a conversion of an old paper
mill. Like so many places, we have lost some of our traditional
wood industries, particularly paper, and to see the conversion
of these mills into other things, like wood fiber insulation,
biochar, some of the products that you have already talked
about, is very exciting for our state, to see that happening.
So I just want to follow up a little bit more on that. You
talked about more research needs to be done. Is that a
financial issue, is that language? What else can we be helping
you do to do that? Is most of that taking place at
universities, or some of it at the Forest Service Wood Products
Lab? And I guess the other question I have is--I feel like
sometimes we also have to have an outreach and education
campaign, that architects and builders need to see the
opportunities, things like cross-laminate timber than can be
stronger than steel, and just some of those opportunities.
Also, I think most people don't understand--they are so
concerned about cutting a tree that they forget if you cut a
tree, and you use it as part of a construction project, that
carbon stays in that tree, and you have actually sequestered
that carbon on a permanent basis. So that is an important
principle I think that architects and other builders need to
understand so--of--I have talked a lot, but do you have some
thoughts you would like to share?
Mr. Moore. So, Congresswoman, you have answered that better
than I could.
Ms. Pingree. Sorry.
Mr. Moore. But as you know, Maine has been a leader in not
only using some of this innovative technology, but also being a
part of creating it. So I want to compliment you, and the State
of Maine, for how you have really jumped into the arena of
innovations around wood. I think--when we look at the wood
innovations and community wood facility grants, right now we
have funded about 99 projects, and we spent about $32 million,
which doubles our previous year's work. We are going to
continue to move in this direction, because we feel that, as we
look at the infrastructure in this country, we need what we
currently have, and we also need it to be stable. We also need
to diversify the infrastructure we have in this country now by
using some of the new technology and the innovations that we
are discovering through funding, and working with states and
universities, as well as Tribal, and other Federal partners.
I think it is a growth business. I think, when you look at
biofuels, even biomass, there is still a use for that, because
if you are not able to use it, then you are left with the
results of wildfires on the landscape. And so it is in all of
our best interests to figure out ways to utilize this material
that we can create jobs out of, particularly in our small rural
communities.
Ms. Pingree. Yes.
Mr. Moore. And so I would just add that to the statement
that you have made, because I think you asked a question, but
you also answered it in many ways, in terms of innovation, and
where we are trying to go with it.
Ms. Pingree. Well--and I really appreciate the work you are
doing on low-value, small-diameter wood, because that is often
the challenge that we are dealing with, and so many of these
products lends themselves to that. One quick other question I
wanted to ask you about. In the IRA there is about $450 million
to support small and under-served private landowners with
climate mitigation as resilience practices through their
participation in--it says emerging private markets--I think
that means voluntary carbon markets. So much of our forest has
been able to take advantage of offsets, and the ability to make
another source of income. That is already a market out there,
but a lot of small landowners can't. Can you talk a little bit
about how the Forest Service is working on that?
Mr. Moore. So in terms of carbon offsets--so the Forest
Service's work is not about offsets in carbon. It is about
total reduction and carbon sequestration. Now, working with
partners allows us to work in different ways, but in terms of
the Forest Service--and I was--venture to say the Federal
Government in general, we are looking at total carbon
reduction, and that is different than the private market, where
it is looking at carbon offsets. So, I want to say that.
And the second thing, and here we partner with Maine as
well on several of these projects, but we have the University
of Vermont, even, $4 million in FY23, and this is based on
Congressional directed funding in these areas. One of the
places that you did mention, that I would like to bring up, is
the National Agroforestry Center.
Ms. Pingree. Yes.
Mr. Moore. And you made a statement earlier about
education, and that is an opportunity to demonstrate really a
strong direct link between the latest research and giving that
to the people who can put it to work. And we are discovering a
lot of ways, in terms of how we help farmers out. I think there
are discoveries yet to be made on how that center is working.
But there is a lot of interest, and agroforestry has really
increased over the past few years, and the demand for training
right now has outpaced our capacity to provide it.
Ms. Pingree. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
letting me go over my time, and I yield back.
The Chairman. You are welcome. I will now recognize the
gentleman with the lakefront property on Lake Tulare----
Mr. Duarte. That is the other Portagee.
The Chairman. Mr. Duarte, yes, from California, 5 minutes.
Mr. Duarte. I am a little bit north of Lake Tulare, but
thank you. Thank you, Chief for being here today, very much
appreciated. We talked about a lot of good: commonsense
business principles, communities where people can't get homes,
new product innovation. I would like to add to our dialogue
here a little bit about the timeframes that good, solid
forestry management, sustainable forestry management that will
get us over time, from the overgrown, highly dense forests
subject to wildfire, inhospitable to many endangered species,
and just inhospitable and threatened, this habitat in general.
When you work with a forester to create a sustainable
forestry plan--let us say in the Sierra Nevada is a good
example; it is one we are all familiar with--what kind of
timeframes does that forestry plan have to cover?
Mr. Moore. Are we talking about a land management plan?
Mr. Duarte. Yes.
Mr. Moore. Yes.
Mr. Duarte. If we look at the successful--in privately-
owned forests, like Sierra Pacific Industries, they tend to
have a lot less forest fires, a lot better habitat quality, a
lot better outcomes objectively than some of our public lands
do that have been managed differently. Let us talk about best
case scenario.
Mr. Moore. So that is two different questions. I will start
with the first one. In terms of how long it takes to do, we do
forest plans, the states do the forest action plans. So, in
terms of the Forest Service, we have abbreviated the time it
takes to do a plan, so it is 3 years now, whereas it used to be
about 7, 8 years to do a plan revision. So the Sierra Nevadas--
and whether you look at the Sierra or the Sequoia National
Forest there, we had completed that plan within the 3 year
timeframe----
Mr. Duarte. I am sorry, I am not discussing the amount of
time it takes to get the plan through. I am talking about, is
that a 20 year plan, a 50 year plan?
Mr. Moore. It is about a 15 year plan, sir.
Mr. Duarte. Fifteen year plan? And that is the horizon that
private companies would work on with the Forest--a forestry
management plan that they would log, they would make some
money, they would sell products, they would fulfill whatever
regulatory obligations they have?
Mr. Moore. Yes. Well, the plans are much broader than that.
That is only one component within the forest plans.
Mr. Duarte. Okay. So do the regulations, the endangered
species requirements, do they stay static over that period of
time, or is an investment likely to be made, then the rules
change?
Mr. Moore. No, the ESA, the Endangered Species Act, that
stays the same until Congress decides to change it. But there
are no changes in that from plan to plan, if the change is not
made at a Congressional level.
Mr. Duarte. Congress may not change the Endangered Species
Act, but a new lawsuit may surface? The Cottonwood ruling
obviously has major implications for what happens with that
forestry management plan within that 15 year timeframe. If
someone discovers another creature, or another creature gets
classified as threatened or endangered, that could threaten the
investment, threaten the plan, and have it go back to the 3 to
7 year process we are discussing?
Mr. Moore. Yes. Well, if you take the Cottonwood as an
example, what could potentially be at risk is about 87 forest
plans. And so you would have to--they would potentially be at
risk of litigation. And, it depends on the litigation, the type
of litigation, and what it would require us to do, in terms of
revising the plans, or amending the plans.
Mr. Duarte. So if anyone wants to capitalize on new product
innovation, build new facilities, purchase forest land to
rehabilitate and get it back to a healthy, sustainable forest
environment, we are talking tens of millions of acres, right,
just in the Sierra Nevada? We are talking about a lot of land
that any government program is not going to be able to
accomplish the rehabilitation of? It is going to take private
investors making a nickel here and there off innovative
products, finding the employees, getting these communities back
on their feet, instead of them--instead of letting them just
burn and kind of go away? But these long-term investments are
challenged because the rules could change at any minute,
anytime during that operation.
Mr. Moore. So a lot has happened over the last 20 years,
and the Forest Service's budget has steadily declined over the
last 20 years, up until the bipartisan infrastructure
legislation and IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, monies. And
so what we have been doing over the last 20 years is trying to
add capacity by creating partnerships with different entities,
whether that was Tribes, states, counties, to do a lot of this
work, other Federal agencies, other state agencies.
Mr. Duarte. I am sorry, but a lot of this work used to get
done by logging companies, and grazing families that ran cattle
that managed fuels through moneymaking activities that provided
tax base, and jobs, and private-sector activity. That has been
displaced greatly somewhat by Federal programs that get it some
money--and maybe more money or less money, but never enough
money to tackle the size of the job.
And instead what we have is an uninvestable situation where
the forests are overgrown, the rules are constantly changing,
the communities are being lost in terms of housing, employment,
anybody who would even want to live there, and the business
models--for all the new products we may come up with the
business models for investment just aren't there.
The Chairman. You have to--we need to bring it home, Mr.
Duarte. We can do a second round of questions, since we are
whistling through this Committee so efficiently here today.
Mr. Duarte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. So--okay. So save that thought, okay? Mr.
Vasquez, let me recognize you for 5 minutes. Thank you.
Mr. Vasquez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Ranking
Member, and thank you, Chief Moore, for being here today. Today
we are experiencing another historic fire near Las Cruces, New
Mexico, the Las Cruces Fire.
Mr. Moore. Yes.
Mr. Vasquez. I represent the Second District, home to the
beautiful Lincoln, Gila, Cibola, and Coronado National Forests,
four of six of New Mexico's National Forests. And as we enter
wildfire season once again, it is imperative that my
constituents and our National Forests are protected.
Chief, you alluded to this earlier, but the Calf Canyon and
Hermit's Peak Fire, one of the largest in state history, in
fact, combined with the Black Fire in my district, in the Gila,
over 700,000 acres, are the two largest fires in our state's
history. And tragically, the Calf Canyon-Hermit's Peak Fire, as
you know, was caused by the U.S. Forest Service through a
prescribed burn. Now, this has caused a lot of distrust in the
Federal Government, particularly in our Hispanic land-grant
communities in the north, and our ability to trust the Federal
Government to manage fire and forests in our state. We have to
change that.
Now, Chief, I sent you a letter on March 1st,\2\ asking for
a response, along with Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez,
who represents the Third District in New Mexico, and asking
specifically what changes to your prescribed burn program were
going to take place after displacing more than 400 New Mexicans
from their homes, and causing one of the largest wildfires in
New Mexico's history. I have yet to hear from your agency, have
yet to have a response on that.
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\2\ Editor's note: the letter referred to is located on p. 41.
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Now, you have mentioned earlier that .16 percent of a
chance that a prescribed fire goes in a way that you would not
like it to go. For us, that .16 percent means the loss of
homes, of tradition, of culture, of grazing allotments, and so
much more, so I would argue that there is no room for error in
your prescribed burn program. Chief Moore, I would like to
have, perhaps submitted for the record, but also here in this
Committee, an answer to that question. How has the Forest
Service changed its prescribed burn program since that Hermit's
Peak and Calf Canyon Fire?
Mr. Moore. So I will give you the response, and I will
follow up with you on some very specifics--what we are planning
to do with that. But in general, we are looking at making sure
that, before any fire starts, that it has the latest
technology. Also having real time decision-making ability. In
the past, when you look at burn plans, for an example, it could
be based on information that was made a week ago. Now we are
requiring them to make decisions on the day of the burn so that
you have the latest information.
Also looking at things like portable weather stations,
relevant--looking at large weather stations that covers a large
area. And also using local knowledge. What we recognize is that
people that are local in those communities understand the
winds, they understand how fire behaves when it hits the
landscape, and so now we are incorporating local knowledge into
the decisions that we make, which we had not to the degree that
we needed to in the past.
Mr. Vasquez. Thank you, Chief, and I agree that local
knowledge is incredibly important. In fact, the constituents in
my state I have spoken to have all said the Forest Service had
to be crazy to have a prescribed burn on that particular day.
And that is very disappointing, because, as I mentioned before,
more than 400 New Mexicans lost everything, including their
homes.
Now we are facing the next phase of this tragedy, which is
the compensation from FEMA. And investigation from ProPublica
and Source New Mexico found that of the 140 households eligible
for FEMA housing, only 13 had been awarded. That is after 400
days of this fire. Chief, do you agree that this is an
unacceptable result following a catastrophic fire caused by the
Federal Government? \3\
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\3\ Editor's note: the information referred to is located on p. 42.
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Mr. Moore. Congressman, I am not familiar with the data
that you have just talked about, but I am interested--always
interested in working with you. That seems like that is a FEMA
question that you asked, but----
Mr. Vasquez. Well, Chief, let me stop you there, and I am
glad that you said that, because this is where the disconnect
comes from, and this is where I believe the distrust from
constituents in New Mexico comes from. There is a disconnect
here between Federal agencies. If one Federal agency causes a
catastrophic fire that causes 400 people to lose their home and
says now it is FEMA's problem, then people, rightfully so, are
not going to have a trust in government. So how can the Forest
Service work more closely with FEMA, which to this day has not
awarded a single dollar, 400 days after this fire, to ensure
that a problem caused by the Federal Government is fixed by the
Federal Government? I understand it is not your jurisdiction,
but how would you respond to those concerns?
Mr. Moore. Well, I respond by saying I understand the
frustration in how different agencies within the Federal
Government operate. I would also ask you to be understanding of
I don't know what FEMA's rules are, since I don't work for
them, and that is not a put-off. I simply don't know what
FEMA's rules are. But I will follow up and provide you with a
response. And in terms of your letter that you sent in March, I
will look that up and make sure we are responsive to you.
[The information referred to is located on p. 43.]
Mr. Vasquez. Thank you, Chief, I appreciate that. And my
constituents are looking for answers, and if I go to another
subcommittee and ask FEMA the same thing, they are going to
say, well, it was the Forest Service's fault. So, as you can
understand, there is some real frustration here, and I expect
to hear a response from you soon. Thank you, Chief.
Mr. Moore. Thank you.
Mr. Vasquez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Vasquez. Our hearts go out to
you and your constituents down there in that tragic situation
that, there is a really strong tension between the great need
for more prescribed burns, yet the ability to trust it
happening in your backyard under the right conditions. Local
knowledge, we need to follow up on that more too, because that
is something that would have been extremely helpful in fighting
fires that I have had in my neighborhood as well, so I look
forward to working with you on that too.
Mr. Vasquez. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. I will now recognize Mrs. DeRemer--
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. It is okay.
The Chairman. I am going to screw it up.
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. It is kind of a long name, it is okay.
The Chairman. I know better.
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. Well, thank you.
The Chairman. Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was really
appreciating my colleague, Mr. Duarte's, line of questioning,
so if I do have time, I wouldn't mind yielding back to some
further questions that way, but you offered a round two, these
are going to be specific, Chief Moore, to Oregon. In your
testimony you discussed your staff's work with Cow Creek Band
of Umpqua Tribe of Indians on a Tribal Forest Protection Act
(Pub. L. 108-278) proposal and self-determination (Pub. L. 93-
638) agreement. This agreement's goal is to reduce hazardous
fuels on National Forest System lands that border Tribal lands
and private property.
I do appreciate this vital partnership to reduce wildfire
risk, but it is clear we really do need to do more. I would
like to hear from you on what challenges the Forest Service
still faces in successfully treating both Federal and non-
Federal lands over the next 10 years. And, follow up to that,
how exactly Congress can help you address these barriers?
Mr. Moore. So thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I
think we are beginning to make a lot of progress working across
boundaries. As a matter of fact, no matter which state you go
in, whether it is Oregon, or whether it is any other state,
what you will find is that we have all agreed on one thing, and
that is we are working across boundaries if we are going to
make a difference. And that goes back to the all-lands, all-
hands approach to try and address some of these significant
issues that we have on the landscape. So whether you are
talking about tornado damage, hurricane, disease and insects,
or fire, we would not be successful if we don't work together
and across jurisdictional boundaries.
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. So a follow-up to that, then, what
impact can we expect to see from projects using the Tribal
Forest Protection Act and the Good Neighbor Agreements, is one,
and then will it have an impact on timber volume sold over the
long-term?
Mr. Moore. Yes, I believe so, and I will use a couple of
examples. If I look at the Good Neighbor Authorities that we
have in Wisconsin--now, we are looking at about 25 to 35
million board-feet of timber working with them, so that is an
increase. When I look at working with the Tribes, we are also
working in ways that they are providing a sustainable flow of
wood as well through the GNA.
Now, the Tribes are not using that as much as the states,
primarily because they can't keep the receipts the same as the
states, same as with counties. The counties and the Tribes are
in the same boat, and I believe that is something in
consideration now in the new farm bill, is to include the
Tribes and the counties, and treat them the same as we do
states, in terms of keeping the receipts to use them.
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. I will just do a quick follow-up--
well, actually, changing direction a little bit, climate
resilience. In the agency's current advance notice of proposed
rulemaking on climate resilience, it states that currently the
Forest Service commercially harvests \1/10\ of 1 percent of
acres within the National Forest System each year, while noting
an increase in disturbances driven primarily by overstocked
forests that are susceptible to insects, disease, and wildfire,
which you have touched on. Can you explain to me how the Forest
Service harvests so little from the National Forest System
lands, yet you mention overstocked forests as the primary
driver of disturbance? And a follow-up to that is do you
consider harvesting timber to be a climate-smart forestry
practice?
Mr. Moore. So last question first, okay?
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. Okay.
Mr. Moore. Yes, I think forestry, and the science behind
forestry, would say that, and the way it is used, it is
certainly climate-smart. In terms of your previous question,
for context, we have 193 million acres of National Forest
System lands in this country. A lot of that land is not set
aside for timber harvesting, so you are not going to be
harvesting those lands. For instance, wilderness areas are set
aside. We have grasslands set aside. If you look at some of the
hazardous fuel reduction work that we are doing now, there are
not commercial timber opportunities there.
The reason I say that is because we have to broaden the
discussion significantly. We have to talk about wood
innovations. We have to diversify the infrastructure in the
industry so that it utilizes the material that we have, which
will sustain, and even create, more jobs, particularly in our
small rural communities. The traditional infrastructure that we
have is looking at commercial timber, and we will always need
that, but we have so much other material out there, small-
diameter, low-value material that I think we have the
opportunity, with innovations, to create additional jobs to
diversify the whole infrastructure that we have in this
country. So I want to do that. You have steep slopes that you
cannot harvest off of. I mentioned grasslands, wilderness
areas. We have certain areas that is not allowed on that. So
when you take away all of that land, that percentage that we
are harvesting is going to be higher.
But now I am also the--I will be the first to tell you that
we are not taking nearly enough vegetation off the landscape,
and it is creating a hazardous condition out there for us, and
we need to be able to do much more than that. I can give you an
example. You didn't ask for it. Chairman, do we have time? So
let me take the last couple of decades, and if I use 2020 as
kind of a benchmark, we sold about 1.9 billion board-feet of
timber at the time. And by 2021, that 1.9 billion had jumped to
2.5 billion board-feet that we sold. In the last 5 years, on
average, we have sold about 3 billion board-feet.
Now, with the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, we are
looking to increase that up to about 4 billion board-feet, and
that is on a sustainable level that we are planning to do, and
a lot of that takes into consideration new innovations that we
have in wood that is going to help us get there. It also
includes monies being spent on the bipartisan infrastructure
legislation to upgrade existing wood facilities, like wood
mills, logging mills, retrofit them, and try to stabilize that
infrastructure that we have. And so we are planning to do all
of these things over time to increase the amount of vegetation
we take off the landscape, because we know that it is critical
that we do, but also create new jobs, particularly for our
small rural communities.
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Chief Moore. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, my time has expired.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer. I will
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Chief Moore, how many board-feet are growing on our 193
million acres of Forest Service land per year?
Mr. Moore. I don't have that answer. I can get that to you,
Congressman.
The Chairman. You don't know how many new board-feet grow
per year on the----
Mr. Moore. Well, I don't know how the question is being
asked. For example----
The Chairman. Well, you said you have increased the harvest
to about 4 billion board-feet per year. I just wonder at what
pace or scale, so to speak, are we keeping up with new growth?
Mr. Moore. Well, I want to make sure that we have the right
context, Congressman, because you can't just look categorically
across 193 million acres and say that you have this much growth
when that much growth is not really available to even be
considered for harvesting.
The Chairman. Well, that is where I am going to go with my
next question there. So would you say that the number of board-
feet growing is exceeding the amount of harvest by many fold,
or what do you think?
Mr. Moore. Yes, we are clearly not removing the amount of
timber out there that we could be or should be, and most of it
is budget driven, sir.
The Chairman. Most of it is what?
Mr. Moore. Most of that is budget driven.
The Chairman. Budget driven? We are not giving you enough
money here in Congress?
Mr. Moore. Well, not to the degree that we need to be
managing our forests. I think that BIL and IRA has given us a
significant boost in increasing that opportunity, and now we
just--if it is a one-time fix, then it is going to be good on a
temporary basis.
The Chairman. How much is the Service spending on
innovating wood products to be used by private industry for
making new products, new things? And you mentioned concrete,
and other areas.
Mr. Moore. Well, we have about $1.8 billion between the two
bills to look at opportunities like that, and----
The Chairman. Okay. So is it appropriate that the Forest
Service is devising new ways to use wood, or should that come
with the private-sector, that they would be creating markets,
so to speak?
Mr. Moore. Yes, we are working with the private-sector, and
other entities, including universities, to----
The Chairman. No, but I guess my question is, is that
really your role, innovating new products, or is that something
that is going to come from the big thinkers you have all across
the country that are constantly creating new products? So I
will leave that question aside here. So if we have money for
that, how much did you spend on at least two occasions of
shooting cattle in New Mexico?
Mr. Moore. I can provide you----
The Chairman. Eradicating cattle?
Mr. Moore. I can provide you with the budget that we set
aside for that.
[The information referred to is located on p. 44.]
The Chairman. You can provide that? Now how is that a
mission of the Forest Service, killing wild cattle in the--I
think the Gila River area?
Mr. Moore. Well, I think if you look at our rationale for
removing the cattle, they were wild cattle, and it--becoming a
safety issue for our public that were visiting there.
The Chairman. People visiting those rugged areas where the
cattle are, that the cowboys----
Mr. Moore. Congressman----
The Chairman.--I am told cowboys can't root them out of
there doing cowboy work, but people are in there?
Mr. Moore. Congressman, cattle moves around----
The Chairman. Yes, they do.
Mr. Moore.--and they were moving around where we had public
visiting, and it became----
The Chairman. So hiring helicopters----
Mr. Moore.--a safety hazard----
The Chairman.--and hiring hunters to shoot cattle in New
Mexico was a priority for the Forest Service over new uses of
wood, or over prescribed burns, and all these other things?
Mr. Moore. Well, Congressman, we have a variety of issues
and concerns that we have on our National Forests, and we can't
afford just to focus on one or two concerns. We have to address
all the concerns that come in, to the best of our ability.
The Chairman. Sure, sure. That seemed--especially when you
are asked by Members of Congress after the first time.
Mr. Moore. We have also been asked by Members of Congress
to continue.
The Chairman. Shooting cattle? Okay. Let us shift back over
to the fire retardant. Mr. Moore from Alabama was talking about
that. So what I hear is that the backup plan, if the tool is
taken away by a court via lawsuit, is water. The backup plan is
using water to drop from aircraft, instead of the retardant,
and its properties of sticking to foliage or wherever is
targeted. That is--is that what you said?
Mr. Moore. Well, I said we don't have any alternatives,
other than water, if we cannot use retardant.
The Chairman. Okay. So tell us on the Committee, how
effective will that be? Since my information on that is that
water dropped from these distances, especially in a hot
situation, in a hot fire, tends to evaporate before it even
hits the target. How effective is that going to be?
Mr. Moore. Well, it wouldn't be effective at all, and I am
not suggesting that we use water. But that would be the
alternative that we would have to make an attempt to----
The Chairman. So this underlines what a grave situation we
have if the retardant is taken away, right?
Mr. Moore. Yes.
The Chairman. Okay.
Mr. Moore. Yes.
The Chairman. So why did the Forest Service choose to
oppose my legislation to ensure that retardant is kept while
this 2 to 3 year period of EPA looking at it, a 30 year long
used product--why did they oppose my legislation?
Mr. Moore. I don't know that we opposed it, Congressman, as
much as we would like to work with you on pieces of that
legislation to address.
The Chairman. Well, they had--they took an opposition on it
in our previous hearing.
Mr. Moore. Yes. But we also--there is--the intent of that
bill we understand, and we would be interested in working with
you on making the bill more supportable.
The Chairman. So with 2 years to possibly get the permit,
as you said yourself, in the interim there is no alternative,
other than no retardant, and maybe use water?
Mr. Moore. Yes, I did say that. Yes.
The Chairman. Okay. All right. I have burned through these
5 minutes, so I will come back and recognize our Ranking
Member, Ms. Salinas.
Ms. Salinas. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chief Moore, in
the Inflation Reduction Act Congress provided $5 billion to
support forest management, planning, and restoration activities
for Federal, as well as non-Federal, forests. Can you provide
us with some information on this investment, and how has this
additional funding been put to good use, and what successes
have we seen?
Mr. Moore. So on the $5 billion, what we had to do was
build the structure for success. Initially we set aside ten
landscapes that we want to focus on, and these landscapes
consist of about 250,000 acres apiece. Since then, this year,
we have added an additional 11 landscapes, which we now have 21
landscapes, and of the 21 landscapes, it consists of about 20
million acres within those landscapes. And when we looked at
the landscapes themselves, they were about 250,000 acres
apiece. And so what the wildfire crisis strategy is doing is
addressing 31 of those--131 of those landscapes through funding
of different types, whether that is Inflation Reduction Act
funding or bipartisan infrastructure legislation funding. And
so that is our plan going forward with--we are trying to
address the problems we have, and particularly out West.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you. So development of new forest
products enables us to build in a climate-friendly manner, and
can help support rural economies. Can you speak to how the Wood
Innovation Grant Program is working, since it has been
statutorily authorized in the 2018 Farm Bill and funding was
increased in the Inflation Reduction Act? What promising
products have received grants, and where do you see the future
of forest product research and innovation?
Mr. Moore. Yes, I think we are having a lot of huge success
right now with wood innovations, and I mentioned earlier the
cross-laminated timber, CLT. We now have 16 buildings that are
being built with this, and we are looking for that to triple at
the end of the year. Working with WoodWorks and WoodWorks is
helping us to strategize and plan for different ways to look at
wood innovations for use. When I look at biochar as an
opportunity for mine land reclamation or farming, looking at it
as a potential--particular potential opportunity for carbon
credits, I look at biofuel as another opportunity. Using even
biomass as an opportunity for energy--wood energy to be
created.
I think nanocellulose material is what I had mentioned
earlier. It is a product used to strengthen material. I think
that we are looking at a lot of different opportunities on how
to use wood differently so we would have a much better chance
of removing much more of the vegetation out of our forests that
is contributing to wildfire, but also disease and insects, and
just the whole changes in the climate that we are experiencing.
Ms. Salinas. And then just to follow up on Congresswoman
Pingree's questioning a little bit, what are we doing
specifically to encourage commercial usage of some of these new
wood innovation products?
Mr. Moore. Yes. So we are working with--we have a Forest
Product Laboratory located in Madison, Wisconsin, and they are
working directly with corporations and others on utilizing both
the material that the lab is helping produce, but also in how
the lab is working with other university scientists in creating
some of these innovations out of wood.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you. So, as you are well aware, climate
change is having a real impact on forests and forested
communities across our nation. Can you speak to how state and
private forestry programs, like the Forest Health Protection
Program, help landowners ensure that their forests will remain
productive and provide resource benefits, both environmental
and economic, into the future?
Mr. Moore. Yes. The Agroforestry Center is one of the
examples that we have that can work directly with private
landowners, whether it is farmers or wood growers in the
country. And it is a great opportunity to put in one location
both education, as well as the technical components of an
agroforestry center. But, more importantly, it gives the end-
user, whether that is a farmer or a wood grower, the ability to
implement some of the technologies that are coming through the
Agroforestry Center.
And so far, it is working really well. I think that is an
area where there is going to be a tremendous amount of
additional growth there, and I think the things that we are
discovering are things that are going to lead us further into
this uncertain future that we have around wood.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. I will recognize Mr. Duarte now
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duarte. Thank you, Chief. Thank you--I mean Chairman,
and hello, Chief. Try and keep you straight here. We were
having a good discussion--we actually had it in another
committee, Natural Resources, a few days ago, so you are in a
bit of a circuit here. But if we are talking about--I mean,
once we start talking about government budget appropriations to
sustain millions and millions of acres of forest that are
overgrown, that we don't want to burn uncontrollably, that have
some significant habitat, recreation value, and sequester a lot
of carbon, which many are concerned with, there is nothing
better than a private-sector solution. There is nothing better
than somebody making a buck grazing it, logging it, innovative
wood products, and the more we move that to the private-sector,
the better.
Please tell me--you can have your choice. You can either
tell me what the prerequisites are, as you see it, the major
prerequisites for successful commercial logging operations to
help re-establish these overgrown forest landscapes into
sustainable, profitable, productive forest systems, or where
are the best models in the U.S. that you have seen, and what
can we learn from them?
Mr. Moore. So I think the collaboratives are one way that
we are seeing a lot of creativity in how we get work done. I
think the Good Neighbor Authority, working with the states, the
Tribes, and--as well as the local community--I think all of
that is playing out now, in terms of how we are treating the
landscapes out in our National Forests, and those lands
adjacent to the National Forests. So I think it is being
discovered now. The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Project is one of those. We have a number of those that are
still being funded. And as I mentioned earlier, for every
dollar invested in those areas, we are getting about $1.81 in
additional work. And so those are examples of where we are
having a lot of successes in trying to work across
jurisdictional boundaries, and those are places where we are
having a lot of success.
Mr. Duarte. How many years until we are all caught up?
Mr. Moore. Well, I don't know how many years before we are
all caught up, or if we will ever catch up. I think that we do
have a lot of work ahead of us, and I think it is the job of
all of us to try to figure out ways forward on that, and we are
trying to do that through wood innovations, when you look at
what we have, in terms of Federal agency.
Mr. Duarte. But--wood innovations, I mean, great. We have
all seen new products, they are great: particle board,
laminates, whatever. But we are importing wood now, right? We
have overgrown forests, some of them old growth forests, they
have been classified, and managed with more of a hands-off
approach than probably what is healthy, that have a lot of
commercial--conventional timber sitting out there that are
getting more overgrown, when we could get back to economic
private-sector logging that doesn't exhaust Federal resources,
and probably contributes back to the states, hopefully the
Tribes and counties, as you are presenting.
Where--how do we get back to that, so that we can actually
get across the landscape, restore our forests, and re-establish
thriving rural communities, and the economic system that kind
of--hopefully takes care of itself, in most cases?
Mr. Moore. Yes, Congressman, I really think it is a matter
of resources, and I will tell you why. I had mentioned going
back to the year 2000, and what we have been able to gradually
and steadily increase over time. During that same amount of
time, we have lost about 40 percent of our non-fire workforce.
And so while we have lost a number of employees that do that
very kind of work, productivity has continued to steadily go
up. We have done that by a number of things. One is looking at
processes, streamlining those processes. One is partnering in a
much bigger way to maximize and leverage what we are able to
do. And I think if we continue to go in that direction, we will
continue to see an increase in what we are able to do.
Mr. Duarte. But the employees you have lost have been
Forest Service employees, correct? The U.S. Forest----
Mr. Moore. It is a range of people. It has been non-fire
workforce.
Mr. Duarte. Sure. Sure. But what we have lost more so is
loggers, timber mills, right? The actual workforce that clears
the forest and makes a dollar doing it. Although you have lost
staffing, the more critical factor is we are simply not
sustaining our forests. We are simply failing to maintain our
forests in any semblance--we are going backwards in the last
couple decades, rather than forwards, in terms of forest
management. Is that true?
Mr. Moore. Well, I think if you look at one specific piece
of it, it is true, another piece, it is not. I mentioned just
now how the amount that we are providing--of selling has gone
up over the last couple of decades, not gone down.
Mr. Duarte. But the--you are logging--you are taking more
wood out now than you were a decade or 2 ago, but the forests
are progressively getting unhealthier, and still becoming more
overgrown over time. So we are not--we can--and the Chairman
asked you a few moments ago, do we need to double, triple,
quadruple, 10x, what order of magnitude do we need to
accelerate our board-feet of lumber being taken out of our
National Forest environments to recuperate, and then break
even? And--I mean, if you are getting $40 billion now, or
whatever your authorizations are now, what are you going to
need to do that with a government program versus how do we get
successful commercial forestry active again?
Mr. Moore. Well, Congressman, keep in mind that the endgame
is not to try and take as much timber off as we can, because we
have Endangered Species Act concerns, we have Clean Water Act
concerns. We have certain species that we are trying to
protect. We have certain steep slopes that we can't operate on.
And so the point that I want to make is that we--we are in a
balancing act between----
Mr. Duarte. But you are not balancing, I am sorry.
Endangered Species Act in California, with the spotted owl, has
let our forests become overgrown fire hazards, dumping carbon
into environment, destroying species for other--destroying
habitat for other species. Please tell me, and start with the
Sierra Nevadas, where has there been an Endangered Species Act
success?
The Chairman. Mr. Duarte, we are going to have to allow him
to finish on this question.
Mr. Duarte. Sure, okay.
The Chairman. Briefly finish that question. Or we can--we
will go with round three.
Mr. Moore. So, it is--what I am saying is that we have laws
in place, and we have to follow those laws. And when someone
challenges the work that we are trying to do based on what they
see as damaging to a threatened and endangered species, the law
allows us to try and be responsive to that. And sometimes we
don't agree, so we end up in court, and having the court settle
some of those debates. I think that is where we have been a lot
of times, and so we can't just go out and maximize timber
removal on these landscapes, because we have seen what they
will do in our past.
Mr. Duarte. Well, to be clear, I am not talking about
maximizing timber removal. I am talking about getting the
forests into an optimal, sustainable tree density so that it is
ideal habitat, as well as a productive forest, an excellent
watershed, and not a threat to local communities through
excessive fire hazards.
The Chairman. You will have to talk about that in the next
round of questions.
Mr. Duarte. All right. I will leave it alone. Thank you.
The Chairman. I will recognize myself, in keeping with the
timeline here, for 5 minutes.
Chief Moore, following up on what Mr. Duarte was speaking
about, is that when you say there are ESA concerns, and Clean
Water Act concerns, the wildfires we are doing--are direct
contributors, more so than any logging project I have ever
seen. And we can go back to the bad old days 150 years ago,
with clear cutting of hundreds of thousands of acres and things
like that, but that hasn't been around for at least since the
1950s or something.
The contribution of wildfire is so much more detrimental to
water quality, that washes all this ash and soil down into our
brooks, and streams, and rivers, and lakes, and across the
highways--Highway 70 is closed half the time up in my area and
the species themselves are being burned out. I have been out in
the woods where they go out and they have to hoot at owls to
see if they are there or not before than can proceed with a
project. And maybe that is all good. But, we are going
backwards so fast.
As you affirmed a few minutes ago, we are growing more
board-feet per day by far than what we are harvesting. It is
what Mr. Duarte, he is not saying it either, that we want to go
out and cut every tree. It is a situation where we are not
nearly keeping up. And so the priorities don't seem to be the
emergency focus, and that is what I just don't hear from you
over the years, sir, respectfully.
You are a friend, and we have talked a lot, but I don't
hear the fire in the gut over doing this thing, okay? And my
people are sick of it in the district, and all over the western
states. So when we say it is ESA's concerns, and Clean Water
Act concerns--these policies are contributing more so to
ruining those than anything we could ever do out in the woods
in this present day and age.
So when we talk about set-aside acres--let me drill down on
that a little bit, wilderness areas and grasslands. Now, when
new wilderness areas and grasslands are proposed, is your
agency out there chiming in, advocating for them?
Mr. Moore. I--Congressman, I think this whole discussion is
about the laws that we follow that Congress is passing.
The Chairman. No, but your agency has time to come speak
against my bill on just simply keeping fire retardant around
for the next 2 or 3 years while it is studied to death, okay?
And so--wilderness and grasslands, you just said a bit ago,
those set-asides mean you cannot do treatment in there. So is
there something magical about these areas that the trees don't
grow--they don't overgrow and become fire prone, even though
if--there might be a steep hillside, or species there, or a
threat--there might--something might get in the waterway? Are
these areas--are these set-asides--do they have some kind of
way of self-sustaining that they don't--they are not fire
prone?
Mr. Moore. Congress has approved the wilderness areas. And
in that Wilderness Act, it also says that we cannot harvest
timber in there. So these are laws that Congress is passing
that we are implementing.
The Chairman. No, the President names them. We don't
approve them.
Mr. Moore. Yes, but we have no choice to--then to follow
the law, or even Executive Order----
The Chairman. No, but do you have the fire in the belly,
you and your department, to advocate: do not do these if you
want to have the ability for people to go out, and manage, and
keep roads open, and not have to study to death replacing a
culvert with a 2 year NEPA process to do basic things? I need
to hear, besides that you have time to shoot cattle, and
advocate against my bill, and things like that, that you are
out there with the fire in the belly to say, look, we are
falling farther and farther behind every year. Every minute.
And the people at home, they just can't understand what is
going on, so we need prescribed burns, but in a way that
respects what Mr. Vasquez was talking about from New Mexico. We
need to be aggressive on that and push back on. Let me ask you
about the categorical exclusions here.
Now, we have had these in place since the 2018 Farm Bill.
Do you have an idea of how many new fire breaks or fuel breaks
had been created--what kind of acreage using these fuel break
and emergency authorities to expedite projects so--to have
basic fuel breaks around communities?
Mr. Moore. Yes. So the linear fuel break CEs, so far we
have approved eight. We have about another 20+ that are in the
pipeline to be approved as well.
The Chairman. How many acres are authorized that are used--
--
Mr. Moore. I think so far it is about 20,000 acres, but I
don't know how many are tied into the other ones that is in the
pipeline yet.
The Chairman. 20,000? And so, in round numbers, you govern
200 million acres? 193 million?
Mr. Moore. 193 million.
The Chairman. Yes. Okay. The Dixie Fire burned a million
acres, and devoured one of, well, two of my towns, really and
core parts of others. So 20,000 acres over several years--how
do you think we are ever going to catch up on that? I mean, we
give you the tools, and we want you to spend time using these
tools to the greatest extent possible, but instead--cross-
laminated timber is something I have seen in existence. Just
about every church I have been into, the--they are made out of
laminated timber in the sanctuary. So what is new in the area
of laminated timber that we need the Forest Service to innovate
new products, instead of being out on the ground, doing this
basic work, and not encouraging the private-sector, as Mr.
Duarte was talking about?
I have information here that says we have six uses of the
authority in that categorical exclusion. You say we are now up
to eight, and we have 20 in the works, so that would probably
be a total of 40,000 acres by the time all is said and done,
right?
Mr. Moore. I don't know yet.
The Chairman. Yes. Okay. Sir--and I am really trying--I
respect you, and the position you are in, and how hard it is
with--you are inviting--fighting environmental lawsuits all the
time, and you say you need more resources, but when we are
talking about the inability, it seems, to increase pace and
scale, the thing--the one thing we need most desperately, it
just--it just--starts to fall on more and more deaf ears around
here, you know what I am saying? It hurts us in our districts.
It hurts us to keep feeling this frustration that the
government is not going to get the job done for us.
Mr. Duarte was talking about--we need much more private-
sector work. We need your commitment from your department that,
if we build a mill for $200 million, that they are going to
have a 30 year supply, that the Cottonwood case is not going to
come in and say we have to revisit a species here that decided
to show up, or decided to be recategorized. We need a
commitment to that, because there is no way in the world that
we could ever fund you enough at the pace and scale with which
the Department moves to get anything done in a way that is
going to be meaningful.
So I will pause there. Does my Ranking Member have a
further question?
Ms. Salinas. I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, as we have
talked about, climate change is having a real impact on water
supply of agricultural communities across the nation, and
certainly in the Pacific Northwest, in my region. Healthier
watersheds provide more water for downstream users. Chief
Moore, can you provide insight into the watershed condition
framework implementation?
Mr. Moore. Yes. So there are a lot of different ways of
looking at that, Congresswoman, and right now we are focused on
firesheds, to look at getting at the fire issue. And, of
course, they can sit within a watershed. One of our biggest
challenges has been to report on outputs on an acre. For
instance, we go into a watershed, and we treat so many acres of
that watershed to move it from one condition class to the next
condition class. And I don't know if it is time for us to
consider outcome-based reporting, rather than output-based
reporting. Looking at the outcome-based reporting would allow
us to take a number of different actions within a watershed, or
even within a fireshed, to improve the condition of that
fireshed or watershed.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you. And then can you provide an example
of a priority watershed where desired outcomes have been
achieved?
Mr. Moore. Yes. I think if you look at a municipal
watershed, as an example--and we have been putting some of our
GNA authority and work in those municipal watersheds, because
they serve the communities in the area there, so that would be
a priority watershed, as an example.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you. So, as you know, economic pressure,
such as that from suburban development, put forestland owners
under pressure to sell their land. Can you speak to how
effective the Forest Legacy Program is in helping landowners to
preserve ownership through the use of easements?
Mr. Moore. Yes. I think that has been one of the real
successful program areas. And, we have seen on occasion where,
depending on the location across the country, the original
owner of the land--it is getting to the point that they can't
farm or ranch, and they look at turning it over to their
offspring, their kids. The kids are not interested in that
work, and so now it is not a working farm, or a working ranch,
but you still have to pay taxes on it. And so what we are
finding is, to keep land open, we are--the Legacy Program is
one of those great successes over the years, would allow the
owner to have some income, but also to keep the land--in
exchange for keeping the land open.
Ms. Salinas. And, to follow up, is the program effective in
reducing fragmentation of forest lands?
Mr. Moore. Yes. I think it is one of our successes.
Ms. Salinas. Great. And are there any adjustments that
should be made to make these programs easier for users?
Mr. Moore. So I would like to think about that, because I
have heard some discussion from some of the staffs,
Congresswoman, and get back with you on that.
Ms. Salinas. Thank you. No further questions. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you. Chief Moore, when we are talking
about the situation with old growth, and protection of that, we
had a very positive, productive discussion in Natural Resources
the other day on what Speaker McCarthy brought forward, with
the protecting of the giant sequoias in California. And--but
also the acknowledgement that lack of management near them has
endangered them, and indeed we lost some areas of that in the
past in yet another fire wave through the area. So we have to
do better it--just on that.
But that said, as the agency contemplates more work on old
growth and mature forests, as we are calling them, is the
agency now going to have to split between direct fire
suppression of--maybe around communities, buoys, or is it going
to shift more resources to protect old growth?
Mr. Moore. Well, what I am finding is that there has been
an explosion of homes being built into the wildland-urban
interface, so that question is becoming fuzzier. Protecting the
giant sequoias, as an example, there is a lot of work there,
and those are iconic trees that are thousands of years old. So
looking at some of the emergency authorities we have to protect
those trees has been really great for us, as a country, not
just an agency.
And I will give you an example. The work that we have done
out there to date--we have about 7,000 piles of material out
there. We have burned probably 2,000--little over 2,000 piles
of material out there, and we are on schedule to burn the other
5,000 or so piles. The reason I have talked so much about wood
innovation is because if we had wood innovation refined, rather
than burning 7,000 piles of slash from creating health and
resiliency in our forests, we could create products and jobs
out of that material.
The Chairman. Well, sir, we are importing lumber, so I
don't know if we have a lack of market for wood products in the
country, and it is--we have plenty of regulations to prevent
the harvest, and plenty of regulations to make it difficult to
truck them, and have trucks that are available, or even home
building, I suppose.
So let us shift over a little more on--UC Berkeley in
California, they actually have a productive division in their
Forest Department that they have research that shows that
southern Cal, for example, southern California, has lost half
of its mature forests to fire, insect, and disease in just the
last 10 years. So the authors at UC Berkeley concluded that
there is a hands-off approach, which is increasingly failing to
preserve mature forests, and that, in quotes again,
``management actions should be taken, despite uncertainties, if
cost of inaction is high.'' Uncertainties probably meaning the
usual litany of lawsuits, what is it going to do to the species
here and there, what have you.
So when we are talking about wilderness areas, and
grasslands, and monuments that have a hands-off, stay out
approach, wouldn't the Berkeley work suggest that, instead of
this off-limit approach, that they should be aggressively
managed, or at least just catch up, whether we are talking the
giant sequoias, or any other highly valued old growth or mature
land?
Mr. Moore. Congressman, I think we all agree that the
National Forests need more management conducted on them, so
that is not debatable. That is something that we all agree on.
What we are trying to decide is how do we utilize the type of
material that we have out there in removing that vegetation.
The Chairman. I am sorry, I missed the last part.
Mr. Moore. Yes. No problem. I said we all agree that we
need to do more work out there. I said the discussion has
really been over how to utilize the type of material that we
are removing off the landscape.
The Chairman. Yes. I think there is a market for it; but,
we are talking a few dollars for that versus a lot more dollars
to do the other part. So--well, I am going to conclude my line
of questioning, as I have another committee beckoning as well,
Ranking Member, do you have any closing thoughts before we
close out?
Ms. Salinas. Just quickly, Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want
to thank Chief Moore for providing us your valuable insight
into the work, the challenges, obviously the tensions and
opportunities across our forestry programs, and your thoughts
on really how to improve some of these programs. The
information and insight that you have shared with us today will
enable us to develop policies that will help improve programs
to deliver results for forest health, rural economies, and help
us fight climate change. And I do think it is a balance and a
tension that we are facing right now; but, we have to address
these associated fire risks, disease, and insect infestation. I
think you have given us a lot to think about, so thank you for
your time today.
Mr. Moore. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member, and the rest of
our Committee Members that could join us and be part for a
portion, or a good part of the hearing today. It is much
appreciated. Extremely important topic, obviously. And, Chief
Moore, I appreciate, again, you spending time with us over here
on the Hill, and working with us, but I just have to say that
we need more fire in the belly, sir. We need more passion about
this, because we can't keep doing the bureaucratic shuffle on
this and think we are going to have our western lands somehow
look anything like they are intended to or used to. And I am
just disappointed.
So, sir, let us keep finding ways, and aggressively move at
the pace and scale that is going to prevent my district, and
others like it, from continuing to lose more towns, lose more
habitat, and have our lakes filled with ash, and mud, and such.
So, with that, we will conclude today's hearing. Thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Submitted Letter by Hon. Gabe Vasquez, a Representative in Congress
from New Mexico
March 1, 2023

Randy Moore,
Chief,
U.S. Forest Service,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Chief Moore,

We write to inquire about the preventative measures the United
States Forest Service (USFS) is undertaking for the controlled burns
planned for our National Forests. It is imperative that our
constituents and our lands are protected from the next wildfire
disaster because our constituents cannot afford to have another
unprepared wildfire response.
Controlled burns are fires set intentionally for the purpose of
reducing potentially hazardous fuels, helping endangered species
recover, returning nutrients to the soil, and generally mitigating
wildfire risk in the future. Fires can be set over large tracts of land
or in pile burns, debris and branches that are stacked and burned after
they dry out. These actions can be particularly helpful in preserving
our forests under the correct conditions but can be disastrous if those
conditions are not met.
Last summer, the Forest Service admitted to causing two wildfires
that would eventually merge into the largest fire in New Mexico's
history, burning nearly 350,000 acres of land and destroying over 900
buildings. The fire at Calf Canyon was the result of a prescribed pile
burn that later reignited and merged with the Hermit's Peak fire, an
approved prescribed fire with a burn plan outlined by USFS. A disaster
of this proportion cannot happen again.
We understand that the effects of climate change heighten the
impact of wildfires on forests across the country, and that most
prescribed burns are completed without issue. To help restore trust in
preventative measures and ensure the safety of our constituents, we
request answers to the following:

How are prescribed burn notices to local governments and
adjacent landowners being communicated to ensure our
constituents receive timely notices of fires?

Has protocol been modified regarding burn piles to prevent
smoldering fires from reigniting?

What measures is your agency taking to ensure fires remain
contained?

We look forward to your response on this matter and ensuring New
Mexicans are safe and prepared for the next wildfire.
Sincerely,

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Hon. Gabe Vasquez, Hon. Teresa Leger Fernandez,
Member of Congress Member of Congress

______

Supplementary Material Submitted by Randy Moore, Chief, U.S. Forest
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Insert 1
Mr. Thompson. So, if I may, because I am running out of time
here, if you wouldn't mind following up in writing, in terms of
the whole question about how well we are doing towards that
sustainable growth rate as an overall system, and then my
follow-up question would be--I know that you all are doing
great things, I follow closely our Forest Service lab
professionals, they do a great job. The question I have,
though, is it seems like we have been in a whole talking
pattern about that, and that is only going to work when we can
get it to commercialization. When we get that--all the great
things you talked about, and probably more that we can talk
about in the future--when we get that to commercialization,
then we actually have a vehicle to improve forest health.

The highest priority for the agency is addressing the wildfire
crisis. In addition to addressing the wildfire crisis, building
resilient forests in the face of climate change is also a high
priority. A robust timber industry is critical to meeting on-the-ground
outcomes, as it relates to the thinning of densely vegetated forests in
fire-prone landscapes. The Forest Service continues to work diligently
to increase the level of timber volume sold by prioritizing staff and
other resources, striving for efficiency gains, and updating our NEPA
compliance guidance and other practices. Despite the much-needed
investments made through both the IIJA and IRA, we are still seeing
workforce capacity as one of our major issues. We hope that in the
coming months, we can begin to increase our workforce capacity in the
areas affecting our forest management program, giving us an opportunity
to not only maintain our timber sales accomplishments but also increase
them.
The Forest Service is uniquely suited, and works actively, to not
only innovate through research and development, but also to facilitate
technology transfer to industries for commercial application that
generates economic development and improves forest health through
utilization of small-diameter material from hazardous fuels and forest
health projects. As one example, through implementation of farm bill
authority, our Forest Products Lab partners with the wood products
industry, conservation organizations and universities to analyze the
safety of tall wood building materials and increase the use of mass
timber in buildings. The Forest Products Lab developed analyses
covering all the stages of the life cycle of wood-based products and
uses. Over the last 3 years, the Lab supported the commercialization
and transfer of research technology through the Wood Products Council.
The Lab also provided technical and financial support to the National
Hazard Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) TallWood project to
support the use of mass timber in multi-story structures located in
high seismic zones. The primary contractor for the world's tallest
timber hybrid building, Ascent, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
contacted the Lab to research and develop an extended, 3 hour, char
rate model. This study led to the acceptance by building officials and
the 2021 International Building Code that now allows mass timber
building up to 18 stories. The Forest Products Lab also supports
implementation of the Wood Innovations Act through agreements with
universities to conduct research on innovative wood products for
building construction. The Forest Products Lab currently has 78
agreements with 36 Universities and organizations.
The farm bill has catalyzed U.S. growth in mass timber construction
with over 1,600 buildings built, under construction, or in design, and
the rate is accelerating each year. Utilizing Section 8643 of the 2018
Farm Bill, the agency's Wood Innovations Grants Program stimulates and
expands wood products and wood energy markets. National focus areas
include mass timber, renewable wood energy, and technological
development that supports fuel reduction and sustainable forest
management. Section 8643 of the 2018 Farm Bill allows the Forest
Service to make grants to individuals or public or private entities or
a state, local or Tribal government for the purpose of advancing the
use of innovative wood products, reducing the use of fossil fuels, and
expanding the use of forest residues through conversion of facilities
to wood energy. Wood innovation projects are resulting in new and
expanded markets for wood products and wood energy including mass
timber construction, engineered wood products, biochar and combined
heat and power energy projects. With 11 new mass timber panel plants
now in the United States, the Forest Service is working with partners
to triple the number of buildings built every year from mass timber.
Our partnership and funding for WoodWorks has been crucial in achieving
these results.
Insert 2
Mr. Vasquez. . . .
Now we are facing the next phase of this tragedy, which is
the compensation from FEMA. And investigation from ProPublica
and Source New Mexico found that of the 140 households eligible
for FEMA housing, only 13 had been awarded. That is after 400
days of this fire. Chief, do you agree that this is an
unacceptable result following a catastrophic fire caused by the
Federal Government?

I want to acknowledge the extraordinary impacts these events have
had on the people and communities in New Mexico and apologize that we
are very sorry for what happened with Hermit's Peak. We know that it
had tragic impacts on that community, the people's lives and
livelihoods, including some of our employees who live in these
communities. We have allocated significant post-fire and disaster
funding to this area. We are also working with the community and
landowners to help them access other USDA programs. A long-term
recovery plan has only been possible because of the critical leadership
and partnerships with state, local and Federal agencies, local
community groups, and academic institutions in coordinated lines of
effort.
Insert 3
Mr. Moore. Well, I respond by saying I understand the
frustration in how different agencies within the Federal
Government operate. I would also ask you to be understanding of
I don't know what FEMA's rules are, since I don't work for
them, and that is not a put-off. I simply don't know what
FEMA's rules are. But I will follow up and provide you with a
response. And in terms of your letter that you sent in March, I
will look that up and make sure we are responsive to you.

The agency is grateful for the resources provided by the Hermit's
Peak Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act and funding FEMA for speedy
payment of claims to affected members of the community. The impacts on
community members go beyond what money can replace. Still, the hope is
the expedited claims process will help community members recover,
restore, and rebuild. The Forest Service is working with the State of
New Mexico and FEMA as part of the long-term recovery plan, addressing
recovery across all lands affected by FY22 fires. The Plan is organized
under seven ``Lines of Effort'' (LOEs), which include: community
outreach, economic recovery, housing recovery, health, and social
services, historical/cultural resources, drinking water, and watershed
mitigation. The LOE structure is defined based on ``key recovery
priorities'' for the State of New Mexico's recovery strategy.

The multi-agency coordination effort recognizes long-term
needs related to watershed restoration, infrastructure
protection, and other recovery efforts and that long-term
efforts will continue to be coordinated by agencies within
their authority and funding.

The Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) program funded
$7.3 million for emergency stabilization in the Hermit's Peak/
Calf Canyon Fire burned area. The BAER treatments included
aerial mulching on 3,000 acres, storm-proofing and repairing
roads, trail work, and installing road closure and hazard
warning signs. The Forest Service completed this work last
summer.

The agency allocated over $10.8 million in Burned Area
Rehabilitation (BAR) funds for additional road, trail, and
facility repair, aerial seeding, and allotment fence repair.
This work is currently underway with multiple contracts and
agreements.

In addition, the Region received over $50 million in
Disaster Supplemental funds specifically for work on the
Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon burned area. The Forest Service is
developing long-term restoration priorities, and projects with
the state and FEMA, and our USDA partners. The funding and
long-term work are focused on the following:

Firewood distribution,

Rangeland restoration, including repairing fences,

Road and bridge reconstruction and replacement,

Acequia and ditch repair,

Hazard tree removal along roadways for safety,

Forest restoration through salvage and reforestation,

Water diversion structures and channel repair, and

Recreation infrastructure repair.

For the past year, the Forest Service and USDA, including
NRCS, FSA, and Rural Development, have been actively
participating in firewood distribution, allotment assessments,
fence replacements, roadside hazard tree removal, timber and
agricultural industry recovery, watershed stabilization, and
Acequia and infrastructure repair.

The Forest Service is currently partnering with the NRCS
through a newly signed MOU between the two agencies that allows
us to better work with the State of New Mexico for a broad-
scale effort to address headwaters stabilization needs for
National Forest System lands and downstream private lands to
mitigate as much as possible impacts from flooding.

The Forest Service is partnering with the State of New Mexico to
support post wildfire recovery and reforestation by investing in the
New Mexico Reforestation Center through New Mexico State University.
The Forest Service is investing in the Center using Fiscal Year 2023
Disaster Supplemental Funds via State, Private and Tribal Forestry
(SPTF) to support a $10 million grant for the construction of the
Center and a $160,000 of FY23 IIJA funding to support a nursery grant
to the state.
Insert 4
The Chairman. No, but I guess my question is, is that really
your role, innovating new products, or is that something that
is going to come from the big thinkers you have all across the
country that are constantly creating new products? So I will
leave that question aside here. So if we have money for that,
how much did you spend on at least two occasions of shooting
cattle in New Mexico?
Mr. Moore. I can provide you----
The Chairman. Eradicating cattle?
Mr. Moore. I can provide you with the budget that we set
aside for that.

The total spent by the Forest Service on the previous two
operations was $125,896.19.
______

Submitted Questions
Response from Randy Moore, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department
of Agriculture
Questions Submitted by Hon. Glenn Thompson, a Representative in
Congress from Pennsylvania
Question 1. Chief, the Confronting the Wildfire Crisis Strategy
that the Forest Service is implementing calls for treating 20 million
acres of National Forest System lands and another 30 million acres of
private, state, and Tribal land. Can you tell me how you have been
working with partners and selecting projects?
Answer. The agency has invested $1.2 billion on 21 landscapes using
a combination of funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding in FY23. Using a
mix of those funds, with Joint Chiefs, Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration and other regular appropriations on those landscapes, the
Forest Service has treated a total of 694,000 acres in FY22 and FY23 as
of August 21, 2023.
Input and thoughts from valued stakeholders have been incorporated
into the Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) since its inception. With the
assistance of the National Forest Foundation and the Intertribal Timber
Council, the agency hosted 11 roundtables across the country to
determine successes, challenges, and policy needs associated with the
implementation of the WCS. Collaborating with partners early and often
in the planning and prioritization under the WCS was one of the more
frequent recommendations--including incorporation of shared-data,
leveraging capacity, aligning priorities, and effective storytelling.
Each of the WCS landscapes were chosen based on a variety of
criteria, collaborative planning, and public support underpinning
proposal foundations. Across the 21 WCS Landscapes, Forests and Regions
are working with over 280 unique partner organizations including state
agencies, Tribal Nations, NGOs, finance partners, and industry
partners. Twenty-one of these are new partnerships developed in
relation the WCS.
The agency supports implementation of work on the 30 million acres
through grants to states, Tribes and other partners. Utilizing programs
such as State Fire Assistance (Capacity), the Community Wildfire
Defense Grant Program, Landscape Scale Restoration, and Cross-Boundary
Hazardous Fuels funding we are able to treat, through partnership, non-
NFS lands in close coordination with work on Federal lands.

Question 1a. How long, on average, does it take for a project to
get through the approval process on National Forest System land? How
long on private, state, or Tribal land?
Answer. For NFS lands, on average, the completion time from scoping
to decision for a categorical exclusion addressing hazardous fuels
management is 230 days. The average completion time for the Fuel Break
CE on NFS lands (provided in the IIJA) is 130 days. On average, the
completion time from scoping to decision for an environmental
assessment addressing hazardous fuels management on NFS lands is 860
days.\1\ After environmental compliance is complete, delays may occur
prior to implementation (for example due to waiting for an operable
field season or the contracting process).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The data was collected from the Forest Service's Planning,
Administrative Review, and Litigation System (PALS).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Project planning and approval on Tribal, private, and state lands
vary, and is dependent on the specific scope of work, funding source as
well as compliance with local, state and/or Tribal laws and policies.
We do not track the length of time to approve projects on private,
state, or Tribal land.

Question 2. Chief, I have long believed in locally-led conservation
and restoration and believe this readily applies to the wildfire crisis
we are facing. Is the Forest Service working with landowners who have
extensive local knowledge and experience on fire suppression? If so,
what improvements can we expect to see with the Forest Service's fire
suppression efforts this year?
Answer. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require a cross
boundary approach to reduce hazardous fuels across all lands. The
Forest Service is working with other Federal and state agencies,
partners, and private landowners to achieve this work. The response to
the wildfire crisis is focused on a proactive approach to fuels
management.
Fire suppression will continue to be an important component of fire
management. Eighty-nine percent of wildfires are human caused. All
human-caused fires are suppressed, as well as any fire that threaten
life or property. As such, the Forest Service fire prevention program
is still integral to the suppression response, where prevention
officers patrol high use areas to educate the public and to seek areas
where escaped campfires or other human-caused wildfires, such as
equipment and vehicles, are a source of fire ignitions.
When there is a high wildfire risk, prevention teams are deployed
to have more presence, education, and patrol in high use areas of a
forest. Additionally, the Forest Service can pre-position firefighting
resources during periods of high fire danger in an effort to suppress
wildfires during initial attack. The Forest Service will continue to
work with local partners and communities to inform where fire danger
from human-caused starts are a concern and where hazardous fuel
treatments should be placed to best modify the fire behavior across all
lands.

Question 3. The IIJA provided the Forest Service with a new
categorical exclusion (CE) for fuel breaks up to 3,000 acres and
emergency authorities to expedite projects in response to natural
disasters. It's been over a year and a half since this law was passed,
but to my knowledge the Forest Service has only used the CE 31 times
during that period and on very limited acreage. Furthermore, we are
unaware of any projects using the emergency authority.
How often has the Forest Service used this CE and what is the total
number of acres treated? Please provide this Committee with project-
specific data (Region, forest, location, and acres treated or planned).
Why hasn't the Forest Service used this fuel break CE more often?
Answer. The agency has 54 active projects using the Fuel Breaks CE
category (35 projects in environmental compliance and 19 projects in
implementation). As of October 3, 2023, there are a total of 40,237
acres treated and there is a total proposed treatment of 85,348 acres
using this CE.

Question 3b. How often has the Forest Service used the emergency
authority and what is the total number of acres treated? Please provide
this Committee with project-specific data (Region, forest, location,
and acres treated or planned). Why hasn't the Forest Service used this
emergency authority more often?
Answer. In December 2022, USDA announced that Secretary Vilsack had
authorized the Forest Service to use the new emergency authority from
the IIJA across 250 high-risk firesheds in the western United States as
well as several specific post-fire recovery areas. Combined with
strategic implementation of existing authorities, this will enable us
to move more quickly to apply targeted treatment to the high-risk
firesheds identified in our Wildfire Crisis Strategy.
In the first year of implementation, the agency focused on scaling
up with shovel-ready projects to get started on this important work. In
the second year, the agency began building on this important work
through historic investments through IIJA and IRA.
As of August 16, 2023, nine projects have been approved by Chief
Moore to use the new emergency authority. These projects are in the
planning phase and include 402,340 acres of proposed treatment in
National Forests in Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, and South
Dakota. At least three other projects are pending approval in the
Washington Office with another 27 projects pending Regional Office
approvals. Training webinars covering procedures and requirements for
using this authority are also in development.

Question 4. Chief, collaborative forest restoration projects have
been a cornerstone of how the agency has accomplished some of the much
needed management across National Forest System lands. In the 2018 Farm
Bill, we reauthorized the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Program (CFLRP) through 2023 and the IIJA authorized an additional
funding for the program. Can you provide this Committee with data on
the number acres treated and timber volume sold annually by each CFLRP
project from 2018-2023?
Answer. Between 2018 and 2022, the Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration Program (CFLRP) treated a total of 1.7 million acres for
hazardous fuel reduction and sold 2.8 million cubic feet (33.6 million
board-feet) of timber. Data from 2023 is not yet available.
CFLRP projects implement a wide range of projects that aren't
reflected in hazardous fuels acres and timber volume. In the last 5
years, 3.5 million acres of terrestrial habitat were improved, 500
miles of stream habitat were enhanced, and 72,000 acres were treated
for invasive species. In that same time frame, the program created
21,435 jobs and generated over $1 billion in labor income. In 2022, we
found that on average 70% of the CFLRP funding stays local to the
project area. The program leveraged $55 million dollars of partner
dollars between 2018 and 2022 and added over 100 new partners to our
collaborative groups.
The table below includes the hazardous fuels acres treated and
timber volume sold for the CFLRP projects from 2018 through 2022. The
CFLRP projects vary widely in size, ecosystem, and socioeconomic
context, and accomplishments can't be compared across projects.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CFLRP Project Name State CFLRP
funding
years Acres treated to reduce hazardous fuels (top) Timber Volume
Sold, ccf (bottom, bold)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accelerating Longleaf FL 2010-2019 46,036 27,728 -- -- --
Pine Restoration in
Northeast Flor-
ida 7,898 26,126 -- -- --
Amador-Calaveras CA 2012-2021 4,008 16,666 6,872 6,563 --
Consensus Group
Cornerstone Project
11,729 37,065 23,949 37,401 --
Burney-Hat Creek CA 2012-2021 4,292 2,729 3,378 3,987 --
Basin
26,591 2,285 17,198 533 --
Colorado Front Range CO 2010-2019 6,745 4,368 -- -- --
5,217 4,508 -- -- --
Deschutes OR 2010-2019, 10,953 4,138 -- 12,764 9,552
Collaborative Forest 2021-2025 19,092 1,627 -- 42,195 30,651
Project
Dinkey Landscape CA 2010-2019, 7,122 602 -- 0 790
Restoration Project 2021-2028 18,447 0 -- 3,392 5,550
Four Forest AZ 2010-2019 129,168 115,142 -- -- --
Restoration
Initiative
180,863 250,473 -- -- --
Grandfather NC 2012-2021 5,467 100 1,314 -- 5,232
Restoration Project
3,585 150 53 --
Kootenai Valley ID 2012-2021 3,209 5,974 1,824 2,507 1,825
Resource Initiative
53,116 50,737 20,530 49,704 28,227
Lakeview Stewardship OR 2012-2031 20,280 14,761 8,227 23,633 19,086
21,267 26,166 6,520 845
Longleaf Pine MS 2012-2021, 63,960 14,870 46,844 38,500 --
Ecosystem
Restoration and
Hazardous Fuels
Reduction 2023-2028 40,182 23,637 376 21,572 --
Missouri Pine-Oak MO 2012-2026 22,475 14,813 13,916 13,156 24,586
Woodlands
Restoration Project
35,500 32,473 16,003 20,125 33,464
North Central WA 2022-2031 -- -- -- -- 7,367
Washington
-- -- -- --
North Yuba Forest CA 2022-2031 -- -- -- --
Partnership
-- -- -- -- 49,670
Northeast Washington WA 2012-2030 9,702 9,245 5,875 6,378 14,928
Forest Vision 2020
111,722 21,541 35,878 62,163 4,577
Northern Blues OR 2021-2030 -- -- -- 37,583 36,627
-- -- -- 42,066 74,821
Ozark Highlands AR & OK 2012-2021 33,176 42,963 28,677 41,775 --
Ecosystem 31,542 43,193 17,327 27,824 --
Restoration
Pisgah Restoration NC & TN 2023-2032 -- -- -- -- --
Initiative -- -- -- -- --
Rio Chama CO & NM 2022-2031 -- -- -- -- 11,096
-- -- -- -- 38,288
Rogue Basin OR 2022-2031 -- -- -- -- 6,187
-- -- -- -- 21,605
Selway-Middle Fork ID 2010-2019 67 39 -- -- --
Clearwater
7,381 0 -- -- --
Shortleaf Bluestem AR & OK 2012-2027 63,533 30,727 41,296 97,212 71,920
Community 71,802 59,589 93,502 33,527 26,660
Southern Blues OR 2012-2031 41,597 34,091 35,278 26,980 41,745
Restoration
Coalition
103,224 110,042 129,415 11,585 21,602
Southwest Colorado CO 2022-2031 -- -- -- -- 12,525
Restoration
Initiative
-- -- -- -- 51,722
Southwest Jemez NM 2010-2019 5,877 2,812 -- -- --
Mountains
14,366 3,780 -- -- --
Southwestern Crown of MT 2010-2019 2,551 4,226 -- -- --
the Continent
13,723 28,360 -- -- --
Tapash WA 2010-2019 1,926 2,961 -- -- --
5,290 486 -- -- --
Uncompahgre Plateau CO 2010-2019 4,442 21,280 -- -- --
8,652 2,170 -- -- --
Weiser-Little Salmon ID 2012-2021 22,740 20,276 12,391 11,509 --
Headwaters
9,656 18,821 43,970 50,866 --
Western Klamath CA 2022-2031 -- -- -- -- 2,118
Restoration
Partnership
-- -- -- -- 8,720
Zuni Mountain NM 2012-2031 1,872 3,830 1,383 3,564 70
14,116 9,116 5,286 15,904 8,105
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers in italics indicate reported accomplishments that were not captured in the database of record. Annual
reports with comprehensive project accomplishments can be found on the CFLRP website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/
restoration/CFLRP/results.shtml.

Question 5. Chief, can you provide this Committee with the amount
of standing sawtimber on unreserved National Forest System lands in the
lower 48, as identified by the Forest Inventory and Analysis program
datasets? How much standing sawtimber is located on lands designated as
``insect and disease treatment areas'' under the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act? Do you know how much standing sawtimber is located on
lands designated as ``priority landscapes'' in the Forest Service's 10
year Wildfire Strategy?
Answer. The numbers below are estimates from a series of analyses
that broadly address the inquiries above and were compiled using
existing data and maps to produce estimates of: sawtimber volume on
non-reserved National Forest System (NFS) lands; sawtimber volume on
non-reserved NFS lands within designated insect and disease areas under
sections 602 and 603 of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act; and
sawtimber volume on non-reserved NFS land within the twenty-one
Wildfire Crisis Strategy priority landscapes.
For the purposes of this question, Reserved lands are defined as
National Forest System lands that are permanently prohibited from being
managed to produce wood products through statute or agency mandate,
such that the prohibition cannot be changed through a decision by the
land manager. Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Areas are examples of
reserved lands found within National Forest System administrative
boundaries. However, it is important to understand that standing
sawtimber on non-reserved land is not an indicator of the amount of
sawtimber available or accessible for harvest. A variety of factors
influence availability and accessibility, including but not limited to:

Land Management Plans and the Management Areas, goals,
standards, and guidelines defined within them can restrict the
availability of material through, for example designations of
suitable/unsuitable areas for timber harvest.

Market factors determine what is economically accessible.

Areas may be unsuitable due to site-specific conditions such
as steep slopes, erosive soils, being too wet, etc.

Threatened and Endangered Species and Critical Habitat
designations can restrict miles of open or closed roads,
impacting accessibility of an area.

Please be aware that these and other factors affect the
availability of standing sawtimber volume for utilization.

Non-reserved National Forest Service land--sawtimber volume:

Estimates of non-reserved sawtimber volume on Non-reserved National
Forest Service land and were generated using Forest Inventory and
Analysis (FIA) plot data. These estimates have a plus/minus one percent
error.

Non-reserved National Forest Service land Sawtimber volume
(million) estimate

Cubic-foot.................................................. 211,882
Board-foot.................................................. 1,312,238

Sawtimber volume (non-reserved National Forest System land) within
insect and disease areas designated under sections 602 and 603 of the
Healthy Forests Restoration Act:

Estimates of sawtimber volume within insect and disease areas
designated under sections 602 and 603 of the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act (HFRA) were generated using FIA plots located within
HFRA areas designated on a spatial layer from the Forest Service
Enterprise Data Warehouse.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ https://apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/EDW/
EDW_HealthyForestRestorationAct_01/MapServer/0

Sawtimber volume on non-reserved NFS land within areas
designated under sections 602 and 603 of the HFRA (million) estimate

Cubic-foot.................................................. 108,335

Sawtimber volume within designated Wildfire Crisis Strategy
landscapes:

Estimates of sawtimber volume on non-reserved National Forest
System land within the twenty-one Wildfire Crisis Strategy landscapes,
based on FIA plot data. Note that not all land within any Wildfire
Crisis Strategy landscape is entirely under National Forest System
administration.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sawtimber
volume
Wildfire Crisis Strategy Landscape (mil. cubic % error
ft)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4FRI 3,157 6%
Central Oregon 2,779 4%
Central Washington Initiative 3,730 4%
Colorado Front Range 1,067 8%
Colville Northeast Washington Vision 3,640 3%
Enchanted Circle 654 13%
Klamath River Basin 11,091 4%
Kootenai Complex 1,592 8%
Mount Hood Forest Health and Fire-Resilient 2,525 8%
Communities
Nez Perce-Clearwater-Lower Salmon 4,257 7%
North Yuba 1,696 13%
Pine Valley * N/A N/A
Plumas Community Protection 620 21%
Prescott 78 42%
San Carlos Apache Tribal Forest Protection 76 52%
Sierra and Elko Fronts 845 22%
Southern California Fireshed Risk Reduction 262 25%
Strategy
Southwest Idaho 1,843 9%
Stanislaus 641 20%
Trinity Forest Health and Fire-Resilient Rural 2,806 10%
Communities
Wasatch 546 14%
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The Pine Valley landscape did not contain enough forested FIA plots to
calculate an accurate estimate.

Question 6. One of the things the Forest Service is required to do
under the National Forest Management Act is to develop Forest Plans.
Among other things, these plans must include the amount of timber that
could be sustainably harvested from each NFS unit over the 10 year life
of the Forest Plan. Can the Forest Service accurately tally the current
Allowable Sale Quantity, or Permissible Timber Sale Quantity, found in
current National Forest Plans, by National Forest, and aggregated both
for each Forest Service Region and nationally? Please ensure that these
ASQ's/PTSQ's factor in site specific or forest specific plan
amendments, whether required by court order or created by the agency.
Answer. We do not corporately track Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ)
or Permissible Timber Sale Quantity (PTSQ). These are not considered
land allocations or designations. Rather, they provide a ceiling of how
much volume may be cut from a particular unit according to each Land
Management Plan. The previous Planning Rule used ASQ and PTSQ is what
is calculated under the current 2012 Planning Rule. ASQ and PTSQ are
located within the Land Management Plans for individual National
Forests, and to obtain each is not feasible in the timeline required
for this response. However, we are seeking this data from each unit and
will update Committee staff with the results as soon as we are able to
do so.

Question 7. How much of the funding made available under the IIJA
for the following provisions has been allocated to timber-producing
projects:

Sec. 40803(c)(11): $400 million for ``mechanical thinning
and timber harvesting in an ecologically appropriate manner,''

Sec. 40803(c)(14): $250 million for the establishment of
``control locations, . . . including installing fuel breaks . .
. with a focus on shaded fuel breaks when ecologically
appropriate,''

Sec. 40802(c)(15): $100 million for hiring crews ``for the
removal of flammable vegetation on Federal land, and for using
materials from treatments to the extent practicable, to produce
biochar and other innovative wood products,''

Sec. 408003 Authorities:

$150 million for 10,000 acre ecological restoration
contracts, and

$200 million for grants to states and Tribes to
implement ecosystem restoration.

Answer. Investments made available through the IIJA have enabled
the agency to perform critical work that protects communities while
improving forest health and resiliency. A robust timber industry is
critical to address the wildfire crisis and to maintain healthy forests
across the nation in the face of climate change. The agency has
developed a number of large-scale contracting and agreement tools with
partners that will be critical to implementing this work.
A total of $83,500,000 has been made available for timber producing
projects from IIJA provision 40803(c)(11). A total of $27,300,000 has
been made available for timber producing projects from IIJA provision
40803(c)(14). A total of $5,500,000 has been made available for
projects that include development and production of biochar and other
products from IIJA provision 40803(c)(15).
In FY 2024, the Forest Service intends to utilize $40,000,000 of
the funds from IIJA provision 40804(b)(1), to restore the ecological
health of more than 75,000 acres through a stewardship agreement with
the Mule Deer Foundation. Under this agreement, landscape-scale,
ecological health restoration will take place in National Forests and
Grasslands across seven Forest Service regions (Regions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, and 10). It is not possible to predict with certainty what
proportion of the $40,000,000 will be used on timber producing projects
but there will be some amount of forest products associated with the
primary activities of habitat improvement, fuels reduction, and timber
stand improvement.
A total of $15,566,000 has been committed and executed as of the
third quarter status report for Good Neighbor Authority timber
producing projects from IIJA provision 40804(b)(2)(B) through
agreements with state organizations. In FY23 the Forest Service
allocated an additional $7 million from this provision to projects with
Tribal Nations using Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) or Good
Neighbor Authority (GNA) authorities. The work with Tribal Nations is
largely ecosystem restoration activity important to the Tribal Nations
involved; projects to date have produced minimal commercial timber
volume.

Question 8. In 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that the Forest
Service needed to reinitiate consultation with Fish and Wildlife
Service following the 2009 designation of critical habitat for the
Canada lynx. This decision established a new, ambiguous threshold for
Endangered Species Act (ESA) consultations on completed programmatic
actions. In 2018, Congress passed a partial fix, but ``new
information'' claims under the Cottonwood ruling continue to have
damaging implications that delay or prevent forest management
altogether.
It's my understanding that with the expiration of the 5 year
partial Cottonwood fix this past March, over one hundred forest plans
will have to go through ESA re-consultation, which will take years to
complete and millions of dollars. The past four Chiefs of the Forest
Service testified in support of finding a solution to reverse this
decision. Will you commit to working with this Committee on a solution?
In your view, how has the Cottonwood decision made western communities
more vulnerable to wildfires? How many projects have already been
delayed due to the Cottonwood case? How many more does the Forest
Service expect will be delayed if the issue isn't permanently resolved
by Congress?
Answer. With the safe harbor provision in the 2018 Consolidated
Appropriations Act expiring this past March, about eighty-seven (87)
land management plans across the nation face varying degrees of legal
uncertainty. As of August 2023, we have received the following Notices
of Intent (NOIs) to sue related to Cottonwood:

8 new information NOIs related to Forest Plans

7 critical habitat NOIs related to Forest Plans

Question 9. Chief, as you know, in the East we have significant
challenges with invasive insect and plant species in our forests. In
the Allegheny National Forest and across Appalachia, for example, the
Forest Service has been trying to address glossy buckthorn for years.
How is the Forest Service addressing invasive species? How have farm
bill authorities helped the Forest Service work with adjacent private
landowners who are also impacted by the spread of invasive species?
Answer. The Allegheny National Forest (ANF) is working to develop a
landscape level strategy to mitigate the spread of glossy buckthorn as
part of the Allegheny Forest Health Collaborative. The ANF is currently
carrying out its seventh year of a planned 10 year project to treat
glossy and common buckthorn on the Forest. Effective treatment involves
multiple reentry to impacted areas, with herbicide application, mowing,
controlled burn, or other proven measures. The Allegheny Forest Health
Collaborative (AFHC), with the ANF as a key partner, was formally
established in 2017 to connect intermingled ownerships and interests.
On a national scale, the Forest Service works across Federal,
state, Tribal, and private lands to address invasive plants that damage
forest and grassland ecosystems and create increased fire and human
health risk. Our Forest Health Protection Invasive Plants Program
provides approximately $2 million annually in financial assistance to
and works in partnership with Federal agencies, State Departments of
Forestry and Agriculture, and Tribes to provide technical assistance
directly to landowners and support management actions on the ground.
There are several farm bill authorities that have helped prevent and
manage invasive species on private lands. These include the Landscape-
scale Restoration, Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program,
Good Neighbor Authority, and Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003
Amendments.

Question 10. Chief, last month your agency released the Mature and
Old-Growth Forest report that defines and inventories those forests on
lands managed by the Forest Service. With over \1/2\ of the National
Forest System already under some kind of protected status, this
proposal is counter-productive, and it seems to me that it will do
little more than prevent management on forests that are urgently in
need of restoration, hazardous fuels reduction, and other fire
prevention activities. In your view, how is this old growth protection
proposal compatible with the 10 Year Strategy and the need to better
manage tens of millions of acres of Federal lands?
Answer. The agency's work on mature and old-growth forests (MOG) is
completely compatible with the 10 Year Strategy. Our definitions for
mature and old growth consider both biological and economic aspects
using peer reviewed concepts and practices. Given the nature of the
public discourse on conservation of mature and old-growth forests, it
is essential to have a rigorous, peer-reviewed way to distinguish
between areas that are considered economically mature and those that
are beginning to reach an ecologically mature condition. Our inventory
methods, including the definitions for mature and old-growth forest,
were recently accepted for publication in Forest Ecology and
Management, a highly respected scientific journal.
Describing the transition from young to mature to old in a way that
reflects forest type, biophysical setting, and productivity level of
the site gives us a firm footing to make the case that active
management is often needed, even when the objective is older forest
conditions. It strengthens our position on whether older forests are
veering away from sustainable conditions and need silvicultural
manipulation to get back on track.
Conducting the inventory and threat analysis is helping to quantify
and add important context to two major biological factors that combine
to create the forest health and wildfire challenges the Forest Service
and Bureau of Land Management now face. The inventory and threat
analysis are showing that fire exclusion resulted in densification of
existing forests. The inventory also highlights how fire exclusion
allowed forests to move into wetlands, meadows, woodlands, and other
more open areas where they did not previously exist and likely will
fall victim to fire, insects, or disease. In the east and south, it
will also highlight the importance of addressing non-native invasive
species, insects, and disease. The threat analysis will quantify the
magnitude of these issues and inform the agency's evaluation of when
these lands will benefit from treatment, or in some cases the complete
removal or type conversion of forests, to address landscape scale
forest health and fire related issues. This use of active management is
a crucial part of fostering climate resilience in forests and
communities.

Question 10a. How many acres of mature and old growth did you find
on those lands? Please provide this Committee with documentation of the
overlap between the mature and old-growth forest identified by the
inventory and the acres at highest risk of wildfire?
Answer. The initial inventory identified more than 32 million acres
of old-growth and around 80 million acres of mature forest across 200
combinations of forest types, biophysical settings (e.g., slope aspect,
elevation, etc.) and productivity levels. The inventory found that old-
growth forest represents 18%, and mature forest another 45% of all
forested land managed by the Forest Service and BLM.
We have been working on an answer to the question of how many acres
of MOG coincide with areas at high risk for fire since we completed the
inventory in April 2023. This is not a matter of a simple overlay of
GIS layers (maps). Our inventory was based on a fireshed level (about
250,000 acre areas) statistical estimate of the amount of mature or old
growth in each fireshed with a standard error (measure of accuracy). We
used Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) permanent sample plot data for
this purpose. FIA is the most reliable source of quantitative data
available. As a result, we have not yet identified specific MOG acres
at high risk for fire, and we are hesitant to report these estimates at
a very fine scale. Such maps require estimates of conditions that can
easily be misinterpreted. We do not have a firm estimate of when we
will complete this work, but we are happy to interact with Committee
staff as we continue to improve this data.

Question 11. While conducting this Mature and Old-Growth forest
inventory and definition exercise, did the Forest Service identify a
specific age (e.g., 80 years) at which all forest types are considered
either ``old growth'' or ``mature''?
Answer. We do not believe age alone is a reliable indicator of
maturity and there is certainly no one age that would work for all
forest types. The age when a stand begins to develop old-growth
characteristics will vary depending on many factors even within a
single forest type. We developed a framework that honors the 30 years
of work the agency has done in collaboration with the public to develop
regional old-growth definitions and include them in our forest plans.
Our mature definitions are built on these well-established old-growth
definitions. These definitions sometimes include age as a factor but
never as sole factor. They depend more on structural characteristics
that are easily recognized where age is relatively difficult to
determine, especially in uneven age stands. In addition, different
forest types develop at very different rates, so what we consider old
for Ponderosa pine is very different than Southern pine.

Question 12. Will wildfire risk reduction projects and fire
suppression efforts be interrupted by the agency's work on old-growth
and mature forests? Will the agency divert fire suppression resources
to protect ``old-growth'' forests?
Answer. Wildfire risk reduction as well as fire suppression efforts
will not be interrupted by the agency's work on old-growth and mature
forests. Old growth and mature forests are values that the agency
considers when conducting fire management operations including
hazardous fuels reduction work. As part of the response to an unplanned
ignition, the agency will assess the values that will likely be
impacted by the fire and determine where to deploy resources based on
the highest probability of success. Because old growth and mature
forest are part of the values considered, resources can be assigned to
reduce fire impacts to these values.
The agency's policy is for units to continue to follow existing
direction and guidance with regard to management in and around mature
and old growth. This is included in land management plans and in some
cases regional direction or guidelines. Moving ahead, Executive Order
14072 makes it clear that the President considers fire, insects,
disease, and other stressors related to the changing climate as the
major threats to mature and old-growth forests. This provides direction
to the threat analysis required by the Executive Order. This is
especially true as climate change accelerates. Again, the direction in
the Executive Order does not change priorities for firefighting, and we
will continue to prioritize fire suppression using existing guidance.

Question 13. The agency's Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on
Climate Resilience mentions ``non-climate informed'' timber harvest and
reforestation practices. What does this mean? Will climate resilience
be prioritized over wildfire risk reduction activities?
Answer. ``Non-climate informed'' harvest/practices refer to actions
that were not sufficiently (or at all) informed by assessment of how
climate-amplified forest stressors may interact with the action.
Climate-informed management actions ideally include intentional
adaptation measures to minimize risk to forest resilience, management
objectives, and forest benefits arising from climate change.
In early 2022, the Forest Service released the Wildfire Crisis
Strategy, with the 10 year goal of treating an additional 20 million
acres on the National Forest System and an additional 30 million acres
on other lands for fuels and forest health. The strategy responds to
the effects of climate change in degrading forest health and elevating
wildfire risk, especially in the Western United States, by funding
activities aligned with climate adaptation goals related to wildfires.
The agency is integrating climate change considerations into landscape
prioritization and treatment design and implementation. Treatments can
help prepare landscapes for the impacts of other climate-intensified
disturbances, including insect outbreaks. Prioritizing wildfire risk
reduction directly supports both near- and long-term climate
resilience.

Question 14. The Forest Service Electric Vehicle Pilot Program is
testing electric vehicle usage in three National Forests, including the
Allegheny National Forest in my District. In the USFS budget, it looks
as though a total of $7.6 million from hazardous fuel reduction and
wildfire preparedness is getting the cut to support these EV efforts. I
cannot discern how it's appropriate to use resources on EVs in National
Forests--in the name of `climate change'--while communities in the West
are burning, livelihoods are upended, and wildfire emissions are far
greater than any EV fleet can reduce. What are your plans to offset
this loss of resources for mitigating megafires and get at least $7.6
million worth of hazardous fuel reduction and wildfire preparedness on
the ground?
Answer. The FY 2024 President's Budget proposed an increase of $7.6
million in hazardous fuels and wildfire preparedness funding to
accelerate the procurement of zero emission vehicles (ZEV) to replace
some Forest Service light duty vehicles to support electrification
goals mandated by Executive Order 14057. Because this was a proposed
increase, there would not be a reduction in hazardous fuels mitigation
or wildfire preparedness as a result of the proposed ZEV fleet
procurement.
Question Submitted by Hon. Doug LaMalfa, a Representative in Congress
from California
Question 1. Chief Moore, according to an Environmental Impact
Statement from the United States Forest Service, ``it is estimated that
less than \1/2\ of 1 percent of fire retardant drops may reach the 300
or larger buffer'' for restricted zones of aerial fire retardant use.
Despite the minuscule amount of fire retardant that goes near
waterways, and its safety record, fire retardant is under attack by
radical activists who, through the courts, are attempting to force the
Forest Service to obtain NPDES permits per the Clean Water Act and/or
stop its use altogether. It is my understanding that the Forest service
is working with EPA to develop a general permit for aerial fire
retardant; but it will take 2 to 3 years to develop, and 47 states
would issue their own permits, which would add another year to the
process. The West is facing a true wildfire crisis. We no longer have a
fire season, rather than a fire year; and wildfires have only gotten
worse in recent years. We simply don't have years to wait for the
Forest Service to acquire Federal permits for continued use of this
critical tool, when lives, homes, and our forests are at severe risk of
devastating wildfire. Chief, can you comment on fire retardant and the
Forest Service's use of this important tool? How does USDA and the
Forest Service plan to ensure the continued use of fire retardant when
EPA is indicating it will take years to develop a permit? What will
happen if the Forest Service is forced to stop using fire retardant
and/or be required to acquire unnecessary permits for its continued
use?
Answer. On May 26, 2023, Judge Dana L. Christensen of the Montana
Federal district court issued an order in the case of Forest Service
Employees for Environmental Ethics v. United States Forest Service
(case 9:22-cv-00168-DLC). The order states that the ``USFS is not
enjoined from utilizing the aerial deployment of fire retardant as a
tool to fight wildfires.''
Aerial application of fire retardant is part of the Forest
Service's integrated firefighting strategy and is an essential tool
that the Forest Service uses in various situations in support of ground
resources. Fire retardant is intended to slow the rate of fire spread
by cooling and coating fuels, depleting the fire of oxygen, and slowing
the rate of fuel combustion as the retardant's inorganic salts change
how fuels burn. Retardant has a lasting capability and continues to be
effective when dry to slow or reduce fire behavior. This gives
firefighters time to get in place, safely and effectively engage a
fire, and meet the goals and objectives for the incident. When the
Forest Service deems the use of retardant appropriate, firefighters
strategically place retardant in locations that give ground resources
and other aerial resources time to engage, which gives them a much
higher probability of success. The Forest Service prioritizes the use
of retardant to support initial attack fires and ensure the fires can
be contained quickly by ground resources to protect high values at risk
(communities and high value lands).
The Forest Service relies on fire retardant as an essential tool to
enable safe deployment of ground-based firefighting resources. While we
cannot precisely predict the impact of not being able to use retardant,
we can say that without retardant, our firefighting capability would be
diminished The Forest Service is committed to Clean Water Act
compliance and protection of water quality and keeping our communities
and wildland firefighters safe. We are working with the Environmental
Protection Agency to develop a National Pollution Discharge Elimination
System general permit, which is expected to take over 2 years. The
Forest Service also needs to engage with 47 states in obtaining the
necessary permits.
Questions Submitted by Hon. Barry Moore, a Representative in Congress
from Alabama
Question 1. This spring, Alabama tracked below average during the
wildfire season due to our private forester's robust resource
management. The Alabama Forestry Commission responded to 927 wildfires
this year, as opposed to 2,500 wildfires in years prior. Although
wildfires occurred with less frequency in Alabama this year, 927 fires
it still too many--these fires threaten rural communities, those who
live there and their livelihoods. Does the Forest Service have options
to engage private forest owners on wildfire prevention efforts, such as
cross boundary fuel breaks and fuel reduction projects? Will you keep
this Committee informed of how you are working with private forest
owners to address the wildfire crisis, especially in the southeast?
Answer. The Forest Service has a long history of working
collaboratively across ownership boundaries to reduce wildfire risk and
improve forest conditions. The agency is grateful for the opportunities
provided in the IIJA and IRA to increase the pace and scale of our
wildfire risk reduction work. These investments are a critical down
payment to the agency's overall funding which is needed to truly meet
the need of the wildfire crisis across the country. The Wildfire Crisis
Strategy outlines the need to treat approximately 20 million acres on
NFS lands and an additional 30 million acres across all other
jurisdictions. This work includes fuels mitigation as well as
prevention, across ownerships.
The agency will continue to use all funding sources to focus on the
full implementation of the Wildfire Crisis strategy, utilizing private
forestland programs such as State Fire Assistance (Capacity), the
Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program, Landscape Scale Restoration,
and Cross-Boundary Hazardous Fuels funding to treat non-NFS lands in
close coordination with work on Federal lands. This cross-boundary
focus is important in states such as Alabama with mixed ownership
landscapes. We will keep the Committee informed of how the Forest
Service is working with private forest owners to address the wildfire
crisis.

Question 2. In the IRA, $5 billion was obligated to the Forest
Service to spend on both Federal and non-Federal forests. This is in
addition to the new and expanded authorities provided to the Forest
Service in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills. How have you used this funding
to help private forest owners, especially those in southeast Alabama,
to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health? How can this
Committee work with you to provide proper oversight of this funding?
Answer. The IRA Hazardous Fuels provision is only eligible for
Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas as defined by the Healthy Forest
Restoration Act 2003 on NFS lands, not privately owned forest lands.
However, other provisions in the IRA and IIJA can be used to address
forest health issues on non-Federal lands. For example, the IRA Urban
and Community Forestry program provided over $1.25 billion of IRA
funding to state agencies for competitive grant programs. Of that
total, $8.57 million went to the State of Alabama. The Wood Innovations
Program encourages use of wood material from fire risk reduction and
forest health treatments and announced $10 million in IRA funded
projects in June 2023. Also, the $1.5 billion of IIJA funds for
Community Wildfire Defense Grants will help further wildfire mitigation
and risk projects on private lands.
The IRA Landowner Assistance provisions regarding climate and
forest resilience, targeted especially for underserved and small
acreage landowners, may provide additional opportunities, and those
funding opportunities will be announced in the coming months. Through
IRA, IIJA, and regular appropriations, the Forest Service has provided
the State of Alabama over $8 million to support activities on state,
private or Tribal lands.

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